Fantastic. The sculler is a very good rower, as well as your observations. Very "tiny" details, make a "huge" difference after so many strokes. Keeping your knees down a little bit longer, lets the boat "flow" (move) a little bit more. Congrats for your job. We write from Brazil
Wow that was a excellent critique of this athlete. I’m sure that if he takes the advice that you have given him, he will surely improve his form and be more efficient.
I personally think that there is another technical "field of potential" here: the connection between leg drive and the water. In the first quarter/third of the stroke, the legs push down a fair bit quicker than the boat is moving; the connection becomes much more effective in the bodyswing and armpull. Due to this (minor) waste of energy in the legdrive too much of the acceleration work has to happen at the end of the stroke, which will be very hard at higher stroke rates. Therefore I think working at this leg connection after the catch (for example by building up the stroke from the front end with body in leaned forward position) would be a good option to improve the athlete's speed.
My comments: 1. Chest off knees at the finish. 2. Sit further back on seat, on sit joint rather than bum cheeks. 3. Elbows up above hands at finish ensuring drive in latter part of stroke is horizontal. 4. Lift ribs up and tuck lower back in at finish. 5. Don't lean back so far back at finish..wasted energy pulling yourself back up. 6. Get full length from finish, before your knees come up...ie: hands over shins with handsbefore knees come up. 7. Elbows straight before shoulders come in front of hips.
Potential new rower here. Great comments and breakdown on body control/boat control, now I know that a crucial component is how body position and muscular contraction/muscular relaxation can effect overall speed.
Brillant style! The mentioned "rotating over the hips" in my opinion is generally underestimated. But the stability at beginning of the drive is excellent. *****
Most rowers bring the shoulders forward and the lower back will follow (mostly ending up with a rounded back). Although not easy, I try to rotate in the hips to keep my back more straight. The shoulder have no other option then to follow. This makes it more easy to open up when placing the blades and "hug the horizon" in the catch. It helps to search for birds in the sky instead of looking at your shoe laces.
@@martseagray It does not originate from me, but was "stolen" from "The art of sculling" written by Joe Paduda. A very nice book. Slightly boring in the starting with remarks about how to put a single scull in the water etc. But when it comes to rowing technique he has some great remarks, that realy help you forward.
It is a pitty the blade is out of frame at he finish. The movement of the hand during the finish suggests that he is feathering out instead of release and the feather away.
Congratulations to my old coaches Chris Joe and Mary at Wellington Rowing Club because I managed to spot most of the issues Aram mentioned thanks to the techniques they drilled into us. Listen to your coaches children...
This is great thank you. I have been trying to communicate this to my athletes. The hip hinge back over on the way to the catch is so crucial to preserve boat speed, and to set yourself up properly. I am telling them they need to feel a slight tension in their hamstrings before the knees release. Similar to the feeling of doing an RDL. Preserve boat speed, let the boat come to you, and set yourself up in the best position possible. They are young athletes and get caught up with trying to jump back up to the catch and compress the legs as much as they can, not realizing they are taking away any leverage they had when the body sits straight up.
Thank you for your video. I'm in the rowing club and rowing as a stroke of men's coxed quadruple. I wnat to win the medal to go to the national conpetition,but I have some troubles. I would like to be what is like a single thing with the crew and push the boat past the blade as its fulcrum.I know it's not just about matching bladework, but it's hard to share the feeling. In order to push the boat at either UT or high rate, I would like to know several things that you think are important in one stroke. Thank you for reading my easy English...
When you look at the wrist (the left one) in the recovery, it is lower than the handle. As if the hand/arm is not resting on the handle but pulling it down. Would there be any benefit of having a more or less straight line from shoulder to arm to wrist downwards to the handle?
Is that not a style issue on the extraction to recovery......ideally one aims to perfect rolling the handle in the fingers at the finish with thumb maintaining its outward pressure ..... however most just drop their wrist a bit too much?? Be interesting to hear Aram’s view.
Hi Aram. We discussed your assessment and agree that the backlean will probably limit his upside on the rating, hence the possible max speed. You mentioned this backlean is probably caused by too little space at the body due to the rigging setup. You proposed to fix that by lifting thr oarlocks a bit. We were wondering why you did not proposed to move the rigger forward or the footstretcher ( depending on the boats balance) to create that space? As you said the drive mechanics seem really good so the fs or rigger move could be less disruptive ?
Oarlocks which are set too low have a negative effect on the force transfer through the body. One could also say that the force vectors are not ideal then. This is why I suggest to alter here and not at the foot stretcher position or rigger. The latter two can certainly be altered as well, but not before the core problem has been addressed. What concerns the back lean, I do not think that the back lean is too much or too little, however, a non-perfect preparation, particullary the hip pivot on the way forward leads to vertical additions in the hand motion at the catch and consequentially also as the finish - which makes your hands touch your body at an earlier stage at the finish and therefore creates the impression of too little space. Happy to help by video call.
@@AramTraining I’ll find a case to steal your time with a call when I am not clear on the explanation. This was very clear. From the video commentary I must have misunderstood that you thought the primary problem was space at the finish. I am clear now on the priorities. Improve catch mechanics via oarlock height ..... then check on possible space problem.
