despite the salty brine on my vest, we had a pretty solid row this morning again. it was a light 3x18’ after a warm-up. we spent the row trying to be as efficient as we could in order to start what does not appear to be much of a taper for a big weekend ahead.
the first two 18’ blocks i made a lot of calls to place the blades and then accelerate through to the backstops. really just trying to be light and loose at the catch. not sliding up to the catch with the mindset of “get ready get ready get on it!” instead, attempting to think about the catch being slightly separate so that we take it with more patience and relaxation. as we get better and better at this, we move the point of heavier engagement closer and closer to that catch. as time went by, i started to make calls to try to engage the glutes as the first thing. so basically, take the catch simply with the belly button or the hips and then once in try to feel the glutes and suspend your weight off the seat. that way even though we’re trying to exercise patience, you will still engage the legs early if you think about using your glutes. also, at certain times, we call for taking the catch with the belly button in an attempt to relax the upper body, engage the core, and lower the center of gravity. this was a big thing that bryan volpenhein talked to me about in chula vista last year. if you think about taking it with the belly button, then you effectively puff out your core a little bit, engage it more, and move some of that focus out of your shoulders. similarly, at other times, we will say to take the catch with your hips. this is for even more extreme times when we need the focus to shift lower in the boat. you can think about literally even placing the blade with your hips in order to contrast the idea of placing it with your shoulders.
the last 18’ block was still good and solid rowing, but after the second one, reilly had asked that we unweight the seat more. i felt that she said this since the girls boat that was near us was battle paddling pretty steadily, while we were really just trying to be efficient and minimize effort. obviously, almost any day of the week, a mens hwt double should be significantly faster than a womens. however, we were purposefully trying to skate along with ease, while this particular double is notorious for over-spent energy at sub-maximal efforts (ie they will motor through a warm up like it’s d-day). anyways, i could tell after reilly asking for that we had a change in our rowing. the catch had a bit less patience and the legs were being kicked earlier in the drive… basically immediately. the result was a drive that felt flatter to me. granted, it felt like a long application of power, but it felt less dynamic. also, in looking at the splits, it did not really increase the boat speed with what felt like added effort to me. either way, both rowing styles were solid as i said. nonetheless, the thought leaving the water is that willy and i really need to determine what our rhythm is and then continue to fine tune that. as of right now, we do not quite have a dedicated rhythm that takes the water each time our blades enter it. it is very important to find it since we need to instill it as second nature so that we can revisit it even if we hit a rogue wake at 35spm with our hearts beating 190 times a minute.
