From time to time it can be beneficial to look at yourself on camera.  No we don’t care about the aesthetics or the fashion.  We’re looking to gain feedback and a mental picture.  We’re looking for just one or two cues that might give us a smoother, more powerful stroke.  What’s going right?  What’s going wrong?  What can we do better?

You should be asking yourself, “What do I look like now?  How do I move now? What could use some extra focus and improvement next time?”  Don’t dwell on to many things at a time, just find one or two things that might make your life on the erg or in the boat a little better.  Go work on them.  Then reassess in a couple of weeks.

The Renegade Rowing Club has agreed to help everyone by taking a look at their strokes. If you’d like feedback similar to this, post a 20 second clip of you rowing to YouTube and share it with us in the comments of this post.  I’ll do my best to give you a couple of things to work on!

For each of the following videos I’ll be ranking each rower on their posture, control, and connection.  I’ll use a five point scale where 1 = poor and 5 = perfect.  When dealing with posture we’re looking for the torso to be stacked and strong at all times.  When talking about control we are looking at the smoothness of the recovery and how the seat moves toward the catch.  Does it rush forward for the next stroke?  Is there control in the last few inches of the slide to change direction without pushing the boat backwards?  Last and most important, connection, are the seat and handle connected and moving together into and out of the catch as if connected by a belt.

Take a look and share what you might focus on next time you row!

Posture: 3, Control: 3, Connection: 2

Feedback: Nice job getting the body over.  Don’t let the seat stop at the catch.  Be ready to push with the legs the second you hit the catch and keep the seat and hands connected.