@@yavuzkuban / @aram training The next 1% improvement? Around 11:50 in the video, Aram mentions a slight mistiming of the catch/blade placement. I agree with the issue, but have an alternative perspective on the possible cause and another option to try that doesn’t involve new blades. During the recovery, the blades are carried fractionally too close to the water. As he squares the blades there is a slight downwards movement of the handle to allow enough space for the tip of the blade to be clear of the water. But it means the handles are travelling upwards as they approach the placement rather than maintaining their height above the water or preparing for the knuckles to feel lighter (move skywards) as the seat travels its final few centimetres of the recovery. This is leading to a fractionally mistimed placement so the blade is entering the water as the drive commences, not as the recovery finishes. It’s not much, but even a couple of cm extra boat travel per stroke adds up over 2000m. I think the issue originates early in the recovery sequence. Refer to 11:29 in the video, although Aram has focussed on the larger issue of the hip pivot (or lack of), this section also illustrates cause of the blade height issue. Specifically, look at the angle of the wrists. They are “cocked” upwards, rather than being in line with the forearms. This means the oar handles are being carried a couple of centimetres higher than the need to be, which translates to the blades being a little too close to the water. Instead, try focussing on keeping the wrists flat (inline with forearms). Two cues for your athlete to use here: (1) On the recovery, particularly once he has pivoted over from the hips and felt the tension in the hamstrings, be aware of keeping the downwards pressure on the handle through the calluses (ie, the underside of the joint between metacarpals & proximal phalanges) rather than the fingers themselves, or the middle of the palm. (2) On recovery straighten the fingers so they are also in line with forearm and wrist, forming one straight line from the elbow to the finger tips. This “straight fingers” exercise naturally transfers into a closing of the fist to square up, and then a focus on the knuckles becoming “lighter” (allowing the blades tips to approach the water) as he approach the catch. Another test would be to take some video of the athlete rowing with feathered blades, and with square blades, and track whether the handles track the same, or at different heights on the recovery. As an added bonus, the combination of early hip pivot, plus lower hands on the recovery/higher blade height off the water earlier, should make him more resilient in rough water. There is so much to like about what your athlete is doing. He has a beautiful, still platform in the boat. Good luck building the next couple of changes, and with selection trials. Kind regards Tim
The legs are moving while the blades are not all the way under the water. The sequence should be: blades go under, wait a tik (so that the pressure equalizes on both major sides of the blade), and only then, move the seat/legs. Otherwise, we are missing at least 1/5th of a stroke and even worse, depending on how aggressive we are with the leg movement before the pressure around the blade is equalized, we may be pushing the boat backwards (a.k.a checking the boat). As far as the body form, I think the lower back should be straighter, although this part is not critical.
@@AramTraining The trick is equalizing the pressure around the blade. As the blade is inserted into to the moving water, the action sucks in air around the blade and creates turbulence in the immediate blade surroundings, especially in front of the blade. Moving the blade against turbulent water has a 'ripping' effect. Bottom line is that it does not help the boat movement. Hence the 'wait'. It is also possible to place the blades into the water as the slide is moving forward. Then, the end of the 'wait' can be timed with stopping the slide movement forward. This is however tricky to execute, as it requires 'cobra' back movements and more importantly, an advanced feel for the entire multi part catch concept. To achieve the three step catch that I am discussing, a rower has to have an ultimate feel for separating the shoulders from the body. A good exercise is to place and extract blades into the water several times as the slide is moving forward. At first, this will feel completely odd, however, after a while, it will start to feel natural. Another exercise related to developing the catch separation is to do arms only, and purposely wait as the blade is inserted in the water. Then arms and back, with the wait etc. Another exercise is to stop the boat, insert the blades into the water, balance the boat, and move the blade back and forward 10cm, then after about 10 times back and forward, take one stroke and then wait until the boat stops, and repeat etc. BTW, thanks for your videos, great stuff!!
Hi Aram, Back pointing the wrong way? I had to laugh. Sitting too much to the back of your seat? Poor guy. Randall fouls? His blades stay just under the surface already! I think you are right about the recover taking too much time and his losing speed there. Remedy? Stretch arms away more spiffily, a bit more forward speed on the slides during the first half of the sliding. I also would like to see him at max power, 18-20 spm. But with a speed coach in biofeedback it is quite easy for a coach to work on boat speed. Might wanna use y’olde impeller though, for accuracy.
Very informative! Does anyone know the exact name of the machines at 12:00 ? The rowing motion is much more realistic than the typical ergonomic rowing machine.
