This page was written by Anu Dudhia, who for many years was celebrated by the giant graffiti saying "ANU IS GOD" on the side of Donnington Bridge in Oxford.
Indeed -- and that graffiti is still there, I think. (He's also a fantastic atmospheric physicist -- and the rowing results are always beautifully LaTeX'd!)
I rowed in high school, and one of the things the coaches always wanted to see is for you to slide forward slowly in your seat as you move the oar between strokes.
The reasoning being that as you slide “forward” in your seat, you’re actually pushing the boat backwards with your momentum, since you face backwards in the boat.
It always struck me as strange advice though, because in a race you’re trying to get high stroke rates (35+ strokes per minute) and there’s not a lot of time between strokes to move your seat. And if you have to move your seat from A to B, there’s no real free lunch: Work equals force times distance, so you’re going to impart the same amount of momentum into the boat whether you move the slide slowly or quickly… it’s just a matter of how much time that work is spread out over, and that really shouldn’t make a difference to the boat.
Watching rowing in the Olympics it doesn’t seem like they’re worried about this at all. They just move from the back to the front of their seat quickly and it’s not some obvious effort to be gradual about it.
There were other dubious bits of advice too, like pushing with your legs first, then torso, then arms, but if you try to actually do that in reality it feels extremely awkward. And watching the pros do it on TV it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything like this.
And I think that the argument would be that during the return to backstops you would increase the speed of the boat's shell -- leading to a drag term proportional to v^2, in addition to the mean speed of the boat, effectively demanding an increased power on your behalf during the drive to compensate for it. If you move to front stops slower, the bow doesn't surge as much, and the required power is therefore more constant.
You have a certain amount of time (read: very little) to reach the catch if you want to maintain a high stroke rate.
Assuming a fixed time “pulling” in a given stroke, and given two options:
- Row 35 spm and reach the catch slower
- Row 40 spm and have to go faster to reach the catch
I’m pretty sure the latter would win a race. Even though you’re “rushing” the slide and robbing the boat of momentum.
The problem is that the coaches were so adamant about crawling up to the catch, that something has to give, and stroke rate suffers. I know this because after being taught by said coaches, I rowed the stroke seat in my first race, keeping everything in mind the coaches had taught me. I ended up rowing an average of 27 spm and we got absolutely trounced.
The move slowly thing is likely to account for jerkiness as a thing people do is rush up the slide and wait at the catch position. You want to get to the catch without the inertia of being forced forward so you can raise your hands get ours in and then push. From a physics perspective there’s also the possibility that rushing up the slide forces the stern down faster breaking the about however that Varys massively and I don’t know about it being proven.
Regarding the order of operations after the catch that’s because a stroke is similar to power clean sitting down. You are effectively maximising the lever arc.
It's an efficiency thing, the linked page partially covers this in section 5. Going forwards slowly impacts the same momentum, but as it is done gradually it results in a greater overall boat speed because you avoid sudden speed jolts. And remember that going forwards quickly also means you must decelerate your body quite a bit at the catch! When a coach is telling you to slide forward slowly they are trying you to move forward at a constant speed, not so much a slow speed.
That being said, it is better to do slower and longer strokes. You're trying to move the boat, so all the moving of your body is wasted energy. Moving your body really quickly is very tiring, whereas you can sustain slower and longer strokes a lot longer. At an elite level you simply can't make the stroke any longer, and you can't get more power out of a stroke either because there are limitations to oar length. The only way for an elite rower to put more energy in the boat is to do more strokes, which means they have to speed up.
> pushing with your legs first
Your legs are a lot stronger than your torso and arms. If you do arms first, the power being put into the boat by the legs is limited by your arm strength. When you leave the arms extended, you are simply hanging on them without the muscles engaged, allowing you to go full leg strength. This is 100% still the case at an elite level, but it is harder to see due to the higher stroke rate, and the fact that they engage the arms/torso before the legs are completely flat.
+1
Coach could also ask to accelerate an decelerate smoothly while recovering but telling rowers to recover more slowly or „calmly“ usually does the trick
Yup. In my experience coaching novice rowers, even the smartest people suddenly become really stupid the moment they pick up an oar, and need to have a simple, actionable training goal.
