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If the article "Will It Make The Boat Go Faster" piqued your interest, you will probably want to learn how to interpret the acceleration plots referenced by Johannes Rudolf. Dr Valery Kleshnev is the goto guy when it comes to rowing biomechanics. He has been writing a monthly newsletter since 2001, copies of which are available here. Below is one of those newsletters in which he describes what you are seeing when you look at a plot of boat acceleration.
For a fee, Dr Kleshnev will rent you his measurement equipment and provide an incredibly detailed analysis of your rowing stroke. If his analysis is a little more than you want to know, Johannes Rudolf's company, Rowing in Motion, sells a smartphone app which, among other things, will produce a simple acceleration plot which you can analyze using the guidance presented below. To validate the accuracy of Rowing in Motion's acceleration plot, here's an article comparing it to that of BioRow's. Dr Kleshnev's newsletter references several of his past newsletters, e.g. "RBN 2002/06". Hover your mouse over those references for a link to that newsletter.
Don't miss GB's Alan Campbell's comments on this subject at the bottom of this page.
MORE! It turns out GB single sculler, Alan Campbell, is also a proponent of using acceleration data to analyze his stroke. From the Rowing Musings blog (lightly edited)...
"At around 8 mins into this interview [from RowPerfect's "Rowing Chat"], Alan was asked about how he approaches the catch without disturbing the run of the boat, to which Alan talks about how working with biomechanics has helped him rethink how he deals with check on the boat in that the size of the check isn't the most important part, more the amount of time that you are checking the boat. To try and explain this I've included the graph below which I have taken from the Biorow paper on boat acceleration (itself an excellent read) [and reproduced above]
"In this graph you can see the curve produced by an Olympic Gold medal winning pair (red) and a national champion pair (blue). What’s interesting is that if you look at the catch of both pairs you can see that actually it’s the Olympic pair that has the largest check at the catch, however, despite this, their curve is spending the least amount of time under 0 on the acceleration axis (i.e. they are decelerating the boat less than the national pair). So even though they are producing more check as they are decelerating the boat for less time then that means they are able to go faster. This is what Alan was describing in the RowingChat interview. This means that actually the best way to approach the catch isn't to slow into the catch position (as in order to slow down on the slide, you actually have to press on the footplate, decelerating the boat), instead the focus should be more on slowing into the catch at the last possible moment, and trying to change direction and drive out of the catch as quickly as possible with the blade buried in the water. This would mean a large check reading, but less time with the boat decelerating.
"This aligns well with how Drew Ginn describes his perfect stroke, and also with the biomechanic analysis of how the perfect catch should be taken which is outlined very well by this article written by the creator of the Rowing in Motion app. So it is interesting to hear another Olympic medalist describing the same catch as being the ideal he is striving to get.
"Its important to note as well that the biomechanics that Alan is mentioning they use to measure this is now available to everyone with access to a smartphone, thanks to the Rowing in Motion app that is now available on Android and iOS. So everyone now has access to the tools that can help you develop a catch like the Aussie gold medal winning pair!"
And this from the brains behind the Rowing in Motion app, Johannes Rudolf, both excellent articles!
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