RowingChat

Rebecca Caroe
RowingChat

Rowing Chat is the podcast network dedicated to rowing. We have many shows hosted from around the world on specialist topics from Strength Training to USA news, from interviews to data analysis. Produced by Rebecca Caroe, it brings rowing news, coaching advice and interviews to you. Go to https://rowing.chat/ for links to the latest episodes & subscribe in your favourite podcast software.

  1. Sculling in a straight line

    4 DAYS AGO

    Sculling in a straight line

    Why the blade pathway from crossover to catch is so different between the left and right hands. If you aren't going straight, three things to check. Timestamps 01:00 What generally causes difficulties? Beginner errors are straightforward to work out if these are affecting you. 1 - squaring late 2 - balance issues 3 - missing water at the catch 03:30 Know if you are going straight Look from your stern to the horizon and line up your stern with a fixed point (house, power pole, tree) and watch the wake off your stern. You can see if the vee is symmetrical. 04:30 Blade extraction - are the blades coming out at the same time and are you pressing down symmetrically? If one blade drags that affects the boat course. 05:30 Blade crossover - from extraction to handle crossover it's important the boat is level. The rig is left higher than the right - your handle heights have to reflect the difference in oarlock height. Ensure your hands are "nested" close together. 08:00 Blade catch - the handles have to be symmetrical around a similar arc from the oarlock so the tips of the blades are the same distance from the side of the boat. The right hand has to move a greater distance from crossover to the catch than the left hand. It's probably 2 cm greater distance. Practice the fine motor skills to make subtle adjustments to the handles using pontoon floats on a single scull. Your arms have to go out to the same distance at the catch (not the same handle height). Listen to the sound of the oars going into the water - you can hear if one oar goes in before the other, Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    15 min
  2. What's Wrong With Masters Rowing?

    JAN 31

    What's Wrong With Masters Rowing?

    As a developing sport, there are aspects of masters rowing which we need to improve, change and adapt. Three signs of dysfunction and four solutions. Timestamps 01:00 What are the symptoms and cures to move our sport forward? Most clubs now have a masters group and a good waiting list of people wanting to learn to row. 02:00 Signs of dysfunction Rowing is designed to take a beginner towards higher performances. As we age we generally have diminishing strength each decade. Many of us love rowing but don't want to compete - so masters rowing is different. 1 - Cliques - people who only row with the same other people all the time. This is a long term limiting factor for the whole club group. Isolationism is antithetical to a successful masters group 2 - Club Priorities are Inflexible - they focus on juniors and young people. This means boats cannot be shared, it's hard to get a trailer to go to a regatta. Combining juniors and masters is an innovation. 3 - Skills Progression - if you think you aren't making progress it could be because there is not flexibility to enable you to progress. Failing to solve these leads to sclerosis, group size falling, limiting your ability to form crews across age groups, buy new boats. 07:30 Enabling solutions 1 - Have a pathway for masters to enable "looping" in and out of the sport year by year. Allow flexibility to change training groups and come back over time. 2 - Structure of the skills in your group. Starting from beginner, intermediate and advanced. Almost everyone wants coaching and to advance their skill. What are the entry requirements for each group - give transparency. 3 - Agreed club priorities across all groups. Measure actions and budgets against the priorities to see if you're achieving them. 4 - Racing classes for masters. Insert a step between novice and age group racing because it takes us longer to acquire the equivalent skills as a young person novice. A New Masters racing category allowing up to 5 years of learning to compete against similar people would smooth this path to racing. 12:00 How can these be set in place? How to bring your board / committee along with you so they understand what the masters group is trying to achieve. What are solutions we haven't yet thought of? Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    13 min
  3. Cure for the rowing blues