I am not so sure about moving the boat with the body mass inertia during recovery as that would slow the body relative to the ground and so during the active stroke, the boat will slow down to accelerate the body mass. There were many experiments that tried to move a trolley with just body mass and as far as I know they were not successful. This is not a rocket that dumps down its mass after pushing on it. I would say that perfect sculling would be achieved when not a single oar is used on one side but a parallel pair which would cause the blade structure to remain at 90 degrees to the hull. While the engineering is somewhat complex for a single sculler with double it becomes very easy to create this parallel motion of the oars on one side to keep the blades at 90 degrees to the hull all the time. I tried it with both double and single but did not rotate the blade to be feathered on the return stroke. With more complex engineering and a few universal joints, this parallel motion that would keep the blades at right angles to the hull can easily be achieved and the torque on the oar would always produce a frontal force on the water fulcrum point, treating the oar as a class 2 lever. With the pulsating action of the oar, one needs to be careful in how much higher speeds would be used at the start of the race as the drag on a boat is not linear and that pulsation is an ugly situation to deal with over the rowing period. Human energy so limited and would prefer to keep a smoother average speed and so that is what to aim for at reducing the impulsive accelerations as that is what tires a person most and his energy does not go into efficient propulsion. Perhaps I should mention that if that pulsating action has harmonics in it, then that is all losses and the most efficient pulsating action is the sinusoidal waveform or simple harmonic motion, which has a single fundamental frequency in it, well to opposite rotation really but each of equal frequency. For racing, one should aim for an elliptical function with sine and cosine in it with the vertical magnitude being lower than the horizontal. For a workboat as in Venice and my own country, a circular motion would be ample to maximise the transfer of the energy of the rower into boat speed. One should balance the oar against any gravitational bias while the center of pressure on the blade would fall on the axis of the shaft. In addition to building muscles, all rowers should learn engineering mathematics and losses in electric motors and those sharp pulses in computer work and might as well mention the single-phase pulsating electric motor. Aiming for a perfect sinusoidal action slightly at a leading phase with the boat is what needs to be done SMOOTHLY in a sinusoidal fashion in long races. In sprinting, well, anything goes and the agility of high muscular build-up does count. Obviously, the taller reach of the chosen candidates to smooth out the action at a lower frequency does help. With engine power, well an inefficient surface propeller would come into its own with all those lumps of water being thrown back and a lot of harmonies of useless spray flying about, but for a rowboat, the energy in all humans cannot use that wasteful engineering principle of basically what is rocket power actions, throwing lumps of water backward!! I would say, that rather than use the pulsating actions of oars, one should use the principle of propulsion used in birds wings and fish foils modern sails which vector the action where a fish can change it pitch of the foil to produce higher speeds after starting with a low pitch foil at accelerate to speed much faster. There is room for improvement but we must invest in new engineering actions and the parallel motion and the blade remaining at 90 degrees with the hull could be a good start. A simple system is so easy to make but rotating and feathering the oar in the return stroke needs better workshop technology which a few universal joints in addition to the parallel motion would see to it. One might as well finish up with the reduction of the pulsating action in all directions. Many scullers cause the boat to oscillate up and down effectively increasing the buoyancy due to the body inertia being topheavy and higher oarlocks above the water. Good rowing is filtering out all the higher harmonics and since rowing is not a continuous steady-state action as a propeller immersed in water, one needs to learn a lot from fish and birds and flying ducks flapping their propulsion system, normally their body pulsates with a simple harmonic action but their heads remain perfectly still going in one direction at a steady pace. Note that the wingtips of flying ducks usually move in a circle to produce the one frequency harmonics in the flapping action, this is required to maximize the energy transfer to the right zone and state of the boat/fish /bird/running person. ua-cam.com/video/PAxVhqilJoQ/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/jKzGSIfdllU/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/omrDPPMDDaY/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/A5kwC7eoPNU/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/dceYiJDQoNo/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/BfY7ePyVAkY/v-deo.html The benefit of long sweeping oars and elliptical circular motions of the dynamic masses is clearly seen. Note that acceleration is the second differential of position and the next differential of velocity and so the Chinese sprinter was at a disadvantage with his legs operating at a higher frequency. He needs to have lighter shoes than Usain Bolt who seems to be optimized for the human function in question,. I have no doubt that one day the sculling stroke at Oxford and Cambridge and the Olympic Games will be just like the orcas and dolphins do it as it is a double-acting sinusoidal stroke and not a single acting stroke as the conventional process. Note the importance of circular motion or its sinusoidal and cosine component or simple harmonic motion in each of the pulsating systems shown. Really it is all related to good old classical music like waltzes with its emotional rhythms ua-cam.com/video/WnWQ56zEuko/v-deo.html Long-range rowing ua-cam.com/video/vVciDrbmjxQ/v-deo.html Sprint rowing situation, ua-cam.com/video/-NxHQR5nOko/v-deo.html Good rhythm gets everyone rowing with their limbs! awakens our internal spirit. The innocence of children proves it in this last video. ua-cam.com/video/vWDD76joIWU/v-deo.html The circular or elliptical motion of the rowers in Venice is easily deduced but one pair of rowers do show their action full of wasteful harmonics in addition to the fundamental stroke which in the long run tires the rowers.
Very true! I personally can’t do the method that my former coach recommended, but she said that flicking your fingers more than your wrist is very important because doing that to your wrist can be very harmful long term. But you have to have much stronger fingers to do that method.
@@helenlane5879 I think Chris means that his finish lacks vertical movement in order to get the blade out of the water vertically before feathering. I agree that feathering with the fingers can help to reduce wrist movement. However the main thing is to row with flat wrists during the drive. People that do not have enough flexibility in the wrists tend to drive with slighty bended wrists (which will most certainly end up in injury), in order to feather completey to horizontal without repositioning the hands on the handle. Involving the fingers in feathering, reduce the needed movement of the wrist.
