Many coaches started doing rowing video analysis markup with a tool called Coaches Eye – sadly it was withdrawn September 2022 and so we have all been on the hunt for a replacement.
We have found three for you to consider.
Rowerup
This is a tool which does physiological measurements for you – it scans your video of rowers and tells you angles between the limbs and the stroke length and sequencing. The process is called “telestration”.
Clearly useful for tracking progress as your crews adapt to a particular style of rowing. Downsides, it’s THEIR analysis, not yours and it is only numbers. The coach needs to first have a good idea of what numbers they want. The app is free at the moment as it’s in beta.
Kinovea
This is the closest alternative to Coaches Eye – annotate your video with lines, angles and comments. It also offers semi-automated angle tracking (like Rowerup). Most usefully it allows side by side comparison of two videos which you can synch e.g. to the catch of one stroke.
The app is free and the creator asks for optional Patreon subscription support.
Onform
This is an app and designed to offer simple annotation and most usefully “skeleton mapping” – a stick man drawing tool. So you can automatically see where the rower’s limbs are and how they move. That saves a lot of time drawing lines! It has slow motion replay, and side by side options and also allows text messaging to your athletes from inside the app.
The coach version is only available in the Apple app Store for iPad users. The Athlete version is in the Google Play store as well. The coach version includes in-app purchases.
This article was first published in the Masters Rowing Magazine in May 2023.
