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.
00:50 Teaching a 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.
At its simplest, having weight in your hand enables you to hold your oar 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. It helps you to keep your body and the boat 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.
It also helps to facilitate the transition from body weight into the bow towards body weight towards the stern on the recovery.
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.
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 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] Square Blades Challenge Part 1.
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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.
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.
More detail about 2025 World Indoor Rowing Championships.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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?
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://youtube.com/live/WvyKWbppJDo
https://soundcloud.com/rowingchat/get-your-spark-back
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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
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.
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 going into 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.
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.
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.
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Your boat speed depends BOTH on the power phase and the recovery phase. You've done the work - now get the benefit.
Timestamps
Your net boat speed is the power you put in to the power phase and the amount the boat slows down when the oars are out of the water. Rowing boats surge through the stroke cycle.
Keep the movements sequential and well-organised. Maximum boat speed comes after the extraction at the finish and as you transfer your body weight onto the feet. A key point is when you can get weight on the feet. As your arms straighten and your body follows - then the boat gets an extra burst of speed if you can sequence this correctly and smoothly.
05:00 4 focus points
You must have weight in the hand - elbows have to be higher than your wrist in order to give downward pressure.
Keep a flat wrist as you feather into your fingers allows you to keep weight in the hand. In sweep only the inside wrist bends.
Squaring on the recovery can mess with the rhythm. If you square late or it's a large movement this contributes to losing rhythm.
When to release your knees - a critical timing point to when to relax your muscles. You will get this right when you know what the feeling of weight in the hand is and the feeling of total relaxation in your leg muscles are.
Increase relaxation - know how to do this will help you to improve the other focus points.
Increase relaxation by 1% and what happens to the boat run, ratio and how the recovery feels. Does the boat speed change? [Remember they average over 3 strokes].
What "should" a masters rower be able to do? Training frequency, training volume, training intensity. What is the next big change in YOUR rowing training you can expect as you age?
01:00 When masters start rowing we are likely here for a while. Longevity in the sport is longer for masters than juniors or young adults. We come back to rowing thinking we are the same athlete as we were when we last were in a boat. Article - Rowing and Aging Each Decade.
Once you age past a certain point you will not be as strong as you were in your youth. This is inevitable - yet it can be delayed with careful training. This is a hard reality check.
03:15 in your 20s and 30s an athletic lifestyle can be achieved within work/family life. Many endurance sports peak in their 30s. You may be able to do 6-9 sessions per week.
In your 40s this is a decade where time is often limited. Time constraints mean your goal is to get adequate training to support your goals. Quality workouts are more important than quantity workout. The strength decline starts in this decade. Focus on rest and recovery to optimise your physical benefits of 5-7 workouts per week.
Regatta entries for D and E are large, and growing. Metabolic changes happen here - diet changes for weight control and for women and protein ingestion is more important. Also, menopausal changes also happen. You may need to change sleep patterns by introducing daytime naps to ensure you get enough rest. Review your rowing technique to align with your physiological capabilities - you may swap to sculling from sweep because it's symmetrical.
In your 60s more metabolic changes happen. You may be retiring to row and can do more training because you aren't working full time. Your erg score remains steady in your 60s - but technique improvements have big impact here as we lose strength we can gain speed by rowing better.
10:30 There are more rowers in their 70s than ever before. The body response to exercise becomes unpredictable and so affects rest and can cause injury. Flexibility and sensitivity to your recovery needs are a new habit. Maintain muscle mass with strength and conditioning work.
13:45 To get the best out of yourself each decade, assessing your capability is essential. Test your base aerobic fitness, peak power and anaerobic threshold using the Faster Five assessment this is included FREE with every training program subscription. Your training adaptations will be visible when you test.
Change your rig to suit your age and strength. The testing will enable you to determine what to do. Adjust rating and gearing to suit your capability. Webinar - Rigging for Masters has charts for oar designs, across the ages and skill. Many masters prefer the long distance races as we age - it's easier to keep your aerobic base as we age - what we lose is the high rating and sprint ability.
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Reflections on the 2024 Older Athlete and Aging conference learnings.
Timestamps
Al Morrow on developing a good "eye" as a coach. Demonstrated the importance of being able to look at your athlete and see where they way they row doesn't line up with the model you are using. First you must have a good model of rowing to compare with.
02:45 Books on sport - most have the first chapter on grip. We don't check and instruct athletes on this frequently enough. It affects your posture and efficiency. Shoulder alignment in sweep and sculling. Most masters can probably row longer at the catch.
Greg Benning on the power of reducing negatives and 1% gains modelled on the Sky Cycling team led by Dave Brailsford. Review all aspects of your training and life and find places where you can make small improvements. Some are compounding and others are linear e.g. weight lifting are linear. The compounding effect of rowing in the same crew consistently gives big gains.
06:00 The power of reducing negatives - taking fewer bad strokes. Slowing down less on the recovery will make your average speed higher. Greg showed the change in his absolute strength over 12 years and how he increased his boat speed despite this - the whole picture of positives and reducing negatives.