    JAN 22

    Cure for the rowing blues

    Go on rowing camp! The pros and cons of going on training camp. You'll either love it or hate it. Timestamps 01:00 Going on a camp refocuses your attention on rowing. Are camps useful? There are lots of different types of camp - training camp - selection camp for racing crews - finishing camp before a big regatta 02:20 Three camp benefits You don't have to go with your whole club. Doing a camp at your own club has disadvantages - people keep their other life commitments and so tend to rush off after the workout. So you lose one of the good aspects of going away to camp which is the luxury of un-pressured time. 1 - gives you focus 2 - sense of purpose 3 - make decisions 4 - refresh your attitude to the sport and your involvement. 03:45 Coaching on camp Athletes get a lot of individual attention on camp compared to home training. There's time for debriefs, for mini tutorials, one-on-one time, sit next to coaches at meals and pick their brains. Coaches get a captive audience of athletes and can get messages about focus points across to them all. 05:00 Camp issues Increased training load - if normal rows are 60-90 minutes once a day camp workouts will be shorter. But you may do two or three workouts a day. Overtraining is not an issue in the long term. Camp is only 3-5 days plus travel days when you're resting. Schedule an off day when you get back home while you rig boats. Then pick up your regular training volume. If you come into the camp injured or recovering - that's a big red flag and needs management. When athletes don't tell the coach that they are injured that causes problems. Doing only part of the camp program is still beneficial. Getting injured on camp does not mean your time is wasted. Volunteer to go in the coach boat with the coaches, volunteer to film crews, volunteer to help the coaches. Hanging out with coaches, you learn by listening to their discussions. You can train your eye watching crews rowing to find out where improvements are needed. Illness on camp - take care a virus doesn't spread to everyone. Good hygiene practices are needed, 08:30 Camp outcomes Crew bonding and learning accelerated in a focused period. Plus fitness gains and technique input from coaches. Camp also allows you time to work on technique on your own. Self-coaching discipline and practice is also good. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    11 min
  4. Weight In The Hand

    JAN 13

    Weight In The Hand

    A key concept needed for sculling well, this challenging skill is essential for setting up the recovery. One drill to practice which helps teach how to control the oar handle heights. Timestamps 00:50 Teaching a singles course for those who can already row and want to try single sculling. There are 4 key concepts for essential skill in rowing and sculling. Weight in the hand is the most challenging key concept. 02:15 What is weight in the hand? Hold your handle and keep downward pressure on the handle to keep the oars off the water. It starts by controlling the finish as you extract the oar using a downward "tap down" of the handle. Use the outside hand in sweep; use both hands in sculling. Keep stable at the finish and keep pressure on the pin. If your button comes away from the oarlock at the finish you have not got this control. Facilitate the transition from body weight into the bow towards body weight towards the stern on the recovery. 04:15 How do you know if you can do weight in the hand? If you can do weight in the hand, you can row square blades. And you can feather high over the waves and keep your boat level in a side wind. 05:00 How to learn weight in the hand The stationary stability drill teaches you how to control the handle using weight in the hand. Sit the oars square and in the water at the finish. Then press down on the handles twice so just half the spoon comes out of the water. Then do a full press so the oar spoon comes fully above the water and hold this position in a pause, then return the blades under the water. Stage two is to do the same two half presses and a full press and then feather. Stage three is to add straightening the arms after the press down and feather. Your body and legs stay stationary throughout this drill. Sculling Intensive Camp https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/sculling-intensive/ A self-guided tutorial to improve your single sculling skills over 7 days. Includes drills for the whole stroke cycle including checklists to take in the boat with you. If you want to learn how to row square blades, take our three-part mini course [free]. https://fastermastersrowing.com/square-blades-challenge-lesson-1/ Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    10 min
  5. 2025 World Rowing Indoor Championships

