Save the Stroke's Hammies Suggestions?

[Bucky]

Let me stage this right: My juniors nailed the workout today - a four and a quad, day 2 on the wet surface. 7 x 2k, 18 spm avg. Full bore. Delayed hands out to trigger . . . . anyway
If you've ever sat stroke and fought the naive buffalo rush behind you, you know how the kids at stroke feel now. The back of their leg hurts.
Calling out your favorite drills!

[MChase]

Juniors rushing. Obviously you're an inadequate coach!

I hate doing it because it makes me feel inadequate as a coach, but pause at the catch, on the square....by eight if I need enormous peer-group pressure to be exerted on the few, or one, who insists on bouncing out of the catch. But some kids just don't ever figure it out. I even glued wood wedges into the stern end of slides so that when one kid rushed (of course one of my fastest ergs) his seat would come flying off the slides. It barely dissuaded him. So I called his mom to be sure if he was on ADHD meds, that he was getting them before practice. I was thinking of placing a bungee between the bow-side seat axle and next rower's foot stretcher so it would tighten as he approached the catch but I had visions of this kid pulling the foot stretcher entirely off the hull with torn carbon fiber flying. I then glued rubber matting into the slides so that when he closed in the catch, it was like getting stuck in the mud. The rubber matting would compress, but still slow his slide. It worked. They got 4th at Youths with the rubber matting in his slides. If I couldn't teach HIM to slow his slide, at least I could slow it.

[Bucky]

Now I know what to do with that rubber tape that was such a good deal at Harbor Freight two years ago!

[KiwiCanuck]

Let me stage this right: My juniors nailed the workout today - a four and a quad, day 2 on the wet surface. 7 x 2k, 18 spm avg. Full bore. Delayed hands out to trigger . . . . anyway
If you've ever sat stroke and fought the naive buffalo rush behind you, you know how the kids at stroke feel now. The back of their leg hurts.
Calling out your favorite drills!

I've had success with "exaggerated rhythm" exercise. With timing counted out loud by the coach (an electric megaphone helps a lot here).

My process - Start out by finding out what the "count" is - when the blades come out, start counting to yourself in a conversational tone - e.g.,(release) "thousand one, thousand two, thous..."(catch) - a "rushed" recovery.
Stop the crew and explain "catch on a count" - we're going to try to catch on the "f" of four - I'll start counting out loud when your blades come out of the water and go "thousand one, thousand two, etc.," until the blades hit the water at the catch.
the first few strokes go in at about 2 and a half or three, depending on how fast you talk and how fast the slides.
Explain that you want them to both arrive at the catch position AND put the blades in at the "f" of "four" and that if they get it, the count will go to five, six, eight, 10, and then maybe 12 (which usually accounts for a rate of about 4.5/minute, slower than an NK watch can register...

Start up, if they sort out the "four" go to "five", which is 125% of the recovery time of "four" - so it's a lot slower. and so on. Once they've managed to slow down to a "ten" where they time the slide and entry to be at the "t" of ten, you decide whether to go to 11 and 12 or not. Then work your way back to four.

Stay at any "count" for only 4-10 strokes (more at the lower counts) - perhaps 10 max at the "ten" count... Keep it varying a little so that they don't get bored with any one "count".

My experience has been that they then have trouble getting the rate "up" to 20 (about a 4 or 5 count), but if you push it, you can have a "three" or faster.
After, stop them and ask what it did - Some athletes report becoming more and more aware of the body sequence and of controlling the slide better.

I was shown that exercise by Drew Harrison about 1986.. Used it ever since.

Another: Eyes closed. While they're rowing with eyes closed, get them to be aware of the sensations in their feet - the movements of the rest of the crew are felt through the feet. Get them doing a "six" count with eyes closed, and on purpose have one of the "non rushers" actually "rush" so that the "rushers" get to feel what they were doing to other people. Not hard, of course...

The other side of it is that on the recovery in a boat, unlike on a static erg (or even a moving one) the recovery involves pulling the boat through under the crew (the crew never stops moving to the finish line during the recovery, and the boat goes faster than the crew during the recovery - this is done at the foot-stretcher - so when you transfer to the water from the erg, you get a new workout for the hip flexors and hamstrings. Go easy for the first couple of weeks on the water until these muscle groups have re-adapted to being on the water.

HTH
WM

[splash5]

I think it's also important to have a stroke that doesn't resist the rhythm. Sometimes, guys in stroke will resist "rush" just because that's what they think they should be doing as stroke. How important do you think stroke seat is for establishing the rhythm of the boat? Does the responsibility fall entirely on him or all 8/4 guys? Ideas on what you look for when you are looking for a stroke?

