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Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do. Yes, Olympic rowers move forwards fast in their slides (how

Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do. Yes, Olympic rowers move forwards fast in their slides (how else do you do 40+ strokes a minute?), and no semi-experienced rower fully separates the arms/back/legs motions (they tend to blend into each other a bit), but common beginner errors are: - to race the slide, then stop at the catch, causing the boat to pitch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_motions#Pitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_motions#Pitch) more strongly, losing speed. Pros move fast, but all their other movements are faster, too, so they don’t race forwards on their slides (at least not in training. Sprints in racing can be different, but even then, they try not to do that, as it costs speed) - to bend the arms first, then stretch the legs. That won’t work if you’re using your leg muscles to the fullest, as your arms won’t be able to stay bent. They will straighten out again, and the force of the blade on the water will be lower than when they didn’t do that. So, the “legs/back/arms on the stroke, arms/back/legs on the recover” and “don’t rush the slide” mantras exaggerate what you ideally should do, but for beginners, erring in that direction isn’t that bad compared to those errors.

ninkendo 4y ago
> Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do. Yup, this was exactly the problem for me. I take the advice too literally and I had awful form until I just relaxed and rowed in a way that felt natural. I mean sure, you should be starting the catch with your legs first and finishing leaned back with your arms coming in only as you reach the end. But the coaches would exaggerate way too much and tell you to not even start moving your back until you were fully halfway into the stroke. I took this far too literally and locked my back in place for way too much of the catch and ended up making the whole thing awkward and inefficient. Don’t rush the slide, sure, but the coaches made it seem like you had to inch. Up. So. Slowly, and we did low rate technical rows to hammer this home. I rowed stroke seat in my first race and guess what happened? I went up the slide slowly and ended up rowing at 27 strokes per minute and we lost the race handily. Oops, i guess they forgot to teach us how to actually row fast before we got to our first race. I never rowed stroke after that because I was too used to rowing slowly. The reasoning behind coaching in a way that causes you to do what you’re supposed to do instead of what you’re told to do, makes sense, until you realize that there are people that will actually take the advice literally. And you’ll overshoot and miss the mark. Basically: “do as I mean, not as I say” is a shitty teaching style, at least for people like me.

ninkendo 4y ago

> Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do. Yup, this was exactly the problem for me. I take the advice too literally and I had awful form until I just relaxed and rowed in a way that felt natural. I mean sure, you should be starting the catch with your legs first and finishing leaned back with your arms coming in only as you reach the end. But the coaches would exaggerate way too much and tell you to not even start moving your back until you were fully halfway into the stroke. I took this far too literally and locked my back in place for way too much of the catch and ended up making the whole thing awkward and inefficient. Don’t rush the slide, sure, but the coaches made it seem like you had to inch. Up. So. Slowly, and we did low rate technical rows to hammer this home. I rowed stroke seat in my first race and guess what happened? I went up the slide slowly and ended up rowing at 27 strokes per minute and we lost the race handily. Oops, i guess they forgot to teach us how to actually row fast before we got to our first race. I never rowed stroke after that because I was too used to rowing slowly. The reasoning behind coaching in a way that causes you to do what you’re supposed to do instead of what you’re told to do, makes sense, until you realize that there are people that will actually take the advice literally. And you’ll overshoot and miss the mark. Basically: “do as I mean, not as I say” is a shitty teaching style, at least for people like me.