Thursday, July 29, 2010

Workout of the Day:
Front Squat
3-2-1-1-1
and then,
3 Rounds for Time of:
20 Tall Wall Ball Shots (20/12 lbs. – 12′ target = above the red line)
20 Pull-Ups (chest-to-bar for advanced athletes)

The Hip Hitch
Written by Shane Farmer

If you take a look at my first article, “An Argument for Bad Form,” I explain the drive and the recovery, two of the most important parts of the rowing stroke. As a refresher, the drive is broken down into three movements; driving the legs, swinging the back open, and pulling in with the arms. The recovery is similarly broken down in the inverse; pushing the arms away, swinging the back forward, and not until these two movements have been completed do we let the legs break allowing us to roll up the slide.

The “hitch” I speak of in the title is what we do with our hips during these two moves. Let’s look at the drive first. We initiate the drive by engaging the legs and driving off the foot stretchers as we brace our core and keep our back straight. Here’s where we find a hitch. A natural tendency (most likely learned from the evil teachings of Oly Lifting, just kidding, but seriously) is to immediately let the hips slide underneath our body towards the heels as we lean back with the shoulders first. This makes for an inefficient drive because: (1) You’ve already exhausted the length you gain from being able swing your back open once your legs are finished; and (2) inevitably, you were driving your legs at the same time meaning that you compromised the power you gain from your legs when you have a nice tight core that allows you to put all of your weight behind the oar handle. So to sum it up, you made your stroke shorter and less powerful. Let’s make it even simpler; Short + Less Power = No good.

To correct this, as you drive off the foot stretchers with your legs, engage your core and keep that back nice and tight, and consciously think about driving your hips back before you let any other parts of your body do any work.

Next lets see how this hitch affects the recovery. A proper recovery moves as follows. We push our arms away from our body first until the elbows are locked out. Next we swing our back forward keeping a straight back and tight core until we feel tension in our hamstrings and glutes, then we finally let our knees bend and we glide ever so relaxed up to the catch. This bend in the knees is where we find our friend the hip hitch again. The most common issue is that as soon as a person allows their knees to bend, it’s as if their hips have a strong magnetic pull to their heels…this is not a good thing. So their hips slide underneath their shoulders and they end up at the catch beginning the drive in an already compromised position with their back opened, core unengaged, severely limiting the length they will be able to get. Unengaged core and limited length results in….say it with me: a poor stroke.

Surely there must be some way to fix this issue?! The cue I like to give when I’m coaching and need to fix this is that right after you bend your knees, think about bringing your chest to your knees as you compress your body at the catch. This means you will be letting your hips stay a bit behind your shoulders even when you’re fully compressed. If your hips are getting dangerously close to your heels then you’ve compromised that stroke. Ask a friend to watch you, record, or look in a mirror. All of these will allow you to see if you are really getting to a proper compression position.

These are two very common issues so I would suggest taking some time to analyze whether or not they’re affecting your stroke. If so, jump into one of my classes, or grab a camera and start taking strokes.