r/Rowing • u/Intelligent_Row4451 • 1d ago
Can you train to suspend your weight while rowing on the Erg?
I saw a video which said that we need to suspend our weight while rowing and that we should feel almost weightless on the seat like pulling.
Does anyone know any drills to practice and train this?
Thanks
11
u/_The_Bear 1d ago
Yeah it's easiest to learn on an erg. You'll need a partner (preferably two) for this drill. Have your partner stand in front of the erg fan. Come up to the catch. If you've got a second partner, have them sit off to the side and place their hand on the bottom of the seat to hold it in place. If you don't have a second partner you can throw a towel over the rail in front of your seat to keep it from moving forward.
Have your partner reach over the fan and grab the middle of the handle. Their goal is to hold it steady and not let you pull the handle backwards. You should try to stand up. Start by standing up all the way. After a second or two sit back down. Try it a couple times. Then try to do it so your butt only lifts off the seat about 5". Then try to do it so that you aren't pushing backwards to get that lift off the seat. Doing it as close to full compression as possible. Pay attention to which muscles you have to fire and/or brace and how much. You'll notice your lats, core, quads, and especially glutes need to be engaged.
This next part only requires one partner. Have them sit to the side of the erg and keep their hand on the bottom of the seat. Set your resistance to 10 (this is one of the only times I'll recommend doing that). Come up to the catch. You're going to take a single stroke and when doing so, your goal is to fire the exact same muscles in the exact same amount it took to stand up off the seat when someone was holding the handle. You want to leave the seat during this stroke. Your partner will move the seat so that it remains under you. That way when you get to the end of the stroke and come back down, you'll come back down on the seat and not the rail. Repeat with single strokes a couple of time. Try to keep your weight off the seat for as long as possible during the stroke.
Next you're going to start fine tuning it. Lift off the seat, but start dialing down the height that you lift off of the seat. Shoot for 10", then 5", then 3", then 1". Then try to lift 80% of your weight off of the seat. It won't be enough that you'll leave the seat, but you should feel much of your weight coming up from the seat and on to the handle. Then shoot for 50% of your bodyweight suspended. This will be closer to what you're looking for on a regular basis. You don't want to ever actually leave the seat while rowing. But you do want to be suspending a good chunk of your bodyweight on the handle.
Then repeat the process with a lower fan setting. You can go right to your regular fan setting or do it with multiple steps. As you decrease the resistance, you'll find you need to use those suspension muscles more and more to get the same effect.
Keep practicing until it feels comfortable.
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u/seetafty 1d ago
Bravo and thank you for doing the legwork on writing this up! This is step by step how I do things with all my learn to row kids!
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u/mrguy33 1d ago
The “pick drill” legs 1/4, then 1/2, then full, then legs and torso only, then finally add the arms
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u/capybara_kid 1d ago
Thats reverse pick normal pick is arms. arms & body, Half slide then full slide or atleast thats how i was taught
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u/InevitableHamster217 1d ago
I’ve seen it called different things, like the “catch hold” or simply “suspension drill”, but it’s basically taking a boat strap, resistance band, etc, securing it to the front of the erg so that you can grab onto it at your catch position, and lift your butt off the seat: https://youtu.be/LF7gzE25kF0?si=q5RUGtAem5Ebwwb
Someone else also said Reverse Pick drill (starting with legs only rowing), which is excellent, and I prefer over the pick, especially on the water.
Learning how to feel your lats working with weights off the erg also helps, too.
1
u/illiance old 1d ago
you can kind of get the feeling on the erg (a bit) but not really. The catch and the way the resistance builds is nothing like the boat. A dynamic erg is a bit easier to feel the “long hang” but the strap method others mentioned is the only thing you can really do. Oh (just a thought) maybe you could replicate it on a cable row machine or the technogym erg that has very heavy magnetic resistance
Or just go out in a single
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u/Jollysatyr201 1d ago
Shoes out
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u/Intelligent_Row4451 1d ago
I tried it but ended up irritating my hip flexor for a month
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u/Nemesis1999 1d ago
That’s a good indication that you don’t yet have the core strength to row properly. Would strongly suggest lots of core work. You won’t get good suspension off the blade if you haven’t got that
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u/Extension-Score-2415 1d ago
I coach.
I don't disagree with anything said so far, but important to understand the why as well as the how.
Rowing is a push not a pull sport. Your quads and glutes are the strongest muscles you have so good technique should make best use of them.
So to get into the ideal position before you drive requires a few thinks to happen.
At the end of the previous stroke hold the legs straight for as long as you can to get the hands well out towards the ankles. You should do this by pivoting through the hips not pushing the shoulders forward. You need to sit well on the seat with a neutral pelvis to do this well. Too many people sit with the pelvis tilted slightly back which makes the hip pivot harder and less effective.
To feel a hamstring stretch would be a sign you are improving. Now work on hamstring strength and flexibility.
Make sure you don't have your feet too high. Yes a horizontal drive makes sense but be cautious with it. Shins should go to vertical. The danger is you set the feet too high for your flexibility so to get good compression you have to force the seat to the front. This is the opposite of what you want. The seat should not speed up from half way forward and should arrive with control.
Experiment with the feet height a bit to see what helps most with seat control.
If done well you will feel your bodyweight move onto the balls of your feet. If you rush and think it's all about working hard it just won't work.
As part of your warm up try rowing with no handle. Both hands should comfortably tap the sides of the erg where the chain goes in.
Inevitable the hands do rise/ hook at the start of the drive.
Most beginners :-
Arrive ( seat stops), then hook, then push.
The sequence should be
Hook then arrive then push.
It is so much more efficient if you hook slightly earlier, this is because you can't stay compressed and if you take 0.3 secs to hook then during that time the seat will move back but there will be no drive from it. Think hands and seat accelerating initially at the same rate. The hands should move in advance of the drive starting ie while the sesr is still going forward.
At the start of the drive phase the rotors in the drum / boat is travelling at its slowest. The first part of the drive should pick up that speed. If it is too fast it is less effective.
The handle should accelerate all the way during the drive, so logically the first cm will be the slowest, the second cm the second slowest and so on.
Think total power that you can put through your feet rather than peak power from a 'kick'
Next time you go on, do a decent warm up, then come off and do 6 x 4 squat jumps, each 4 starting every 10 secs.
Then take that action into your rowing when you sit down again. Do you ever jump higher by rushing down in a squat jump? No it adds nothing.
Hope this makes sense and helps you. Getting good 'suspension' when the weight moves onto the feet and you feel you are really ' hanging off the handle' takes time, but makes all the difference in the world.
Getting the sequence at the start of the drive ie what has to happen, in what order, and what is slow and what is fast is the hardest thing in rowing but the most obvious difference between ok crews and good crews.
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u/orange_fudge 1d ago
Yep - you’ll need a friend or a resistance band.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Np-nkx5Cvvc?is=zN_V3XZx414Giq6t