Tech Tip: Live in the Handle
by GRP Row coach Steve Whelpley
As many of us in the northern hemisphere move indoors, we have the opportunity to come to terms with the ergometer, and often hear more guttural cries of motivation along with it. Perhaps you're not keeping up with the Joneses, but people have pockets full of catch phrases that they chant to spur big ergs or boat moves. Some examples might be:
Saucing it. Ripping it. Sending it. Or pretty much any gerund before "it."
Yamming on it.
Bend it and juice it.
Yank on it.
Many of these revolve around acting upon something instead of acting with something. There's no real judgment here. At times, it is essential to motivate ourselves by any means possible when we have depleted the necessary metabolic energy or need to invest in a strategic race move. These moments are often associated with attempts at changing speed. I'd like to examine what we do when we try to sustain speed.
I regularly talk about there being two general types of strokes: one that builds speed and another that sustains speed. Both are critical even if they are not proportionally utilized during a race. Building speed typically requires more energy as we overcome the inertia of the system (including our own fatigued bodies) as well as wage a stiffer battle against the resistance we face whether it be a mechanical fan on a flywheel or the drag of wind and water. Sustaining speed is when we come to "base pace" and try to perpetuate a consistent motion and speed via a more repeatable stroke.
As I hopped on the erg this winter for the first time in a long time, I had to problem solve for my own humbled fitness. I wanted to find a way that I could perpetuate the motion at less cost to myself. As I explored avoiding tension and resistance in the top quarter of the stroke, I noticed how my hands felt lighter on the handle. There was an absence of the slight torsional pressure I would normally feel in my fingers as I picked up the stroke. You see what I said there? "Picked up" the stroke. When we pick up things, we do so with our hands. Rather than picking up the stroke or the handle or the oars, I suggest "living in the handle" and working with it to find a sustainable rhythm.
As I practiced this, I kept my seat in motion, but only so much as it felt like it was pacing the handle’s change of direction. I avoided loading up the handle and just tried to pantomime the desired bodily movements. What I found was a lightness throughout my whole stroke cycle that would leave me astonished by the prevailing split. Things would unfold rather dynamically, but never in a heavy manner. I tried to simply work with the handle instead of making sure to act upon it as I would to dramatically build speed. When you think about the torsional force on the handle (the same one that might lead to blisters), this torsional or twisting sensation results in practice from a very subtle amount of overloading the front end. It is usually associated with an opening of the body or a slightly excessive rise in the shoulders. Sit on an erg and intentionally swing your trunk to do bodies only strokes. What do you feel in your fingers? How much pressure is there? Where is the pressure?
While we often overwork the stroke on the water, it happens even more so on the ergometer. Almost every person unknowingly opens the back earlier on the ergometer relative to the water. I believe this comes from the slightly heavier and more consistent drag as well as our impatience to hit a split with the totality of a stroke cycle. We step up to the plate at the front end and just want to swing at it.
If you want to coerce yourself into finding this more sustainable rhythm, start by picking a split. Then, commit to rowing that split two beats higher. As you do that, focus on isolating a light leg push off the front end that is as matched with the handle speed as possible. Remember, when trying to sustain a pace or a rhythm, try to live within the handle rather than act upon it.