Can an overly long stroke be more efficient?

[Gammmmo]

Indeed, plenty of room for improvement on your technique, Paul! This is a good thing

You are leading the recovery with your legs rather than getting your torso forward first, which doesn't ever get forward in your case. Poor posture in your stroke etc! (i can now see why you are suffering back problems from the erg)

Plenty of great instructional drill videos out there to help you with this. Shane Farmer has some really excellent one's

I think that's code for "jesus...you look cr4p on the erg!".
I got chatting at the event to a guy who came 2nd in his HWT heat with a short 17. After my heat, he said what I was doing "looked allright" - I think he was being polite.

As said, it's a pity there isn't some footage from early on in the 5K because I was getting v tired at that point in the film. With the recovery I have actually find rapidly changing direction with the handle is leading my recovery (and v effective as per a video from DarkHorseRowing) - further to that I'd not really thought about it. Poor posture - yes agreed. My back is alot better. You'd think by doing core work and some weights that affect my lower back, both would improve...but all these seem to do is expose the long term injury. Lately I've not done either. Coincidence?

[Anth_F]

Indeed, plenty of room for improvement on your technique, Paul! This is a good thing

You are leading the recovery with your legs rather than getting your torso forward first, which doesn't ever get forward in your case. Poor posture in your stroke etc! (i can now see why you are suffering back problems from the erg)

Plenty of great instructional drill videos out there to help you with this. Shane Farmer has some really excellent one's

I think that's code for "jesus...you look cr4p on the erg!".
I got chatting at the event to a guy who came 2nd in the Open HWT with a short 17. After my heat, he said what I was doing "looked allright" - I think he was being polite.

As said, it's a pity there isn't some footage from early on in the 5K because I was getting v tired at that point in the film. With the recovery I have actually find rapidly changing direction with the handle is leading my recovery (and v effective as per a video from DarkHorseRowing) - further to that I'd not really thought about it. Poor posture - yes agreed. My back is alot better. You'd think by doing core work and some weights that affect my lower back, both would improve...but all these seem to do is expose the long term injury. Lately I've not done either. Coincidence?

No no... you don't look like crap on the erg

These things i point out are not at all a hard fix. A more upright "strong" posture, and work on getting the torso forward after hands away

[Bob S.]

The chainguard stops us front end, and the long layback is a style already abandoned when I was at school in the fifties.

It was already well on its way out in the forties, when I was in school. At least in the US. For the first couple of decades of the 20th century, the long layback was standard. In around 1910, Hiram Conibear, a man with no previous rowing experienced, introduced a new short layback stroke the eventually became the standard in the US. My own coach, Ky Ebright, was one of Conibear's disciples as a coxswain at the University of Washington.

http://www.pocockclassic.org/RodJohnson/Johnson.html

In my first big 3 mile regatta at Poughkeepsie in 1947, there was only one of the 8 schools entered that was still using the long layback. The oarsmen of that crew all had fantastic abs, but were a dead last in the race. Most, if not all, of the other schools had coaches who had worked with Conibear.

Many years later, I was astounded when I learned that the Canadians had revived the long layback and were having excellent success with it. I still don't understand why, although it is possible that it has something to do with the quite drastic changes that were made in the equipment in the intervening years. Rowing has come along way from the wooden Macon blades, cedar plank shells, and wrought iron riggers.

Speaking of equipment, there is still an enormous difference between rowing on a machine and in a boat. Whatever technique works best on the water does not necessarily translate over to working well on the erg - and vice versa.

Bob S.

[jamesg]

At school in London in the 50s our coach explicitly taught us that short American layback with quick hands away. He also had us go an inch or so through the work, presumably to get a better posture at the catch and maybe compensate for inefficient blades.

This shows how rowing is done nowadays, and it's no different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIetslktFQk&t=2s

The amount of swing seems to be standard, and despite rating 38 or more they never shorten.

Xeno's famous Atlanta exploit shows very much the same style too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wViOIIh7pUU&t=60s

[hjs]

At school in London in the 50s our coach explicitly taught us that short American layback with quick hands away. He also had us go an inch or so through the work, presumably to get a better posture at the catch and maybe compensate for inefficient blades.

This shows how rowing is done nowadays, and it's no different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIetslktFQk&t=2s

The amount of swing seems to be standard, and despite rating 38 or more they never shorten.

Xeno's famous Atlanta exploit shows very much the same style too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wViOIIh7pUU&t=60s

I showed how its done nowedays, not in the 1950, but 2016

The most succesfull rowers from the last 10 years, unbeaten for yearsssss. One boat, two guys, one upright, one big layback. In the boat offcourse same rating.
On the erg .... Drums role.....

BIG DIFFERENCE, 4 spm lower for the big layback.

In your defence those guys where not around in1950, so they missed that class