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Thank you for this! Super helpful. :)

4:15 what were the two points of stability?

3:35 video starts here

If you give me a chance I can prove what I say.

You need to update the title of each video. Give your video a title so that people can find it by searching. Besides, if your video description and tags are setup properly, I can guarantee that you will see good improvement within a few days.

Do you know about advance SEO and optimization?

Your CZcams channel videos are really amazing. But there is a lot of room for improvement. We can talk about it if you want. if you solve this issues properly in few days your video definitely show on CZcams top search page and you can get start much more organic results from CZcams.

Thank you for the video! It would be great to see illustrations of configuring the toe steering to go with the instructions.

An important clip that focuses attention on the catch. The catch is a vital part of the stroke. if wrong there is little one can do to recover the stroke, if correct what follows will almost inevitably be a good stroke. You make very valid points. The catch should be lightning fast, thus one must have nothing to do. The blade must be squared, the hands loosely extended (as Tony O'Connor found out) the body a solid core, and nothing happening such as dropping the head or shoulders to get extra length. As you correctly point out all this comes from a proper finish. In fact the finish is the commencement of the stroke, not the catch. The catch is very complex and cannot be explained in a short video. There are many more aspects to it that can be discussed in my response. There is one very major mistake in your clip that has been prevalent for over a quarter of a century as the solution to bum shoving. That is that the blade must be fully buried when one changes direction at the catch. The ratio of inboard to outboard of an oar is roughly 1 to 3. Thus a boat travelling at 6mps requires the oar handle to travel at 2mps. At the change of direction the seat moves at zero mps thus applying a braking force of 2mps visibly displayed by backsplash (still advocated!!!). Valerie Kleshnev has provided the ideal solution from a brilliant insight. He advocates that one does not stop and change direction but one bounces off front stops as if on a trampoline. and lifts one hands at the same time. There is a 2-3 cm slippage on the slide, so small that it has little negative effect on boat speed. . When the blade is locked in the water it is travelling slightly more than 2 mps so thus accelerates rather than stopping the boat. However the other effects are even more beneficial. The 2-3 cms of bounce generates good kinetic energy in the body mass of the crew. When this is locked to the water it it converted into forward momentum which has many beneficial effects: it negates the effect of Newtons 3rd law that arises from the change of direction of the bodies; it makes the boat light; it takes little effort and negates the harsh catch which kills the legs at their weakest point. if fact the effort is so slight that the legs automatically apply pressure at 3/4 slide. It obtains the solid catch the sine qua non for rowing according Harry Mahon in his 1993 ARA training video. Harry, who transformed Cambridge rowing, would look at a crew and if they did not have a solid catch they were useless. Stopping to fully bury an oar before driving is a recipe for disaster. You are not advocating this but it was usually the follow on coaching advice to fully burying the oar at the catch. The excitement of the "Cambridge Lean" in the early 90s almost compensated for depression arising from the disastrous effect on the alma mater's winning streak. On a side rant Oxford's flamboyant High Church leanings always had a place in the Irish heart even though Trinity College Dublin was decidedly Low Church from the influence of Cambridge's Peter Chaloner, Trinity's real founder. St Patrick used the pagan festivals to convert the Irish, Constantine used Mithras to convert the Romans. the English did not have the wit to use the High Church and could not see that brute force, persecution. bribery and corruption would never succeed. Bribery and corruption did unite the Kingdoms of Great Brittian and Ireland but they fell apart little over a century later. The trampoline effect is automatic and reflexive. Actions from conscious decisions take 50 milliseconds and often one is too late. Even at 2 mps, 50 milliseconds is 10 cms of slide, 4 times the slippage advocated by Valerie Kleshnev. A final thought. Achieving the "trampoline" effect transforms a heavy pedestrian crew sludging through mud into a vibrant crew apparently floating through air, even with an average age of 65 years. The crews fitness finally shows and rowing feels effortless. It makes a coxing a serene pleasure, where one looks forward to every outing. The shortage of coxes would be transformed into a waiting list.

Excellent practical advice. Coaching master crews can be a nightmare.

