Popular rowing fallacies #2 - the mystique of vertical shins
Carl Douglas
are good, that shins past vertical indicate the dreaded
"over-compression" leading to a weak catch, & that shins not yet
vertical confirm under-compression.
Has anyone who has encountered this strange doctrine, or been challenged
as being physically inept for failing to satisfy its demands, ever
stopped to question whether it isn't, perhaps, ever so slightly nonsensical?
Attached to this comes other possibly redundant baggage, such as
demanding low feet & getting the back over more at the catch.
Might it not be, in view of our very variable anatomies, that shin angle
to the local gravitational vertical tells us nearly nothing about the
degree of folding of the knee joint, reflecting only the relative
lengths of femur & tibia? How can a local perpendicular possibly relate
with any kind of precision to limb orientation in a seated person?
Isn't the actual distance between heel & hip joint the only meaningful
measure of degree of compression, regardless of shin alignment to the
centre of the planet? Doesn't the knee work pretty well up to really
rather small angles between femur & tibia? Similarly, aren't we well
designed for deep squatting & recovering from same, whether static or in
jumping (n which cases the shin goes close to horizontal, or beyond)?
Doesn't the degree of local muscle bulk strongly influence how far you
can compress?
On another tack:
Since the catch is relatively light compared with the mid-stroke,
exactly how important is it to maximise (just supposing that shin
perpendicularity had anything to do with it ....) the force deliverable
through the knee joint at the instant of the catch? Isn't the proper
objective test one where you compare, versus femur/tibia included angle,
the deliverable drive force with that actually needed to supply the
amount of leg drive required at & soon after the catch
Taking another line again:
Shouldn't we worry a lot more about impact compression in poorly-managed
ergometer catches (i.e. allowing the elasticity of the knee joint to
let that joint pull apart & thus absorb the kinetic energy of a rapid
approach to the catch as a fulcrum is created at the effective point of
contact between the muscle blocks of thigh & calf)?
Any thoughts?
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
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Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
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freeheelfunhog
rowers w/o vertical shins. (see URL below). This would be the argument
that the best don't do it, so why should I. Not as satisfying as a
good physiology/physics explanation.
http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?db_oem_id=23000&sid=-1&catid=-1&id=645298
(may not be available to all)
T
> Email: c...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
> URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk(boats) &www.aerowing.co.uk(riggers)
Mike Sullivan
"Carl Douglas" <ca...@carldouglas.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7g22t6F...@mid.individual.net...
>A doctrine seems to have evolved which holds that that vertical shins are
>good, that shins past vertical indicate the dreaded "over-compression"
>leading to a weak catch, & that shins not yet vertical confirm
>under-compression.
>
> Has anyone who has encountered this strange doctrine, or been challenged
> as being physically inept for failing to satisfy its demands, ever stopped
> to question whether it isn't, perhaps, ever so slightly nonsensical?
I haven't encountered that sort of objection in the couple cases where
I've suggested it lately, mostly it's not understood that you could row
such a way,
or that the effort to learn it hasn't been made.
Tinus
This doctrine of vertical shins sounds much like the false equation
for predicting maximum heart rate HRmax = 220 - age, which kinda
evolved, was nice because of the simplicity, became popular and
finally never left the stage. Shins at 90 degrees is just a nice round
number like 220 - 1 x age and is also close enough.
Currently I am a big fan of shorter strokes. Especially at the release
a lot kinetic energy can be recovered and high pace can be achieved by
moving the trunk already towards stern while the hands still finish
the stroke. The catch is more difficult. It is certain that
compression of the legs before extension increases force but it would
be interesting if there would be a good way to determine specifically
to rowing the amount of energy and speed gained or lost by different
amounts of positions at the catch. I think that those difficulties
fuel the ongoing existence of the vertical shins doctrine.
I recently had a discussion with another coach at my club and we both
came to agreement that it would be better to do some flexibility tests
of the calves and hamstrings in order to determine how someone should/
could row. We found that many coaches are just watching someone's
rowing style and adjust it on the fly without much knowledge about the
rowers possibilities. Still these measurements only tell about the
limits of ones motion and not about the motion which would result in
the highest boat speed. It remains trial and error I guess. Ideas to
improve this?
