Hey Aram, finally, a really detailed explanation, which shows biomechanical relationships...simple, understandable. Alex, you're doing a great job to visualize this!!! I knew some things in detail until now, but many half-truths and so-called "trainings-guidelines"... Now I understand the importance of the "right time" for opening the upper body and the impact on the muscular "chain". This will help to work at all these little improvements that take a whole rowing-life... Perfect, thank you!!!
Hey Aram In my humble opinion to many rowers have to much pivoting motion. A lot of them lean to much forward at the catch, trying to make their stokes longer. This slows the boat at the catch. It also triggers them to open earlier than they should. If they do so, they will compensate this by leaning to much back at the finish, resulting in doing sit-ups at the finish. It may look good on the curves on the erg but it will slow the boat down also. To solve this problem I ask them to sit up straight at the catch as well at the finish. Almost no rower can achieve this and will pivot slightly in the second half of the stroke. Resulting in a compact stroke which doesn’t disturbe the run of the boat. Greats, Rob Kluvers, coach at Ins&Outs Rowing
@ Aram The mechanics comes down to the law of cosines. If you take the average tibia to femur ratio of .8/1 and calculate the displacement vs. knee angle you see that the displacement of the seat towards the bow becomes smaller per unit change in knee angle as the legs become straight. Since velocity is just dx/dt the velocity of the rower relative to the oar lock becomes slower with corresponding impact on the angular velocity of the oar relative to the oarlock. By swinging early or even breaking the arms a bit early the velocity of the oar can be kept higher for a longer portion of the stroke, with the added benefits of engaging additional large muscle groups (as you pointed out)
I think it is as often underestimated (by masters) as it is overrated by cross fit junkies. For me, it is important to focus on strength over winter, spring and early summer, when peak of season is late summer.
It is a connection problem which sometimes occurs when rapidly changing rowing style. He simply started to early with his right hand and took away resistance from the left.