The movement is already hard enough to master without complicating things. All the detailed stuff and the "why" can come after a year or two of training. Before that you'd just be wasting your time.
>> pushing with your legs first, then torso, then arms
I think that makes sense, i’ve got a rowing machine so i don’t know if it translates perfectly to real rowing but that’s the motion i do. Use the big leg muscles to move as much “oar” distance as possible first, then use your hips and core, then arms for whatever space is left between oar and chest.
I never feel my hips or core are tired but if i screw up this sequence my arms will get tired.
>There were other dubious bits of advice too, like pushing with your legs first, then torso, then arms, but if you try to actually do that in reality it feels extremely awkward. And watching the pros do it on TV it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything like this.
This is the proper way to row. Iirc its about extending the length of your stroke while having consistent pulling
There's an efficient ratio between the drive and recovery. At 20spm a 1 second drive means 2 seconds on the recovery (so a full stroke is 3 seconds). Try rowing that rating at a ratio closer to 1:1 and you'll really notice the inefficiency. You couldn't do that for an hour and maintain a decent split. As power and rating increase, you want to maintain a ratio. I don't know if it's always 1:2, but there's still an efficient ratio. A similar idea might be being in the wrong gear on a bike. On flat ground with no wind, if you're in the wrong gear you might be able to pedal at a very high rpm, but you'll probably notice that you are not moving efficiently. So avoiding rushing the slide isn't as much about free speed or checking the boat, but being in the right gear. Definitely not a physicist - so maybe not the best analogy, and maybe I'm misremembering how my coaches had explained it to me.
Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do.
Yes, Olympic rowers move forwards fast in their slides (how else do you do 40+ strokes a minute?), and no semi-experienced rower fully separates the arms/back/legs motions (they tend to blend into each other a bit), but common beginner errors are:
- to race the slide, then stop at the catch, causing the boat to pitch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_motions#Pitch) more strongly, losing speed. Pros move fast, but all their other movements are faster, too, so they don’t race forwards on their slides (at least not in training. Sprints in racing can be different, but even then, they try not to do that, as it costs speed)
- to bend the arms first, then stretch the legs. That won’t work if you’re using your leg muscles to the fullest, as your arms won’t be able to stay bent. They will straighten out again, and the force of the blade on the water will be lower than when they didn’t do that.
So, the “legs/back/arms on the stroke, arms/back/legs on the recover” and “don’t rush the slide” mantras exaggerate what you ideally should do, but for beginners, erring in that direction isn’t that bad compared to those errors.
> Coaches don’t necessarily tell you what you have to do, but what makes you do what you have to do.
Yup, this was exactly the problem for me. I take the advice too literally and I had awful form until I just relaxed and rowed in a way that felt natural.
I mean sure, you should be starting the catch with your legs first and finishing leaned back with your arms coming in only as you reach the end. But the coaches would exaggerate way too much and tell you to not even start moving your back until you were fully halfway into the stroke. I took this far too literally and locked my back in place for way too much of the catch and ended up making the whole thing awkward and inefficient.
Don’t rush the slide, sure, but the coaches made it seem like you had to inch. Up. So. Slowly, and we did low rate technical rows to hammer this home. I rowed stroke seat in my first race and guess what happened? I went up the slide slowly and ended up rowing at 27 strokes per minute and we lost the race handily. Oops, i guess they forgot to teach us how to actually row fast before we got to our first race. I never rowed stroke after that because I was too used to rowing slowly.
The reasoning behind coaching in a way that causes you to do what you’re supposed to do instead of what you’re told to do, makes sense, until you realize that there are people that will actually take the advice literally. And you’ll overshoot and miss the mark.
Basically: “do as I mean, not as I say” is a shitty teaching style, at least for people like me.
One cool fact is that rowing offers a bigger efficiency advantage over swimming than biking over running:
The efficiency advantage of biking versus running is around 2.66x, the hour record on bikes is currently 56 km (56km/hr), and the fastest marathon run is around 21km/hr.
On rowing vs swimming, the current freestyle 1500m record is 14:31 (6.2km/hr), whereas the best time for single scullers is 2km in 6:30 (18.5km/hr), for an advantage of around 3x.