Maybe this is a nice idea: I am currently working on a simple program
which will be able to detect the motion of the rower joints and
simultaneouslu measure the force on the flywheel in order to determine
directions of forces and torque around the joints. Of course these
things already exist for scientific purposes but these thinks are
enormously expensive. I believe making it freely available to many
might possibly lead to more knowledge and allow people to easyly
improve body position at catch.
Kit
<SNIP>
>
> Taking another line again:
> Shouldn't we worry a lot more about impact compression in poorly-managed
> ergometer catches (i.e. allowing the elasticity of the knee joint to
> let that joint pull apart & thus absorb the kinetic energy of a rapid
> approach to the catch as a fulcrum is created at the effective point of
> contact between the muscle blocks of thigh & calf)?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Carl
> --
> Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
> Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
> Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
> Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
> URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk(boats) &www.aerowing.co.uk(riggers)
A while back I fitted castors to the bottom of my C2 Model C. The
shortness of the catch was the most noticeable difference they made to
the ergo stroke (and consequent scores). I believe on a static erg the
rower's momentum gives them a good 3 extra inches further forward at
the catch which is completely unavailable in a genuine rowing stroke.
I dislike ergs at the best of times, but when I do use them, I much
prefer low rate stuff. Then the momentum is much less and keeps the
stroke more "real".
Kit
Tinus
smaller distances than you will see shins which go even less vertical.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bernhard+Pfaller&search_type=&aq=f
mruscoe
for the lightweight 2k record.
Tinus
> Tinus wrote:
> > This is also a nice video. If you watch for videos which cover even
> > smaller distances than you will see shins which go even less vertical.
>
>
> Not just for short distances - see Henrick Stephensen breaking 6 minutes
> for the lightweight 2k record.
>
> http://www.quistmedia.dk/roklub/dm09/dm09.html
great! I lost that video when I tried to view it recently. Still his
shins are quite vertical compared to what you see in sprints. So...
using the full length of the slides does not make rowing faster but
only increases endurance. Maybe... if one tries to train to go faster
one should just make shorter strokes?
Teaplant
of this sort of nonsense and blind acceptance of thoughtless 'facts'
like this that allow some of us to make a living coaching our crews to
go faster than our rivals!
the interplay between upper-body reach and leg compression is what
determines position of the catch, and by imposing an arbitrary (albeit
extremely convenient) way of defining this such as shin angle
completely overlooks all the other factors. For most oarsmen, the
vertical shin represents an over-compression which often leads to a
slow leg-drive, lower back strain (or just wasted length at the catch)
and ultimately a slower boat. At coaching cadences (ie low rating) if
your crew are getting shins to vertical, then at race pace the
likelihood is that they will slide still further each stroke. (this
will happen on the ergo too as mentioned above).
as a thought experiment (or real one if you have the kit) imagine
fixing the oar handle(s) at the desired catch position, pose rower in
position to drive... a number of positions possible: maximum leg
compression and upper body relatively vertical gives one extreme,
whilst the other extreme is to reach as far with the upper body and
arms as possible with the knees as low as possible. The more powerful
position for the drive is most certainly the latter. But hang on,
surely thats a short stroke with the legs already half down..?? Don't
forget the handle is in the same position for the catch in both
extremes, so the stroke will be the same length.
Obviously the ideal is somewhere between the two extremes, but I
suggest that it is nowhere near half way between.
For everyone else, keep sliding as far as possible, the more the
better please!
teaplant.
A3aan
> > This is also a nice video. If you watch for videos which cover even
> > smaller distances than you will see shins which go even less vertical.
>
>
> Not just for short distances - see Henrick Stephensen breaking 6 minutes
> for the lightweight 2k record.
>
> http://www.quistmedia.dk/roklub/dm09/dm09.html
Jeez. Why are my palms sweating now?
Walter Martindale
> URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk(boats) &www.aerowing.co.uk(riggers)
Let's all spend oodles of bucks, instrument up a boat (force gates,
accelerometers, 3D forces measures on foot stretchers, ROVER from
Australia....and muck about with each athlete to find out which range
of motion works best for each athlete, and then remember when they're
training and racing that they won't look the same when racing, but
will each be in his/her best range of motion for this sporting
movement...
