Single Legged Rower

[James HS]

I have just begun to coach a single legged rower.

Erg run through showed that eh is a gym bunny - on 10, hands over legs, but more than capable and willing to learn - and he adjusted many of these faults in the first session, and when I popped the erg on sliders managed well to maintain his seat position.

Next session will be some water work - waiting for low tide, shoreline and a quiet river.

my main question is if anyone has experience of the effect of one lower limb missing? He uses a prosthetic for getting about, but crutches and only the one leg for rowing. So pressure will be on only one footplate, and I am assuming he will probably twist a bit to get the trim of the boat and the balance working.

We will be staring in a double to get some basic strokes going and get over the getting in and out, but progressing to a single as soon as we can as I do not what him to get too comfortable with someone else compensating for any trim issues.

just putting it out there to see if there are any tricks and tips - or warnings about things to watch out for - he can swim, but I am worried about uneven spinal forces, though he is mid 50's so any changes are well embedded.

Thanks

James

[Carl]

There have been some very fine rowers with leg disabilities. Simon
Woods was in his time, IIRC, a top class lightweight rower (UK) despite
having one leg badly affected by polio. More recently I believe he
sculled around Hong Kong to raise funds for a charity.

Others will be able to confirm the facts, I'm sure.

I;m sure your candidate is only too keen to cope with the problems that
missing a leg throws at him daily & through his life. He'll decide what
he can do & cope with the collateral damage, if any.

I'm much more worried about the damage done to rowers, particularly
youngsters, by postural zealotry, over work & coaches dismissing signs
of injury.

Cheers -
Carl

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[Henry Law]

On 16/08/13 11:54, James HS wrote:
> He uses a prosthetic for getting about, but crutches and only the one leg for rowing.

I'm interested in this. At a "try rowing" event a while back we had two
guys come along, one missing his leg above the knee and one below.

Not knowing any better we said that rowing with one leg was a recipe for
going round in circles and that it would be better to wear the
prosthesis. The trouble then was that normal everyday prosthetic
foot/lower leg assemblies have a rigid ankle (although it seems there
are special-purpose athletic prostheses which are flexible).

The result was very discouraging for both of these blokes and I'm
distressed to say that we've not seen them since. Maybe we should get
in touch and suggest that we were wrong, and to come and try again with
just the one leg.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[A. Dumas]

Henry Law wrote:
> I'm interested in this. At a "try rowing" event a while back we had two
> guys come along, one missing his leg above the knee and one below.

All in all, three whole legs!

[Brian Chapman]

We had a University rower at our head race last year rowing in an eight with his prosthetic (lower?) leg in place. Not sure how the mechanics worked for him, he was rowing in a regular, not adaptive, boat and everyone else was using the regular issue legs. It must be possible to have some kind of flexion at the ankle, but I would think an above knee amputation might be too much of a problem.

We are trying to get a para-rowing Learn to Row organised in Chester (UK). We have already done one for learning impairment adults and now would like to do one for physical disabilities. We will see what challenges that brings.

Brian

[James HS]

I will update you as we are going on the water in the next couple of weeks.

I don't see why, with some body adaptation, why he should not be able to adjust to go in a straight line ..... I know we always say put more pressure on one leg - but what is the actual physical linkage that makes that work - our hips pivot, our spine twists, our core is all musculature and our shoulders is all muscle and tendon - so only the hip is the fixed point of linkage. i think it is another of those visualization things and in fact other books I have read say that you adjust by changing the length of the catch asymmetrically to adjust power.

I have one leg longer than the other, but also being right handed one half of the body stronger than the other. When I look at my stern wake (which I am really concentrating on now) I see real unevenness in the power application (in a wiggle in the wake)- at the moment my aim is to be at least even at the end, and then gradually reduce the wiggle while producing the power as long as it does not reduce the total output!

Strangely I was more worried about there being a few kilos less on one side of the boat than the other - and that the result of hip balance might lead to a scoliosis (curve on the spine) but I will closely monitor how it goes.

I might also try rowing one foot out this weekend to see if I can compensate :)

He is really up for it so we are going to make it happen, let's just see how beautiful we can make it!