John explained in detail when to coach the whole crew vs individuals.
Everyone focusing on the same thing at the same time. How to give more to your athletes as a coach and how athletes can get more out of their time with a coach. Can the coach take two crews simultaneously? The important role of the bow person. Can my crew competitively "beat" the other crew by being better at the thing the coach was focused on. Not necessarily a race but you can do better.
Buy a ticket now to watch the recording.
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Diary alignment is the hardest thing for masters to figure out. Three tips for you to try
Timestamps
01:00 Regular practice in the same lineups helps you to get better faster.
Avoid agreeing crew lineups on the day in the boathouse - fix crews ahead of time so when they arrive they know who they are rowing with, the equipment to use - boat and oars. Prevent people from only rowing with their friends in the interest of community within the club.
02:30 A masters club that has a goal to grow, to add newcomers - it's more useful to mix up crews. When you're a newcomer it can be daunting seeing a large number of strangers. In a crew you can chat to people in your crew and get to know them.
You can make an easy member division into learn to row group, intermediate, advanced, racing and fitness groups. If you have a group each needs a co-ordinator/captain.
Use 2 types of software to help you.
SMS is immediate and people notice it (email can be lost or ignored). Rowing club software options - listed on rowing.chat/retailers the Directory of rowing businesses.
05:45 Ideally book a long way ahead of time - masters are busy people. It can be hard to organise a week ahead, two weeks ahead is better. With software, each person can check/tick the days they are available. The Club can offer different times of day for workouts. The group organiser can easily see in the software calendar who is available and make crew lineups.
Try to find a day when you always do the same crew - important for large boats. This helps the co-ordinator. The software sends out crew lineups ahead of time (which also serve as a reminder). Acceptable behaviours - ideally if you cannot come, find your own replacement. The responsibility is on you.
You need more than 4 or 9 people to run a crew of a four or eight. It takes 12 people to run an eights group. Running a four/quad can be done with 5 or 6 people. The port/starboard preferences mean you need more people for an eight (unless everyone can row on both sides).
Work with a coalition of the willing - set up the behaviours with those who are prepared to get involved. People who are keen to get better and get into another crew for racing are often the most willing. How do you enable people to move between groups? How can people find substitutes or alternates at the last minute? Can you go to another group to find a final person to make up a crew? Some athletes advance their skills rapidly by being the person available to take the empty seat.
Work out what you can do if you need.... mixing men and women, finding people to fill seats etc.
One person in charge of scheduling (allocating equipment and lineups). They don't need to be a coach, but must know each person's skill level in order to be effective. Try to avoid people hogging equipment - do you allow equipment requests? By having a person doing the scheduling they can be fair and ensure the boats get shared around.
When you sign up can you request crew / boat / tie of day? How can you get consistency for your training group to get more skilful and it's fun to row with a regular group.
Coaching mixed gender rowing groups article
Digitize your rowing club management webinar
Rowing time management podcast & checklist
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The athlete pathway for masters is different from other groups. What can clubs and Federations do to enable masters to succeed by changing the structure of our sport.
Timestamps
00:40 What is our goal for masters in rowing?
Should masters be allowed to leave and rejoin the club? One of the differences compared to youth rowers is that we remain in the sport for a long time. Youth, school, Seniors all have a long term athlete plan for the pathway of their progress. Masters are not the same. Our goal may be to race and achieve high results - but it is not always. The long term development plan is very different. Some join for participation and to learn how to row; others are there all the time, training and racing. Others like the weekend rows and train for fitness, pleasure and friendship - they may also race but on a shorter term horizon leading up to an event.
04:30 Looping in and out of rowing
Many masters remain in the sport for a long time. What is possible for you right now? Life stage is important. In your 30s you may have a high pressure job. Or a flexible worker who can train during the working day hours. Some masters retire to row - actively. If you have children, under 14s are different from over 14s and can look after themselves for a time. Care responsibilities for aging parents are also another different group of masters. Our goal is continued participation - can you manage to stay involved on a level suitable for where you are right now?
07:00 Club membership structures don't align If you are required to buy an annual membership and are injured, this makes people decide not to rejoin their rowing club.
07:30 Create enabling structures
These allow members to loop in and out of masters rowing participation over time. How can you stay involved while injured? Join social events with the club group. Can memberships be by quarter, term or semester?
Groups in rowing clubs - often LTR, fitness, racing groups are common. As a club how to you enable members to move between groups in a way that reflects their life circumstance? How frequently do you re-assess group members? Can people see a pathway so they can see what the next step is for them in their rowing journey? What does it take to move from intermediate to elite racing?
10:00 Long term athlete development for masters
How can you make it possible for members to stay involved over the long term in your club? These structures might make masters rowing long-term participant so we can remain engaged with the sport over the ultra-long term. Athlete development needs to be aligned with an individual's goals, skills improvement, not necessarily always-upward movement towards high racing achievement. Masters pathways are not necessarily linear - people can loop into rowing and then step away and loop out for a while. Making this happen is structural, requires a strategy for leaders who are involved in masters rowing. What can you do in your club to help?
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