    12/22/2024

    2025 World Rowing Indoor Championships

    Meet Chair of the Indoor Rowing Commission, Filip Ljubicic and hear about the future of indoor rowing including an exciting announcement about the e-sports Olympics in 2025. Timestamps 01:00 The global World Rowing strategy for indoor rowing - rules, events, innovations, collaborations with erg manufacturers, digital apps and new tools. Indoor rowing is important - around 20-25 million people use a rowing machine at least once a year. A pathway or goal is part of the strategy for all participants. 2018 was the first Indoor Rowing World Championships. 03:30 The goal is to do both physical in person events and virtual events. Being able to compete is an opportunity for those who cannot travel. A new format for 2025. All the age categories are offered in addition there will be a World Champion for Indoor Rowing for the first time. It starts with open heats where everyone submits a time. Top 150 in each continent plus top 10 age category races progress to local timezone races the next weekend. Expect more tactical racing and a different mindset and challenge. First score submit date is 20th January 2025. There are endurance and sprint relays being offered including an age group 40-44 and 45-49 age group relay championship event. 08:30 Are drag factors recommended? No you choose your own. Finals day the top 50 will race live at once. The top 20 go through to the Grand Final giving the World Champion top 3 placings as well as age group champions if you get through to the last races. From this global standings will be produced for everyone. 11:00 Innovations for Indoor Rowing Looking at sport as entertainment. We are competing for the audience's leisure time and how to make the sport interesting. Other sports like athletics have different distances, formats that suit different types of athlete. We are enabling this for indoor rowing. The Versa Challenge - 5 events over 2 days with points (like heptathlon). A 20 minute race, the person with fewest meters every 2 minutes gets cut - enabled tactical racing and new uncertainties as it was unpredictable. 15:00 Indoor rowing as an E-Sport In 2025 there will be a virtual series through the year including standalone monthly challenges. Also World Rowing has submitted it to be part of the Olympic E-Sports - Virtual environments and physical activity category. World Rowing is waiting to hear next steps. The plan is to grow the ecosystem around indoor rowing. Saudi Arabia is the host country for 2025. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    19 min
  6. Major Illness And Training

    12/16/2024

    Major Illness And Training

    Hear how people deal with an illness but keep up their rowing. Overall advice is "do what you can". Timestamps 01:00 Many masters try to keep on rowing after a major illness or trauma diagnosis. Getting out on the water feels good - the challenge is around what is possible for you. 02:00 What is possible? Cancer treatment often has regular chemo and radiotherapy and you know the frequency of each session. One solution is to go rowing immediately before the hospital visit. Row when you can with a supportive friendship group. For surgery - muscular rehabilitation and strength training follows a simple pattern over weeks. After a stroke - lingering physical restrictions continue months afterwards. 05:00 Rowing with adaptations As we age our bodies may require us to adjust / adapt our stroke. For hand tremors difficulty holding a thumb on the end of the handle was hard. Suggestions include occupational therapists advice, gloves which tape onto the handle, hand exercises using old grips at home, para rowing has many solutions (adaptiverowinguk.com), baseball grip adhesive on your hands, use the little finger or side of your hand to make lateral pressure instead of your thumb. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a repetitive stress condition - the suggestion was to hold your handle with thumb and index finger curled around the end of the handle and to turn the oar with the middle and ring fingers. Lady with bone cancer continues to row and to go to regattas to enjoy herself with her friends. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    10 min
  7. Get Your Spark Back

