Posture on the Drive

Mirka Knapkova

When it comes to technique, posture continues to be one of the most controversial subjects. It’s hard to read any article about rowing without seeing the word "up" or "straight" in relation to how one should position one’s body. And yet, if you look at the Olympians, you will be hard-pressed to find a straight back among them.

I’m guessing people might say "sit up" in order to keep their athletes from diving at the catch, which we certainly don’t want. But while we don’t want to go down (i.e., dive), neither do we want to go up. We coach horizontal. How can I get the boat to move as horizontally as possible through the water? To do this we need to move our body, and therefore our oar, as horizontally as possible.

If we attempt to keep our back straight and rigid, we become a hinge and our head will be lower at the catch and the finish, higher in the middle of the drive. Think of a trapdoor. As you open it up, the top goes up and eventually, if you open it completely, it goes back down. We don’t want to be a hinge, rather we want to roll our body through the stroke as if we were rolling and unrolling a carpet. The head then stays at the same level throughout the stroke. To do this, the vertebrae must act independently, not as if they were fused together. This will result in a rounded back. The process of doing this will help keep the blade from going deep in the middle of the drive.

Everyone’s back has a natural curvature. We don’t want you to contort your body into an unnatural position; instead, simply let it relax. When you’re at the finish, don’t sit on your sit bones - instead roll back farther on the seat so you’re sitting more on the back of your butt. (Finish angle is another controversial topic we’ll tackle another time, but for now suffice to say most of the Olympians are going 30+ degrees with layback.) We call it a relaxed couch potato position.

When most people sit comfortably in an easy chair or couch, this is how they sit and we’re looking to find the same position in the boat. Why waste energy trying to keep yourself erect? We know that most of the resistance that we are trying to overcome is the water resistance below the waterline of the boat. It makes no sense to apply a force high up in the boat to move it. Using the core of the body at oar handle height is more efficient. So sit low and relax, putting that saved energy into the drive.

At the catch, we are again looking for a relaxed position. Let the shins come to vertical and try to get your nose and chin across the shins. Keep your back relaxed, don’t force it into an unnatural position. Keeping the head moving horizontally (some will call that up) will keep the body in a strong position.

To move from this catch position to the finish position we described, we want to move horizontally, not up and down. To stay level, we need to unroll the body one vertebrae at a time, as is done in Pilates. If we try to straighten our back as we start the drive, we will go up, and the oar will go deep. If we unroll the body, we go horizontally, putting all our energy into moving the boat forward.

Another analogy is to think of yourself moving through a low tunnel. You don’t want to hit your head on the top of the tunnel. Try to keep your head 1 inch from the top of the tunnel the entire stroke.

There are so many examples of rowers with very long, successful careers who row with a rounded back - Mirka Knapkova - 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist, Rumyana Neykova - 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist, Itzok Cop - 5x Olympian and 3x Olympic Medalist, Eskild Ebbesen - 5x Olympic Medalist, Olaf Tufte - 2004 and 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist, Juri Janseen - 2004 and 2008 Olympic Silver Medalist, Katrin Rutschow Stomporovski - 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist and Xeno Muller - 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist, to name a few.

There are two prominent exceptions: one is Ondrej Synek and the other Kim Crow. Again, every back is different, some bend or curve more than others. Synek appears to have a naturally straight back and we don’t ask anyone to change that natural curve of the back but simply to let it be natural. Kim Crow, on the other hand, looks like she has learned to sit up.

We made a YouTube video in which we took a still picture of every gold medalist from the 2008 Olympics at the catch, middle of the drive and finish position. All of them have a rounded back. You can find this video here. Also if you look at the row2k Video of the day from May 8, you will see the finals of the Men’s single at the 1996 Olympics. Some great names there and all the athletes have rounded backs.