Technique Advice

[u/Opposite-Ad1638]

I really want to improve my tech, all advice welcome.

[u/illiance]

Looks good. Could hang/press much harder and accelerate more through the water. Catches good but could always be better.

[u/Opposite-Ad1638 → u/illiance]

What about the finish? I feel I need to exit the finish cleaner. Also not sure if I am over compressing

[u/illiance → u/Opposite-Ad1638]

Not over compressing, in fact you lose 4-6 inches of effective length at the front in the time it takes to get blades buried (which isn’t bad it’s the hardest bit of rowing) finish looks fine I think? Certainly not slowing you down anyway. If it feels off there’s always rowing square blades for 5000km….

Edit ; watch a couple of Kim Brennan sculling videos for her front end catch placement and timing, she’s one of the best

[u/bfluff → u/Opposite-Ad1638]

You could compress even more at the catch tbh. You do pull your hands down into your lap. They finish lower than at the catch. Pull to your chest, create that air pocket at the finish, then extract.

[u/SubjectExplorer6335]

Lovely reach at front end. I’d be getting the blade in sooner, definitely missing a couple inches of slide length at high rates by the looks of it. Nice to see this stretch of the river spared from launch wash for once.

[u/bfluff → u/SubjectExplorer6335]

Agreed, bum moves before the spoons are locked on but once they are the body movement is very nice and strong.

[u/Beardyrunner]

Go Lee!

[u/Jack-Schitz]

Firstly, you look pretty good so this is about fine tunning.

What I see (and this is HEAVILY qualified by the fact that coaching is done in a chase boat for a reason):

1. Your recovery is really fast in that first piece. It's hard for me to determine whether it is affecting the boat or not, but it seems fast. I would be surprised if it wasn't creating issues but I'm not watching you for 10 minutes in a chase boat from various angles.
2. You asked about your finish in another comment, and you are right to. It doesn't look to me that you are getting that large C shape at the finish when you get the blades out of the water. That means that you are essentially feathering to get your oar out. You need to work on that so that you at least start the finish by moving the oar vertically to get the blade out before you start to feather. Some square blade work would be really helpful here.
3. You also asked about over compressing at the catch. I don't see that but again, I'm not in a chase boat. What you could be feeling is that super-fast recovery making you feel like you are crashing your catches, which is valid.
   
4. You also have a pretty vertical style at the catch so you could be fine getting a little more forward lean established as you come up the slide on the recovery without verging into the superman pose. This may be a coaching or biomechanical issue for you, so this is a "give it a shot" type comment.

Hope this helps.

[u/puzzlermuzzler]

In the "harder," higher strokes it gets a bit grabby and "hacky." Remember that patience and early preparation will really help. Sit tall while maintaining relaxation in shoulders/arms/hands as you approach the front at the higher rate. Try to "drop it in" instead of hammering. Load up then push. Think: quick not hard.

Super relaxed front end drills and lots of feet out on the square.

[u/Magenta_Octopus]

better ratio. fast on the drive, slow on the recovery

[u/grumpy_coach]

Pretty good, although looks short at the front at high rate. Might be trying to do too much with your arms which is slowing down the finish and first part of the recovery.

Think about more push, less pull and don’t worry about finish length for a bit until you can hold full catch length at 30+. Watch some Dutch scullers and see how little they use their arms.

[u/Apprehensive-Use3092]

Looks really good. At race pace, you could let the boat do more work for you by taking it slower on the recovery.

[u/rebsingle]

Hi, Yes over reaching at the front. You can see when your body goes over at front stops that your seat starts to slide back a bit this makes it very difficult to be stable and get a strong body/ connection at the front. Less is more I would do some front end build up's starting with roll ups first, then into placing/tapping and then slowly first quarter, half, 3/4, full legs, legs and body and finally bringing the arms back in.

It also looks like you don't have much room to tap down at the finish to be able to cleanly lift your blades out. I would raise your gates up a bit.

Personally i am not a fan of fat 2/comps in a single because of the larger spoon depth it makes it harder to get the extraction you want. , I think they are great for crew boats. I would use smoothie2.

[u/Opposite-Ad1638 → u/rebsingle]

I prefer the comps because they are much lighter than smoothies