I have a BR specialist coming to brief me as we are inadvertently attracting a growing number of disabled people - which we welcome, we just want to make sure we don't goof :)

(PS - In my day job I specialise in adapting arts buildings for access - so I have disabled people flying high up in theatre rigging to change lanterns (if they want to) so no fear of anything being technically possible, just don't want to hurt people in an unfamiliar area ... though I guess the normal common sense application will prevail :)

James

[chri...@blueyonder.co.uk]

On Friday, August 16, 2013 11:54:59 AM UTC+1, James HS wrote:

Memory plays tricks as you get older, but I seem to remember that when I was younger there was an Elite one legged oarsman who steered coxless fours. Think he might have rowed for Quintin BC (UK)

[Carl]

We might be thinking of the same person, Chris? Simon Woods was, IIRC,
an LRC member & may also have steered - according to a colleague who was
his contemporary at TRC. Now where did I leave my memory?

[Peter Ford]

My instinct would be that rowing sweep, on the side so that his functioning leg is his inside leg, might be the easiest thing to cope with?

I've played around in the past* with rowing with one leg in an VIII, and:
a) Taking my outside foot out and leaving it on the footplate, not putting pressure through it, felt quite natural, and not particularly more difficult than normal rowing.

b) Taking my inside foot out and leaving it on the footplate, I couldn't stop myself from putting pressure through it. Moving it across to rest on my outside foot allowed me to row "outside leg only" without worrying about where my inside leg was going, but it was quite difficult to do anything useful in the first part of the stroke.

I've also done a bit of one legged erging in the past, although the main difficulty there seemed to be keeping the other leg out of the way.

I'm interested to try sculling with one leg next time I'm out; my instinct is that going straight will be quite difficult.

Peter


*the inspiration for this was rowers complaining that only their inside leg got tired during training, and wondering if rowing outside leg only would be a good exercise to teach people to get both legs working effectively. I came to no particularly useful conclusions on the matter.

[JK]

I'm pretty sure that there was a similar guy rowing out of City of Swansea who might share his experiences with you and/or his coach might do too. Send me an email to james at familyknight dot co dot uk and I can provide a contact number for someone at the club.

Good luck to you and your rower

cheers

James

[blac...@gmail.com]

On Monday, August 19, 2013 7:01:10 AM UTC-5, Carl wrote:
>
> > Memory plays tricks as you get older, but I seem to remember that when I was younger there was an Elite one legged oarsman who steered coxless fours. Think he might have rowed for Quintin BC (UK)
>
> >
>
>
>
> We might be thinking of the same person, Chris? Simon Woods was, IIRC,
>
> an LRC member & may also have steered - according to a colleague who was
>
> his contemporary at TRC. Now where did I leave my memory?
>
>
>
> Cheers -
>
> Carl
>

My brother rowed with a one legged oarsman known as "Woody" in the early 80's. Could that be the same person?

Andrew

[blac...@gmail.com]

Sorry, meant to mention this was at Thames Tradesmen.

[zeke_hoskin]

I am, or at least I was and may be again, a one legged open water rower. Not fast enough to be competitive with bipeds in equivalent shape, but fast enough to enjoy myself. My problem was an old rib injury which flared up and caused whole-torso-lockup spasms, not what you want to have in a tippy boat in bumpy water a long way from shore. Given (a) help with launching and (b) really, really thorough core strength exercises, I see no reason why not.

[AJ]

I remember sometime in the mid/late 90's seeing a one legged sculler carrying his single down to the water's edge at Peterborough City RC. If you contacted the club through their website I am sure someone there would remember who it was and may be able to put you in touch with him or someone who may have coached him.

[James HS]

So - it went extremely well this morning.

Started with an erg session to emphasis front stops - and it was interesting as I did the hold the handle and raise the bum off the seat exercise and a single limb does not have enough power to achieve that at this stage.

But we moved to the boat - a 2X for a session on a flat calm low tide tideway. We had rehearsed getting in on dry land and all want to plan. We used macon blades and, following some adjustment of footplate and shoe height my pupil exhibited an extremely good rowing technique - square blade work in a stabilised double.

Actually he really took on board all the visualisations that I had used (I liken sculling to mainly ballet with some weightlifting thrown in) and used rythm to achieve speed rather than power.

Most impressed.

He was chuffed :) - I think there is lots that he could achieve in a sculling boat.

We experimented with more power on the left and right and he is able to modulate power on either side to provide steering - neither of us is sure how :)

Great experience - hope to build on it.

James

[sully]

James, this is cool stuff, keep us posted. when he learns to scull fairly well, see if he would mind posting some vids of him sculling.

As to your different length legs, have you tried blocking up the footboard on the short side? I did this with a novice rower many years ago. Had our boatman fabricate a 1 inch thick footboard block that set into any clogs, and lace over the top. He didn't row long enough to make the V-8, the only shell at the time that had shoes in it, I had no plan yet what to do if he did.

I could think of a permanent arrangment, but not a temporary one where you might be switching seats from day to day.