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Hello again Reader
I heard the phrase competitive maladaptive behavior for the first time this week.
Maladaptive behavior is behavior that prevents you from making adjustments that are in your own best interest.
Competitive behavior refers to the actions and interactions between individuals that aim to establish dominance or superiority in a competitive setting.
I was laughing out loud when I heard it. This is me (and likely you too, Reader).
I don’t want to poke fun at intensely competitive people – yet doesn’t this explain a lot about rowing and people who row?
Of course, any behavior has a positive side as well as a negative side and let’s face it, the most competitive people tend to be very motivated and they race very hard.
When asking our club for entries in the Blue Lakes January regatta, the co-ordinator wrote to my crew of 4 ladies saying “I think one of the consistent themes is that the other rowers all like rowing with you four.”
I think I know why!
This week, take a look at your shoe height in the boat. Measure the internal shoe heel to seat height in cm. Is it the same for all seats in the boat? If not, do you need to change?
Rebecca
This week’s podcast
The path to boat speed is not linear – Greg Benning’s keynote on the 1% rule for rowing prompted this episode in which Rebecca reflects on what she learned from the Older Athlete and Aging 2024 conference. Click the image to watch.
When you learn just one useful thing from our podcast, become a supporter from $1 per month. This helps cover overheads and enables us to continue our work to improve masters rowing around the world.
Rowing club virtual management
Many club administrators save a ton of time and money by using digital tools to support running the rowing club.
There are tools here which you can quickly use in your club from collecting membership dues to crew lineups; from boat allocations to regatta availability.
This webinar is for you if you need to
Save time
Recruit
Fundraise
Run the club efficiently
Deal with politics in the club
Grow the club community
Plus these bonus downloads
Digital tools checklist – 12 areas of rowing club management where digital tools can be used
Extract from the Performance article from November’s Masters Rowing Magazine. Subscribe to read the full article and watch a video demonstration.
Being able to work both our back and legs requires all rowers to be able to hinge from the hip.
This is not the most straightforward movement to learn and as we move towards the end of the year, it seems a good time to focus on getting this correct.
The hip hinge is equal part hips moving backwards and body tilting forward. Combining these two is challenging so let’s set out to understand how to do the movement.
What should the hip hinge feel like?
Let’s start sitting on a hard chair. Place your feet on the floor and sit on the front of the chair with your back straight. Taking your first two fingers of each hand place them under your butt – find the bony part of your pelvis – often called the “Sit Bones” (the ischial tuberosity). Slide your fingers so they are between that bone and the chair seat.
Now lean backwards with a straight back as if you are in the finish position of the rowing / sculling stroke. Then rock forwards as you would at the start of the recovery. Continue to rock back and forwards with a straight back and notice what happens with the sit bone relative to your fingers.
If you’re doing this correctly the bone moves over your fingers as you rock. By contrast, if you curl your back to rock forwards and back, the bone doesn’t move over your finger tips. For a good rowing stroke, we need the pelvis to “rock” and for the sit bones to move. A curled back indicates that the pelvis didn’t move when you changed position and that puts strain on your back.
Now try to do this movement again without your fingers underneath – can you feel the same movement of your pelvis? This is the hip hinge – you are rocking your pelvis correctly.
Lumbo pelvic co-ordination
Now let’s move onto the rowing machine. Getting the hip hinging correctly on the recovery is your first goal. Here’s how….
Hi everyone, I’m new to rowing, I bought a second hand Concept 2 rower 6 weeks ago and I’ve been rowing almost 6 days a week ever since. My uncle recommended it to me as a full body workout because I’ve found myself in a really bad physical shape.
I wanted to ask for some guidance on how I should train since I’m falling in love with rowing.
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