Subject: Thirty Things That Affect the Set (Rowing)
By request of some of our new folks, I re-transmit this perennial message on things that affect the set of the boat.
Montgomery Rowing ... a Technique Tip from the Coach
Now and again rowers ask what can be done to help our crew boats
be balanced a little better, i.e. to improve the set. This puts me in mind
of the tourist who asked a New Yorker "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?"
(the answer was "Practice, practice, practice." ) Unlike fighter pilots
and astronauts, we don't have much trouble with pitch and yaw, but we do
encounter roll.
First, consider the center of gravity of the boat, at about the rowers'
chests, to be like an upside-down pendulum. If one or more rowers on one
side of the boat fail to support their side while the others properly
support their side, the boat will roll to the weak side, then like a
pendulum it will tend to roll back to the strong side. If rowers force the
boat away from their side, it will come back to their side to haunt them.
If it's down to the right and you lean left, think of your body and the seat
like a hinge, the tendency will be to roll the boat further to the right
(not the left as you might expect), then it will roll back ...
Here are some thirty roll-causing factors and how to avoid them.
A. Bladework
1- blade undersquare or oversquare - roll up your blade early, let the
oarlock do its job - the oversquared blade not only pulls the boat down
to your side (then it rolls back to the other side), it digs deep and can
crab you out
2- getting caught in the water at the finish - pull the handle in firmly,
creating a cavitation behind the blade, making it easy to pop it out; press
down smartly to clear the blade, then feather, then hands away, in that
order
3- washing out at the finish (rowing into the lap) - find the float point
(handle height where the blade floats) and keep the handle height evenly at
that level all the way in through the drive (keep blade full of water to the
end) - if you wash out you fail to support your side as long as the rowers
on the other side are supporting their side, causing a dip and rebound
4- pressing blade down on the water during recovery (battle of the set) -
try to recover off the water, or if you must recover on the water, then
touch the water as lightly as possible - sometimes rowers on both sides
of the boat think it is down to their side, this usually means they are
fighting each other for the set - 'share the water'
5- cocking the wrist up at the catch (legs overpower wrist, turning the
blade to an undersquared position during the drive, pulls the boat down to
that side, it then rolls over to other side) - this also causes nasty tendonitis
and less interest in continued participation
B. Timing
6- not catching, recovering, swinging together (individuals fail to support
their side of the boat at certain times, causing it to roll) - watch the
outside shoulder of the rower in front of you, not the oar blades; make sure
your hands extend together, bodies go forward together, up the slide
together, then you will catch together - keep the leg drive together, bodies
back together, clear the blade together - as if you were each wearing a
collar with a rope tied between you - to do this, all rowers should catch at
the same extension, i.e. the shortest rower should set the length for the
boat - I think of it in terms of pretending that you are actually pulling the
oar of the rower in front of you (by looking at body movement) - empathize
7- lifting knees too early (before the hands and body are away) - causes oar
handle to lift up in the middle of the recovery - see above on timing of
body motions
8- rushing the slide (puts a 'check' in the boat, unevenly) - see above on
timing of motions
9- not rolling up together (wind catches blades unevenly) - everybody start
rollup over ankles - particularly affects set on windy days
10- hesitating at the catch (stalling out the movement of the hands just
before the catch) - creates a "teetering" point where the boat can easily
crash to one side - keep moving steadily through the recovery to the catch,
lift the hands into the catch drop ping the blade in quickly & and lock it
in firmly with pressure at once
11- stroke setting uneven tempo, rhythm, ratio or stroke length, or not
distinctly lifting into the catch (hard to follow, resulting in timing
problems) - stroke must strive for evenness however much it hurts
C. Hand Heights
12- hands too low or too high during recovery - if down to port, ports
should raise their hands (i.e. the oar handle) and starboards lower theirs
slightly (or vice versa)
13- hands not at an even horizontal plane during recovery or drive - like a
tightrope walker allowing his balancing pole to swing up and down - keep
hand heights steady (think of 'table top rowing' where the oar handle
recovers under the table top, pulls through on the table top) - a caveat on
this, don't bullheadedly hold your hand height at the "optimum" level - the
