Polish Your Rowing Technique – Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes

Rowing is one of those unique sports that on the surface (no pun intended), is about as basic as it gets — with just a few lessons, anyone can learn to move correctly and row either a few hundred meters or play the fish game, with little to no issue at all.

But as a beginner progressing from eating the little fish into specific strokes, it becomes much more apparent how little tweaks can make a big difference in both performance and efficiency — especially as things get more and more competitive.

As an athlete advances through their rowing development it’s all too easy to pick up bad habits along the way. Just take a seat and watch rowers at your local gym for a few minutes — no two rowers have the same mechanics, and for all the videos Coach Shane puts out each and every week on our Youtube channel, until you get used to your own body simple things are going to go awry. Proper guidance from a coach can help combat these bad habits. This usually includes a visual assessment (sometimes recorded on video), with actionable tips and training plans tailored to your ability and skill level.

While we can’t deliver personalized instructions just for you in this article, here Coach John unpacks five of the most common beginner mistakes he encounters and provides quick-and-dirty tips on how to improve.

MISTAKE 1: HEAD POSITION
The head leads, the body follows. Sounds silly but when it comes to rowing ones of the biggest beginner mistakes is throwing the head back from the catch position. Usually as a response to wanting to get things going as fast as possible.

TIPS TO IMPROVE
To improve head position, use the performance monitor. When we set the machine up one of the first things we want to see as coached is the athlete set the PM in a position at eye level. This isn’t just to ensure you can see all those wonderful metrics as you row. It’s also to ensure your head has a reference point in each catch position and you can maintain this as you start the drive and other phases.
Over time, this setting of the performance monitor will be natural and no position of the head should occur.

MISTAKE 2: ARM PULL IN THE DRIVE
The most common mistake from those learning how to sequence the movement of rowing is learning to ensure those hands are away as you push out of the catch and extend the legs and hips before engaging the arms.  Pulling with the arms during the leg drive not only throws you out of sequence it also moves energy in the wrong plane. You should be moving in a horizontal, not vertical, plane and therefore you need to push the flywheel away from you.

TIPS TO IMPROVE
Get a piece of paper and write on it PUSH DON’T PULL. We made this slogan for a reason and one of the easiest things you can do as a beginner rower is continually hammer this point in as much as possible. Along with all the specific drills, one of the easiest ways you can get an athlete to engage this way of thinking is just to slow them down. Use things like a 5 sec counting drill, where each stroke has to last 5 secs from catch to catch and the athlete will soon feel the sequence they should be using.

MISTAKE 3: BODY POSITION
An upright body with hips under shoulders is the most common mistake I see, which creates short strokes and poor mechanics overall. When we brace and reach effectively, we get where we want to go quicker.

TIPS TO IMPROVE
The catch hold drill on is perfect for this. Don’t get me wrong, it will be the longest 2 mins of your life, but if you want to learn what position you should be looking to maintain all the way through your catch and drive phases. Put a mirror next to your erg, set up as normal, pick up the handle, slide into your catch position with hips back, body braced and arms extended towards the middle of the uprights and just hold.
This position allows your body to start to recognize the feedback its receiving from all those small stabilizer muscles now screaming at you and allows you to recognize how movement should begin.

MISTAKE 4: LEANING BACK, WWWAAAYYY BACK.
The most common mistake I see is the over extension at the release. This is due to lack of proper upper-body mechanics.

TIPS TO IMPROVE
Get a video camera, set it up next to your rower and press record. Row for 5-10 mins at different stroke rates (make a note of these, as this will help you see at what point your form breaks down), and as you watch it back make sure your body goes no further back than the 11 O’clock position with the hands of a clock.

MISTAKE 5: BREATHING
No matter the age, the breathing mistake I most commonly encounter is athletes holding their breath during the rowing stroke.

TIPS TO IMPROVE
Try rowing with intentionally holding your breath. Notice how awful it feels after about 3-5 strokes!? Now try working at a controlled breathing rate and find out at what point you feel like you need to inhale and exhale. Chances are it will match your rowing movements so just learn to listen to your body. As the rate increases you may need to breathe more frequently each stroke but you’ll go a lot further than you did passed out on the floor!!

Sounds simple we know but take some time to really dig into the mechanics of what you see, and if you are one of those lucky few to get to coach these movements then ensure you are doing the common things uncommonly well to spread that virtuosity.

Yours in training, education and setting yourself up to master those basics.
Coach John.