Or - a muscle physiologist, neurophysiologist, biomechanics
specialist, a fluid dynamicist, a marine engineer, and a few
mechanical engineers could get together and after a few years'
collaboration and programming, come up with an optimised stroke
pattern...
Let's see - factors. Blade shape, shaft stiffness, outboard and
inboard length, span/spread. body/limb mass/inertial proportions and
joint ranges of motion, neural transmission rates, muscle fibre type
composition (trained and untrained), muscle contraction rates,
ligament elasticity,.. That's what I can think of in a hurry - oh yes,
hull shape, water depth and temperature, wind direction and
velocity.....
Then they can test it on naive subjects and see if the optimised
pattern can be learned. Then they can test it in competition.
Who's gonna pay for this?
Ah heck - look at the time -
W
mruscoe
> Not just for short distances - see Henrick Stephensen breaking 6 minutes
> for the lightweight 2k record.
>
carolinetu
concept of what "full slide" means. Of course it doesn't work in
practice for everyone - I coach mainly mature adults who tend to be
pretty inflexible - but if we didn't have these rough rules of thumb
where would we start?
A few years ago at the ARA Coaching Conference we had a talk by Beppe
Di Capua, the Italian squad coach, who explained (as far as I
remember) that a long catch is necessary in order to accelerate the
blade so that maximum power can be applied when it is perpendicular to
the boat. Based on this, I do a lot of pieces with light catches
and half pressure or firm finishes, which seems to work well.
I also like the MHR formula 220 - age. On this basis I am still 42!
Caroline T
Mike De Petris
> great! I lost that video when I tried to view it recently. Still his
> shins are quite vertical compared to what you see in sprints. So...
> using the full length of the slides does not make rowing faster but
> only increases endurance. Maybe... if one tries to train to go faster
> one should just make shorter strokes?
please correct:
"... using the full length of the slides does not make erging
faster ..."
Carl Douglas
> "Shins vertical" is a useful thing to tell beginners, who have no
> concept of what "full slide" means. Of course it doesn't work in
> practice for everyone - I coach mainly mature adults who tend to be
> pretty inflexible - but if we didn't have these rough rules of thumb
> where would we start?
>
> A few years ago at the ARA Coaching Conference we had a talk by Beppe
> Di Capua, the Italian squad coach, who explained (as far as I
> remember) that a long catch is necessary in order to accelerate the
> blade so that maximum power can be applied when it is perpendicular to
> the boat.
Hey! That introduces 2 more fundamental rowing fallacies straight away
:) . It takes us right back to those arguments about "the orthogonal
being best", the blade working by pushing water, & may even hint at
those C19th arguments against "squeezing the boat".
How does the blade needs accelerating, Caroline? It weighs nothing. It
stays locked in the water (& it should be no part of our objective to
pull the blade through the water). Isn't that another case of an
excellent rower not understanding what made him good?
And why is the square position the place to do all the work, when it is
also the place where the efficiency (conversion of work done into
propulsive effect) is lowest?
Based on this, I do a lot of pieces with light catches
> and half pressure or firm finishes, which seems to work well.
>
> I also like the MHR formula 220 - age. On this basis I am still 42!
>
> Caroline T
>
Caroline - for those who know you, you will forever be 21.
Cheers -
Carl Douglas
Fair point, Walter, but wouldn't we like our crews to go faster (some
good NZ performances, BTW!)?
I see huge budgets being spent in running international squads, never
mind what was spent in getting those individual athletes up to squad
entry standard (& in making all the others fail that standard). So I
think we could & should spend a little more on fundamental R&D.
If you want your crews to go faster, that won't be achieved by doing
more of the same, or by fumbling in the dark. So it would make good
sense to try to establish the underlying science of boat moving in place
of the quasi-religious pseudo-science of which we see rather too much.
Of course, if that R&D takes money away from individual coaching budgets
that may be resented by coaches, for a variety of reasons at which each
of us can make educated stabs.
Cheers -
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
stephen...@nottingham.ac.uk
> A while back I fitted castors to the bottom of my C2 Model C.