One of the problems with receiving criticism is the way in which the criticism is delivered. Just being told that “you’re doing it wrong” but not told should be done, not told how to go about achieving what should be done and not why it should be done that way. In giving advice it is often if not always useful to preface it with the observation that the different way of doing the task will likely feel clumsy/uncomfortable until to get used to it. Another way that often helps is to say “don’t approach this change as a correction of a defect, think of it as learning a new skill”. It creates a different mindset when receiving the advice. The mind will expect that it will feel different. And a final thought don’t think or talk about it of criticism or feedback. Talk about advice instead. Criticism and feedback both have negative connotations. Advice is at least somewhat neutral. Different terminology creates a different mindset. Another final thought. Lots of masters are returning to the sport. They may not be up to speed with the manner in which technique and equipment have evolved. This means you need to frame the conversation a little differently. Perhaps something like “I know you were a successful rower x time ago. Since then equipment and knowledge of biophysics/biomechanics has come a long way, so some things will be different to what you will remember .” Add on the new skill idea and you may get a more receptive audience.

I’m not sure that chasing rate is helpful. What you should be chasing is speed. Many chase rate and lose speed. The important thing for racing is knowing what pace you can maintain for the majority of the race with room to accelerate towards the end when necessary.

Progress is all I can see on this channel

Lots of people square way too late and also start from a position where their blade is too close to the water. It seems to me that most who do that tend to place the blade by lifting the body/shoulders to get the blade in. That interferes with timing the legs drive.

Thank you for a very good presentation and all your hard work for rowing. However I have a few critical comments which I hope are constructive and do not cause you upset. I know you are a fan of Valerie Kleshnev, but I don't think you have fully studied his extremely useful articles. He is the only commentator that talks sense all the time. Most commentators distribute, at some time, ideas that are incorrect, irrelevant, misleading or lack insight Kleshnev does not. If he does not understand the results of some measurements, like a true scientist, he says so. Kleshnev's theory on the catch is that once compression is reached, one immediately bounces like from a Trampoline without delay or stopping to put the blade in the water. As one bounces you lift the hands, which is sufficient to bury the blade. The effect is that there is a 2-3 cms slippage on the slide before the blade is immersed in the water. This produces two positive effects, first the blade hits the water at a speed greater than the boat thus accelerating the boat on contact, but not so great as to cause a jolt or injury to the lower back. If one stops and then place the blade in dead, in fact the blade is going backwards at 5ms per second relative to the speed of the boat. if the blade is put in early before front stops as some pundits, delighting in the backsplash, urge in order to prevent bum shoving, it is even worse. The second positive effect is that the bounce produces momentum in the bodies (80% of the boat mass) which is transferred into the boat when the blades lock after the 2 cms. This makes the boat very light at the catch. It is one of the most delightful feelings that a cox can experience. When my crew achieve it the feeling is magical. After such a run the crew comment how the rowing piece felt like light pressure and that they could continue for another 500ms. When they achieve this rhythm, the splits on the GPS Cox Box improve by 3-6 seconds with no change in rate or effort. There is little doubt but that Kleshnev is a genius. There are many other reasons why such a catch improves boat speed and makes a boat light and lively. It is mostly technique and the ability to feel a boat, ones own mass and movements and mental concentration, and does not require improved fitness as you rightly point out. These are for another day and include Drew Ginn's gentle acceleration up the slide to counter skin drag and speed variation; lightning change of direction at the top of the slide to minimise loss of momentum created by force x time. The shorter the time the less reduction in boat momentum. A cox can feel the dramatic reduction in check when the catches quicken, and hang at frontstops is eliminated. . Also not working the legs when they are fragile and weak. The urging from coaches to hammer and make the catches as strong as possible does not make the boat go faster, does not produce much power (see the power curves) but they certainly mash the leg muscles to bits and prevent them from working back the slide when they should be producing maximum power. There is also the phenomena of "Mass Suspension" discovered by Kleshnev which reduces drag. All of these come automatically and free of charge from the trampoline bounce. There are pages to be written about these and how Harry Mahon and Steve Fairbbairn were very conscious of them. Maria Montessori was brilliant with the very poor small deprived children of Naples. However some pedants have taken her principles and turned them into pedantic checklists that fall very short of what she achieved. I am afraid some rowing coaches has fallen into this trap and promote exercises and techniques without any understanding of what moves a boat efficiently and easily, and does not murder it. It is little bit like teaching Coxes a battery of calls, when what is needed is for a Cox to read a boat and make the necessary call to correct problems or improve techniques. Just a final thought. The sloping bow thankfully, following Hudson's start over 20 years ago, is finally going out of fashion. It uses a large percentage of the power in lifting a boat up the slope of the bow instead of just dividing the water by using a deep bow. This takes much less effort. A fisherman in Dingle over 25s years ago built his racing currachs with deep bows. When I questioned him he did not know where the idea came from - it just worked. Thus getting the power on before the bow dips just has the merit of loss of power due to longitudinal oscillation, rather than the bows being buried and harder to move. The trampoline technique automatically gets momentum into the boat before the bows dip. Again many thanks for your hard work which is very much appreciated. It can be very difficult and thankless and sometimes can make one open to unjust and hurtful criticism. I hope that my comments are useful. Kleshnev's ideas have made such a difference to our boat. The rowing is so much more enjoyable and boat speeds have dramatically improved. After a successful outing four weeks ago, the stroke turned around after the outing and said it was worth joining the club just for that one outing. Jim Heney

Thanks for having me on Rebecca! Looking forward to the webinar.

