Arms Grabbing Having devoted so much time to rowing slow while trying to shape a correct force curve has made me appreciate even more the importance of synchronizing the pull on the handle with the push off the stretcher. Every row for months now has shown me that coupling the drive and the draw is the best way to get peak force early and preserve it through the drive. But this should hardly come as a surprise. Synchronizing the drive to the draw is what good rowing technique is all about. It is also, as Steve Fairbairn said, “... about the most difficult art of timing in rowing. Once it has been got correctly, the oarsman will be able to row truly his full weight the length which the condition of his muscles will allow him to row.”

So how is done? How does a rower synchronize the drive with the draw?

Many coaches train rowers to begin the drive off the stretcher with the legs. And only the legs! This idea has been rowing orthodoxy for years. Don’t pull with your arms. Just hang off the handles. In fact pulling with the arms at the catch is considered a fault. There is even a phrase for it. It is called arms grabbing.

But what I have learned from rowing slow is that a bit of arms grabbing at the catch — not much, just enough for the forearms to absorb some of the initial force — not only helps produce peak force early and hold on to it during the drive, but also is easier on the shoulder joints and back. It seems to me that this is because synchronizing the leg drive off the stretcher with the arms pulling against the oar handle compels the forearms to share some of the work at the catch.

This is not to suggest that an ideal force curve cannot be gotten by hanging off the oar handle. It can. But it requires that the brunt of initial pressure applied against the oar handles be taken in the shoulders and upper back. If in doubt, try hanging off the oar handles with arms held straight and stiff while pushing off the stretcher.

On water hanging off the oar handle is less of a problem because an oar shaft is elastic and less resistant to the initial pressure applied against the oar handle. Put simply an oar shaft bends when pressure is applied against it.

But is a flywheel elastic? Does it bend? No, it is not! Amd no, it does not!

So applying pressure against a flywheel is different from applying pressure against an oar shaft. Resistance to pressure against a flywheel is instantaneous. It is felt much more immediately and in greater measure in the shoulders and back than it is in a boat with an elastic oar shaft. This is why it is important to let the arms share some of the work at the catch.