I was told that the great Tomas Lange always had one of the lowest erg
scores in the German squad at the time, until the coach tested the
squad on an erg with castors. Lange top by a long way
don't know whether it's true or not
Carl Douglas
a proper sliding ergometer.
C
Steven M-M
pain when moving, only if I kneel on the sore spot. I tend towards
tight compression, often with my knees slightly past vertical. My
physical therapist tells me that deep squats and getting knees past
vertical does put the patellar tendon in some stress. But, he does not
advise shallow squats or less compression when rowing. He advises
having the strength and flexibility to handle the compression and
load.
Bob UpAndDown
> How does the blade needs accelerating, Caroline? It weighs nothing. It
> stays locked in the water (& it should be no part of our objective to
> pull the blade through the water). Isn't that another case of an
> excellent rower not understanding what made him good?
Who cares? If you tell someone to accelerate the blade then they will
get what you mean.
Accelerate, Accelerate the boat, accelerate the blade, it's just
semantics...
Regarding vertical shins, if you over compress then you are starting
the drive with the glutes and this is not as fast or as powerful as
the quads. I'd rather have someone rowing short at 3/4 or 1/2 slide
than have them over compressing.
'over' is the key word here... you want to compress, but not 'over'
compress
telling someone not to go past shins vertical is a reasonable guide to
get them in about the right place, and then after a while they will
naturally compress to the right place anyway.
Another problem with over compressing is that people who over compress
often sit up and lean backward slightly as the seat comes underneath
them at the catch, they put the blade in the water at about 90 degrees
to the boat and so completely miss the catch and most of the drive. I
think you will agree that is not a good thing to do...
Walter Martindale
I'm just a high school coach.
However - on the hobby-horse of "shins vertical"
I use that as a rough guide to let me see if the boat is set up so
that whomever is in the boat is able to row long at the catch. I've
seen Olympic golds won by crews that rowed shorter and at higher rates
than they trained at, and I've seen the same people also
"overcompressing".
If they can't get to "shins vertical" - is it because the foot-
stretcher is too high relative to the seat? Is it because the
stretcher is too steep? Is it because of their individual
proportions? Can they reach to a long catch without compromising the
posture of the lumbar-sacral region - i.e., are they using postural
muscles to transmit the drive from the stretcher to the handle, or are
they hanging off their ligaments? (And "hanging off ligaments" may
not be that accurate, but flexed lower back posture is widely believed
to contribute to lumbar disk bulging and nerve damage, and research
out of U of Queensland, if I recall correctly, from the late 90s,
showed that there seems to be a spinal inhibitory reflex that reduces
force production in the leg muscles (quads) in flexed lumbar posture.)
If they "over compress:" I'm not about to do the free-body diagrams,
but I suspect that the moment about the knee is reduced compared to
when compression is no farther than "shins vertical" - yes, we can go
into full squats, but at what knee/hip/ankle angles does the force we
can produce get severely compromised when we go deeper? In most of
us, the lower back starts to flex, and we get out of "strong range"
and go past what the guys in the gym call the 'sticking point.' I
used to be able to do squats with about 140 kg (dodgy back prevented
me from doing more), but these were to "thighs parallel to floor"
depth - any deeper, and the weight just kept going south until it was
caught by either the safety racks or the floor, if I could get out
from under it...
Incidentally, regarding which muscle group acts at the start of the
drive (another poster): thinking about "using the quads" or "using the
glutes" is just plain silly in a whole body movement. The objective
is to produce force against the foot stretcher while hanging on for
dear life to the oar handle(s) - why not coach people to push the
stretcher?
Many years ago now, at the Canadian National Coaches Conference - I
think Jan 96 or Jan 97, Peggy McBride, then of the Australian
Institute of Sport, said that the advances in the sport from a
biomechanics perspective from that point (they were pretty well versed
in drive force production at that point) would be done through gaining
an understanding in the dynamics of the recovery, the late recovery,
and the change of direction at the catch. I happen to agree. I
coach people to control the end of the recovery and to "not miss
water" at the catch - to the point where athletes get tired of hearing
about it. The point about the catch, though, is that if athletes are
coached to believe that the catch is difficult, then it will be
difficult. If coached to believe that the catch is just another
motion that is relatively easy to learn, guess what... I also believe
that if we can't coach the majority of the people we coach to row
'well' (whatever that is) within a few months, then we need to take up
a different trade - think about it - in the time we're struggling to
get people to learn how to balance a boat, put a blade in water, move
a boat past it, take the blade out again, and do it again, tennis
coaches are getting people to learn back hand, fore hand, service,
spiking, recognition of "in" and "out" shots, topspin, drop shots, and
a bunch of other skills. Gymnastics coaches are getting people to
learn to do all kinds of things before they're 14, and we don't even
see them until they're 13 or 14 (generally).