Would have been amazing, but wind and Chris is quietly spoken.

'Interesting. Thank you for this information 🙂

Excellent exposition of the catch arising from the pre drew Ginn style. A very difficult catch to coach which I did for years. However the Valerie Kleshnev style is so superior it is a revelation. His style has no splash, is far quicker and makes the boat and so light when properly executed one cannot but work no matter the pain. Changing from the old style catch to Kleshnev's catch takes 5 seconds off the splits in a few strokes. His style uses the rowers mass to accelerate the boat at the vital part of the stroke, prevents power sapping stress and strain at the catch when the body is weakest but most eager, and induces work when the body is strongest and the blade most effective and lightest. The boys in the boat talk of swing. I have just seen a cleaned clip of the last 100ms of the Berlin final. The lift in the middle of the stroke is one of the most impressive I have seen noteithstanding the heavy boat and heavy pencil oars. None of the other boats in the race had it. Fairbairn, Harry Mahon, and Valerie Kleshnev are the heros of rowing deserving further study. Their insights behind the Husserl phenomena throw a very cold eye on most coaching in particular the "hard catch" the universal destroyer of rowers both physically and mentally as well as the purveyor of lower back injuries. Jim Heney

Great discussion on the most rewarding of all rowing boats. I only rowed the pair in a satisfactory way once in my life, but I will never forget that training. It should be an essential part of rowing training. You cannot optimise a 4 or 8 without it. Indeed blade pressure is the main indicator of harmony with your mates. A tip: only steer when you have blades in the water.

I wanted to crew when I was in college but I had to work to pay for school so I couldn't manage both. Now that I am 57 and still want to. Signing up for feb 2023 lessons!!

Really interesting chat, thanks Graham

Thanks a lot for this info! This was exactly what I needed. I have a lot of wrist/ hand pain and I suspect it’s due to poor technique, which I’m trying to correct

Looking forward to making a plan. my only race of the season is next week.

'Promo sm'

Fabulous

Hello. Thank you for this informative post. I often listen to your podcast on the drive home from practice and enjoy it. You mention deck height from the water as an indicator that a boat is the right size for the rower. How high off the water should it be? Is there a way to measure this?

Nice interview, with many good insights. The "lactate is good" is a nice concept, and makes sense from the energy provision point of view.

Don't, let them become kayaker's, kayaking is a much better sport due to there being alot more to the sport than going straight

Helpful today for those watching on CZcams to understand some basics of rowing and learn terminology.

Thanks. I'd like to learn about toe steering as the boats I've rowed have always had a coxswain

Enjoyed it and I will be practicing until next week.

Our boathouse has boxes of period products as well! It's a no brainer for supporting female athletes. My son joined his college's student government, and his first month there, one of the young women mentioned that it would be useful if the student government fund placed free period products in every restroom, and he jumped on it with his full, enthusiastic support. Having a dude support a proposal like that can be the difference between the proposal passing vs failing, which makes my blood boil. But I am so proud of him!

Oh that barge at 6:30 or so was great!

Spacer placer tool is ingenious 😁

Our boathouse uses decorative duct tape on all of the ergs; it is wide enough, that the chain should always be inside of the tape area. It's really useful! Practicing in the tanks is also great for looking at the blade and learning what different positions feel like. While it is generally not great to look at the blade while going full tilt, there are lots of times during practice, during drills, etc, when looking out is the smart thing to do. 😊

Thank you for using my crew as your background pic! I am in the bow and we were running a Royalrow Prescribed Saturday workout at EARC!

We have had two wonderful years in Turkey with Ruth and her guest with much delight and great experience. Looking forward to our third year. Do not miss it out and schedule yourselves accordingly.

The pathway to being a rower was not made clear to me. If someone joins a kayak club, the pathway is clear. You take a class over two or three days then you buy a boat and a bunch of gear. Over the next year you learn how to not hurt your self and you are set to join in on most padding activities.

I’m a novice rower heading into my second season.

I want to GO!!!!!

Beautiful girl ❤ Leah

I AM SOOO INSPIRED!!! Going to buy her book immediately!!!!