Our coach is a huge geek, & sent us this email after a 6k in my junior year:
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Poe is captured by the First Order and interrogated by Kylo Ren. As he is resisting the force mind probe, Poe screams out. There's no way he can win. He's going to give up the information. But he's fighting with all he has to keep the secret of the map's location. A scene like that makes for fun movie-going. I hope you've seen it. And I hope you really enjoyed it through empathy with that character. Imagine the fear of that moment, the desperation, the pain, the anger, the courage. That's why movies are such a powerful media force, and remain so in the age of youtube/netflix/etc. We get to experience moments like that through the safety of fiction.
Not all of us will view that scene in the same way, so I'll offer one perspective for you to consider: the question of "could I do that?"
We all wonder from time to time how brave we are. We want the opportunity to prove ourselves. We want to know just how hard we can fight. Part of enjoying that scene might be asking yourselves those questions.
Now we come to the point. There was a bunch of screaming during the 6k. It was motivating, intimidating, exciting, etc. And it reminded me of that scene. The erg is the dark side of the force. You can never beat the erg (the dark side will always exist). You can only fight back. You can resist. You can refuse to give up. Your physical/mental limits are Kylo Ren. You fear the workout because you fear pushing those limits.
It might not be in a galaxy far, far away, but it's the same fight. Poe didn't have to suffer. He could have just given up. He resisted because it was a battle worth fighting. You didn't have to suffer during the 6k. From the sound of things you weren't giving up either. Maybe use tomorrow's erg to explore your ability to fight that battle. It's your chance to ask the question "could I do that?"
Just remember: there are some days, some workouts, some races where you aren't Poe. Sometimes you're Rey (when she defeats Kylo Ren's force mind probe). You'll confront a challenge, and rise to meet it with strength you didn't realize you had. Rey and Poe are the same. Rey has to suffer, to fight, to believed just like Poe. She just has the tools to resist. Sometimes you'll have those tools.
My team has winter weight room practices, where we specifically focus on deadlifting due to its similarity to the rowing stroke. My coach has gone into depth on how to properly practice a hip hinge.
Grab a broom handle or other straight bar of sufficient length and complete some hip-hinge drills:
Start by standing up straight. Then hold the broom handle as shown so it is in contact with the back of your head, your thoracic spine, and your tailbone.
Note the position and grip of the hands on the bar. The top hand (outside of fingers) is in contact with your cervical spine. The bottom hand (back of palm) is in contact with your lumbar spine. There may be a few adjustments to make depending on your spine shape. The key is to start standing up straight with squeezed glutes, abs tight, chest out, and shoulders down. The spine, bar, and hands have to be properly set or the drill won't work.
Hinge over at the hips by pushing your butt back as you bend at the crease between the legs and the hips. The knees bend, but only to maintain balance over your mid-foot. The point is rotate at the joint where the femur inserts to the pelvis. The shape of the spine does not change. The contact points on the bar and on your hands remain the same. As soon as there is any change in spine shape, stop bending over, reset, and do it again. The point is to bend all the way over feeling no change in contact with the bar. Any feel of contact change means start over and fix that mistake on the next rep.
Ultimately you need to bend over far enough to reach down to the middle of your shins (where the bar is for deadlift). Once you've got it prefect with the broom handle, do it perfectly without the broom (preferably while looking in a mirror). Training on spine neutrality for deadlift will help you do it on squats, bent-over-rows, jumpies, erging, and much more. Once the deadlift practice is done, do some deep squats with the broom handle to test your spine neutrality (preferably while looking in a mirror).
As the amount we're lifting goes way up in the weight room, you are risking injury during squat and deadlift if you don't know how to properly hip-hinge and maintain a neutral spine. Way too many of us round the lower back, instead of rotating at the hips. If you want to maximize the amount you can lift, you have to learn this proper form.
Some more notes from my coach, this time on rotational inertia & angular momentum ew physics
Part of the reason a shell turns the way it does because of inertia. Inertia is the fundamental property of matter to resists changes in motion. As we start a race it takes a long time to get up to full speed because the total weight of an 8 is about 1600lb (lots of inertia), and that takes loads of force over many strokes to accelerate. Rotational inertia is basically the same; more mass=more rotational inertia. The further that mass is from the center of rotation, the more rotational inertia. All rowing shells have lots of rotational inertia because they are long. An 8 has the most because they have more mass spread over their length.
