Great video. There are a large number of benefits from the pause at the finish. The main one is that it eliminates a fatal pause at the catch, which must be lightning fast and soft. The second most important one is that it makes you take time to finish properly, not wash out. and allows one to enjoy the surge from the acceleration generated by the power curve, which you so well describe. This enjoyment as well as relaxing all the muscles, so essential for proper rhythm, is the thrill of rowing that carries one through the hardship. The greatest thrill I ever had from rowing, which is still embedded in my mind almost 60 years later, is after taking an VIII from the Isis past somnolent but intense fishermen, through a lock up to Port Meadow we rowed an unbroken piece of firm pressure at 24 spm for four miles with that wonderful unhurriedly send at the finish followed by a micro pause.. Small sailing skiffs floated accross our bows and sterns and we floated through their wash without a tremour or anxiety. . The magical trance was only broken by the eerily and sudden screech of peacocks kept by the Trout Inn in Wolvercote hidden behind trees, which heralded the finish just past the ruins of the Godstow nunnery on the opposite bank, which emerged into full bare and forlorn vision as we lazily turned the boat. I could have been back in isolated Ireland then populated with such ruins created by the cruel and avaricious Henry VIII, then king of the independent kingdom of Ireland. Ireland then, devoid of steel and coal and industry, was much as it had been for centuries, poor agricultural and subsistence. I was transported across the Irish sea to the then calm unhurried age old landscape unscarred by any development with the faint cry of the banshee comforting my muscles slowly emerging into their tiredness. The crew never looked back and burned a boat in the beautiful quad (400 years old this year) and kept their blades some months later on the Friday of VIII's week. I like your perception that one cannot accelerate a boat to a speed much greater than its average speed. Trying to hammer it at 20 metres a second at the catch only gives rise to back injuries, just as trying to over accelerate the finish gives rise to washing out. . A gentle acceleration of a well connected catch is all that is needed, just as a gently accelerating finish. The catch and the finishes are similar in that the body is weakest at each of them, just look at every power curve that was ever generated, there is a slope up and a slope down, akin to a sine curve [despite Mike Spaklin's theory of square waves]. Thank you for your dedication to rowing. I agree with you that that the ergometer is merely a fitness machine and not a rowing machine, and I am very skeptical that it should be a new Olympic Sport. One cannot generate a lightning catch as the chain is slack and will cause back injury, unless one pauses at the catch for it to be taut, anatomy to good rowing. It encourage a huge lie back to get good scores again anatomy to good rowing. It is correctly called an ergometer, it is not a rowing machine, it is an anti rowing machine. Just one or two questions. Does your BioRow machine allow one to develop lightning catches? Does it allow one to use their body weight to get better speeds as when correctly used in a boat - an extremely difficult ask? . . .
Thank you very much for your feedback. Very well written. Concerning the BIOROWER: yes, it improves your catch effectiveness drastically, as you learn to stabilize the vertical position of your hands.
great video aram, a wonderful explanation in addition to the video you already did going over the force curves for the pause at the finish. much appreciated.
I strongly disagree! Maybe pausing as a drill is useful - but not as a constant low rate rowing style. Saying that fast hands away stops us from being able to finish the stroke implies that as soon as we go up to race rate and start moving our hands fast that we will no longer be able to finish the stroke. Learn to finish the stroke while also having fast hands is important as thats the rhythm we have at a higher rate.
Eh it's all a compromise, at low rate you have to artificially add time to some part of the recovery. If you have fast hands it means that your body swing/slide will have to be slow, and I think that's worse than slow hands - encouraging a lazy body swing, being too heavy on the footplate on the recovery, and body bouncing out of the finish. Taking time around the finish encourages a strong, emphasized finish, still bodies, dynamic swing, and feeling the run of the boat.
@@JackBurnsEdgeRowing I'm not quite sure how you can have the same ratio at low and high rates - the recovery takes 3 times longer relative to the drive at low rates compared to high rates, so there has to be some difference in the movement patterns. Also the acceleration profile > r28 (peak velocity mid recovery) is fundamentally different to the acceleration profile < r24 (peak velocity at finish). If you row the same rhythm/ratio in both those regimes you won't be moving with the boat at one of those rates. So I believe you have to pick which of your arms away/body movement is going to be 'out of rythym' at low rates. Given a choice between getting the arms and the body movement 'right' in the recovery I would prefer to get the bodies moving well as this is going to set up better the posture and weight distribution into the front end. Broadly speaking this isn't really a hill I'm ready to die on, so I think the answer to fast vs slow hands is whatever the crew/squad finds easiest to execute well - I've seen a lot of decent rowers struggle to execute slow hands (though if a crew rows with fast hands I don't generally like having them paddle < r20).
