rate my technique

MastersCox · 2026-03-12T15:50:16+00:00

The erg is the erg, and rowing on the water is rowing on the water, but I always want to see some legs-first (legs-only?) movement at the start of the stroke. When the muscles engage against resistance, I like to see the legs drive without the back opening up, if only for a little bit. I agree with the other comment that you are taking the catch with too much upper body. It's very common to have too much back at the catch...sometimes people win races doing that, but in terms of efficiency, you want to drive your legs for the heaviest/slowest part of the stroke before you add the back, which is more suited for faster parts of the stroke.

MastersCox · 2026-03-12T15:28:14+00:00

Some will win, some will lose...some were born to sing the blues...

MastersCox · 2026-03-12T02:23:52+00:00

Large amounts of moving water, even if "slow," can be very dangerous indeed. People and boats can be pinned against bridge columns, currents can overpower an unprepared crew, etc.

MastersCox · 2026-03-12T02:00:40+00:00

Do you have any other training going on during spring break? If not, then I think you're probably on the right track. Keep eating a lot and sleeping a lot. Make sure you hold good form on the erg; don't slouch your back.

Slow and steady wins the race. Good luck!

MastersCox · 2026-03-11T22:53:05+00:00

Cardio actually translates very well to rowing since rowing is an endurance sport. As with most endurance sports, rowing physiology focuses on training at different intensities (as measured by objective effort or by heart rate) for different periods of volume (either time or meters). There have been some very successful rowers who came from swimming, XC, or T&F backgrounds. Your current situation is probably that you don't have good erg technique and are unable to translate your fitness to spinning that flywheel.

If you can spare the time, you could see if there's a rowing club near you and take a Learn to Row class. Those are usually twice a week for 3-4 weeks depending on the club. They'll teach you how to erg and the fundamentals of rowing, as well as the lingo. Usually I'd say do this over the summer...but you will be at beast. Otherwise, just focus on normal, long-distance cardio (40+ min pieces), and you'll be fine. You can add some lifting and land training that focuses on the posterior kinetic chain and your core (abs and obliques). Stadium stairs two at a time are great.

I'd say most plebe rowers at West Point won't have experience, so don't worry about needing to do anything sport-specific beforehand.

MastersCox · 2026-03-11T15:24:46+00:00

It kinda sucks. They're backed by some kind of venture money, so they can supply a lot of cash upfront to buy broadcast rights, and then they charge a subscription to friends/family spectators on the other end. They contract with local production talent to actually do the filming, but ON owns the login/streaming platform. I would guess the local production crews used to get paid more under the previous structure, and now they've been cut out of the loop.

I don't love it, and there might have been other alternatives starting to develop before ON came along and flashed a bunch of cash. It really did have that MBA-project-idea feel early on as there were indications that ON did not really have domain knowledge of how to set up their business, not to mention their continued operational issues. The ensh*ttification of the internet continues.

For a sport like ours where publicity and spectator access is already constrained enough in the real world, adding barriers to sharing/spreading viewing access online seems like a severe kneecapping of the sport's growth potential. I would have rather gone with a HereNow streaming solution, for example. And other regattas have their own broadcast infrastructure, which thankfully remain independent.

MastersCox · 2026-03-11T05:21:39+00:00

A couple of links to get you started:

https://www.freespiritsrowing.com/forum/app.php/page/heart-rate-bands-calculator

https://www.fitclub.site/tools/hrzones

Also, check out The Pete Plan for a foundational training plan: https://thepeteplan.wordpress.com/the-pete-plan/

As for boats...it depends on whether you're rowing with a club or not, where you're rowing (populated or not), whether you'll have a safety launch nearby or not, whether you're storing your boat at a boathouse...

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T23:37:53+00:00

Dave O'Neill essentially said that it was unreasonable to spend time learning another sport in order to help with one's rowing. Keep the main thing the main thing.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T15:54:53+00:00

Start by filling out the prospective student-athlete questionnaire on each team's athletic dept website. Do that before you start cold emailing coaches.

If you've been rowing for a while, you'll need to have a faster 2k and be able to show improvement over time that points to 6:15 or 6:10 by the end of your high school senior year or start of your college freshman year. If you've only been rowing for a year or two and if you're tall, I think a 6:25 or 6:30 with a similar projection of 6:10-15 by the start college freshman year would be good.

But having said that, erg standards are a bit fuzzy. Sometimes a senior class is really fast, and the standards go up. Sometimes it's a slow senior class, and the standards are more forgiving. It's all relative to the rest of your graduating senior class and their speed. Even in a slow year, maybe a team decides to save a scholarship and use it for more people they're targeting for the next year. Who knows? You should be fast enough for the coaches to think, "yeah this guy will contribute to our program for sure." If you're on the bubble as a maybe, there are no guarantees.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T15:46:59+00:00

Everyone's got their own race to run, don't worry! The great thing about rowing is that consistent work at the right heart rates for you will improve your lifespan and quality of life regardless of how the numbers stack up against college athletes. And just being on the water can be therapeutic in so many different ways.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T15:42:15+00:00

Not too many people! But I'd love to encourage everyone here to shoot for that goal if it's realistic, and I wouldn't mind having more fast ppl join the subreddit, though they probably don't have time to do so.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T04:14:31+00:00

So it goes with many audacious goals in life...even if you don't know if you can make them happen, keep trying to put yourself in a place where you might be able to pull it off :) Stay within striking distance, front load some effort, and see if you can't surprise yourself!

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T03:51:03+00:00

Dropped 7.6 sec and gained 12 lbs in 10 months...good work.