yes, there are a lot of myths about rowing out there - One of the big
myths is that it's difficult to learn.
Walter
Carl Douglas
>> How does the blade needs accelerating, Caroline? It weighs nothing. It
>> stays locked in the water (& it should be no part of our objective to
>> pull the blade through the water). Isn't that another case of an
>> excellent rower not understanding what made him good?
>
> Who cares? If you tell someone to accelerate the blade then they will
> get what you mean.
> Accelerate, Accelerate the boat, accelerate the blade, it's just
> semantics...
Then any bundle of words will do? Never mind what they might mean?
Let's not worry about a better understanding - what was good enough for
Grandad is good enough for us?
>
> Regarding vertical shins, if you over compress then you are starting
> the drive with the glutes and this is not as fast or as powerful as
> the quads. I'd rather have someone rowing short at 3/4 or 1/2 slide
> than have them over compressing.
>
> 'over' is the key word here... you want to compress, but not 'over'
> compress
> telling someone not to go past shins vertical is a reasonable guide to
> get them in about the right place, and then after a while they will
> naturally compress to the right place anyway.
Oddly enough, you may have missed a large chunk of the point I was
making. Rowers who do not naturally approach anything like vertical
with their shins get told to compress further - without regard to the
anatomical reasons why they find this impossible.
If you are content to see rowers pressed to achieve set postures, then I
think perhaps you should think again.
>
> Another problem with over compressing is that people who over compress
> often sit up and lean backward slightly as the seat comes underneath
> them at the catch, they put the blade in the water at about 90 degrees
> to the boat and so completely miss the catch and most of the drive. I
> think you will agree that is not a good thing to do...
Of course (let's overlook your deliberate exaggeration) we don't want
rowers losing forward length. But why not stop to think why the
situation you otherwise accurately describe might arise?
The rower with a lower than typical ratio of femur/tiba length is the
one who will find themselves in that position. There is nothing they
can do about that, if they are to use the full potential leg drive, and
if they refuse to close up the angle at the knee they will be accused of
under-compressing & rowing a short slide.
How would you address that?
They may also find themselves being pressed to get their backs further
over into the catch - in the impossible (for them) pursuit of the
preferred posture. And I have indeed encountered exactly that - it does
their backs no good at all.
Your delightfully gung-ho approach to this topic highlights the problem
I was raising - that it is all too easy to impose meaningless measures
for what constitutes adequate compression. Better that we start by
accepting that each person comes with different physical proportions, &
you'll get the best out of them by declining to impose dogmatic postural
rules.
Specifically, the guy who tucks his bum under his knees may not be
over-compressing in that position, even though this apparently shortens
his reach. In his case, raising his seat by 1 or 2 cm could, since at
the catch the heels & seat can come so close, rotate the entire body
enough to eliminate what you describe as a backward lean & give
consequently better, easier reach.
Carl Douglas
It is the combined effect of their upper & lower leg proportions
interacting with the difference in level between the seat & the heels.
Can they reach to a long catch without compromising the
> posture of the lumbar-sacral region - i.e., are they using postural
> muscles to transmit the drive from the stretcher to the handle, or are
> they hanging off their ligaments? (And "hanging off ligaments" may
> not be that accurate, but flexed lower back posture is widely believed
> to contribute to lumbar disk bulging and nerve damage, and research
> out of U of Queensland, if I recall correctly, from the late 90s,
> showed that there seems to be a spinal inhibitory reflex that reduces
> force production in the leg muscles (quads) in flexed lumbar posture.)
>
There can be real physical problems if a rower is pushed into achieving
a supposedly "correct" spinal alignment which lies beyond what they can
comfortably achieve.