* I tried to pick roughly similar distances to compare.
There have been opportunities to try running at world-record pace on a giant treadmill, with a crowd to watch you land on your ass while you try and run at a sub-5:00/mile pace:
For reference, I believe the pace Kipchoge ran for his world record is about as fast as I ran when I set our high school's 2 mile/3200m record. It's a solid record that I still hold 45 years later, but Kipchoge did it for 24 more miles. Insane, indeed.
I tried to find similar distances to compare, but it might have been better like you suggested to compare around similar times. One other thing is that the conditions in an indoor velodrome are pretty ideal vs being in the water, although you also can get currents and wind (although records cannot be certified unless winds are below some threshold I believe)
Second this. Nearly all rowing clubs here in Germany buy concept2 for a reason. The monitor is a bit old fashioned but does the trick. Machines are sturdy and last for a long time.
Concept2 is the gold standard, and it's not even the most expensive. It's the only machine competitive rowers use, from high school to the olympics. C2 supports their machines to an insane level, going so far as to provide replacement parts all the way back to their first machine from 1981.
Yes concept 2 is the standard. But you would have more fun joining a club and going on the water. For the most part people hate the erg. And this is coming from someone that owns two concept2's and rows on the water or the erg about 6 times a week.
I am casually interested in indoor rowing as a fitness goal: get a cheap (<$500) water rower.
I have decided that I like indoor rowing as a fitness activity and have a history of sticking to exercise goals: an expensive water rower ($1500)
I have decided that I like indoor rowing and would even engage in indoor competition: Concept2 ($1000) because that is what the competitions use.
I want to learn to row, and do it for real on the water: do not buy a rowing machine and start pulling. You will learn terrible form and the first time you lift your oar over your knees you'll end up in the water. Learn to row first, then get a rowing machine. Join a club. They'll start you on a concept2 but someone will be teaching your good form.
I prefer water rowers to Concept2s, but opinions differ. I've owned two concept2s and one cheap water rower, and I prefer the water rower now.
I have owned a Concept 2 Model D for quite a while. It has been one of my best investments. It just works. There has never been anything that has come close in dollars per work, no gym, no other equipment, not even running shoes.
I rowed in a 4 and 8 in college. As we were a club sport, we didn't get much funding from the school. As a result we had numerous ancient watercraft with some newer boats in the mix. It was always a joy to get to row in the newer boats, of course, as they were lighter and stronger.
We also had a thing called the "twinkie test". Rowing is a sport where everyone needs to be in perfect sync and "pulling their own weight". If you could replace a rower with a twinkie and the boat went faster, then it was fair to say you weren't contributing enough.
I have heard pulling your weight can also mean your butt lifting slightly off the seat on the drive. I'm not sure which is the case.
I imagine the etymology is similar to "way enough" or is it "weigh enough"? Which could have roots in "make way" or "drop the anchor". At this point no one seems to know.
the chain is completely hidden when not in use (it is not wise to leave the handle in the cradle for long term storage). plus I have not lubed the chain since purchasing it, lol, so it is dry as a bone anyway.
I have long wondered why rowers row in sync. That causes a burst of speed and power when they all drive and then a lull in speed when they all recover. That burst of speed raises the force of resistance from the water to the cube power.
Rather, why not split the rowers into 2 groups? Have drive while half recover. And vice versa. The speed curve of the boat won't be so peaky. And the cube law resistance from the water will be much lower.
Seems like that would more efficiently turn total power into average speed, and waste less power on overcoming water resistance?
I understand there may be physical issues with long oars not cycling in sync. But perhaps there's a boat design that could solve this?
I’m a rower but with only a very loose understanding of the physics.
My understanding of why you actually want the ‘peaks’ is because there’s a point at which you have to drop the blade back into the water to begin the new stroke. I’d guess you need to do that at the trough of the cycle in order cause the least disruption to the free speed generated.
From experience it’s also definitely true that for a boat to be balanced it’s absolutely essential the rowers move in sync.
47 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadThe reasoning being that as you slide “forward” in your seat, you’re actually pushing the boat backwards with your momentum, since you face backwards in the boat.