[bloomp]

I enjoy using "reverse ratio" or just letting them abandon all slide control. That way everyone (even the guy that's immune to feeling the rush he's creating) gets and understanding of the impact of slide control, or the lack thereof. If they all don't feel both ends of the spectrum, they'll never realize where they should be.

[GettingFaster]

I think it's also important to have a stroke that doesn't resist the rhythm. Sometimes, guys in stroke will resist "rush" just because that's what they think they should be doing as stroke. How important do you think stroke seat is for establishing the rhythm of the boat? Does the responsibility fall entirely on him or all 8/4 guys? Ideas on what you look for when you are looking for a stroke?

That's a great point. Sure, there are times when I try and get them to slow down, but one guy can't set the rhythm on his own, it has to come down through the rest of the boat. My own personal experience has been that the best thing for ratio besides a stroke with a decent sense of it is a 7 that follows extremely well. Also helps if they have a good sense of ratio as well.

[caustic]

I enjoy using "reverse ratio" or just letting them abandon all slide control. That way everyone (even the guy that's immune to feeling the rush he's creating) gets and understanding of the impact of slide control, or the lack thereof. If they all don't feel both ends of the spectrum, they'll never realize where they should be.

This one is one of my favorites. Also, I like pausing at arms-and-bodies away, so that everyone has a moment before they begin raising up the knees.

[DJTek9]

Work them at a 20 spm, be it by pairs, 4, or 8. Heck do most of your steady state drills at a 20, it is easily divisible by 60 and your rowers are capable of counting to 3 in their heads.
Emphasize the hand and body speed out of the bow, then a two second slide roll. Make them nail the 20 with slide control (and keeping the boat set), then really any other stroke rate will be easy. The coxswain has to help with keeping the rating down using his/her cadence. Like previously mentioned, having him/her time the recovery should help the rowers. Something as simple as "Catch..sennnd - - - 2 - - - 3 - - - Catch..." where at the end of the "sennnnd" the hands and body are out and the timing is for slide control and blades going in on the C.
If a crew can row in rythmn at a 20 and make it look seamless and effortless, a 34 or 36 is a piece of cake. It has worked for every crew I have coached from juniors through masters.

[bloomp]

Work them at a 20 spm, be it by pairs, 4, or 8. Heck do most of your steady state drills at a 20, it is easily divisible by 60 and your rowers are capable of counting to 3 in their heads.
Emphasize the hand and body speed out of the bow, then a two second slide roll. Make them nail the 20 with slide control (and keeping the boat set), then really any other stroke rate will be easy. The coxswain has to help with keeping the rating down using his/her cadence. Like previously mentioned, having him/her time the recovery should help the rowers. Something as simple as "Catch..sennnd - - - 2 - - - 3 - - - Catch..." where at the end of the "sennnnd" the hands and body are out and the timing is for slide control and blades going in on the C.
If a crew can row in rythmn at a 20 and make it look seamless and effortless, a 34 or 36 is a piece of cake. It has worked for every crew I have coached from juniors through masters.

I emphasize that exact point with everyone I coach. If you can row well at a 16/18/20, you can row well at a higher rate. Good advice!

[caustic]

The two primary reasons that your stroke gets bad hammies are from rushing and poor catch timing. A couple things which are a great way to help highlight these two for the rest of the crew:

1)Inverse ratio rowing. Basically, no pressure on the drive at all, and when they extract they want to get to the catch AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Bring all the rush! Bring it right out in the open! the boat will rock and tip, which are dead giveaways that folks are catching out of time

2)A modification of the catch drill, similar to the inverse ratio drill, but when the boat is at a stop. Have all the crew sit at the release with blades flat on the water, and then have them all together smoothly roll up and do a catch drill. Same thing will happen if they're out of time - the boat will tip and rock. When they can do that well, that is a good indicator that their timing is figured out, which is half the battle.

Otherwise, long ratio rowing helps greatly - low stroke rates at 60-70% max effort, getting the crew to really focus on length at the catch and in smoothly transition during the recovery from the fast out of bow motion to the slower approaching the catch motion, with emphasis on achieving their catch angle with the back as soon as possible, allowing them to just glide into the catch by drawing the boat underneath them. Make a game of it - how low can they go?

Oh! another great tool to use to help combat rush and catching early is to have them row with their eyes closed. A lot of rowers try to look for visual cues from stroke for when to catch - by the time you SEE stroke catching, you're already late. They need to think about feeling the rythmn of the boat and anticipating the catch so that they can catch on time. Assuming your stroke has a good ruthmn of course.