I raised this because I increasingly hear of rowers & scullers being
coached for supposedly "optimum" postural alignments of back & shins
related to the actual horizontal. To reach these postures, demands are
sometimes made on rowers which indicate a regrettable failure to
appreciate how differences between individuals' proportions affect the
feasible limits on their catch positions. They also ignore the physical
harm such demands can inflict & the relative irrelevance of the true
vertical & horizontal to what any person may be able, or needs, to achieve.
Rowers don't carry their own weight & the concepts of gravitational
horizontal & vertical appear to have no close relevance for the end of
cycle alignments of various body parts
> If they "over compress:" I'm not about to do the free-body diagrams,
> but I suspect that the moment about the knee is reduced compared to
> when compression is no farther than "shins vertical" - yes, we can go
> into full squats, but at what knee/hip/ankle angles does the force we
> can produce get severely compromised when we go deeper?
Perhaps the better question would be: "At what included angle of the
knee joint does any loss of deliverable force on the stretcher start
even to matter?". After all, vertical shins alone can tell you nothing
about that angle, or of the knee-joint's resulting performance. Shin
verticality is arbitrary, depending on several other parameters & being
of itself no indicator of degree of leg compression.
We don't terminate our stroke immediately it passes the point of maximum
force, nor start it just before that point. We find that a longer
stroke, reaching into the softer ends, gives us the length & time we
need to do the available work &, for that & a few other reasons, it
moves the boat better. Similarly, you won't get maximum available drive
force with the legs until the knees are almost down - by which time
their contribution to speed of bodily extension is nearly zero.
Real answers to your questions are accessible - if someone will invest
the moderate amount of time & limited funds it would need to do the
necessary research.
In most of
> us, the lower back starts to flex, and we get out of "strong range"
> and go past what the guys in the gym call the 'sticking point.' I
> used to be able to do squats with about 140 kg (dodgy back prevented
> me from doing more), but these were to "thighs parallel to floor"
> depth - any deeper, and the weight just kept going south until it was
> caught by either the safety racks or the floor, if I could get out
> from under it...
>
> Incidentally, regarding which muscle group acts at the start of the
> drive (another poster): thinking about "using the quads" or "using the
> glutes" is just plain silly in a whole body movement. The objective
> is to produce force against the foot stretcher while hanging on for
> dear life to the oar handle(s) - why not coach people to push the
> stretcher?
Agreed.
>
> Many years ago now, at the Canadian National Coaches Conference - I
> think Jan 96 or Jan 97, Peggy McBride, then of the Australian
> Institute of Sport, said that the advances in the sport from a
> biomechanics perspective from that point (they were pretty well versed
> in drive force production at that point) would be done through gaining
> an understanding in the dynamics of the recovery, the late recovery,
> and the change of direction at the catch. I happen to agree.
Of course we both know that what changes speed most in each of those
situations is not the person but their (much lighter) hands & arms, &
their (much lighter) boat.
I
> coach people to control the end of the recovery and to "not miss
> water" at the catch - to the point where athletes get tired of hearing
> about it. The point about the catch, though, is that if athletes are
> coached to believe that the catch is difficult, then it will be
> difficult. If coached to believe that the catch is just another
> motion that is relatively easy to learn, guess what... I also believe
> that if we can't coach the majority of the people we coach to row
> 'well' (whatever that is) within a few months, then we need to take up
> a different trade - think about it - in the time we're struggling to
> get people to learn how to balance a boat, put a blade in water, move
> a boat past it, take the blade out again, and do it again, tennis
> coaches are getting people to learn back hand, fore hand, service,
> spiking, recognition of "in" and "out" shots, topspin, drop shots, and
> a bunch of other skills. Gymnastics coaches are getting people to
> learn to do all kinds of things before they're 14, and we don't even
> see them until they're 13 or 14 (generally).
>
> yes, there are a lot of myths about rowing out there - One of the big
> myths is that it's difficult to learn.
> Walter
With not one word of that would I disagree.
