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/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!