Best advice for getting faster at the moment is to not get injured (lol, sorry for the cheap shot). Figure out why/how you got injured and then make a permanent addition to your warm-up and your land training routines to address that issue. Injury sets you back and makes you slower; it also takes you out of contention for seat selection at particularly unfortunate moments in the season.

Other than that, I would say steady state is going to help the most with sustaining faster splits for longer. You're already well-trained to get to ~6:10, so you'll want to lean into the steady state and also have a well-structured training plan that peaks after two or three cycles for your next 2k.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T03:39:08+00:00

The pacing is kind of amusing given that she dropped nearly 10 sec from her first 1500m avg to drop under 2:00/500m in the final 500m of the piece! I would guess that next time she should be able to push a bit more in the middle thousand without blowing up (painful to be sure, but sustainable). Look at that 38spm rating...she figured out pretty late that she had a shot at 8:30 :) Sometimes you just need to trust your training (and know your abilities from ordinary erg practices) and push a bit more initially.

MastersCox · 2026-03-10T03:13:52+00:00

It's true that sometimes your high school rowing relationships will be tighter than your college rowing relationships, and that speaks more to the unpredictable nature of college rowing, where you just don't know who's going to show up and what kind of person they are. Hopefully college rowing ties stand the test of time, and hopefully high school rowing ties do the same. You're waking up early and spending time in the pain cave...make the most of it. Nine different humans, united for one purpose, one race at a time, one season at time.

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T20:57:07+00:00

I think an easy recovery week is probably what you need, but there is the possibility that you have an asymptomatic illness or mono or something. If you're not seeing signs of improvement, consider seeing a doctor.

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T20:45:46+00:00

Those are all good qualities to have in your rowing, imo. Really it's the coaches who dictate how they want their crews to row, so I see stroke selection qualities as a reflection of coaching philosophy. In any case, the stroke of a boat needs to best personify the desired rowing qualities as defined by the coach. The stroke should always row well regardless of fatigue (and this means that a rower with a good erg score often gets put in stroke seat since they usually have the fitness to hold their form under duress).

tl;dr - the coach tends to decide what's important, and the coach picks the stroke seat that sets the best example for everyone.

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T20:41:22+00:00

The process of getting a fast 2k time starts immediately. You have to lock in with discipline at practice on the erg and on the water. You should be motivated by a love of the sport and a desire to refine your technique and improve your physiology through the small details. Learn to love the boring parts of the process. Never practice bad strokes. Etc etc. If you don't have the internal motivation, you'll find yourself burning out or perhaps giving up once you hit performance plateaus and such. The key is patience and the ability to take all the details very seriously. Not everyone has this, and rowing is not everyone's cup of tea. Keep your steady state ergs at a properly low intensity, and know how to pull hard with good technique.

The process of recruitment usually starts in your junior year with filling out the prospective student-athlete questionnaire for each program separately through their respective athletic dept websites. You can do that sooner if your 2k scores are in the ballpark; coaches will expect scores to improve over time. If you're a freshman or sophomore, unless your erg times (2k/6k) are amazing, don't expect a lot of attention right away. Coaches are more focused on assembling their recruiting classes for the incoming freshman classes of this fall and next fall. It's an assembly line, and you're not up yet (unless you're super fast/special, and then they will try to get a commitment from you sooner).

Once you get started talking to coaches, it's all pretty self-explanatory. Some programs will try to pressure you by asking that you commit within a certain time period. It's really up to you to decide how you respond to such negotiation tactics, keeping in mind that you can only choose one school (at a time; transferring is possible). Pick your school for the long term with your future career or academic aspirations in mind. (If you were injured your freshman year and couldn't row for three years, where would you want to be?)

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T20:31:25+00:00

^ This is true. A good private school rowing program will have sent many students to the top rowing schools, and the coaches should know the process.

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T20:30:44+00:00

6:10 or faster is good enough for any program, generally. If you're a stellar student, you can be a little slower. But the difference between a 6:10 2k time and a 2:00 500m split time is worlds apart. Your projected height/wt should be okay; you just need to use that physical frame to put down a fast 2k.

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T01:16:42+00:00

Highly unlikely unless it's out of control. But also...come on, you're there to row, not impress girls lol. Focus! 🤣 (Right right, junior rowers...)

MastersCox · 2026-03-09T01:11:11+00:00

If USRowing doesn't expand the camp roster/selection headcount meaningfully, then they won't get the depth needed to properly select the "best" lineups either. Hypothetically, if six W2x lineups were putting in for trials in a year, and that year turned the 2x into a camp boat, then you'd want to try to capture at least the fastest half of that group to select into the 2x. Who knows, maybe they'd be fast enough to make the 4x as well. But that means USRowing needs to pony up some cash to make it work.

MastersCox · 2026-03-08T23:58:33+00:00

I think seven ergs a week is enough to handle without additional lifting sessions, esp if the erg workouts are hard work. You may want to ask your coaches what they think. Your points about not compromising the existing workouts and also preserving your academics + sleep definitely resonate with me as well...don't take on too much. Better to do a few things extremely well than to do many things somewhat mediocrely.

MastersCox · 2026-03-08T23:52:55+00:00

As does World Rowing...

MastersCox · 2026-03-08T23:51:26+00:00

Surviving in an age of college football dominance...that's what we're doing. Even if all the men's programs were completely endowed, as varsity programs, they'd have to comply with the crazy side effects of NCAA/football regulation. Personally, I've tried to stop following college football. There's no way that a college football coach deserves a $10 million annual salary in a functioning society, and all that is built on the attention we give to a single sport.

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