RowingChat

The role your head plays in correct posture and form. What happens when your head moves away from your work and why your body will always follow where your eyes are looking.
Timestamps
00:45 The importance of your head
Normally a neutral head and neutral spine is desirable in rowing and sculling. Your head should be square above your spine and shoulders. If you drop your chin down it collapses your chest and affects the curve of your back.
Moving your head from side to side changes the alignment of your eyes. Your head weighs about 15lbs (7-8kg).
03:00 Head leaning
if you move your head it tends to cause the finish to wash out. When you pull the handle to the finish your rib height changes and gives an inaccurate perception of where your finish height should be. In sweep it's common to see people leaning away from their rigger - away from the work. This lean affects the balance of the boat.
If you lean your head it also blocks your torso rotation and affects how your shoulders line up and you lose length at the catch because you can't move around the arc successfully.
05:45 Eyes Lead - body follows
First, know when you are upright. Where your eyes are looking (leading) your body will follow. Walk in a crowded street and turn your eyes to look sideways and you will tend to walk in that direction. Try it!
Use your eyes as a way to get your body to do something. In sweep we want a rotation - if you look out to your side of the boat and look over the shoulder of the person in front of you. As you eyes go out your shoulders will tend to follow which helps guide the torso rotation. Shoulders stay parallel to your oar handle.
If you use a stroke coach mounted at your feet you look down and will find that this rounds your shoulders and changes your posture. Crews using strain gauges have the display mounted on the rigger so the athlete turns their head out in that direction to compensate.
At the finish your eyes need to be level - have a horizon to look at. Imagine you have a laser pointing out of the back of your head - imagine this staying parallel to the water - if you drop or lift your chin the laser line moves. Keep your head moving in line with your spine is the goal.
Try putting your eyes into 'soft focus' almost blurring your vision into a single point on the back of the person in front of you. Let that point be your reference and gives you awareness of movement in your peripheral vision too. This helped me to stay in time with stroke to check the distance between my eyes and her back didn't change when she moved or when she swung her body.
13:00 Coaching your head has impact in many parts of the rowing stroke - use it to guide yourself.

The most experienced rowers aren't thinking about every movement: they are hitting three key checkpoints only. The finish, quarter slide and three quarter slide.
Timestamps
01:30 The Finish
The finish is the only point where the boat, the blades and your body are all travelling in the same direction (the direction the boat is moving in). This gives the finish a stillness where you can be relaxed and sit still - the work is done. You should feel balanced and symmetrical with a low centre of gravity. This is the most stable part of the stroke.
Your posture contributes to the stillness - an open chest posture. As your hands move away the finish is over and your mass starts to move up the slide towards the stern (opposite direction to the hull movement).
You feel incontrol of time - if you feel rushed in the recovery use this point at the finish to reset.
Recommended drill - single strokes to the finish. Leave your handle(s) next to the body, feathered.
05:00 Quarter Slide
Here you have the body set in the catch angle - this is so you can begin to feel the boat moving under you. Recover your body mass and start it moving towards the stern.
Your handle continues past your knees at this point - as a consequence this draws your shoulders forward and your trunk rocks naturally. You are nearly in the catch position (except for your leg compression). If you don't get your handle past your knees you tend to row upright and don't get the trunk movement and you rock late in the recovery which disrupts the boat. If you lift your handle too early later on you have to push it down to give room to square - another disruption.
In sweep at quarter slide your nose, chin and sternum line up with your inside knee.
Recommended drill - row pausing at quarter slide checking you get into the right position at the pause.
10:30 Three Quarter Slide
This is the 'danger zone' where hull speed gets lost. Your mass is 5-7 times the mass of the boat hull. If you are sliding faster than the hull your mass works against the boat. Going fast up the recovery slows your boat.
Imagine doing a squat jump - if you descend too fast and drop your weight to the floor makes you feel heavier on the floor making it harder to jump up again. This is similar to rushing the slide.
Things to check at 3/4 slide - is your handle height low enough for you to square if needed? Is your upper body relaxed with minimal pressure on the footstretcher? Feel the boat is free under your feet.
Test this by rowing at 3/4 slide and then return to full slide. If your boat speed is the same at 3/4 and at full slide it's a sign you could be more effective at 3/4 slide.
Your centre of mass needs to be low in the boat, your torso should not be braced - it's in the same posture as at quarter slide.
Recommended drill - shadow rowing drill. Row the recovery without holding the oars. Try shutting your eyes. Call out each position as you go through it - finish, quarter slide, three quarter slide. Naming the point helps.
Summary
The finish resets you and gives you time, the quarter slide sets your body before the boat begins to move and three quarter slide is where you preserve or lose hull speed. When you get tired or under pressure that's the moment to focus back into these three points.

Robin Williams' article
https://plus.britishrowing.org/2022/02/07/the-recovery-2/