He's not popping the blades out. If you pop the blades out, they will automatically travel higher, clear any chop and also give you better balance on the recovery. You don't even have to think about these things when you pop the blades out. They happen automatically. But if you start feathering while some of the blade is still in the water, ugh, yes its hard on your wrists, the boat doesn't set right, and in high wind, high chop, you're fighting and struggling. Pop them blades out!
He rows incredibly well but I agree that he could gain some speed on the recovery by carefully using his body mass to accelerate the boat. Although it’s a difficult concept to grasp, I like to tell scullers that the recovery should be effortless: the boat is already moving, all you have to do is let it come to you by essentially sitting still.
I don’t buy the notion that you can accelerate the boat during the recovery, at least not in a way that survives the next catch. Conservation of momentum is working against you. Even though the rower can momentarily pull the bow ball faster by traveling up the slide, the center of mass (boat+rower) is slowing down during the recovery. The faster the rower flies up the slide, the more the system will slow down because friction is nonlinear. I agree that body position is critical for a whole bunch of other reasons (stability above all), you can only accelerate the system when the blades are in the water. Otherwise you would go someplace just by going up and down the slide. Best bet is to get to a stable body position and travel as smoothly up the slide as possible so you’re stable and ready to take the next catch. And don’t even get me started on the notion that you can take the catch before starting to turn your momentum around. Ugh.
@@stiffjalopy4189 First, true friction is linear. Drag losses are usually non-linear due to vorticity. Fluids actually have zero flow right beside a flow boundary. Depending on viscosity, you might see an abrupt shear gradient near the edge of the boundary. The shear force leads to viscous heating, which is pretty close to friction for laminar flow (linear). The rest of the energy loss gets tied up in the kinetic energy of vortex flow-definitely non-linear-until viscous shear abates that into heat, as well. Second, in racing, it's actually the bow of the hull that counts for crossing the finish line. You can argue from the motion of the "system" mass, but it's not a perceived quantity. When the rower is stationary at the catch, the velocities of the hull and the rowers are equal. Turns out, the hull has highest velocity right before the catch. Rowers would have an intuitive sense of their own water velocity vs hull velocity. One very much comes at the expense of the other, due to the massive internal piston oscillation. It's confusing, because in this engine, the piston outweighs the engine block (footboards) and everything else (hull and oars) by several multiples. See _Analyzing The Rowing Movement_ at Dreher from August 2017. During the stroke, the rowers are accelerating themselves, at the expense of the hull. Then during the return, this "potential" energy of the rowers is returned to the hull. During the drive, the force on the footboards slowing the hull down is greater than the force on the oar locks speeding the hull up. What that resource wants is a steady return of potential energy from the rowers to the hull during recovery. (There's some blather about big, fluffy curves which I skipped over.) This can be approximated as a constant negative force differential between the footboards and the oar locks through a complex sequence of motions. During recovery, forces on the oar lock are relatively minor, but must account for blade behaviour and blade drag. To achieve this ideal, before the legs started to bend, you'd probably want a fairly brisk rotation over the hips (a pendulum only contributes half as much momentum as sliding). The constant force differential is probably not quite right, because the shell's drag isn't entirely linear with increasing hull velocity, where from the charts given, peak velocity is about 50% faster than abyss velocity, for what appears to be a double scull. But I don't feel like factoring that in, just now. The physical motivation given in this video is perhaps a bit sketchy, but I don't that his practical analysis is correct.
Could a 5 foot 7 tall man beat a 6 foot 5 man in a 2000 metre rowing race, or is that really impossible at the Olympics. PS- whats his % chance of winning gold. Excellent study of this rower and technique.
„gain extra boatspeed on the recovery“ makes no sens, the only speed, which counts Is the speed of the system rower/boat/skulls when the blades leave the water. On the recovery you cant change this speed. If you increase the boat speed you decrease the boddy speed.
He has qualified for the olympics 😊Thanks for the video❤️🙏
Thank you so much for your feedback! Congratulations and all the best for Tokyo!
Fantastic. The sculler is a very good rower, as well as your observations. Very "tiny" details, make a "huge" difference after so many strokes. Keeping your knees down a little bit longer, lets the boat "flow" (move) a little bit more. Congrats for your job. We write from Brazil
You are the sky gift for rowing sport
Wow that was a excellent critique of this athlete. I’m sure that if he takes the advice that you have given him, he will surely improve his form and be more efficient.
Thank you for all of these videos and instruction. I love my coaches but would love a week of rowing with you.
Join us in Vienna in June or September for one of the camps...
I'd like to see this on the tideway mid winter at high tide with white horses
I personally think that there is another technical "field of potential" here: the connection between leg drive and the water. In the first quarter/third of the stroke, the legs push down a fair bit quicker than the boat is moving; the connection becomes much more effective in the bodyswing and armpull. Due to this (minor) waste of energy in the legdrive too much of the acceleration work has to happen at the end of the stroke, which will be very hard at higher stroke rates. Therefore I think working at this leg connection after the catch (for example by building up the stroke from the front end with body in leaned forward position) would be a good option to improve the athlete's speed.
