by GRP Row Coach Steve Whelpley

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Hey, rowing is the intersection between Rodin's Thinker and an Olympic sprinter?" While that seems like a stretch, there's a lot of signs pointing towards this mash up of gluteal utilization and thoughtful movement during the rowing stroke. On one hand, we find ourselves seated like Rodin's Thinker, but on the other, we're running across the water like a sprinter recruiting his or her posterior chain to the fullest. In my opinion, this intersection presents a significant challenge to our graceful and yet unnatural movement, and it requires both athleticism and thought to explore the challenge.

Gluteal muscles are a bit in vogue right now. So much so, that they have earned the dictionary acceptable abbreviation of "glutes" and people make a career out of gluteal development. Even so, how can a seated sport not pay attention to a muscle so vital to our evolution as a species? We must be careful to not take the single largest muscle mass in the body for granted just because we're sitting upon it.

We do not instinctively utilize our glutes in a seated position. For one, we spend countless hours practicing a passive seated position, making us obtuse to an active one. If you think of sitting at a desk or in front of a TV or even at a picnic as repetitions of an exercise, it would be terrifying to think of how many repetitions we do in a passive manner while being seated. We spend a lot of time neurologically training ourselves to relax and disengage while sitting. Adding insult to injury, sitting with your body weight on top of your glutes only furthers the inhibition of them. These two issues combine to make glute recruitment during the rowing stroke a coordinative challenge. The good news is that it is trainable, but requires the thoughtfulness of Rodin's seated sculpture. Therefore, we have to make our precious seated minutes in a boat more active and thoughtful.

In terms of biomechanics, the rowing stroke provides the glutes with both a sense of direction and confusion at the same time. The gluteus maximus helps with hip rotation, hip abduction and adduction, pelvic stabilization and more. However, it has the primary function of helping to extend the hip. Therefore, when we start opening the back, the glutes should automatically engage to some extent. In my opinion, you generally don't need to tell the glutes what they do naturally. I have occasionally witnessed rowers stalling out mid leg drive or exceptionally rising in the mid drive as they forcefully plant their heels and say "go go gadget glutes." To me, this isn't where they need the direction. The drive off the footboard with the quads and the glutes comes naturally as it would for a jump. Even as the body begins to open, we will involuntarily activate the glutes in most situations. That being said, perhaps some people would significantly enhance their somatic responses with training off the water to increase glute strength and coordination. After all, hip hinges take some refinement, and seated hip hinges are quite foreign to our day-to-day life.

As strength and conditioning has evolved to a much more applied sciences field, the opening of the back or swing of the torso has emerged as more of an opening of the hip hinge than a throw of the shoulders. The hip hinge literally and figuratively pivots around the utilization of the hamstrings and the gluteal muscles. Even so, the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus, and gluteus medius all anticipate varied movement and a hominid that wants to walk upright. However, in a rowing shell, we sit and don't stand. Additionally, we never fully open the hip hinge. We only partially rock open and closed with our feet permanently screwed in place. As a result, the muscles fatigue and never complete the movement for which they were onboarded.

I am far from the only person associated with Craftsbury to recognize that our sit bones (or ischial tuberosities) are the rowing equivalent of a ballsport player's balls of their feet. Whether you play tennis, golf, basketball, baseball, or countless other sports, coaches will have you shift your weight from your heels towards the balls of your feet. Just as Troy Howell, Ric Ricci, and others would argue, I maintain that we must use our SEAT like nimble FEET. We have to find ourselves in a seated ready position any time we're in the boat.

We need to give our glutes some instruction when they think it is quitting time. We have to make sure our carbon seat is more of a pitching mound than it is a barcalounger. This is why you might hear me say coaching lines like:

"When the legs are long, keep them strong."
"Feel as if your leg drive puts your hips up on a hilltop, and then keep your hips on that hilltop through your swing and the release."
"Open your back like you're doing a kettlebell swing."
"The release position should feel more like you're standing than sitting."

And trust me, there are many more! Recruiting some gluteal assistance through the second half of your drive helps both your body and the boat. By utilizing the glutes after your leg drive and through your swing, you will mitigate the downward forces of your swing on the bow of the boat. Recruiting your glutes through your swing and the release creates a better chance of swinging through to bow rather than cantilevering on the seat like an inverted pendulum. If safeguarding your boat speed isn't enough, then your hip flexors and back will thank you for utilizing your glutes as a more sustainable backstop to your drive's momentum.

Using your glutes doesn't mean that you are putting yourself on top of a teetering precipice of flesh, but it does mean that you shouldn't feel sunken into the seat and your sit bones. It's more of a sustained bracing or clench through your glutes and lower abdominals. It is more akin to what you feel when doing a barbell hip thruster or the apex of a good kettlebell swing.

This is a surprisingly hard shift for many of us to make. This recruitment comes right when we think the work is done with the completion of the drive. However, this minimal engagement will pay dividends in terms of maintaining boat speed and cadence. Recognizing the challenge, I have tried a few things over the years. First, I employed an athlete with a 3D printer to make "seat cues." I had heard of a company making shoe cues, which were insoles that had a textured and tougher material under the heel to promote more of a midfoot strike when running. Building off that idea, we made tiny graduated pyramids to create discomfort and live, physical cueing when your weight came too far onto the back edge of the seat.

The innovation was met with mixed results.

Another progressive but more functional tool is the Citius Remex seat pads. These seat pads look different and normal at the same time. They have holes like other seat pads, but they also have notable wings off the bow side of the seat and a large mound in the middle of the seat. Essentially, the rear wings work to keep you from dropping your pelvis posteriorly to the bow, while the mound towards the front of the seat pad in the middle acts like a bike seat. By carrying more weight on your perineum, it frees up your glutes to activate more easily. It reduces the distraction to the glutes caused by your body weight. I affectionately refer to the middle mound as "the perineum pommel horse," and this is where you want to spend the majority of your stroke cycle.

For some, the seat pads have provided immediate relief from sciatic issues and gluteal soreness. That being said, technical changes will still require an athlete's good effort, but may happen more easily as the seat pad removes some physical barriers to entry and creates some helpful cues. US residents can get one through https://www.easygoingrowing.com/.

No matter what, it will take some thought and some training. Next time you sit down, think about how different you want to sit when you're in a shell. Then, when you get in the boat, remember to keep your legs strong even once they're long.

Tech Tip: Be Astute and Use Your Glute