    12/08/2024

    Get Your Spark Back

    Midlife brings challenges. Rowing is a pathway for getting your spark for life back. Join bestselling author, Rachel Marie Martin for tips and to hear her journey. Timestamps 01:00 Rachel has a long background in technology and she uses this to communicate her message about life, motherhood and the ups and downs that life has dealt her. 04:00 the overnight success takes 8 years. Be diligent and keep on trying. Get your spark back book is about Rachel's realisation that she'd lost her spark for life. What made her realise that life wasn't sitting 'right' with her. During the pandemic she said she didn't know who she was any more. Were was "me"? She was uneasy and went on the journey to re-find her soul without realising that was happening. In mid-life how to find your soul's journey. As a runner Rachel had to push past uncomfortable. 07:45 What were the clues? When you're young you have all the time to do something in the next decade. Looking at her friends and parents she realised time is finite. She couldn't keep postponing things. It was an awakening, not really frightening. 09:00 Choose to set your bar in the present, not based off the past. Why do I believe this to be true? Is the key question to ask yourself. We aren't taught to challenge our beliefs - we don't have the introspection to think. The story of the Easter ham. Why we do things? Are they applicable to your present? Choosing to do things that keep you 'small'. Review your own story and where is your bar - low or high? 12:00 Limiting beliefs I hear these in athletes' rowing frustrations - their mindset shows how their beliefs are limiting. Be willing to wonder about your beliefs. What is within your realm of possibility? Pay attention to the words you say. Are we keeping ourselves from something greater? This is the only shot I have in this life now. The audacity and risk of learning to row and not telling your family. Ask your community to help you spot your potential. What do they think you could do? 18:15 The story of the green shorts Rachel used these as a "benchmark" size. The person who wore the shorts didn't do what Rachel had done. Her success and happiness is defined differently now. https://shop.findingjoy.net/get-your-spark-back/ Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    22 min
  8. Catches And Boat Speed

    12/02/2024

    Catches And Boat Speed

    How the catch placement changes with the oar angle. Why an acute catch angle with the oar is easier. Ways to adjust your catch technique as the boat speed changes. Timestamps 01:00 Catches and boat speed When the blade goes into the water at the catch, it needs to be buried rapidly and the curved face of the blade needs to grip the water. the early lock on point is hard to achieve - it depends on how and where you place the blade. 02:45 Blade face to the water The boat is a single unit moving through the water - water molecules are moving past the boat parallel to the length of the boat hull. The ideal oar placement should have the smallest surface area possible to the direction of travel. At half slide your oar is around 90 degrees to the boat length. It's slow to place the oar. At the catch, the face of the work facing the water is reduced to around 15 cms compared to half slide. At the extreme, if the oar is parallel to the side of the boat - this reduces to about 1.5 to 3 centimeters width. 07:00 The smaller the face of work of the blade to the water, the easier the blade goes into the water. When the blade is in the same plane as the water movement, it goes in easiest. At very short strokes - arms only - it's hard to place the blade. With the smaller face of work area at the catch, using an acute angle, it feels easier to place the blade. 08:30 Prepare your catch angle on the recovery. From half slide to the catch, your legs and seat move in a straight line up the slides to the catch. However your handle(s) are pivoting around the arc of a circle centred on the pin of the oarlock. Your body in sweep rotates around the pin - keep your shoulders parallel to the oar handle and let your eyes look out on your side of the boat - this helps create more rotation because your body follows where your eyes are looking. In sculling both your handles are pivoting around the arc of a circle - your arms move further than your legs from half slide to the catch. In effect there are 2 speeds on the recovery - the seat speed, and a faster speed of your hands leading the oar handles around the pin and upwards to place the oar under the water. By allowing your arms to go wider at the catch in sculling, you will get a more acute catch angle. Row longer by thinking about your arms, separately from your body. 13:30 Faster boat speed When the boat speeds up and rate increases, you have less time per stroke to anticipate the catch. Often stroke length shortens as stroke rate rises. Counter this by moving your thinking earlier in the recovery. This gives you more reaction time. You need to move your body proportionate to the rate - as rate rises your body speed also increases. When you get the catch timing right the catch can feel very light (not heavily loaded on the blade). 16:00 Train yourself by trying a drill. Go from full slide to half slide - it gives the impression you're rating very high. Prepare early at half slide so you don't miss water at the catch. Then try to maintain the same boat speed you had at full slide. You move dynamically off the catch placement. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

    20 min
4.3
out of 5
18 Ratings

About

Rowing Chat is the podcast network dedicated to rowing. We have many shows hosted from around the world on specialist topics from Strength Training to USA news, from interviews to data analysis. Produced by Rebecca Caroe, it brings rowing news, coaching advice and interviews to you. Go to https://rowing.chat/ for links to the latest episodes & subscribe in your favourite podcast software.

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