My comments:
1. Chest off knees at the finish.
2. Sit further back on seat, on sit joint rather than bum cheeks.
3. Elbows up above hands at finish ensuring drive in latter part of stroke is horizontal.
4. Lift ribs up and tuck lower back in at finish.
5. Don't lean back so far back at finish..wasted energy pulling yourself back up.
6. Get full length from finish, before your knees come up...ie: hands over shins with handsbefore knees come up.
7. Elbows straight before shoulders come in front of hips.
Potential new rower here. Great comments and breakdown on body control/boat control, now I know that a crucial component is how body position and muscular contraction/muscular relaxation can effect overall speed.
Brillant style! The mentioned "rotating over the hips" in my opinion is generally underestimated. But the stability at beginning of the drive is excellent. *****
Most rowers bring the shoulders forward and the lower back will follow (mostly ending up with a rounded back). Although not easy, I try to rotate in the hips to keep my back more straight. The shoulder have no other option then to follow. This makes it more easy to open up when placing the blades and "hug the horizon" in the catch. It helps to search for birds in the sky instead of looking at your shoe laces.
@@AlbertWillemKnop2554 "Hug the horizon"... What an incredible good point!
@@martseagray It does not originate from me, but was "stolen" from "The art of sculling" written by Joe Paduda. A very nice book. Slightly boring in the starting with remarks about how to put a single scull in the water etc. But when it comes to rowing technique he has some great remarks, that realy help you forward.
It is a pitty the blade is out of frame at he finish. The movement of the hand during the finish suggests that he is feathering out instead of release and the feather away.
Congratulations to my old coaches Chris Joe and Mary at Wellington Rowing Club because I managed to spot most of the issues Aram mentioned thanks to the techniques they drilled into us. Listen to your coaches children...
Nice thought for your coaches
This is great thank you. I have been trying to communicate this to my athletes. The hip hinge back over on the way to the catch is so crucial to preserve boat speed, and to set yourself up properly. I am telling them they need to feel a slight tension in their hamstrings before the knees release. Similar to the feeling of doing an RDL. Preserve boat speed, let the boat come to you, and set yourself up in the best position possible. They are young athletes and get caught up with trying to jump back up to the catch and compress the legs as much as they can, not realizing they are taking away any leverage they had when the body sits straight up.
well said Nate!
Thank you for your video. I'm in the rowing club and rowing as a stroke of men's coxed quadruple. I wnat to win the medal to go to the national conpetition,but I have some troubles. I would like to be what is like a single thing with the crew and push the boat past the blade as its fulcrum.I know it's not just about matching bladework, but it's hard to share the feeling.
In order to push the boat at either UT or high rate, I would like to know several things that you think are important in one stroke.
Thank you for reading my easy English...
I sprint kayak and even though I hate rowers taking up the river I paddle on, I love these videos.
Great work Aram
my coach would say that he needs to come out more square at the finish
Agree. The vertical movement of the hands in the finish is minimal. Problems could occur when the water gets choppy.
When you look at the wrist (the left one) in the recovery, it is lower than the handle. As if the hand/arm is not resting on the handle but pulling it down. Would there be any benefit of having a more or less straight line from shoulder to arm to wrist downwards to the handle?
Is that not a style issue on the extraction to recovery......ideally one aims to perfect rolling the handle in the fingers at the finish with thumb maintaining its outward pressure ..... however most just drop their wrist a bit too much?? Be interesting to hear Aram’s view.
Great video really enjoyed
Hi Aram. We discussed your assessment and agree that the backlean will probably limit his upside on the rating, hence the possible max speed. You mentioned this backlean is probably caused by too little space at the body due to the rigging setup. You proposed to fix that by lifting thr oarlocks a bit. We were wondering why you did not proposed to move the rigger forward or the footstretcher ( depending on the boats balance) to create that space? As you said the drive mechanics seem really good so the fs or rigger move could be less disruptive ?
Oarlocks which are set too low have a negative effect on the force transfer through the body. One could also say that the force vectors are not ideal then.
This is why I suggest to alter here and not at the foot stretcher position or rigger. The latter two can certainly be altered as well, but not before the core problem has been addressed.
What concerns the back lean, I do not think that the back lean is too much or too little, however, a non-perfect preparation, particullary the hip pivot on the way forward leads to vertical additions in the hand motion at the catch and consequentially also as the finish - which makes your hands touch your body at an earlier stage at the finish and therefore creates the impression of too little space.
Happy to help by video call.
@@AramTraining I’ll find a case to steal your time with a call when I am not clear on the explanation. This was very clear. From the video commentary I must have misunderstood that you thought the primary problem was space at the finish. I am clear now on the priorities. Improve catch mechanics via oarlock height ..... then check on possible space problem.
@@yavuzkuban / @aram training The next 1% improvement?
Around 11:50 in the video, Aram mentions a slight mistiming of the catch/blade placement. I agree with the issue, but have an alternative perspective on the possible cause and another option to try that doesn’t involve new blades.
During the recovery, the blades are carried fractionally too close to the water. As he squares the blades there is a slight downwards movement of the handle to allow enough space for the tip of the blade to be clear of the water. But it means the handles are travelling upwards as they approach the placement rather than maintaining their height above the water or preparing for the knuckles to feel lighter (move skywards) as the seat travels its final few centimetres of the recovery. This is leading to a fractionally mistimed placement so the blade is entering the water as the drive commences, not as the recovery finishes. It’s not much, but even a couple of cm extra boat travel per stroke adds up over 2000m.