It always struck me as strange advice though, because in a race you’re trying to get high stroke rates (35+ strokes per minute) and there’s not a lot of time between strokes to move your seat. And if you have to move your seat from A to B, there’s no real free lunch: Work equals force times distance, so you’re going to impart the same amount of momentum into the boat whether you move the slide slowly or quickly… it’s just a matter of how much time that work is spread out over, and that really shouldn’t make a difference to the boat.
Watching rowing in the Olympics it doesn’t seem like they’re worried about this at all. They just move from the back to the front of their seat quickly and it’s not some obvious effort to be gradual about it.
There were other dubious bits of advice too, like pushing with your legs first, then torso, then arms, but if you try to actually do that in reality it feels extremely awkward. And watching the pros do it on TV it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything like this.
Assuming a fixed time “pulling” in a given stroke, and given two options:
- Row 35 spm and reach the catch slower
- Row 40 spm and have to go faster to reach the catch
I’m pretty sure the latter would win a race. Even though you’re “rushing” the slide and robbing the boat of momentum.
The problem is that the coaches were so adamant about crawling up to the catch, that something has to give, and stroke rate suffers. I know this because after being taught by said coaches, I rowed the stroke seat in my first race, keeping everything in mind the coaches had taught me. I ended up rowing an average of 27 spm and we got absolutely trounced.
Regarding the order of operations after the catch that’s because a stroke is similar to power clean sitting down. You are effectively maximising the lever arc.
It's an efficiency thing, the linked page partially covers this in section 5. Going forwards slowly impacts the same momentum, but as it is done gradually it results in a greater overall boat speed because you avoid sudden speed jolts. And remember that going forwards quickly also means you must decelerate your body quite a bit at the catch! When a coach is telling you to slide forward slowly they are trying you to move forward at a constant speed, not so much a slow speed.
That being said, it is better to do slower and longer strokes. You're trying to move the boat, so all the moving of your body is wasted energy. Moving your body really quickly is very tiring, whereas you can sustain slower and longer strokes a lot longer. At an elite level you simply can't make the stroke any longer, and you can't get more power out of a stroke either because there are limitations to oar length. The only way for an elite rower to put more energy in the boat is to do more strokes, which means they have to speed up.
> pushing with your legs first
Your legs are a lot stronger than your torso and arms. If you do arms first, the power being put into the boat by the legs is limited by your arm strength. When you leave the arms extended, you are simply hanging on them without the muscles engaged, allowing you to go full leg strength. This is 100% still the case at an elite level, but it is harder to see due to the higher stroke rate, and the fact that they engage the arms/torso before the legs are completely flat.
The movement is already hard enough to master without complicating things. All the detailed stuff and the "why" can come after a year or two of training. Before that you'd just be wasting your time.
Rushing the slide is less of a problem if you have good catch placement. Olympic rowers tend to have near perfect catch placement.
I think that makes sense, i’ve got a rowing machine so i don’t know if it translates perfectly to real rowing but that’s the motion i do. Use the big leg muscles to move as much “oar” distance as possible first, then use your hips and core, then arms for whatever space is left between oar and chest.
I never feel my hips or core are tired but if i screw up this sequence my arms will get tired.
This is the proper way to row. Iirc its about extending the length of your stroke while having consistent pulling
Yes, Olympic rowers move forwards fast in their slides (how else do you do 40+ strokes a minute?), and no semi-experienced rower fully separates the arms/back/legs motions (they tend to blend into each other a bit), but common beginner errors are:
- to race the slide, then stop at the catch, causing the boat to pitch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_motions#Pitch) more strongly, losing speed. Pros move fast, but all their other movements are faster, too, so they don’t race forwards on their slides (at least not in training. Sprints in racing can be different, but even then, they try not to do that, as it costs speed)
- to bend the arms first, then stretch the legs. That won’t work if you’re using your leg muscles to the fullest, as your arms won’t be able to stay bent. They will straighten out again, and the force of the blade on the water will be lower than when they didn’t do that.
So, the “legs/back/arms on the stroke, arms/back/legs on the recover” and “don’t rush the slide” mantras exaggerate what you ideally should do, but for beginners, erring in that direction isn’t that bad compared to those errors.