Tapering is reducing volume while maintaining intensity. Deloading is drop volume and intensity. Remember form = fitness minus fatigue.
Timestamps
00:45 How fit are you to race and train?
Three ideas for your race preparation - taper compared to deloading; the form formula explained; and a practical taper blueprint.
When you ease off training do you feel flat and slow in the boat? A taper is pre-competition where you reduce volume but increase the intensity of your workouts. The conclusion is to arrive at the race feeling fresh and you haven't lost your sharpness.
A deload is a recovery strategy where you reduce both volume and intensity. This lets your body get more rest during a hard training block.
They feel similar but the effect is different.
03:45 What is rowing form?
Fitness rises lowly and fades slowly - notice this if you have time off. You can come back to the level of fitness you had before the break quickly.
Fatigue is the acute training load which is on top of your fitness.
Form is what's left when we clear out the fatigue - the fitness available to you on race day.
As masters our fatigue can be amplified as it takes us longer to recover.
A taper keeps your fitness steady and rapidly drops your fatigue - think of your fitness as a glass of water and the fatigue is a layer of mud sitting on the top surface of the water. Clear away the mud and you can access your fitness reserves.
06:00 Taper blueprint
All Faster Masters Rowing training programs include tapers for the major masters rowing races and months of the year. Most masters only peak with a taper twice a year - a long distance race and a sprint 1k race.
In the taper we cut volume by 40-50% across the taper period. Shorter sessions but nearly every session has elements at or above race pace e.g. racing starts practice. Do not add in anything new in a taper week - no new equipment, drills or nutrition changes.
The urge to train more during the taper because you feel flat during the mid-taper. This urge is nearly always long and you'll feel flat in days 2-4 as your fatigue is clearing. Remember you aren't losing fitness.
For multi-day regattas start the taper one week before your first race.
Review your race week training and plan how you are going to manage your fatigue. Your taper is a way on collecting on what you've already earned in your training.

Dr Malcolm Howard, Canadian eight Beijing 2008 “People say it was always so easy for you, so straightforward. But it’s always been about the work. Rowing, by its nature, is a beautiful sport because you get out of it exactly what you put in. The harder I worked at rowing the more success I had.”
Timestamps
00:45 Why your brain is working against you
Many masters rowers are putting in less than they think believing in a ceiling which is not real. And limited by a brain that pulls the 'alarm cord' long before you've reached your limit.
02:00 The effort ledger
Are you paying what rowing actually costs? This is a way of measuring work and exposes pretend work. If you train by feel (Rate of Perceived Effort RPE) but feel and reality diverge with age. RPE rises as recovery slows. When you bring tiredness into training sessions your RPE can be higher even if your work output is lower.
The three columns - What you planned to do this workout, what you actually did, honest quality rating (1-5 range). Average the scores at the end of each week.
Map the gap between what you intended and your execution. Write it down and bring honesty to your training.
05:30 Your effort ceiling
Some masters may be leaving more on the table than you think. A limiting belief is that your effort is limited by age. This kicks in before your actual physical limit occurs - mind working separately from the body.
Test yourself by picking one thing on your training plan that you dislike and so avoid doing.
Am I avoiding this because my body can't do it or because I don't want to find out what it reveals about me?
Masters have more choice and may take more recovery between workouts than pro athletes.
Do that one session which you've been avoiding next week and notice if the ceiling is your body or your mind.
07:45 The repeated bout effect
The science behind your brain limiting you in an effort to protect you. Your brain lies in order to protect you - so renegotiate with your brain. Brains are survival machines and send a STOP signal before you reach your actual limit. It's conserving resources and energy reserves in case you need it.
The Central Governor Theory by Tim Noakes - brain limiting your output based on predicted cost not actual capacity.
When you expose your body once to a hard effort - your brain re-anchors what hard feels like. Next time you do it the alarm goes off later. Perceived difficulty and the urge to stop reduces on the second exposure to the same stimulus. The brain's prediction model adapts.
This is the physiological underpinning of Malcolm Howard's quote. The work doesn't just build the engine, it teaches the brain what your engine can do.
Faster Masters Rowing training programs include workout repeats in order to help you use the repeated bout effect in your training.
https://fastermastersrowing.com/racing-program/
11:30 Three layer synthesis
The ledger shows what you're actually putting in; the ceiling test shows what's still available; the repeated bout effect shows why doing it once is enough to retrain your brain.

Why do so many masters rowers struggle with catch timing despite endless practice? Al Morrow's counterintuitive principle. The causes and cures of rigidity in your body and the amazing catch timing waiting for you (when you cure it).

Timestamps
00:45 Rigidity problem
Al Morrow's remark when talking about Good Rowing is Horizontal - the issue that rigidity kills how you approach the catch.
"The more rigid you are, the lower the probability you will have a good catch." Al Morrow
Feeling you are in control in rowing can lead to tension, particularly in your hands. There's a balance between having control and being so tight that you do not have good control.
Controlled, accurate movements are your goal.
Test this for yourself by gripping your handle tighter than usual and note how your catch timing and depth is or your feather/square movement.
Poise is a balance between the right amount of control and tension to facilitate the rowing movement, Enough tension to get into the right positions but not so much that you are rigid and hamper your strength, movement and oar control.
Rigidity kills your strength. 90% of your power in rowing is below your arm pits.
When rigid it's hard to respond in real time to a gust of wind, balance issues or wake. When relaxed, the boat absorbs the energy from the wind or waves and you don't react to the disruption.
07:00 Al Morrow's drill
This is a catch drill - put the oar in the water fast so it arrives at the perfect depth under the surface.
From the catch position, push down on the handles so the oar spoon is high above the water. Let go of the handles quickly and listen to the sound the oar makes as it enters the water.
An oar arriving in the water under zero tension - you will see it arrive at the perfect depth.
The perfect depth happens when you are relaxed and do not interrupt gravity. Progress the drill by gradually holding the handle without tension - fingers extended. Make the same sound.
Move to holding a normal grip while keeping the same blade entry sound. Then take one stroke. Stop rowing and try it again.
Move towards making the perfect catch sound but starting at the finish - roll up the recovery and unweight the handle to place the oar in the water.
Work on the timing of unweighting your hands and the slide change of direction. The hand action has to precede the slide stopping.
Remove rigidity from your neck shoulders, arms and hands at the catch using this drill.
11:00 Trust the release of tension
The best possible catch at higher stroke rates comes from being proactive placing the catch - that can negate the lack of rigidity you've been working on.
12:00 Active Catches
Build trust that you won't flip when unweighting the handle. Move the moment when you release the tension to being earlier in the recovery. Listen to the sound of the blade entry.