I think the issue originates early in the recovery sequence. Refer to 11:29 in the video, although Aram has focussed on the larger issue of the hip pivot (or lack of), this section also illustrates cause of the blade height issue. Specifically, look at the angle of the wrists. They are “cocked” upwards, rather than being in line with the forearms. This means the oar handles are being carried a couple of centimetres higher than the need to be, which translates to the blades being a little too close to the water. Instead, try focussing on keeping the wrists flat (inline with forearms).
Two cues for your athlete to use here:
(1) On the recovery, particularly once he has pivoted over from the hips and felt the tension in the hamstrings, be aware of keeping the downwards pressure on the handle through the calluses (ie, the underside of the joint between metacarpals & proximal phalanges) rather than the fingers themselves, or the middle of the palm.
(2) On recovery straighten the fingers so they are also in line with forearm and wrist, forming one straight line from the elbow to the finger tips. This “straight fingers” exercise naturally transfers into a closing of the fist to square up, and then a focus on the knuckles becoming “lighter” (allowing the blades tips to approach the water) as he approach the catch.
Another test would be to take some video of the athlete rowing with feathered blades, and with square blades, and track whether the handles track the same, or at different heights on the recovery.
As an added bonus, the combination of early hip pivot, plus lower hands on the recovery/higher blade height off the water earlier, should make him more resilient in rough water.
There is so much to like about what your athlete is doing. He has a beautiful, still platform in the boat. Good luck building the next couple of changes, and with selection trials.
Kind regards
Tim
The legs are moving while the blades are not all the way under the water. The sequence should be: blades go under, wait a tik (so that the pressure equalizes on both major sides of the blade), and only then, move the seat/legs. Otherwise, we are missing at least 1/5th of a stroke and even worse, depending on how aggressive we are with the leg movement before the pressure around the blade is equalized, we may be pushing the boat backwards (a.k.a checking the boat). As far as the body form, I think the lower back should be straighter, although this part is not critical.
As long as your boat speed is uninterrupted and you are gaining additional speed, this could be a way to picture it as well.
@@AramTraining The trick is equalizing the pressure around the blade. As the blade is inserted into to the moving water, the action sucks in air around the blade and creates turbulence in the immediate blade surroundings, especially in front of the blade. Moving the blade against turbulent water has a 'ripping' effect. Bottom line is that it does not help the boat movement. Hence the 'wait'.
It is also possible to place the blades into the water as the slide is moving forward. Then, the end of the 'wait' can be timed with stopping the slide movement forward. This is however tricky to execute, as it requires 'cobra' back movements and more importantly, an advanced feel for the entire multi part catch concept.
To achieve the three step catch that I am discussing, a rower has to have an ultimate feel for separating the shoulders from the body. A good exercise is to place and extract blades into the water several times as the slide is moving forward. At first, this will feel completely odd, however, after a while, it will start to feel natural. Another exercise related to developing the catch separation is to do arms only, and purposely wait as the blade is inserted in the water. Then arms and back, with the wait etc. Another exercise is to stop the boat, insert the blades into the water, balance the boat, and move the blade back and forward 10cm, then after about 10 times back and forward, take one stroke and then wait until the boat stops, and repeat etc.
BTW, thanks for your videos, great stuff!!
Bloody hell, what a great shape.
Hi Aram, Back pointing the wrong way? I had to laugh. Sitting too much to the back of your seat? Poor guy. Randall fouls? His blades stay just under the surface already!
I think you are right about the recover taking too much time and his losing speed there. Remedy? Stretch arms away more spiffily, a bit more forward speed on the slides during the first half of the sliding. I also would like to see him at max power, 18-20 spm. But with a speed coach in biofeedback it is quite easy for a coach to work on boat speed. Might wanna use y’olde impeller though, for accuracy.
Very informative! Does anyone know the exact name of the machines at 12:00 ? The rowing motion is much more realistic than the typical ergonomic rowing machine.
Https://www.biorower.com
You should check out the u18 eight maadi cup 2021 race in NZ
Just as a fun reaction and maybe some tips
I am not so sure about moving the boat with the body mass inertia during recovery as that would slow the body relative to the ground and so during the active stroke, the boat will slow down to accelerate the body mass. There were many experiments that tried to move a trolley with just body mass and as far as I know they were not successful. This is not a rocket that dumps down its mass after pushing on it.
I would say that perfect sculling would be achieved when not a single oar is used on one side but a parallel pair which would cause the blade structure to remain at 90 degrees to the hull. While the engineering is somewhat complex for a single sculler with double it becomes very easy to create this parallel motion of the oars on one side to keep the blades at 90 degrees to the hull all the time. I tried it with both double and single but did not rotate the blade to be feathered on the return stroke. With more complex engineering and a few universal joints, this parallel motion that would keep the blades at right angles to the hull can easily be achieved and the torque on the oar would always produce a frontal force on the water fulcrum point, treating the oar as a class 2 lever.
