Coach Thrasher
Force Timing in Small Boats
We're rowing small boats now, and in the frenzy of every morning practice and quest to obtain maximum water-time, I don't have time to talk about all aspects of rowing that I want to. So check this out:
When we're rowing 2x or 4+ boats, even power application TIMING by each rower is critical. What do I mean by this? Well, as a picture is worth a thousand words, check this out:
There are two images. In the top one, the FORCE TIMING of the 4 is matched, and in the bottom image, it isn't. The force applied to the boat is the SUM of everyone rowing. If we can sum the peak-power for each rower at the same point in time, we'll get the MAXIMUM force applied to the water to move the boat forward the fastest. The higher this maximum force, the faster the boat will go, but the maximum force the sum of everyone's efforts, so it's important to time it well. (Obviously there are many factors that contribute to boat speed as well, but this force-timing really important in small boats.)
Repeated strokes with matched force-timing of the rowers (translation: lots of strokes with good timing) will cumulatively make the boat go faster. So, the more strokes taken with matched force-timing, the faster the boat. Where is this really important: head racing, where we take many more strokes than sprints due to the longer course!
Note an important aspect of this: the boat will go faster by having the best timing, not by hammering the oar through the water! So a weaker crew with better timing will go faster than a stronger yet sloppy crew.
Thanks to PARC alumni, Reid Kleckner for sending the link to the pictures.
Posted at 04:09PM Oct 28, 2006 by jason in Rowing | Comments[1]
Timing the power during the drive was definitely one of the lessons I learned on the MIT JV boat. Our technique peaked, unfortunately, about one week before the Head of the Charles, and now they aren't quite able to fill the boat every day. Anyway, one of the key things we hit was finish timing. Obviously catch timing is important, but sometimes it just isn't there. Even on those strokes, if everyone finishes together, you can still take a good stroke. The second thing we hit was the force timing, although we didn't refer to it as such. Basically our cox would make the call "25% catches, 75% finishes," and although one could debate where pressure should actually be applied during the stroke, this brought us all together so we accelerated the drive together.
Posted by Reid Kleckner on November 01, 2006 at 06:59 AM PST #