rowers must cooperate in raising or lowering their hand height slightly to
compensate for set problems - but keep it flat
14- not lifting hands into the catch (not supporting the rower's side) -
this is the time when the set is most susceptible to being thrown off -
think of recovery like a ski, with hands lifting up at the ski tip - do NOT
dip hands down into the boat (thus "skying the blade")
15- random/excessive adjustment of hand heights by individual rowers - in
theory you should find the proper handle height and keep it there, but in
practice due to set problems and/or waves or swells, some adjustment is
necessary - make the adjustments subtle and smooth
D. Posture/Body Angle
16- lunging at the catch (striving for more extension, too late) - set your
forward body angle by half slide, don't change it in the front half of the
slide
17- not keeping head in boat and body over keel - sit up straight, look at
shoulder of rower ahead, remember turning your head can have a noticeable
effect on the set
18- leaning away from oar, or excessively toward the oar - in sweep rowing,
each side should rotate out toward their oar at the catch, but don't lean
excessively toward the oar, and never lean away from the oar
19- excessive layback (usually accompanied by leaning to one side) - sit up
straight, lay back into bow 10 degrees, swing to 15 degree forward body
angle
20- dropping outside shoulder (usually accompanied by leaning) - keep
outside shoulder up at a comfortable, good posture level
21- not putting outside arm between legs (inside leg between arms) - as your
outside arm presses up against your knee, you exert a lateral pressure on
the boat
22- pressing feet against the foot stretcher unequally during the drive, or
pulling up with toes during recovery - press down evenly, come up the slide
smoothly without pulling up with toes - if you must compensate for set
problems, do it subtly and not at all if possible - the Germans refer to
pressing with the feet as the principal way of controlling set
23- not keeping the collar against the oarlock - the 'inboard' of your oar
is like a lever, and when you come away from the oarlock you shorten it,
which can have a distinct effect on the set - keep the collar pressed
against the oarlock at all times, keep some lateral pressure to avoid the
novice syndrome of coming away from the oarlock at the finish
E. Equipment/Configuration
24- rigger set too low or too high (causing rower, or counterpart on
opposite side of the boat, to have insufficient room to get the blade out of
the water or to keep it off the water) - rowers often think they can get
more room to clear the blade by putting one or two washers under the
oarlock, but this must be done evenly from port to starbord and bow to
stern, or it introduces a torque , which creates a back and forth set problem
25- oarlock pitch wrong (should be about 5 degrees), or foot stretchers set
unevenly, oar collars set irregularly ('inboard' measurement)
F. Other
26- weather conditions (significant side wind or waves) (a good excuse)
27- steering (coxswain using the rudder excessively, particularly during
recovery) or coxswain saying up-tight things, introducing bad karma into
the boat (vibes affect swing, tenseness affects set)
28- equipment problems (stuck rudder, weeds around rudder, bent skeg, bent
rigger, stuck seat, etc)
29- talking in the boat (causing lapse of concentration, overcompensation,
head turning, etc)
30- uneven distribution of rowers based on size, weight, strength, length
(the two tallest should normally be in 2 and 3 seat, the two shortest in 1
and 4 seat, but when there is a variation in skill level, the more
experienced rowers should be in bow seat, which has the most effect on the
set, and in stroke seat, which controls the tempo and timing)
The Moral: lots of things may be at work, so don't be too quick to blame the
set on one or two factors, we need to work them all. We should try to
distinguish between things that cause the set to be down consistently to one
side (for example an equipment problem where we could fix it by adjusting
the rigging) and (more frequent) factors that can cause a "delayed reaction"
where the set falls off to one side during one part of the stroke due to
factors that caused it to be off to the other side during an earlier part of
the stroke.
As coach, I try to fix things first based on safety and avoiding injuries.
I try to keep equipment tuned up (although our boats can always stand a going-over). I
try to put crews together based on size and skill/strength. I try to
correct major bad habits when I see them (e.g., coming away from the
oarlock, wrist cocked up at catch, improper oar height, serious skying,
major pressing down on water during recovery). When I go out in the launch
I can see some more subtle technique things. Otherwise, we need to work
together, give the other rowers the benefit of the doubt, and think about
all the factors. Remember, sit up, relax and smile!
Don