With the pulsating action of the oar, one needs to be careful in how much higher speeds would be used at the start of the race as the drag on a boat is not linear and that pulsation is an ugly situation to deal with over the rowing period. Human energy so limited and would prefer to keep a smoother average speed and so that is what to aim for at reducing the impulsive accelerations as that is what tires a person most and his energy does not go into efficient propulsion. Perhaps I should mention that if that pulsating action has harmonics in it, then that is all losses and the most efficient pulsating action is the sinusoidal waveform or simple harmonic motion, which has a single fundamental frequency in it, well to opposite rotation really but each of equal frequency. For racing, one should aim for an elliptical function with sine and cosine in it with the vertical magnitude being lower than the horizontal. For a workboat as in Venice and my own country, a circular motion would be ample to maximise the transfer of the energy of the rower into boat speed. One should balance the oar against any gravitational bias while the center of pressure on the blade would fall on the axis of the shaft.
In addition to building muscles, all rowers should learn engineering mathematics and losses in electric motors and those sharp pulses in computer work and might as well mention the single-phase pulsating electric motor. Aiming for a perfect sinusoidal action slightly at a leading phase with the boat is what needs to be done SMOOTHLY in a sinusoidal fashion in long races. In sprinting, well, anything goes and the agility of high muscular build-up does count. Obviously, the taller reach of the chosen candidates to smooth out the action at a lower frequency does help. With engine power, well an inefficient surface propeller would come into its own with all those lumps of water being thrown back and a lot of harmonies of useless spray flying about, but for a rowboat, the energy in all humans cannot use that wasteful engineering principle of basically what is rocket power actions, throwing lumps of water backward!!
I would say, that rather than use the pulsating actions of oars, one should use the principle of propulsion used in birds wings and fish foils modern sails which vector the action where a fish can change it pitch of the foil to produce higher speeds after starting with a low pitch foil at accelerate to speed much faster. There is room for improvement but we must invest in new engineering actions and the parallel motion and the blade remaining at 90 degrees with the hull could be a good start. A simple system is so easy to make but rotating and feathering the oar in the return stroke needs better workshop technology which a few universal joints in addition to the parallel motion would see to it.
One might as well finish up with the reduction of the pulsating action in all directions. Many scullers cause the boat to oscillate up and down effectively increasing the buoyancy due to the body inertia being topheavy and higher oarlocks above the water. Good rowing is filtering out all the higher harmonics and since rowing is not a continuous steady-state action as a propeller immersed in water, one needs to learn a lot from fish and birds and flying ducks flapping their propulsion system, normally their body pulsates with a simple harmonic action but their heads remain perfectly still going in one direction at a steady pace. Note that the wingtips of flying ducks usually move in a circle to produce the one frequency harmonics in the flapping action, this is required to maximize the energy transfer to the right zone and state of the boat/fish /bird/running person.
ua-cam.com/video/PAxVhqilJoQ/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/jKzGSIfdllU/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/omrDPPMDDaY/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/A5kwC7eoPNU/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/dceYiJDQoNo/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/BfY7ePyVAkY/v-deo.html The benefit of long sweeping oars and elliptical circular motions of the dynamic masses is clearly seen. Note that acceleration is the second differential of position and the next differential of velocity and so the Chinese sprinter was at a disadvantage with his legs operating at a higher frequency. He needs to have lighter shoes than Usain Bolt who seems to be optimized for the human function in question,.
I have no doubt that one day the sculling stroke at Oxford and Cambridge and the Olympic Games will be just like the orcas and dolphins do it as it is a double-acting sinusoidal stroke and not a single acting stroke as the conventional process.
Note the importance of circular motion or its sinusoidal and cosine component or simple harmonic motion in each of the pulsating systems shown. Really it is all related to good old classical music like waltzes with its emotional rhythms
ua-cam.com/video/WnWQ56zEuko/v-deo.html Long-range rowing
ua-cam.com/video/vVciDrbmjxQ/v-deo.html Sprint rowing situation,
ua-cam.com/video/-NxHQR5nOko/v-deo.html Good rhythm gets everyone rowing with their limbs! awakens our internal spirit. The innocence of children proves it in this last video.
ua-cam.com/video/vWDD76joIWU/v-deo.html The circular or elliptical motion of the rowers in Venice is easily deduced but one pair of rowers do show their action full of wasteful harmonics in addition to the fundamental stroke which in the long run tires the rowers.
I am surprised that you dont mention that he breaks his wrists to get the oars out of the water. Do you agree this is an issue?
Very true! I personally can’t do the method that my former coach recommended, but she said that flicking your fingers more than your wrist is very important because doing that to your wrist can be very harmful long term. But you have to have much stronger fingers to do that method.
@@helenlane5879 I think Chris means that his finish lacks vertical movement in order to get the blade out of the water vertically before feathering. I agree that feathering with the fingers can help to reduce wrist movement. However the main thing is to row with flat wrists during the drive. People that do not have enough flexibility in the wrists tend to drive with slighty bended wrists (which will most certainly end up in injury), in order to feather completey to horizontal without repositioning the hands on the handle. Involving the fingers in feathering, reduce the needed movement of the wrist.
