RowingRelated

This year's Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta boasted one of the deepest men's fields in recent memory, which made for a very exciting weekend, filled with intense racing despite the storms and less-than-ideal weather that delayed racing at times. In the Varsity 8 things got started with a bang, with crews fighting to secure the top spots in Saturday afternoon's semifinals. All the top seeds advanced with relative ease in the first three heats. The fourth heat had the most drama as a feisty Notre Dame crew put the pressure on GWU all the way down the course and fought valiantly for the win hoping to secure an easier semifinal, but came up just 0.3 seconds short at the line. The semifinals were filled with very competitive racing in a two-to-advance format. Delaware was the biggest loser in the semis missing out on the final by just less than a second and were only 1.1 seconds away from semi winner Virginia . We were very impressed by Delaw...

The release (where the outside hand taps the handle down causing the blade to exit the water on the square) is the most important position to master first because it is the key to initiating a good recovery and, therefore, a good catch.  Cal women's rowing training in Seattle (Photo: B. Kitch for Rowing News ) It is important that posture is maintained as the handle is drawn through the finish (if the body slumps down into the boat, the rower cannot possibly maintain pressure on the handle as the support structure for the work of the arms lies in the static strength of the core), so the first step is to make sure that your athletes are sitting up tall, which requires development of the core musculature. The next item to focus on is the position of the hands.  The handle should be drawn to the top of the rib cage, at which point the rower presses downwards with the outside hand, making a vertical turn (a 90 degree angle change in the trajectory of the handle), to ...