I sculled this morning. Then watched this video again after a couple years. This is my top three favorite from ARAM. Clearly articulated. Walks through the entire stroke and recovery. Describes how it should feel and the purpose of each phase. Really good.
Over the past several years I have traveled all across the U.S. to train with numerous elite level coaches on the water and on two different type rowing machines. In just two training sessions on the BIOROWER (4-hours total), Aram provided me with more feed-back and critique about how to improve my stroke than 4-days of training on the water with other coaches! The unique and realistic feeling of the BIOROWER, compared to actually being in a boat on the water, combined with the coaching from Aram is the most outstanding, professional, and most productive training program that I have ever experienced! Lloyd E. Moulton
I Have been sculling for 4 years (am 63yrs old) - Your training videos are head and shoulders above anything i have found. Really appreciate your instruction
I would love to see your analysis of the gold, silver, bronze W1X from Rio. 3 very different rowing styles. It would help me a lot ;). Thank you for these great videos...I'm learning so much from your teaching!
Hi Aram. Just came across your videos. Great work! I have a question regarding what you say about the boat being drawn under the rower by the heels and hamstrings. Do you see the rower doing this actively/consciously, or is it simply the act of placing some of the body weight in the heels? I have always coached rowers to work as little as possible on the recovery.
Hi Rob, that's a good question as it seems to work differently from athlete to athlete. At the beginning of every technique adaption progress I usually ask my athletes to focus on actively creating slight tension in the hamstrings - mostly by bringing the hip forward. When the upper body preparation movement is completed, and they then pull the Biorower or the boat underneath themselves in direction towards the finish line, I ask them to keep on holding or bringing more forward their hip. (This simply helps to distribute most of their bodyweight onto their seats, rather than onto their hands) As this process takes time, little of it will be left during race pace. However, the more precisely this is practised during low to medium steady states, the cleaner the athlets are able to transfer force throughout the entire drive + create a second acceleration phase during the recovery. The latter is also the reason why I do ask my athletes to focus on that as well. I found that athletes can still recover, even if they slightly propell the boat forward during the recovery phase. It is mostly a matter of body tension and step by step routines of recovery preparation. I hope this helps.
Thanks for replying so swiftly. I really appreciate your explanation. It is an interesting concept. I like the focus on the position of the body weight as a cause of various symptoms.
Hi Sram, Like all the rowing info you post on RU-vid, good for the sport I think. Are you the driving force behind better results of the Austrian rowers on international level? I see your style a bit as clinical, to much thinking as where our Dutch rowing style is more based on natural and free way of moving the body and boat. Maybe you once can make an item determing the differeces between the rowing styles per country? Thanks a lot so far for all this information. I will rase money to buy a Biorower die our rowingclub. Yours Paul
Hi Aram. It is probably a translatory problem, but I find it very difficult to understand what is meant by 'weight'. How can one put weight on the hands, when they are free-floating? Is it more about the balance of the body? This matter leaves me completely confused, so I would be very thankful for some extra clarification.
Hi there, you are right. The hands should be free floating. Yet the blades on the outside still have a bit of weight. If you want to get them off the water, you must push the handles with your hands down. The theory is simple. What happens in real life very often, however, is that athletes push the handles down by leaning onto their hands with their torse. This is largley owed to the fact that the upper body leans forward during the recovery phase anyway. To come back to your question: The hands cannot be free floating, as we have just analyzed. They must apply down force on the handles. The optimum solution for boat speed and efficient body preparation is to use the arms only, to accomplish this little task. Many athletes, however, lean with their full body weight onto their handles. This results that many rowers have a hard time to prepare for the catch smoothly. Reason: The blades must come back towards the water at the catch. The handles must be lifted, therefore. Usual time span for such an action: 1-4 tenths of a second. Not a lot if you have to cope with an upperbody which is leaning onto your handles (= massive body weight). If you had your arm weight only applied onto your handles during the recovery, it is swift and easy to lead the blades towards the water at the catch - as the upper body does not need to do any weight shifting. I hope this helps to understand it better. We usually cover this crucial issue in our seminars.
My current point of view is that there appears to be little real difference in most blade shapes, not in blade sizes, however. Sometimes this is more of a phsychological than a technical question. The point is that some blade shapes are designed to help reduce the slip or to help you keep the blade locked in the water. In the end, it is what you do with the blade - it is your body prepraration - which has the greatest influence on the behaviour of the blade. Additionally, I do not want to move my blade through the water at all anyway - this is why I personally do not worry a lot about blade shapes. If you have larger blades, however, you may change the total oar length or inboard length - which gives you a lot of options to play with in order to adapt the boat set-up to the antromprometics of your athlete. (upper body size vs leg length / shoulder width / arm length / etc...) In the end, I care much more about the oar specific weight relation between handle and blade. As there are plenty of variables to consider, it mostly comes down to which oar or blade helps the athlete moves the boat the most efficient way.
Totally disagree on the headwind vs tailwind part. Tailwind pushes the boat forwards more than it does the water. Headwind pushes the boat backwards while the water is mostly stationary. If you sit stationary in a headwind, the water fills your oars. Sitting still in a tailwind, the water pushes against the back of the blade.
Sure, but not nearly as much as the wind moves the boat itself. If a headwind had the net effect of moving water away from the boat, shouldn't that make the load feel lighter? Wouldn't impellers record higher speeds in headwinds if that were true?
Yes Sean, no doubt about that. However, I am not talking about the absolute boat speed itself, but about the blade-connection process at the catch. This is different in head and tail wind. I think we have the same opinion, but talk about two different things.