Rowers have such a simple job, yet are coached to believe that what they
repeat maybe 2000 times in an outing with but minimal variation is
somehow difficult, that catches are tricky, that finishes are difficult
or even risky, that balance is a problem...... And, to further
complicate the exercise & increase its mystique, arbitrary postural
demands are imposed & imaginary extra processes invented. Sheeplike, we
like "rules" to obey so that, even when not in the boat, we don't have
to think too hard.
Cheers -
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
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Willi
Looks like your fallacy no. 2 is a straw man. At national/
international level it is clear that vertical shins at the catch is
not coached (the variability in shin angle was particularly noticeable
in the W1x in Poland), while at the club level is seems to be used at
a rough guide. Which should reassure you. Personally its an easy
starting point, if someone is rowing short in a 4 for instance
compared with everyone else, first look at the stretcher position,
foot stretcher height and shin angle. Adjusting the boat to fit the
rower is much easier than adjusting the rower to fit a ‘standard’
rig.
As for Caroline’s point about blade acceleration. Most of the blade
does accelerate through the stroke, most importantly the business end
where the rower sits and which they can relate to. The fact that the
bit at the other end does something different may be interesting, but
from a coaching point of view is not very much help to confuse the
rowers with such technicalities.
Paul
Carl Douglas
> Carl
>
> Looks like your fallacy no. 2 is a straw man. At national/
> international level it is clear that vertical shins at the catch is
> not coached (the variability in shin angle was particularly noticeable
> in the W1x in Poland), while at the club level is seems to be used at
> a rough guide. Which should reassure you. Personally its an easy
> starting point, if someone is rowing short in a 4 for instance
> compared with everyone else, first look at the stretcher position,
> foot stretcher height and shin angle. Adjusting the boat to fit the
> rig.
>
> As for Caroline�s point about blade acceleration. Most of the blade
> does accelerate through the stroke, most importantly the business end
> where the rower sits and which they can relate to. The fact that the
> bit at the other end does something different may be interesting, but
> from a coaching point of view is not very much help to confuse the
> rowers with such technicalities.
>
>
> Paul
I'd always seen statements about shin (& back) angles as indicators, not
rules. In the last 3 or 4 years I've seen them hardening, here in the
UK, from indicators into demands. That's why I raised this issue.
I've seen abundant evidence that rowers & scullers who sit low & sit up
at the catch, but have their stretchers set well away, & in some cases
lean back a fair way, go no slower than those with more classic
postures. And I've seen those whose shins go way past vertical also do
very well. But I've also observed the growth of an increasingly
doctrinaire instructional approach. And I've met those whose efforts to
meet postural demands have resulted in pain - which is crazy, especially
for youngsters.
I don't know whether this results from the setup of coach training here
in the UK, or from some other source - others may be able to cast light
there. Only this weekend I was in discussion with a couple of late-teen
rowers, both certain that anything beyond vertical for the shins must be
dead weak & asserting this with instructed confidence. A couple of
years ago I had to lower shoes for a double of mid-teens until nearly
touching the hull - their coach, appointed a week earlier for a single
event, couldn't otherwise force their backs into the catch postures he
demanded. While making the alterations I asked if they'd had any
problems & learned that both had developed lower back pain within that
week. If you screw up a back sufficiently, it tends to stay somewhat
defective.
So I don't think, as once I did, that this is the straw man you believe
it to be. I'd like to know if this growing postural dogma is a
UK-specific thing, or has wider currency. If UK only, is it an
unintended consequence of obedience to some part of the coach training
program?
I do agree that we should make other adjustments within the boat, not so
averagely misshapen individuals can meet set postures but to help them
achieve their individual best. The sense of confusion I sometimes
encounter when proposing this logical approach suggests that it is seen
as inappropriate, even anathema. Why?
As for why I'd prefer we tell the technical truth in coaching:
If we want future coaches to be no better informed on the rowing action,
& athletes not to maximise their potential, then what coaches say,
beyond "Pull harder!", hardly matters. If, however, we want to get more
out of what Walter & I see as a very simple sport, to see it advance, &
do so without injury or bullshit, then best we try to understand how it
really works & convey that understanding openly. Folk cling to talk
about acceleration only because we at large (collectively, not
necessarily individually) really don't understand what's happening.
With a better understanding, better descriptors can be applied &
there'll be less misunderstanding.