ISS – Intra Stroke Speed

By Frank Biller & David Ireland

Coaches and athletes often ask us whether we could make a product that could do force measurement, speed curves through the stroke, angles of oars, display speed realtime, bells and whistles on the SpeedCoach and so on. The main reasons for why the SpeedCoach is designed the way it is now, displaying average data per stroke, are utility and simplicity, along with meaningful date – displayed immediately.

We all know that the speed through the stroke varies greatly, expressed in 500 meter split, it’s easily one minute in small boats! That’s the difference between top speed at the release and lowest speed before catch. NK customer David Ireland started running some experiments by setting the memory interval to “Distance” and “1” on his SpeedCoach Gold. We did some more experiments with the SpeedCoach XL, and thanks to the larger memory for “Just Row” of 1,500 memory points, we were able to review about 1,500 meters of rowing in depth.

This article illustrates simple and effective ways to get useful data from your SpeedCoach. The tests were performed over the course of several workouts, and they immediately showed us very interesting results. These tests were run by rowers, not scientists, so don't be intimidated to try this yourself.

With the memory interval set to Distance, 1 meter, the SpeedCoach will record the average speed for each meter rowed. We recorded 200 meters at pace in a 2x and it looked like this:

This chart, by the way, was done via the USB interface and the free Communicator software. Once data is downloaded, it takes less than a minute to make this chart. It is interesting to look at this sequence of 22 strokes. Clearly some strokes have higher peaks and some are more even.

We can also easily look at some single strokes in detail to see if we gain information from it:

This is a single stroke with two peaks (camel back), probably slightly late catch and a bit of delay with connection, then a strong drive with long finish. Let’s compare that stroke to the faster catch, easier-feeling stroke below:

Nice smooth line with contineous acceleration for the boat until the release. Also, look at the speed difference between the two, the smoother stroke is about 1.5% faster!

This raises the question of how would that look for different equipment, rigging, line-ups etc. Let’s see. In the following two charts we have a M1x at stroke rate XX, once using set-up A, and once using set-up B, again detail analyis of a stroke sequence. For both we have the same boat, same rower, same stroke rate and efffort, but changed oars, blade design and rigging specifications:

Setup A

Setup B

We can see the “camel backs” in set-up A, while B is slightly smoother and maintained a higher overall speed, being over 5% faster than A.

Keep in mind that we used “distance” for the memory criteria. It would be optimal to use time, for example every 0.1 seconds. The reason being that the faster the boat goes, the faster one meter passes, hence this will make the graph look more volatile. But, you get the message and basic picture.

How To Do It

Equipment Needed:

• SpeedCoach GOLD or any XL
• Boat equipped with wiring and impeller
• SpeedCoach interface
• Communicator software installed on your pc (free)

SpeedCoach Set-up:

• Set SpeedCoach to display distance in meters (standard)
• Set “just row” memory to “distance” and value to “1”, which means it will record every single meter rowed.

Procedure:

• Know what you want to look for? Rigging, line-up, playing around?
• How many meters or strokes at what pace/stroke rate, make sure your crew or your teammates are on the same page.
• Keep notes on what did in which piece.
• Do not exceed memory. For the Gold this means max of about 500 meters of rowing, for the XL 1,500 meters.
• Download data on PC – chart with Communicator Software. Adjust parameters for Y-axis until you got entire chart in. Keep in mind, up to one minute difference is possible!

Arms and Body Over Pause

By Frank Biller

Probably one of the oldest drills in rowing, but still valid today. Especially helpful in warm-ups.

How to do it?

Row at about 50% to 60% pressure. Pause at arms and body over - essentially at catch position and just before the knees start to come up. Blades still feathered. The pause should be less than a second – we don’t want to loose speed, balance and flow. Let knees come up and “let seat flow into the catch”. Repeat.

What to look for?

Upper body and arms in “catch position”, shoulders nicely stretched out – only movements from here on, 1. slide and 2. catch.

Sculling: At pause position, pay attention to hand position, right hand should be behind left hand with knuckles of the right touching wrist of the left.