He's not popping the blades out. If you pop the blades out, they will automatically travel higher, clear any chop and also give you better balance on the recovery. You don't even have to think about these things when you pop the blades out. They happen automatically. But if you start feathering while some of the blade is still in the water, ugh, yes its hard on your wrists, the boat doesn't set right, and in high wind, high chop, you're fighting and struggling. Pop them blades out!
Why am I watching this I've never even heard of sculling 🤣
Awesome video... ..what's the song being used in the background? :)
I wonder if sliding riggers, that are banned, would change the need to perfect the second "drive" during the recovery.
He rows incredibly well but I agree that he could gain some speed on the recovery by carefully using his body mass to accelerate the boat. Although it’s a difficult concept to grasp, I like to tell scullers that the recovery should be effortless: the boat is already moving, all you have to do is let it come to you by essentially sitting still.
I don’t buy the notion that you can accelerate the boat during the recovery, at least not in a way that survives the next catch. Conservation of momentum is working against you. Even though the rower can momentarily pull the bow ball faster by traveling up the slide, the center of mass (boat+rower) is slowing down during the recovery. The faster the rower flies up the slide, the more the system will slow down because friction is nonlinear. I agree that body position is critical for a whole bunch of other reasons (stability above all), you can only accelerate the system when the blades are in the water. Otherwise you would go someplace just by going up and down the slide. Best bet is to get to a stable body position and travel as smoothly up the slide as possible so you’re stable and ready to take the next catch.
And don’t even get me started on the notion that you can take the catch before starting to turn your momentum around. Ugh.
@@stiffjalopy4189 First, true friction is linear. Drag losses are usually non-linear due to vorticity. Fluids actually have zero flow right beside a flow boundary. Depending on viscosity, you might see an abrupt shear gradient near the edge of the boundary. The shear force leads to viscous heating, which is pretty close to friction for laminar flow (linear). The rest of the energy loss gets tied up in the kinetic energy of vortex flow-definitely non-linear-until viscous shear abates that into heat, as well.
Second, in racing, it's actually the bow of the hull that counts for crossing the finish line. You can argue from the motion of the "system" mass, but it's not a perceived quantity. When the rower is stationary at the catch, the velocities of the hull and the rowers are equal. Turns out, the hull has highest velocity right before the catch. Rowers would have an intuitive sense of their own water velocity vs hull velocity. One very much comes at the expense of the other, due to the massive internal piston oscillation. It's confusing, because in this engine, the piston outweighs the engine block (footboards) and everything else (hull and oars) by several multiples.
See _Analyzing The Rowing Movement_ at Dreher from August 2017.
During the stroke, the rowers are accelerating themselves, at the expense of the hull. Then during the return, this "potential" energy of the rowers is returned to the hull. During the drive, the force on the footboards slowing the hull down is greater than the force on the oar locks speeding the hull up.
What that resource wants is a steady return of potential energy from the rowers to the hull during recovery. (There's some blather about big, fluffy curves which I skipped over.) This can be approximated as a constant negative force differential between the footboards and the oar locks through a complex sequence of motions. During recovery, forces on the oar lock are relatively minor, but must account for blade behaviour and blade drag. To achieve this ideal, before the legs started to bend, you'd probably want a fairly brisk rotation over the hips (a pendulum only contributes half as much momentum as sliding).
The constant force differential is probably not quite right, because the shell's drag isn't entirely linear with increasing hull velocity, where from the charts given, peak velocity is about 50% faster than abyss velocity, for what appears to be a double scull. But I don't feel like factoring that in, just now.
The physical motivation given in this video is perhaps a bit sketchy, but I don't that his practical analysis is correct.
importance of that pivot
How are these blades called you mention for perfect water depth?
www.randallfoils.com
What ergs are they using in the video?
www.biorower.com
Could a 5 foot 7 tall man beat a 6 foot 5 man in a 2000 metre rowing race, or is that really impossible at the Olympics.
PS- whats his % chance of winning gold.
Excellent study of this rower and technique.
I do think that this is possible, it largely depends on physiology and technique. Chances are equal to everybody else
This guy told me nothing any other coach has told me a million times...
Welcome to rowing
That is why we speak of common "mistakes". In some rowers they are big and in some rowers the are small or tiny.
I have a long ways to go!
So during the slide, you need to keep your body in the same place relative to the water?
I think he's saying don't over rotate at the hip or drive your hands away aggressively on the recovery. More allow it to come to you
The pressure is on the top of your foot, not the sole. No pressure on the footplate until after the blade is in.
Why aren't people reviewing your product? Also, whys the logo so similar to Bentley?
What is the name of a rowing simulator with simulated oars? Timecode 1:07
Biorower.com
Hie sir my height is 194cm my weight is 88 I'm single scull player but my boat height?? tell me sir pls 👏👏
What do you mean with boat height?
Fenerbahce is the biggest team in the world!
exactly :)
Hola ...sería perfecto poder enseñarlo en español a mis alumnos
Did he qualify (and win)?
He did qualify
@@AramTraining, he will win next time, then!
„gain extra boatspeed on the recovery“ makes no sens, the only speed, which counts Is the speed of the system rower/boat/skulls when the blades leave the water. On the recovery you cant change this speed. If you increase the boat speed you decrease the boddy speed.
first