Insider Rowing

Found this great video of Xeno Muller training for the 2000 Olympics in Australia. He comes back to the video seven years later and does a technical break down of his rowing and offers some great pointers. Check this one out, especially if you’re a sculler. Thanks to the RW boards for leading me to […]

What’s up people. In my never ending quest to improve my vision of the rowing stroke, I’ve been analyzing video of the release and also asking colleagues what’s right and wrong. The convention is that the blade should square out of the water completely before feathering, but I’ve noticed from my own rowing in the […]

I was googling around and stumbled across this great interview with Thomas Poulsen, formerly of the invincible Danish lightweight 4-. Poulsen sports numerous international medals, including World and Olympic gold. These days, he’s on the coaching end of things, in charge of the Danish light 2x, and at the 2007 World Championships his double was […]

With my recent emphasis on biomechanics and power application, there are a couple of good documents that I refer back to in order to maintain my vision of good rowing. The first four of these are absolutely free and downloadable, and I would recommend them for any coaches or rowers who are interested in […]

We all know what a pain in the ass it is to change a part our stroke after we’ve been doing a certain thing for a number of years. Coaches also know what a pain it is to get their athletes to make changes, and if you’ve got a large team where everyone has something […]

Made up and used a good suspension drill for practice the other day. Try this as a warm up or pre-workout drill on the erg (total time ~15′):
A) Damper on 5 (high drag), row feet out to start. Begin from the catch position.
3 strokes top quarter slide, then 1 full stroke pausing at the catch.
Repeat […]

So and on to the rowing.
This is my eleventh year coaching, and as usual I learn new things and make tons of new realizations every year. My communication skills and articulation keeps getting better as I learn what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that my on-the-water coaching has been RAZOR […]

I made a conscious effort to work on my release this morning in practice. As I said earlier, the release is a complicated, subtle movement, and I believe the release is as important, if not more so, than a proper catch. Both ends of the stroke require a high degree of skill, and I’ve seen […]