Yup, this was exactly the problem for me. I take the advice too literally and I had awful form until I just relaxed and rowed in a way that felt natural.
I mean sure, you should be starting the catch with your legs first and finishing leaned back with your arms coming in only as you reach the end. But the coaches would exaggerate way too much and tell you to not even start moving your back until you were fully halfway into the stroke. I took this far too literally and locked my back in place for way too much of the catch and ended up making the whole thing awkward and inefficient.
Don’t rush the slide, sure, but the coaches made it seem like you had to inch. Up. So. Slowly, and we did low rate technical rows to hammer this home. I rowed stroke seat in my first race and guess what happened? I went up the slide slowly and ended up rowing at 27 strokes per minute and we lost the race handily. Oops, i guess they forgot to teach us how to actually row fast before we got to our first race. I never rowed stroke after that because I was too used to rowing slowly.
The reasoning behind coaching in a way that causes you to do what you’re supposed to do instead of what you’re told to do, makes sense, until you realize that there are people that will actually take the advice literally. And you’ll overshoot and miss the mark.
Basically: “do as I mean, not as I say” is a shitty teaching style, at least for people like me.
The efficiency advantage of biking versus running is around 2.66x, the hour record on bikes is currently 56 km (56km/hr), and the fastest marathon run is around 21km/hr.
On rowing vs swimming, the current freestyle 1500m record is 14:31 (6.2km/hr), whereas the best time for single scullers is 2km in 6:30 (18.5km/hr), for an advantage of around 3x.
* I tried to pick roughly similar distances to compare.
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a23634309/runners-attempt-...
For reference, I believe the pace Kipchoge ran for his world record is about as fast as I ran when I set our high school's 2 mile/3200m record. It's a solid record that I still hold 45 years later, but Kipchoge did it for 24 more miles. Insane, indeed.
Coincidentally it's right at 21km/hr! :)
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_hour_run
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_marathon_world_record_p...
http://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/user/dudhia/rowing/physics/index.ht...
And includes the basic physics of rowing machines (ergometers/ergs/ergos in the rowing world) for those confined to gyms & land training:
http://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/user/dudhia/rowing/physics/index.ht...
I've leaned on Anu's work many times in my rowing experience. I even raced him once!
https://heartheboatsing.com/2023/03/08/iwd-2023-women-as-wet...
Gotta admire the will to persevere despite oppressive conditions.
Edit: thanks!
I am casually interested in indoor rowing as a fitness goal: get a cheap (<$500) water rower.
I have decided that I like indoor rowing as a fitness activity and have a history of sticking to exercise goals: an expensive water rower ($1500)
I have decided that I like indoor rowing and would even engage in indoor competition: Concept2 ($1000) because that is what the competitions use.
I want to learn to row, and do it for real on the water: do not buy a rowing machine and start pulling. You will learn terrible form and the first time you lift your oar over your knees you'll end up in the water. Learn to row first, then get a rowing machine. Join a club. They'll start you on a concept2 but someone will be teaching your good form.
I prefer water rowers to Concept2s, but opinions differ. I've owned two concept2s and one cheap water rower, and I prefer the water rower now.
We also had a thing called the "twinkie test". Rowing is a sport where everyone needs to be in perfect sync and "pulling their own weight". If you could replace a rower with a twinkie and the boat went faster, then it was fair to say you weren't contributing enough.
I imagine the etymology is similar to "way enough" or is it "weigh enough"? Which could have roots in "make way" or "drop the anchor". At this point no one seems to know.
Exaggerated example: https://youtu.be/zvqe9gGruxw
Rather, why not split the rowers into 2 groups? Have drive while half recover. And vice versa. The speed curve of the boat won't be so peaky. And the cube law resistance from the water will be much lower.
Seems like that would more efficiently turn total power into average speed, and waste less power on overcoming water resistance?
I understand there may be physical issues with long oars not cycling in sync. But perhaps there's a boat design that could solve this?
My understanding of why you actually want the ‘peaks’ is because there’s a point at which you have to drop the blade back into the water to begin the new stroke. I’d guess you need to do that at the trough of the cycle in order cause the least disruption to the free speed generated.
From experience it’s also definitely true that for a boat to be balanced it’s absolutely essential the rowers move in sync.