How can rowing help you with pacing, and some drills to keep your stroke efficient.
Rowing is one of those movements that seems relatively simple, yet it is easy to do incorrectly. Have you ever felt like you are expending so much effort, yet your monitor screen doesn’t quite reflect that effort?
It is not just about how fast you can go back and forth on the rower. It is not just about getting a high stroke rate. What matters is the efficiency and power behind your strokes. Mastering this concept will not only improve your rowing significantly, it will also teach you how to pace yourself properly – transferring to areas of the gym.
The Rowing Stroke
When we row, we want to prioritize the big muscles in our bodies – primarily the legs and glutes. If you feel like your arms are more sore than anything else when you row, you are (very likely) rowing incorrectly.
Rowing should be a leg workout, as those muscles can produce vastly more power than our arms. This concept is more than just rowing-specific, too. Learning how to recruit our large muscles first (including our core) and then transferring that power outward is part of the core-to-extremity principle used in the CrossFit space. When we learn to move in this manner, we can take it not only to rowing but also to our Olympic lifting.
So, when we row, we want to start slightly leaned over with arms straight, legs bent, and core engaged. The first part of the stroke is a leg drive; then we lean the body back, then the arms come last.
When we come back to the starting position, we simply reverse the order: arms first, then body, then legs. The chain should stay level throughout the stroke, and the eyes should look forward (no throwback with the head).
Drilling the movement
Before focusing on anything else, get the stroke down. Practice rowing with just your legs and body while your arms stay straight throughout the entire stroke. Do this for a few minutes, then add in the arms.
After adding in the arms, pause at the finish position, then be sure to get your arms away first, then the body, then the legs.
The ‘recovery’ portion of the row should take two to three times as long as the actual pull. Think of it as a setup for the next stroke. In this way, you will make every stroke count, maximizing what you can get out of every pull.
Dial in the technique. When you get tired, you can keep up your pace by staying diligent in your stroke. Once it gets sloppy, power is quickly lost, and you will make far less progress for the same amount of effort.
The Stroke Rate
Once the technique is down, shift your focus to the stroke rate.
It is very common to speed up the stroke and rush through it when tired.
But instead, we should focus on making our stroke efficient. Then, a single, powerful stroke will get you further than two or three weak ones.
Stroke efficiency can be built by stepping back and working at very low stroke rates with very high power output.
Try to row for 5 minutes at a 16 to 18-stroke rate, yet produce as much power as possible. See how fast you can go without letting the stroke rate get above 18. It may seem like more effort at first. It will require you to use as much leg power as you can. You will have to take full strokes, increase your length, and make sure your arms are the first thing to come back up after your stroke.
You must keep the recovery slow to keep the rate down, yet put all your effort into the leg drive. At first, it will take a decent amount of concentration. But if you are willing to put the work in, eventually, a strong and efficient stroke becomes the fallback, and even when you are tired you can produce strong strokes that make you faster on the rower.
Concept 2 has some great resources on perfecting your stroke, they can be found here.
The Rowing Curve
You may notice that there are some settings on the rowing monitor where you can see a curve that reflects your stroke. This curve measures how you apply power to your stroke. It should look smooth like this:
When you get that perfect cure, you are applying pressure consistently through your stroke, maximizing what you can. If you see the curve skewed to one side or another, it is due to the fact you are applying force unevenly in one end of your stroke.
At the end of the day, the more you practice rowing while looking at the curve, the better you will get at smoothing it out. This is just another tool for dialing in that technique. For more information on the cure, click here.
Increasing the Stroke rate
When it’s time for a workout (or a competition), you want to row as fast as possible. Most times, this will mean a faster stroke rate than an 18. Depending on how tall you are and the distance you are rowing, there will be an ideal stroke rate that works for you.
If you row a 5k, a 24-stroke rate may be a good number to shoot for.
For a 2k or anything shorter, you will likely be around 28 to 30+ strokes per minute.
However, we always want to maintain that good efficiency we practice at slower stroke rates. If we can keep that efficiency and up the stroke rate, our output will increase.
If you want to get better at rowing, spend a little extra time before or after class (even 5 minutes) to row at those lower rates with a high power output. Though it may not be the most exciting work, it will pay off.
Rowing helps our overall fitness
When you take honest time to perfect your rowing stroke, it will force you to be in tune with your body’s pacing. You will learn to know what stroke rates to hold on to for different distances; you will learn how to push the body just far enough without reaching that ‘redline’ in a workout too early.
When done correctly, utilizing the legs and core, rowing transfers over excellently to the clean, snatch, and other lifts. It builds strength and reinforces the core-to-extremity principles that help us maximize our overall strength and power.
Rowing is also great for your cardiovascular health. So, if that is something you want to build, take some time to row while focusing on form. It will only make you fitter and a better rower.
