Tech Tip: Slow Body, Fast Boat
by Noel Wanner, COC sculling camp associate director and Tufts University head coach
When sculling, I like to distill the technical points I’m thinking about into a few broad ideas - otherwise it’s easy to drive yourself crazy trying to keep track of all the elements of this complex multi-joint movement. One of my favorite “big ideas” is “slow body, fast boat’: if your body is moving fast, the boat is probably going slow - and if your body is moving slow, the boat has a chance to be fast!
Don’t you have to move fast to get the boat to go fast? Well, let’s think about the two major phases of the stroke: recovery and drive.
Recovery: Let the Boat Run!
What’s the goal of the recovery? Let the boat run between strokes and prepare the body for the next stroke. Fast or abrupt body movements will disrupt the run of the boat - so be relaxed, fluid, and smooth - do the least damage to the glide while getting your body into the strong, supported position needed to take the next stroke. A skilled recovery is also matched to the speed of the hull - at low speeds/rates, the recovery movements are slow, while at higher hull speeds/rates the movement will be faster, but still smooth and fluid, and matched to the run of the boat. A good trick: use peripheral vision to get a sense of the speed of the water running past the hull beneath you - if your handle speed or slide speed into the stern was moving faster than the water moving under the hull, you are probably moving too fast!
Don’t hurry around the catch: to move the boat, the blades need to be in the water!
Now for the drive - simple, right? “Move the boat.” Easy to say, sometimes hard to do - especially if you hurry. Just like the recovery, the speed of movement needs to be matched to the speed of the boat. Think back to your first strokes ever, as you tried to figure out how to move the boat: put the blades in the water (hopefully squared and ready) and then create some pressure of the blade against the water using your body weight hanging from the handles. Notice the first part, it’s important - for the boat to move, the blades need to be in the water! So many scullers are in such a hurry to apply their power at the catch that they start moving their seat and/or their handles to the bow without the blade in the water! They’ve started trying to move the boat, but they are leaving the boat behind - with no connection to the water, the seat and handles can move to bow VERY quickly! But the boat doesn’t move - in fact, if you have started pressing on the feet to get your seat and handles moving to bow with blades not in the water, you are pushing the boat the wrong way!
Drive speed is the result of hull speed - not the other way around! Move ahead of the boat speed just enough to get weight suspended from the handles.
Back to that first stroke - the boat is at a stop. You get your blades in, then start to get some of your weight on the handles to get the boat moving. How fast can you move your handles or your seat? Not that fast - the hull is going slowly, picking up speed from a dead stop. You need just enough drive speed to feel weight on the handle. What happens if you try to move too fast? Either your body will move away from the handles without moving the boat, or the blade can slip or tear in the water - the feeling is that the blade gets unstable in the water, sometimes even “washing out” entirely! Ever watch a novice eight or quad do a start? Lots of fast body and fast handle movement on the drive, lots of water being thrown off the blades - but not so much boat speed.
Now take a second stroke - the boat is no longer at a dead stop, so your drive speed can be a little faster - but just a little! The hull speed is fairly slow, so you need to be patient - with each subsequent stroke, the hull speed will rise, so your drive speed will pick up a bit, too. But remember the goal is always the same as one the first stroke: let the blade find the water at your full length catch position, then find some weight on the handles to start pushing the boat past the blade.
There’s only one drive speed for each hull speed: fast enough to get weight suspended on the blades, not faster!
Even when the boat is really humming, the single is never going that fast - and your goal is the same as on the first stroke: get the blade in and find connection. Some of my favorite drills to work on these ideas are the pushback, and for team boats the old game of “add a pair”.
The pushback starts with a stationary boat, blades in the water at the release. Now gently and slowly back the boat into the catch, pushing gently on the handles to push yourself up the slide into a catch position. Hold gently in this position as the boat comes to a near-stop again, then gently move yourself through the drive to the release again. Be gentle and slow in every phase - don’t drive so hard that the blades pop out at the release! The goal is to hold the blades in the water the entire time. Once you can push comfortably back and forth, you are feeling what it’s like to have the blades in the water for a full, loaded drive!
Now start with a pushback and start taking gentle strokes, say 5 or 10, just feeling for that long, connected arc on each drive. Don’t try to do more than feel some steady load each stroke! You’ll notice that the boat picks up a lot of speed if you do this. Just keep finding the long-loaded arc and keep finding the right drive speed to put some gentle, steady pressure on the blade through that arc, and the hull will keep going faster and faster! This drill can be quite a revelation - hull speed comes from a steady, non-violent application of pressure to the buried blade through a nice long arc. Nothing more is needed, and that can be a surprise.
The “add-a-pair” drill does a nice job of exploring the same idea. Start with the boat at a dead stop, then start with one pair rowing easy (or one sculler in a quad). The goal for the pair is to feel nice, long, connected strokes. After 8-10 strokes, add another pair of rowers (or another sculler). The boat will start to pick up speed - but the goal for the original pair is to feel the same sensation of a long, loaded arc. They will have to start moving a bit faster on the drive to feel the same load, but they are never trying to “pull” that hard. Just move fast enough to keep weight on the face of the blade.
So the next time you’re out for a row, try slowing down the body movement, especially around the catch and on the drive. Think less about the intensity of your own effort and focus more on just moving the boat. Your speed of movement is a result of the hull speed - an effect, not a cause!