Time
A few years back while I was coaching the novice women at the University of Puget Sound, we were running the annual rivalry race with Pacific Lutheran University.
Before I launched my boats, I sat down with them and came up with specific goals that I wanted them to work toward during the race. Winning would be a nice goal but I wanted more important things accomplished. Since PLU only had a single novice eight, I gave my second boat the goal of staying in touch with them trying to make them uncomfortable. Row their race and see if by staying in contact with PLU if they could force them to make a mistake and then take advantage of said mistake. For the first boat, I wanted us to execute the base rate a little better than we had, commit to the sprint more than we had been doing in the previous races and to try and break 7:20 over 2000 meters.
The race went off very well and each both accomplished their goals. But while I was searching for the times of the race, the head coach at the time laughed at me and said, "You're obsessed with time!" That struck me as odd and it's something that has stuck with me since that day as I've tried to understand what she meant.
I believe that I understand what she was saying now. Watching my guys erg the other day and do 500 meter pieces and watching their technique just fall apart - a new unwelcome development considering we hit water next week - and I realized that at the end of their pieces, they didn't care how they rowed, they cared about how fast they went.
And I believe that's what the head coach was trying to get me to understand. Speed is one thing and it's very fun to be fast, but are you sacrificing other aspects of rowing in the name of speed? Is your technique really that good or is your technique actually abysmal? What is your catch timing like and how does your drive look? Are we hanging onto the finishes or washing out? I could go on listing the pros and cons but I believe the bottom line is this.
Speed without technique isn't really speed. It's very easy novice year to be fast. Put together decent technique, work really hard and you'll probably go fast enough to medal. But is that truly good speed or are you letting other things go simply to accomplish a time goal? When your athletes move up to varsity the following year are they going to bring something to the boat or is your head coach going to suddenly have a massive speed cap because your former novice aren't hanging at the catch or are dropping their hands and hunching over for more reach?
Watching my guys this year, I believe that this is what she was trying to tell me. I've been working with these guys a lot but we're picking up bad technique and they as a result of something that I have not stressed or over stressed, don't seem to care. They bounce up and check their splits and times, comparing that to their team mates and are generally satisfied with fast times, not fast technique.
This is something that I am glad I've caught now and am very thankful for my former head coach giving me something to chew on till I finally was able to see what she was telling me.
Before I launched my boats, I sat down with them and came up with specific goals that I wanted them to work toward during the race. Winning would be a nice goal but I wanted more important things accomplished. Since PLU only had a single novice eight, I gave my second boat the goal of staying in touch with them trying to make them uncomfortable. Row their race and see if by staying in contact with PLU if they could force them to make a mistake and then take advantage of said mistake. For the first boat, I wanted us to execute the base rate a little better than we had, commit to the sprint more than we had been doing in the previous races and to try and break 7:20 over 2000 meters.
The race went off very well and each both accomplished their goals. But while I was searching for the times of the race, the head coach at the time laughed at me and said, "You're obsessed with time!" That struck me as odd and it's something that has stuck with me since that day as I've tried to understand what she meant.
I believe that I understand what she was saying now. Watching my guys erg the other day and do 500 meter pieces and watching their technique just fall apart - a new unwelcome development considering we hit water next week - and I realized that at the end of their pieces, they didn't care how they rowed, they cared about how fast they went.
And I believe that's what the head coach was trying to get me to understand. Speed is one thing and it's very fun to be fast, but are you sacrificing other aspects of rowing in the name of speed? Is your technique really that good or is your technique actually abysmal? What is your catch timing like and how does your drive look? Are we hanging onto the finishes or washing out? I could go on listing the pros and cons but I believe the bottom line is this.
Speed without technique isn't really speed. It's very easy novice year to be fast. Put together decent technique, work really hard and you'll probably go fast enough to medal. But is that truly good speed or are you letting other things go simply to accomplish a time goal? When your athletes move up to varsity the following year are they going to bring something to the boat or is your head coach going to suddenly have a massive speed cap because your former novice aren't hanging at the catch or are dropping their hands and hunching over for more reach?
Watching my guys this year, I believe that this is what she was trying to tell me. I've been working with these guys a lot but we're picking up bad technique and they as a result of something that I have not stressed or over stressed, don't seem to care. They bounce up and check their splits and times, comparing that to their team mates and are generally satisfied with fast times, not fast technique.
This is something that I am glad I've caught now and am very thankful for my former head coach giving me something to chew on till I finally was able to see what she was telling me.
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