Think of a merry-go-round with lots of people on it and one person trying to start it turning. The turn starts slowly and gets faster and faster as the force of the turner is continually applied. The same thing happens to the rowing shell when you apply the rudder. The shell starts to rotate slowly, seemingly taking forever to respond to the rudder. The turn gets faster as the rotational inertia is overcome. Eventually the full turning rate of the shell is reached, but this can take a while. For big ships like the ones in the Navy, it can take 720° of turning before full turn rate is reached. Lucky for you, the rowers can help overcome rotational inertia: they can add force beyond what the rudder is doing, and this force can stay on past when the rudder has reached full effectiveness, resulting in a turn that is tighter than achievable with the rudder alone. Even so, rotational inertia still applies.
To make better turns, understand how slowly an 8+ begins the rotation of a turn. Get the boat rotating sooner and get around the turn.
Once you've got the shell rotating (turning), it now has angular momentum. Think of that merry-go-round. How much force does it take to stop the rotation? When you are coming to the exit of a turn your shell is still rotating. You take the rudder off and even-out pressure and the shell keeps turning. Rotational inertia wants to keep it in the state of turning. The water will eventually make you go straight, but that doesn't happen right away.
Just like anticipating the start of a turn and getting the shell rotating, you need to anticipate the end of a turn and get the shell going straight again. Come off the rudder before the turn is over. Even-out pressure sooner than centering the rudder. In most cases you want the shell to finish the turn without any force helping it do so. The rotation dies away on its own. This is just like when you pull even with another shell that is stopped, and you have the rowers weigh-enough early so you drift into place. Sometimes you have the rowers hold to help you stop in place. You can use the same approach (application of a force opposing momentum) when exiting a turn. Right before steady on the next straight line course, put in some opposite rudder to stop the rotation of the hull. It doesn't have to be much, with the amount dictated by how hard you were turning. Remember the rudder slows the hull, so it's better to not have to do this. Of course taking a long turn is also bad. You've gotta weigh the trade-off between a bit of extra rudder or a bit of extra distance. The extra distance is worse in tight turns.
A few years ago, when I was first-year varsity, I asked my coach what rush feels like. I’ve left his notes for y’all below:
The recovery needs to be controlled and relaxed. Rowers have pulled hard on the drive and need a chance to "recover" before they do it again. Rush is a feeling that you cannot relax on the recovery. The catch needs to be deliberate and accurate. Rowers need to feel like putting the oar in the water is easy and controlled. Rush makes it almost impossible to do that. The stroke seat needs to lead the boat. Everyone needs to follow their swing, their slide, their catch, their finish. Rush is most often felt by a good stroke seat who is trying to lead a controlled recovery but the rest of the boat (or at least some of the rowers) are not following that rhythm.
The most common form of rush comes from a lack of slide control. Some (or all) of the rowers are zipping into the stern and crash up to the catch position much faster then they want to. The ones who are causing it usually don't know they're causing it. Sometimes the stroke seat is causing it, doesn't know that, and complains of being rushed (this is rare). The people being rushed fell like everyone else is say "hurry up and get to the catch," so their mental response is "stop rushing me." Even when rush is not purely a slide control issue, getting the crew to focus on sliding together is often the best solution.
Assume all 8 rowers in the boat weigh 150lbs. Their total weight is 1200lbs. Now assume the combined weight of the boat, oars, and coxswain is 350lbs. The rowers (weight moving on the slide) are more than 3 times heavier than the rest of the system (weight not moving on the slide). When the rowers slide, they are barely moving into the stern. Because they weigh more, they are actually moving the shell forward underneath them. The boat is actually getting faster or holding a fairly constant speed. This is what you need to feel. And how that feels is how you recognize rush.
For the coxswain, rush feels like the boat is being yanked out from underneath you. You're the dishes on the table, the rowers are the magician, and the hull is the table cloth. If at any point before the oars go in the water you fell yanked forward, the crew is rushing. Of course this is all relative. Higher ratings have faster recoveries (faster slides), so the pull forward will be stronger than at lower rating. Lower ratings should be gradual enough that the boat speed feels more constant.
For the rowers being rushed, there are two different ways rush can feel:
First, consider if the entire bow 7 is starting the slide too early and pulling the boat forward before the stroke seat (or any other rower) is ready to start their slide (that rower is still setting the body over into the stern). That one rower is going to feel pushed over and into the start of the slide. And they will have to fight to control the speed of their slide. But then since the crew is ahead of them, they'll need to slide faster than the rest of the boat to catch up. It starts to hurt the front of your shins as you pull through the toes to get to full slide.
