Reply To: Welcome to rowing.zone – Introduce yourself

[turboseize]

Good morning!

Martin from Munich, I’m in my early fourties. Used to row competetively as a kid with varying degrees of success – at 1.9m and only 75-80kg I was just heavy enough that I could no longer row leightweight, but I was no match for real heavies. I know that you can compensate for a lot with good technique and efficency, but finesse was never my forte. (If I had something I could call an unfair advantage, that would be my exceptional stubbornness.)
During the following twenty years I had little chance to row, a couple of times per year only, and for the last decade mostly gigs (I think outside of germanic countries these boat types are called tubs or wherries?).
But at least I used that time constructively to bulk up. Life ist better at 100kg. 🙂
No rowing during corona at all, got back into the boat one year ago, and spent most of last fall in a racing shell (8+). Now I am trying to get back into the single. Kind of works, but I am still fighting with balance, particularly lacking confidence at the catch. I feel I am still giving up a lot of reach there. (But that might be because of a different boat set-up – the added upper body mass and volume necessitates moving the footstretcher fasr further to th estern than it would have been 25 years ago).

@Aram , your videos have helped me tremendously. Having taught beginners and coached kids, I was pretty sure I had a decent understanding of rowing technique, but there are definitely aspects that were neglected back then. For example the use of upper body mass and your emphasis on pivoting at the hip… Back in the late 90s when I did my coach certificate it was all power from the legs, little attention to the finish except getting the blades out of the water withoub catching a crab and then fast hands away. I feel that using upper bofy pivot and concentrating on a solid finish helps tremendously with stability during the other phases of the stoke.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  turboseize.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  turboseize.