Welcome to myrow, a connected fitness experience that transforms your Concept2 rowing machine into an immersive fitness adventure! Featuring a beautiful 22” tablet, on-demand classes, enhanced stats & tracking, group rows, and more. Get ready to row into a world where every stroke brings you closer to your goals. Visit www.myrow.com to get started.
Hello again Reader
“What is life asking of me now?”
It’s a question that helped Victor Frankl survive the Holocaust with his humanity intact because he found meaning and purpose while living in Nazi camps. Frankl became a psychologist after the war and used his life experience to guide his professional practice and his famous book “Man’s search for meaning”.
For us, the same question helps give clarity for our path forward especially when life is uncertain.
If you find yourself feeling lost or overwhelmed, do some self-reflection around the question, “What is life asking of me now?”
What lessons can you learn from your current situation?
What are you being asked to do?
And like Frankl, try to see beyond your immediate situation to impact something larger than yourself. Your answers can point your way out of overwhelm towards clarity, joy, and the meaning you want – even in challenging times.
This week, invest in “me time” for your future rowing life.
Rebecca
P.S. Are any readers driving to HOCR from the Roanoke VA or Portland ME areas? I have a favour to ask.
Anniversaries
Three anniversaries of our favourite webinars fall this month.
Take a look at these ‘evergreen’ classics. Each one was highly innovative when launched and continues to be relevant for masters rowers and coaches.
Rigging for Masters from 2021 broke every mould – bringing together three rigging experts to tackle the challenge of how to rig boats and oars for masters. A tough ask because of the range of ages, strength, and skill within the masters community. Volker Nolte’s rigging chart for oars remains a popular download. Refresh your approach to your rig (let’s face it you’re older than when you last bought oars). Buy it.
Sculling Intensive was our first virtual camp launched September 2022. We’d run in person camps and clinics before, but doing it remotely was a new challenge. We found ways to focus on the whole stroke cycle in a one week course. Each day has a focus on part of the stroke, introduces what it should feel like, and drills to teach yourself how to do it. The next lesson debriefs and then introduces the next phase of the stroke. Work in your own time, and ask any questions / share video to get personalised answers. Buy it.
The Older Athlete and Aging in 2023 led by Jim Dietz giving a refresher on winter training, Volker Nolte tackles 5 rowing myths and ways to use science to test your rowing outcomes; and Derrik Motz shares new research on how masters coaches can individualise abilities, needs and goals across their diverse athlete group. If you buy this webinar, you’ll get a hefty discount for the Older Athlete and Aging 2024 event coming up on 6th November. Buy it.
Our most recent podcast
Getting into the correct positions for rowing is easier if we are flexible. Ways to keep our bodies mobile as we age including assessing yourself against 10 tests. Click the image to watch.
Boathouse Chat for the Weekend
Why aren’t there good options for lighting for rowing shells? All of the lights I have tried for early morning rowing are mediocre at best. Tried revolution rowing lights so small you can barely see them. Amazon ones are so heavy the suction cups just don’t stick to the shells and usually wind up in the water, the rechargeable ones you can barely see from 500 m away. It seems ridiculous since I can buy a headlamp or flashlight you can see across the bay. We need both white stern light and bow red/green.
Extract from this month’s Technique article from the Masters Rowing Magazine. Click to buy and read the full article.
The rowing stroke power phase starts at the catch or placement – when the oars go into the water. There are a number of differing viewpoints about how this part of the stroke should be taken and what it should feel like to you, the athlete.
Let me first say that there are many ways to row and scull and figuring out what works for you is important. So just trying some of the ideas here may help.
Where does most of the power fall in the stroke?
Where is the most effective part of the stroke for forward propulsion of the shell in terms of fluid dynamics? The quick answer is when the oars are at 90 degrees to the boat (which is around half slide through the power phase). But this is a super small part of the stroke and so we can’t rely on just pushing hard through a small arc of the swing of the oar. We’ve got to consider the whole stroke and the muscles we use to propel the oar.
Where can you make greatest speed gains in the stroke?
This is a different question. Speed gains implies that you are already moving the boat along with good power. A gain is in addition to your existing power drive.
Big muscles have a bigger impact on changing boat speed. Our legs are the most powerful muscles we use in rowing. Let’s start by thinking about where our leg power is most effective. From the catch placement (when the oar spoons are behind your back) the oar sits at an acute angle to the sides of the boat and the pressure the spoons put into the water is pushing the water at around 90 degrees to the face of the blade.
Diagram of oar through the power phase. Image Credit: British Journal of Sports Medicine 2002:36:396-402
In the diagram I’ve added red arrows to show the force the blade spoon puts onto the water block as it moves through one stroke from catch to finish.
The boat is running at its slowest at the catch. The attack angle of the oar relative to the side of the boat shell is……
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