Second, consider if the entire crew is starting the slide together but the stroke seat wants to slide slower. The boat is being yanked forward, so the stroke feels like their feet are being jammed up underneath them and they have to fight to prevent slamming into the catch. The next thing that happens is the bow 7 either pauses at the catch or start to catch before the stroke seat wants to. The stroke seat (in both cases) again fights to pull all the way to full compression and the front of the shins start to burn. Plus, it's often hard to control body position because you're getting shoved around by the rest of the boat.
Remember that rush is relative. If everyone has agreed that we want to zip down the slide then no one is "being rushed". Some crews specifically accelerate into the stern, which would feel like rush to someone not expecting that. Our recovery is decelerating. It means the turn-around at the catch should be gentle, and the boat should be slowing down during the recovery. Watch the stroke seat's slide versus the timing of the catch, and the motion of the oars up to the catch. Judge theirs speed down the slide based on how their oars swing from perpendicular to the hull out to the catch angle. Oars moving perfectly parallel is a good sign of a crew swinging and sliding together. If you can see everyone reaching the catch too early for stroke seat, they are rushing.
While I'm talking about the feeling of rush, it's worth mentioning the feeling of boat check: it's basically the opposite. Boat check is any force to stop forward momentum of the hull. The most common form is not being locked on at the catch and kicking the boat backward as rowers drive the legs without their oars being able to lever the boat forward. Again, the rowers outweigh the shell/oars/coxswain by a lot. In really bad boat check, the hull can slow way down very quickly until the oars engage and get it going again.
The feel of this is opposite to rush. In the coxswain seat you feel like the boat hits a wall and your torso wants to fall forward so your face hits the knees of the stroke seat. Jerking back and forth at the catch is probably boat check. Our soft catches mean that our boats should not jerk much around the catch. Any jerking happens at the finish when we snap our drive off and quickly get the hands/body out of the bow. Rowers have trouble feeling boat check, but coxswains feel it no matter what. The question becomes how much is there, and can it be reduced any so the boat holds better speed?
Rush and boat check are most prominent at the catch (at the same time), and one often leads to the other. But that's not always the case. It's important to recognize which one is going on (or is worse), and then work to fix the problem. Think hard about what you feel. Look for other signs in the oars on in the motion of the stern pair. Fixing the real problem is rarely done by saying "stop rushing." A more precise solution like "control your slides so we can get rid of this rush," is probably better. Then spends some strokes saying "swing and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide, swing and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide," during the recovery is a good idea.
ok. does any other coxswain have to deal with... coxswain politics? cuz me and the other guys' cox are FIGHTING for the 1v but we're just sending passive aggressive texts and trying to be the most leaderlike. its literally exhausting to spend every second i could be laughing with the guys, instead be weight-adjusting scores bc they might like to see that, or talking to coach bc the coaches all love her, or reading cox transcripts bc she's very hype... im just... exhausted.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that...it definitely shouldn’t be that competitive. I was competing with the other guy’s coxswain for the Varsity 8+. But we’re best friends & the competition was really just who could drive better.
hi! i’m sorry to bother you but i’m a novice cox and today we had a really short race (around 750m) and i totally fucked it up for my team. the wind pushed us way to shore before our race and we managed to get out (with lots of yelling from one of the jv coaches, of course) but my crew was really on edge and after the row they mentioned that sort of screwed them up, plus, said coach is being passive aggressive and rude and i get it but i still feel like crap. any advice? thanks :))
Oof I’ve been there. So many times. But chin up friend, tomorrow’s a new day. This wasn’t your fault; if the wind is strong enough there isn’t anything you can do. Rowers like to think they know everything, but coxing is really hard! Harder than anyone thinks! We’re under a lot of stress that no one really sees (unless you have a stroke seat you can trust). One thing I can say is try to stay as far from shore as possible when it’s windy, & keep moving. If your crew yells at you for moving too much before your race, yell back. It’s your boat & you’re keeping them from crashing. The rowers also need to learn to shake things like that off. It’s so easy to blame the coxswain because we don’t look like we do a lot. And as for your coach? They can fuck off. Talk to your head coach about how you feel like you’re being treated unfairly, especially if this has happened before. Does your team have a SafeSport policy? Say you think it’s been violated if they really came at you. You shouldn’t have to go through all that, & I’m very sorry. Everyone’s allowed to make mistakes, especially novices (some people think coxes are excluded from this but we’re really not; we’re learning same as everyone else). You’ve got the rest of the season & the rest of your career to put this behind you, get better, & prove yourself to your team. If you ever need more advice, I’m here.
