Notes on 1x Training

So this may be more of a personal training journal entry than a blog entry, but I had a really great training session in the single yesterday and thought I would share some of my realizations. Well, mostly the things that Linda told me to think about, because I have been rowing and racing and training in the 1x since my junior year of high school, and I made more effective changes in the 45 minutes I spent with her than I did in the last 5, 6 years of trying to figure things out on my own! Part of me thinks I should be upset about that (think about how many training sessions I have spent working so hard at taking bad strokes!), but instead I am so happy to finally be starting to have a more effective technique that that doesn't even enter the equation. Anyways, here are the 4 things Linda had me focus on:

1. Wrapping my hands further around the oar. This feels slightly uncomfortable, because the sensation is one of diminished control over the feathering and squaring of the blade. The goal with this is to have flat wrists when the fingers start to roll the oar out at the finish, so the wrists are actually slightly lifted at the catch and throughout the drive. When this is done properly, the work can be felt as locked on through the arms throughout the drive, and the legs' drive is effectively translated through the lats and then the arms onto the blade.
2. Holding my shoulders down and engaging the lats just before the catch. This is tricky because it doesn't feel loose and relaxed, the way it's easy to think a recovery should feel. When I was able to do this, the catch was quicker and the leg drive more effective off of it because my whole body was ready to go as soon as the blade was buried. The feeling is almost like I'd imagine it feels to wear those big football shoulder pads, sort of a solid locked feeling in the shoulders which pushes them down. Then, off the drive, the only feeling in the arms is after the elbows break for the finish, and all of the work is down in the lats--it feels like all the power is in the engaged lats, swinging low back, and the quads as they drive the hips back.
3. Transfer of pressure on the hands from drive to release. Linda gave the visualization of the left-hand handle as a clock face as you look along the shaft towards the blade. As you pull in, the pressure is felt in the fingers and is geometrically aligned at "3 o'clock". At the finish, the pressure switches instantaneously to "12 o'clock"--there is no transition through 2 and 1, and no pushing around at 10 or 11 to get the blade out. In order to do this, the stroke has to finish a bit earlier than with maximal layback--essentially a visualization of releasing at almost the shorts line, which results in a finish a couple of inches in front of the shirt. The result is a powerful drive the entire time the blade is in the water, and a quick release that doesn't slow the boat down or wobble the set with an uneven blade extraction. This is helped further by keeping the elbows high during the drive and at the release, which feels kind of like a bench pull into somewhere between your sportsbra line and bellybutton while swinging the elbows out from your sides (I suppose like a narrow-grip bench pull, then).
4. Lowering the hands slightly and gradually from release to catch. This results in the blades being high enough off the water to square them cleanly, while also better enabling the lats to pre-engage (1). Thinking about bringing the blades from a fairly high release a few inches in front of the shirt, closer to the toes as the seat starts up the slide, results in more room to square up just before the catch. This is one of the things I need to work on the most, since it feels a bit like I need training wheels once I have that much more space in which to work!

Anyhow, those are a few of the things I am learning and working on...It's kind of difficult to hold all of them in my head at the same time while steering and trying to stay clear of crazy high school crews, so I end up thinking about one or maybe two for twenty strokes at a time, but I feel like a new rower! Hopefully, this extremely helpful coaching will result in me being able to move a boat more effectively…and feel faster and more powerful…which is really what this whole sport is about anyway!

Saturday Night (Racing) Fever

One of perhaps the least enjoyable things about the spring racing season is just how sorry the social scene gets for rowers. Sure, there's nothing in the medical literature that says going out on saturday night and having a couple of beers will affect your racing abilities the following Saturday morning. And yet, if you are focused on your team's performance, on trying to hold your seat in the boat, on anything having to do with winning--you find that you suddenly have a diminished desire to go out and live it up. Exciting Saturday nights include checking out the day's results on row2k.com, looking at entries for the next NSR, maybe some gossip time with rowers at other schools to hear how the day went and secretly trying to evaluate what you hear as being indicative of how your team ranks against theirs. It's a far cry from a fall filled with Solo cups and poor life decisions, but year and again this is where spring season finds us...

C.R.A.S.H.-B.'s

This evening was everyone's favourite February indoor race, the 2K CRASH-B race. One of our men (Toby Medaris) won the heavy collegiate men's race, with my friend from Northeastern (Pat Sullivan) pulling a strong piece to take second. On our side, a couple of friends had phenomenal races (Kady Glessner and Catherine Starr), and Radcliffe overall had an extremely strong showing. I'm very excited for our spring racing season, based on how many people PRd and pulled very hard-fought pieces--right now, I think we're stronger than the year we took 3rd at NCAAs!

CRASH-Bs is an interesting race because all the factors that affect you individually, and usually stay within your own boathouse and team, are pulled out into the public eye. If you falter for five or six strokes, it's not just on your own monitor, it's on a jumbotron. As Blocker said, "it's not just a race, it's a performance."

I had a disappointing piece--I wasn't able to maintain the goal pace I had set for myself after the first 750 meters, which I think was largely due to having forgotten what it felt like to be in that much pain (rather, in the normal amount of pain you're in during a 2k). The good thing about that is that as Sullivan says, "there's a pretty steep learning curve between the first and second spring 2k." I'm not worried about it (last year I was 13 seconds faster in June than I was at this race), but it would have been nice to PR. However, now I have a lot of good things to focus on, and some mental toughness to get back.

The Season of Self-Renunciation?

Lent begins this Wednesday and with it, a renewed focus on abnegation. There's not a lot I can do to change rowing and training into something that fits that focus, but I think that sharing my training with other members of the rowing community might be a step in that general direction.

I feel like there is a dearth of resources for female collegiate rowers, so that's what my general focus will be. I'll be publishing workouts, thoughts on training and where training fits into the life of a student athlete, linking to articles, and writing about some things that I feel are especially relevant to female rowers, such as nutrition and the team community.

This sport has made a huge impact on the person I am today, and I believe in its power to affect positive changes in the lives of just about everyone. The lessons it has taught me, and continues to teach me--among other things, about interdependence with a team, personal focus and fortitude, and what a difference a mentor can make in one's life--are ones I will truly value for the rest of my career as an athlete and also for the rest of my life. To quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:

"One would sometimes think, from the speech of young men, that things had changed recently, and that indifference was now the virtue to be cultivated. I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fierce half-hour, or even six minutes, that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all its costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph--or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give all the blood in his body to win the one, will he not spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?"