RowingChat

The anger caused by a gap between expectation and reality. This episode is for intermediate rowers who are learning how to race. How to turn your anger into something useful.

Timestamps
00:45 What happens if a race outcome isnt' the result you hoped for
Should you suppress the anger or spiral into it? Or neither.
01:45 Identify it
Anger is expectation minus reality. The bigger the gap, the bigger your anger. Name your gap not the "failure". It's an outcome not a judgement on you, the athlete. Intermediate rowers are learning how to train first, and now you are learning how to race. This is the same process.
You've done enough training to have expectations of success but you haven't yet done enough racing to get the outcome you desire. Experienced racers expect this gap.
Make the gap concrete - a time, a distance behind the winner. Name the gap and move it from being an identity problem to being a performance problem.
Notice what you say..... "I worked hard but the crew fell apart". Name it in numbers not feelings and emotions.
04:45 Accept it
Less "but" and more "and". Your post-race debrief language will have used the word but. This cancels everything which went before it such as your training investment.
And allows you to hold two truths at once. I trained hard and I had a bad race. Neither cancels the other out. You accept the outcome and your next race is still ahead. As masters there's always another age group or challenge to move into.
07:00 Change one thing
You're going to take one thing from your toolbox of skills, mental strength, fitness and change it.
Changing everything resets expectation and creates another gap. You can only test the effect of what you've changed if you change only one thing at a time.
Ask yourself - what's one thing I already know how to do better, but I didn't do today?
Your answer is already there, in your toolbox. Use the "and" mindset as you think about this.
If it's technical - you likely know how to fix this.
If it's a tactical error - if it comes up again, you will make a different decision.
If it's a fitness shortfall - train it, not blame.
09:45 Learn how to race
You are learning how to do this and pattern recognition is an important part of this learning. Experiencing different situations will teach you if what you have in your toolbox is sufficient to help you close the anger gap.
Training alongside another crew can help you experience more race-like situations.
Go to your crew mates and coach and find out what their gap was and discuss what you're going to do about it next time.

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.