Sweep: During pause check if you feel the weight you put on than handle, feel how you sit on top of the oar.

Relaxed sliding into compression, no rushing

Feel how hands move with the wheels; with the last turn of the seat wheels, the hands go up and blades in. Do not change body position – do not lunge for the water.

Advantages

Gives time to gather “all the parts” at comfortable position -> timing

Time to self-essentials and adjust.

Straight and connected feel at the catch, supported by heavier boat since it’s slowing down considerably.

Good warm-up drill, sweep -> boat control, sculling -> connection and power timing.

This drill goes really well along with the drill described in the November issue: “Straight-Arm Rowing”.

Disadvantages

Boat flopping around because someone tries to “balance”

Danger of rushing the slide because of trying to maintain balance instead of working on control.

The smaller the boat, the more difficult the set.

Muddy Waters in Chicago - Why Did Rowing Grow in Chicago?

By Bruce Smith
Bruce Smith spend most of his time watching other people row, either as coach of US Lightweight Men's entries at the World Championships or as Executive Director at Community Rowing. When he's not chasing rowers around on the water, he is trying to catch up with his two kids in Norwich, Vermont.

Walking down the street a few years ago in downtown Chicago, I stopped by the river and asked the person I was with, a native Chicagoan, if people rowed on the river. I was new in town, freshly imported from Canada, and I didn't know the score. "The Chicago River? Are you kidding!" was the response I got. It just wasn't done. In a city that did everything, that prided itself as the City of Big Shoulders, the idea of getting out on the muddy waters of the Chicago River seemed nothing short of lunatic.

For more than a century, the River had been little more than a glorified sewer. It collected all the sewage and pollution from businesses that happily discharged their untreated waste with fifteen inch pipes directly into the river. In 1907, the City had been forced to change the direction of flow because the drinking water in Lake Michigan was being contaminated by discharge into the Lake. The entire city depended on clean water from Lake Michigan to stay hydrated and the decision was made to send the polluted water down to St Louis instead of letting it mix in with the billions of gallons of the Great Lakes system.

Not much changed for the river or for rowing as Chicago continued to prosper through the 20th century, but the economic base that made the city hum gradually shifted from manufacture to service and financial industries. The river that had once carried tailings from refineries and animal carcasses downstream now just carried storm water and sewer overflow. Local perception lagged behind the gradual recovery of the river, however - it remained a 40 mile snake through the city to be avoided at all cost.

When I moved to town from Montreal, I found two local rowing clubs. One was Lincoln Park, on a tiny truncated lagoon on the North Side of the city, and the other was the Chicago River Rowing Association, located in a condemned building out on the breakwater between Lake Michigan and the River. There were about forty of us who toiled up and down the main channel, venturing further south in the city when we had time. The Canadian in the group couldn't help asking "why don't we take over one of these abandoned factories as a rowing club." The water out by the lake would get very rough by seven in the morning, while the water North and South through the city remained glassy all day long. A little bit of calling around and we had a temporary location for rowing on the North Branch. It wasn't perfect - we had to put our boats down on some special horses, climb down a cement precipice to the dock, and reach back up overhead to get our boats to the water, but it was glorious rowing through the post-industrial landscape - flat and mostly straight and three lanes wide for miles.

Early morning rows through the mist, late night adventures past abandoned factories and parking lots, venturing through the Chicago Loop where we would row past the Sears Tower and the Lyric Opera. We felt like pioneers in our little boats, dodging barges full of scrap and the occasional trader out for a run in a cigarette boat after a day in the pits making millions. A couple of years later, and we had a brand new permanent facility on the North Branch of the river up in Skokie, a permanent floating boathouse in the middle of the city, and a burgeoning community down on the South Side. Rowing is everywhere in Chicago now - a high profile sport for teenagers and adults alike.

Looking back now, it is easy to identify the reason that we were able to build boathouse on the Chicago River. As the City started to take care of the environment, it opened up a whole new frontier for activities; it was like finding a thousand acre park in the middle of an industrial jungle. Thousands of new rowers discovering the sport every year. Now that we’ve got our water access and lots of people rowing, what are we going to do for the next act?

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