I’ve finally reached the point in my career where the coaches think all I really have to work on is motivation. I’m a good (enough) driver, I have a lot of knowledge about the sport, I’m good at correcting technique & fixing equipment. All that’s left is motivation. I’m usually good about it during the race (because there’s a lot going on & I can base things off of the crews around us), but during practice? not so much. We have a list in the boathouse of basic motivational phrases & other basic focus-y things (idk where they’re from but I didn’t come up with them on my own) that I figured I’d share:
Reminders:
Don’t fly & die
Breathe
Don’t be the weak link
Don’t be the Twinkie
There’s an actual story there if anyone’s interested I’ll share it
i know- coxswains don’t get blisters on their hands or scream in pain on the erg machines. they don’t have to physically push themselves to the limit.
but mentally, being a coxswain is insanely difficult and taxing. they take the blame for every. single. mistake. made. regardless if it was their “fault” or not. they get bitched about behind their back, and all they can do is pretend like they didn’t hear a word. they’re constantly worried about screwing up whether it be in practice or regattas. they have to please the coach while still being a fun person to be around. honestly, i’m a coxswain that doesn’t easily let go of things that happen on the water because i just feel this overwhelming guilt for a long LONG time. even if i couldn’t have done anything better or different, i always feel like it’s not enough. it’s incredibly stressful 24/7, but coxswains just act like everything’s okay since they’re the glue that keeps the team together.
so please, appreciate your coxswains. understand that a bad row is just a day and that they’re probably mentally going through the practice over and over again, beating themselves up for everything they could, or couldn’t, have done differently. and if it’s only the first week or so of the season, we promise that our coxing ability or style doesn’t determine who we are as people, and all we want is to gain some respect. coxswains really try, and we’re sorry if we mess up. please take this information to heart the next time you’re considering bashing a coxswain directly after a practice/regatta; your words and actions make a deeper dent than you might think.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been on the team; everyone deserves respect. It doesn’t matter how you feel about a person individually; everyone will get the same respect. This is especially true for coxswains. We are the ones keeping you safe. We are the ones finding the best water for you. We are the ones making sure equipment works. We are the ones with first aid knowledge. We are the ones correcting your technique to make you a better, safer rower. You will give us the courtesy of listening to simple requests. I don’t ask for much as a coxswain; I like to have fun in my boats. But I don’t take shit. When it’s time to do the work, I expect you to do the work. If not, there will be consequences. One of my novices has been getting backlash from his rowers that don’t respect him, & today, we had a discussion about it with the coaching staff. On the water, coxswains should have authority over their boat. If the crew is severely misbehaving, the cox can turn the boat around; the workout can be done on land. Going on the water is a privilege; you have to earn your seat in that boat.
Coxswains are also there to help the rowers. Tell us what’s wrong! We’re not mind readers, & we can’t see every individual thing. If a row isn’t going well, vocalize it. We may have some sort of solution. Don’t just tune us out because you don’t feel like listening, & for gods’ sake don’t say so to our faces. We’re human too. At some point, the coxswain will be tired of the drama & quit. Then where will you be?
Don’t take your cox for granted. We do more work than rowers will ever realize, & we don’t get nearly the amount of credit the rowers do. Coxing is hard & stressful; any stroke seat can see it. A little appreciation goes a long way.
It really all does come down to one thing, doesn’t it? In the end, when you are all lined up with the others on your team, sitting on your ergs, and you hear the call to sit ready. There’s only one thing between you and your next personal record, only one thing that stands between yourself and beating every single erg score in that room. And that thing is yourself.
How do you keep going when you feel like you’re on fire, like you can’t breath, like you’ve given your all and there’s not more you can do?
Some people run slower. Or dribble less distance. Or pass the ball. Some people take a break.
In the erg room, there are no breaks. There is no giving up. There is no “I can’t.” There is only what you will, and what you won’t.
Will you pull harder than the person next to you?
Will you hold that split?
Will you let yourself be beaten?
In the moment, your legs are on fire, your back is screaming, and your breaths come fast and sometimes uncontrollably. You may glance at the split of the person next to you.
Is it slower? Good. Pull harder. Widen the gap.
Is it faster? If you’re truly a rower, you won’t let yourself be beaten. Not if you’re still on the erg. Not if there’s still meters left to go.
