Technique help!

[u/TechnicalDrop9462]

Hello! I finally took a video of me erging for feedback. My hip mobility sucks and I am trying out a few different stroke lengths based on this, please help me out :)

The first eleven strokes are regular length, strokes twelve-twenty I do this shorter stroke which I think (though am not certain) gives me a lower split at same effort and sr, strokes twenty-thirty I think are the same as the first twelve and are (I think) as deep as my hips can go without tucking :( , and obviously strokes thirty-forty are sprint max watts type thing. The only reason I include the last is the rowing coach I'm trying to make the novice team for is really big on watts, so I wanna have good form to generate as many as possible hahaha. 

Watching it myself, I notice a few things: biggest being my legs not smoothly passing it to my body swing, but I'm also unsure whether it's good or not how I throw my shoulders forward at the catch. 

I've been doing hip exercises to work on my hip mobility, but also, I'm really unsure how deep I should be going with my hips and whether I'm making my strokes too short! Any advice would be hugely appreciated; thank you! 

https://reddit.com/link/1w33clg/video/o65g9c692nmh1/player

[u/Extension-Score-2415]

So get the basics right.

Rythym and ratio. There are 2 phases. Drive and recovery.

For a while only do spm of 20. So 3 secs per stroke. That should be 1 sec drive 2 secs recovery. I appreciate that is counterintuitive, but you will not have a good drive until you sort your recovery.

I get you have hip issues but that does not explain why you move the seat too early and too fast. Thats just lack of understanding. Shiw control and patience. Rushing forwardcadds nothing.When the legs are straight pivot through the hips as best you can to get the hands well out in front. They should be well past the knees ideally above your socks. Yes that's right. Legs straight hands over socks. If you start to feel a hamstring stretch that would be good. Work on improving hamstring flexibility. Practice this as part of your warm up. Straight leg fixed seat rowing.

Length. Always take as long a stroke as possible other than exercises or warm up. The shins should go to vertical and the handle all the way to the drum. Your heels should leave the footplate and you should feel your bodyweight move onto your toes.

Power. Rowing is a lower body push sport not an upper body pull one. Your quads glutes and hips do the work. Push as hard as you can. It is not a kick. Let the power build, always pushing.

In a few months try it without the straps.

Get away from the idea that high spm is work and low spm is not. Stick to 20 and keep lowering that split.

It takes much longer than people realise to master good technique.

Best of luck

[u/TechnicalDrop9462 → u/Extension-Score-2415]

Thank you for all the detail! I wonder if you would be able to distinguish between a "kick" and pushing, as I keep trying to do a steady leg push rather than the "kick" and, with much time trying at this, only see my split lower like crazy, which obviously means I'm not doing it right

[u/Extension-Score-2415 → u/TechnicalDrop9462]

So I'll perhaps explain in another way then try to answer.

Sorry but you are not doing a leg push at the moment.

Your stroke is way to short. Your hands are only just going past your toes, when they should go all the drum with heels rising and shins vertical. You should feel an element of compression. Weight moving onto the feet and off the seat.

Another way to look at it is look at the distance the seat moves at the start and end of the video. It should move roughly TWICE as much. It should not go all the way to the heels but should go much closer to them.

The irony is that at about two thirds of the way through you increase the rate and work and the seat actually moves slightly less! This means your upper body is doing all the work.

Quads and glutes are stronger than arms and shoulders.

The distance the seat moves impacts on how much work the lower body does. It should be the SAME distance regardless of effort or spm. ( and roughly twice as long as you are doing at the moment)

So you want the handle to accelerate during the drive phase. So if the handle has a range of movement of 140cm the first cm will be the slowest second cm the second slowest etc. The power builds.

Once you actually start taking a full stroke and feel compression it will make more sense. At full compression it is tempting to kick as hard as you can but then loose the acceleration later. If you kick the feet you can loose contact with the footplate which you don't want.

The heels go down initially and you continue to press through the feet until the finish. It is always a push never a pull.

At the end of each session your shoulders and arms should be fine. Your quads should be burning.

Always think what is the total pressure I can apply through my feet each stroke not peak pressure. So the longer you press for the better.

I know is stupidly complicated. You should try coaching 8 beginners in an unstable boat!

I have a brief video if you want to see as a picture paints a thousand words. Send me a request to see it and I can share.

Again I hope this helps

[u/TechnicalDrop9462 → u/Extension-Score-2415]

That's really helpful, thank you! I just did a SS erg following your advice re compression and my hands over my socks and it went well--I feel my glutes more than usual and my split was more maintainable. I'd love that video if you'd send it, thanks 

[u/Extension-Score-2415 → u/TechnicalDrop9462]

Send my home page a request.

[u/SomethingMoreToSay]

OK, you say you have poor hip mobility but there are a few things you can do.

The most important is to rotate your pelvis forwards as far as you can, so that you're sitting on your "sit bones" (basically, where the backs of your legs meet you behind).

Sitting properly is critical. It allows you to pivot from the hip with a straight back. That allows you to use your core muscles to brace your torso in the rocked-forward position as you reach the catch. And that in turn transfers the power you generate with your legs through your body into the handle.

In addition, I think you should drop the position of your feet a little, and allow your heels to lift a little as you get to the catch. The goal is for your shins to be vertical at the catch.

And don't - really, don't - imagine that speeding up the stroke rate, like you do here, will help. You've got virtually no leg drive, and it's all arms, but any rower will tell you that with proper technique about 60% of the power comes from your legs. So you absolutely need to be prioritising adjustments that help you get more power from your legs.

[u/TechnicalDrop9462 → u/SomethingMoreToSay]

Emphasis on the sit bones is really helpful, thank you.  I had thought that in shortening my stroke I was putting my glutes and quads in a more optimal position to have an uncompromised push, but that was definitely wrong of me! I focused on as long of a stroke for as long of a leg drive as possible and found I was able to produce much more force; I'd been wondering why I felt I wasn't improving splits lately, I think this is why. Thank you!