Marlene and Rebecca discuss

- How to stop digging on the drive

- Boat lights for dark mornings

- Sweep crew drills for HOCR and Autumn head races

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Timestamps to the show

03:50 The past week - coaching, rowing, getting colder in Canada

08:30 Subscribe to our Newsletter and get confident rowing and sculling

https://fastermastersrowing.com/newsletter/

10:00 National Voice for Masters in NZ - communication meeting about how and what to message

11:30 Row2k published our article Rigging 101 for Masters covering easy adjustments to your boat and the level of difficulty of each. We focus on the cause and effect of rigging changes

https://www.row2k.com/features/5242/Rigging-101-for-Masters/

Rigging feet heel height to seat top is in the 17 cm range. This hugely affects ability to compress and get power in the first part of the stroke

15:00 My problem is I row a men’s heavyweight single and I weigh 115. I dig a bit deep on the drive. I suspect this is operator error but I really want it to be a rigging problem. Thoughts?

Digging deep while sculling in a big boat. This affects the steepness of the angle of the oars into the water.

Drills to improve digging - rowing circles, half blade buried.

Also avoid corrugating through the water.

19:00 Darkness is coming. I was going to ask a question about navigation lights, but then did my own research and bought these Navisafe lights, and wanted to share the information. Two nautical miles range, Coast Guard approved. I got two: one is set to green/red for the bow and the other to white for the stern

Early thoughts about boat lights for rowing boats - Rebecca uses Rail Blaza lights are 360 white lights which can also go on a pole.

https://www.railblaza.com/products/illuminate-i360-all-round-white-navigation-light/

https://www.railblaza.com/products/quikport-mount/

24:00 Sweep crew drills for HOCR and Autumn head races

Combination crew drills

Start with rhythm

- pause drills

- release drills

- blade depth drills

Get keyed into the voice commands of your coxswain

- Wide grip drill is very good

- Row in 6s to get accustomed to the movement

- Reverse pick drill for leg drive co-ordination

28:00 Drive pressure drills

- go from half to three quarter pressure building during the stroke. Light, medium, hard thinking that you’re rowing with glass oars for 5 strokes at each pressure.

30:00 Drills to increase stroke rate

- Half slide drills

- 20 strokes acceleration at half slide every 5 minutes during a longer low rate piece

- Rolling or flying starts are good every 3-4 minutes

Plan and practice emergency stops and re-starting as you may need to use that in the race.

Inside hand on the back stay drill

Getting familiar with Sweep if you’ve mainly sculled - Use your peripheral vision to watch the blade entering the water.

38:00 heart rate variability testing our recovery. It detects instabilities in our physiology. Marlene and Rebecca both use the HRV4Training app