You can, and even better, you will. Get out of your own way. Pull as hard as you can, because this is who you are. You are a rower, and pushing your limits is what you do every day. You face your fears and triumph over challenges people have nightmares about. You go steady state and hold a split, clinging to it for dear life. You sprint and pour all of your sweat and tears into the erg, because you aren’t done until you look at your time, breathless and sore, and you see your goal looking back at you.
This is winter season. You will triumph, and you will destroy every regatta during the spring, but only if you treat every minute of training like it’s your last set.
Yes, it will be hard. Rowing is not a fun sport. Anyone who can survive it is a warrior, fierce and strong, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
Take this season and demand to be a better rower by the end of it.
TODAY WAS SUCH A GOOD DAY OMG MY BOAT GOT THIRD AND WE WERE ONLY 20 SECONDS AWAY FROM SECOND PLACE AND I GOT COMPLIMENTS ON MY COXING AND THE GUYS ACTUALLY GAVE ME HUGS WHEN WE WERE DONE I’M REALLY HAPPY RIGHT NOW Y’ALL
Here is a link about Mary Whipple , a two time gold medalist in the olympics for the US Women’s 8–which has been undefeated for eight olympic titles. She writes about keeping confidence in your calls as the 9th seat of the boat: http://www.9thseat.com/intermediate-coxswain/calling-all-rookies/
Catt will look around this website to find more specific information relating to topics in coxing, but for now, here is a very beneficial article on steering: https://readyallrow.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/tips-tricks-for-steering-an-8/
Feel free to click around, there is a LOT of information on there.
Hey! I'm a novice coxswain and my first race is this weekend and I am super super nervous because I don't feel prepared because I've had to miss quite a bit of practice from the start of the season. I don't want to let my team down. So can I have any tips with like race commands, especially advice for head races????? Thank you!!!
Lemme give you the breakdown of coxing: 10% are calls, 20% is motivation, 20% is reminding rowers of technique, and the other 50% is FLUFF. Puuuure fluff. Fluff is what coxswains do (mostly during a head race, sprint season is too fast for fluff) that keeps the rowers distracted enough from the pain but is not overwhelmingly annoying.
Fluff helps fix repetition. Everyone knows that one annoying coxswain who says the same shit over and over again. It gets boring. Fluff can help with rhythm most of the time. So phrases/sounds like, “Catch!” “Aaaaand send.” “Pushhhh” “Awaaayyyy” “Shoop!” “Cahhhh” “On it” “Down” “Eeeeasssyyyy now” “Drrrive” etc… All these help with rhythm and keep the boat out of that awkward silence.
Because let’s get real. Coxswains really don’t have much to say during a head race. And as all coxswains know, it gets REAL awkward when the boat goes silent.
The only good silence is when you have a silent ten, which could mean a power ten but said silently (good to use when you’re rubber-banding between placing with another boat and they do that ANNOYING ASS THING where as soon as you start to call a power ten, they do too and it becomes redundant because you’re just tiring our your rowers) or a silent ten is ten strokes where you specifically instruct your rowers to listen to their rowing within silence.
As for actual planning for the head race, that’s pretty uniform. I have a little thing you can personalize when it comes to head races. Most head races are 5000m, right? So break it up into four parts.
First 1250m - Mostly technique. Don’t worry about motivation so much. (1 power 10 @ 1000m) 1250-2500 - Still central attention around technique, adding in a little incentive. (1 power 10 @ 2000m)2500-3750 - Tables have turned. Halfway point has been reached, time to bring out the big guns. Motivation to technique = 70:30 (1 power ten @ 3000)3750-5000 - Lots of motivation, but still having little peaks of technique calls now. 90:10. (Power 10@ 4000, power 10 @ 4500, power 10 @5000)
Now you can personalize that to your heart’s desire. Remind yourself of what the boat needs to work on: rush, squaring, etc. And put little notes beside each one.
Remember that information is motivation. Constantly let your rowers know where they are in a race, what rate they’re at, where other boats are in relation to you, how much energy it’s going to take for you to beat them.
Ultimately, it is your decision whether your rowers catch up to a boat or not. You think they can tackle a boat 50m in front of them, by all means do. But if you know they’ll just get tired and they’ll fly n die, just don’t.
Knowing your race course/rules is ALWAYS an advantage.
Knowing how/when to steer is very important.
Knowing your boat is of utmost importance.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I hope I covered it all. It’s a lot, I know. :D
GOOD LUCK! I’m so excited for you! I’ll be sending you positive vibes this weekend! Win win win!!
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