What you do on the recovery affects what you do on the power phase.
Timestamps
00:45 What you do on the recovery
What you do as you approach the catch is likely the first thing you do on the power phase. Any errors get transitioned to the next stroke. Three common things happen – shoulder lifting, rushing the slide and the oar going too deep at the catch.
01:30 Shoulder lifting
This is putting the oar in the water by lifting your shoulders to feel the oar connection to the water. To prevent this, start at the finish of the prior stroke. By getting the arms/body transition (pre-stretching) correct on the recovery you can improve your catch and remove the shoulder lift.
One of the reasons we rock forward later in the recovery is that it feels like you’re getting more length. But this makes you focus on the handle so when you take the catch, you’re still focused on the handle and so you pull (not push) to make connection with the water.
Goal is to connect with minimal body movement – ideally only your knee to ankle moves.
compounding – reaching more at the catch slows it down because your body weight causes the stern to push down into the water and you have to lift the handle to make the placement but you’re working against yourself because you’re also leaning and create a greater height the handle has to move to get the spoon under the water.
If you don’t shoulder-lift you are more likely to be on time at the catch.
05:30 Rushing the slide
By accelerating the slide in the second half of the recovery this causes rushing. The pre-stretch gives you time on the recovery – you can work out how quickly you want to arrive at the catch. You don’t need to move anything except bend your knees. Weight on the footstretcher gives you the feeling of control of the slide speed.
Check your handle speed at the finish compared to the person in front of you to ensure you are in time with them.
If you row longer than anyone else (long legs) you have to slide because you’re taller. Starting to roll up the slide before completing the pre-stretch gives a false timing signal to the people behind you.
Ratio is another cause of rushing especially if you’re doing a one to one ratio. Insufficient power through the water causes 1:1 ratio and makes it hard to do the recovery without rushing.
A lack of awareness can also cause you to rush – is your body weight on the back of the seat (your bum side not your legs side). You should feel your body weight under where your thighs join your bum on the recovery (after the rock forward).
Let your hamstrings relax more on the recovery so the forward momentum of the boat pushes you up the slide (with weight on the footstretcher).
11:30 Going too deep
When the oar goes into the water it goes too deep initially. Starting on the recovery, if you don’t push down on the handles to get the oar spoon clear of the water before you feather you will probably carry the handles too high on the recovery. The compounding issue is that in order to square without hitting the water, you have to push your handles down. You over-do the lift and so the oar goes too deep into the water.
Pushing down to square also causes you to drop your shoulders and then when you get to the timing of the catch you lift your hands and also lift your shoulders (they’re tense) and this causes you to go deep because your whole body block lifts up. The catch should only be done by the arms to lift the handle and the knee to ankle to push on the foot stretcher. Make a small upward movement on the handle to place the oar only using your arms.
So squaring late can cause you to mis-time the catch as well. If your oars go too deep – take a look at what you do at the finish and see if that causes you to mis-time the catch as a compounding technique error.
Solutions come from video – three strokes of yourself from 90 degrees square off – slow it down to watch as you compare it to a model of good rowing / sculling.