Hi Aram. One more great analysis. I should say I'm just an "amateur" coach in an average rowing club, but anyway, last week, I was next to a women double presenting this "hands away" issue (moreover slightly differently from bow to stroke). I told them to focus on the finish (very short pause at the tap down, connection, feel the boat). After a short moment of disturbance (likely pushed out of their confort zone) they achieve the drill rather well, and, by the way, I actually had to speed up my boat.... I then asked about their feelings : they told me that at the finish, they clearly heard the waterflow under the boat ! Which I think a rather good conclusion.
Sure, the pause and other drills help technique at low steady state. The problem is then getting rid of it at the higher rates and on race day, after making it part of muscle memory for weeks or months. And no, coach saying ‘okay high rates today no pause’ doesn’t make it vanish suddenly.
@@AramTraining Agreed, the hands should never stop moving at higher rates. Yet weeks and months of finish pause rowing steady state can build in a finish hesitation that should not be there, gets in the way of higher rates without sharp direction to eliminate it. A club crew so trained can really fight to get high rates at starts etc, unless strongly coached to not stop the hands, causing other mistakes like rushing the slide to catch up. Other drills can have side effects, ie square blade rowing stops feathering in the water, but can cause pulling down at the finish to get out, etc.
Hi Aram, Thanks for the great video! 2 questions: 1. Should there be a pause at the catch? 2. I don't have the budget for a unique erg, so I use the Concept2 at the gym. Any tips for translating this to the Concept2 for winter training?
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Great video. There are a large number of benefits from the pause at the finish. The main one is that it eliminates a fatal pause at the catch, which must be lightning fast and soft. The second most important one is that it makes you take time to finish properly, not wash out. and allows one to enjoy the surge from the acceleration generated by the power curve, which you so well describe. This enjoyment as well as relaxing all the muscles, so essential for proper rhythm, is the thrill of rowing that carries one through the hardship. The greatest thrill I ever had from rowing, which is still embedded in my mind almost 60 years later, is after taking an VIII from the Isis past somnolent but intense fishermen, through a lock up to Port Meadow we rowed an unbroken piece of firm pressure at 24 spm for four miles with that wonderful unhurriedly send at the finish followed by a micro pause.. Small sailing skiffs floated accross our bows and sterns and we floated through their wash without a tremour or anxiety. . The magical trance was only broken by the eerily and sudden screech of peacocks kept by the Trout Inn in Wolvercote hidden behind trees, which heralded the finish just past the ruins of the Godstow nunnery on the opposite bank, which emerged into full bare and forlorn vision as we lazily turned the boat. I could have been back in isolated Ireland then populated with such ruins created by the cruel and avaricious Henry VIII, then king of the independent kingdom of Ireland. Ireland then, devoid of steel and coal and industry, was much as it had been for centuries, poor agricultural and subsistence. I was transported across the Irish sea to the then calm unhurried age old landscape unscarred by any development with the faint cry of the banshee comforting my muscles slowly emerging into their tiredness.
The crew never looked back and burned a boat in the beautiful quad (400 years old this year) and kept their blades some months later on the Friday of VIII's week.
I like your perception that one cannot accelerate a boat to a speed much greater than its average speed. Trying to hammer it at 20 metres a second at the catch only gives rise to back injuries, just as trying to over accelerate the finish gives rise to washing out. . A gentle acceleration of a well connected catch is all that is needed, just as a gently accelerating finish. The catch and the finishes are similar in that the body is weakest at each of them, just look at every power curve that was ever generated, there is a slope up and a slope down, akin to a sine curve [despite Mike Spaklin's theory of square waves].
Thank you for your dedication to rowing. I agree with you that that the ergometer is merely a fitness machine and not a rowing machine, and I am very skeptical that it should be a new Olympic Sport. One cannot generate a lightning catch as the chain is slack and will cause back injury, unless one pauses at the catch for it to be taut, anatomy to good rowing. It encourage a huge lie back to get good scores again anatomy to good rowing. It is correctly called an ergometer, it is not a rowing machine, it is an anti rowing machine. Just one or two questions. Does your BioRow machine allow one to develop lightning catches? Does it allow one to use their body weight to get better speeds as when correctly used in a boat - an extremely difficult ask? . . .
Thank you very much for your feedback. Very well written. Concerning the BIOROWER: yes, it improves your catch effectiveness drastically, as you learn to stabilize the vertical position of your hands.
great video aram, a wonderful explanation in addition to the video you already did going over the force curves for the pause at the finish. much appreciated.
I strongly disagree!
Maybe pausing as a drill is useful - but not as a constant low rate rowing style.
Saying that fast hands away stops us from being able to finish the stroke implies that as soon as we go up to race rate and start moving our hands fast that we will no longer be able to finish the stroke. Learn to finish the stroke while also having fast hands is important as thats the rhythm we have at a higher rate.
Eh it's all a compromise, at low rate you have to artificially add time to some part of the recovery. If you have fast hands it means that your body swing/slide will have to be slow, and I think that's worse than slow hands - encouraging a lazy body swing, being too heavy on the footplate on the recovery, and body bouncing out of the finish. Taking time around the finish encourages a strong, emphasized finish, still bodies, dynamic swing, and feeling the run of the boat.
@@mghgriffiths Just follow the same ratio at a low rate to a high rate. There isnt a compromise IMO.
@@JackBurnsEdgeRowing I'm not quite sure how you can have the same ratio at low and high rates - the recovery takes 3 times longer relative to the drive at low rates compared to high rates, so there has to be some difference in the movement patterns. Also the acceleration profile > r28 (peak velocity mid recovery) is fundamentally different to the acceleration profile < r24 (peak velocity at finish). If you row the same rhythm/ratio in both those regimes you won't be moving with the boat at one of those rates. So I believe you have to pick which of your arms away/body movement is going to be 'out of rythym' at low rates. Given a choice between getting the arms and the body movement 'right' in the recovery I would prefer to get the bodies moving well as this is going to set up better the posture and weight distribution into the front end.
Broadly speaking this isn't really a hill I'm ready to die on, so I think the answer to fast vs slow hands is whatever the crew/squad finds easiest to execute well - I've seen a lot of decent rowers struggle to execute slow hands (though if a crew rows with fast hands I don't generally like having them paddle < r20).
Hi Aram. One more great analysis. I should say I'm just an "amateur" coach in an average rowing club, but anyway, last week, I was next to a women double presenting this "hands away" issue (moreover slightly differently from bow to stroke). I told them to focus on the finish (very short pause at the tap down, connection, feel the boat). After a short moment of disturbance (likely pushed out of their confort zone) they achieve the drill rather well, and, by the way, I actually had to speed up my boat.... I then asked about their feelings : they told me that at the finish, they clearly heard the waterflow under the boat ! Which I think a rather good conclusion.
Yess! Well done mate! Thank you very much for your feedback!
Thank you! I have all of our sweep rowers utilizing this style and am trying to get the sculling side of my Club to come around to this very idea.
what a wonderful vid. Im a casual erg rower but took away alot from this
Thank you. Excellent
Sure, the pause and other drills help technique at low steady state. The problem is then getting rid of it at the higher rates and on race day, after making it part of muscle memory for weeks or months. And no, coach saying ‘okay high rates today no pause’ doesn’t make it vanish suddenly.
I have not seen anybody capable of having a pause at SR 30
@@AramTraining Agreed, the hands should never stop moving at higher rates. Yet weeks and months of finish pause rowing steady state can build in a finish hesitation that should not be there, gets in the way of higher rates without sharp direction to eliminate it. A club crew so trained can really fight to get high rates at starts etc, unless strongly coached to not stop the hands, causing other mistakes like rushing the slide to catch up.
Other drills can have side effects, ie square blade rowing stops feathering in the water, but can cause pulling down at the finish to get out, etc.
Hi Aram, Thanks for the great video! 2 questions: 1. Should there be a pause at the catch? 2. I don't have the budget for a unique erg, so I use the Concept2 at the gym. Any tips for translating this to the Concept2 for winter training?
No pause at the catch. One continuous direct motion
@@AramTraining thanks!
A good reason to stop talking about the oar going through the water. That’s the last thing we want.