Hey gang. I’ve been posting about rowing grip quite a bit this year. It feels like I’m preaching from the pulpit like my Grandpa Rollit used to do. But I want to do something different this time. This time I’m going to ask you to take action.
I’m offering to assess your grip in just five minutes. There are two parts. Both are optional.
Part 1 – Grip self assessment
Read the three criteria below for assessing your grip and makes notes of which ones you might be struggling with. Also make notes of what you don’t understand in my explanation.
There are a few key components to having a good grip. For the purposes of this exercise we are going to focus on sculling. Because it’s better. I mean that’s what I know best. 🙂
1. Handle size and fit – the size of your handles should feel natural in your hands. Imagine a suitcase handle that was twice the thickness or twice as narrow. These would feel awkward in your hands and you wouldn’t want to carry your luggage very far.
Now imagine a handle that is just right. That’s how your handles should feel. If it feels like your handles are too big or too small they probably are. Fortunately C2 and Croker oars offer lots of different handle size options for you to try.
2. Position of the handle in your hands – The handle as it rests in your hand should take up about a third of the surface area of your palm. Essentially the handle “sits” under the pads of your bottom digits and the top of your palm with your top two digits lightly curled around the front of the handle. Any further into the palm and you will likely need to rely on your wrists and forearms to turn the handles and likely have the requisite blisters in your lower palms to show for it.
3. How to properly turn the handles to square and feather your blades – this is where finesse and tactility come into play. Most people use their entire palm to rotate the handles in order to square and feather the blades. I won’t go into details but this is inhibiting for a number of reasons and should be avoided.
Turning the handles to square the blades is a function of friction of the pads of your fingers and the edge of your thumb against the handle. This helps initiate the turning of the handles. Once this begins the next part is to allow the sleeve of the oar to “fall” the rest of the way into position. Think about it like tipping over a giant wooden block. Once you’ve pushed it far enough over you can let the weight of the block carry it the rest of the way. You should be able to hear and feel the sleeve “click” into place in the oarlock and the blades will be squared.
To feather you’re going to do the reverse of this and “pull” the handles back towards you. Again creating friction between the handles and the pads of your fingers. Your fingers will come back towards you while the edge of your thumb will roll forward against the end of the handle. If you’ve ever had a piece of tape stuck to your thumb and you tried to use your thumb and finger to roll it off that’s how it feels. Just imagine the handle is the piece of tape. The handle will fall into place in the opposite direction, feathering the blade.
It sounds complicated but it is all about feeling the handle and using skin against rubber to rotate the oars in either direction. If you are over gripping it will be hard to hear and feel the click of the oar in the oarlock. You may even have trouble knowing when your oars are fully squared or feathered and potentially over square or feather them. This means moving the blade beyond perpendicular when squared or beyond parallel with the water when feathered, creating some other issues downstream (pun intended).
You will also likely have wrists bent either up or down. I call this breaking the wrists. In sculling the wrists should remain neutral. And the work of squaring and feathering should be done by the fingers, thumb, and very top of the palm.
Part 2 – Send me a video of your rowing or images of your hands holding the handles along with any questions you have. I’ll give you a free assessment of your grip and offer some tips on how to improve it. If you don’t have my email send me a message and I’ll send it on over.
That’s it. The ball is in your court. Or rather the oar is in your hands. I’d love for you to make good changes that will improve your technique as well as your enjoyment of the sport.
Thanks for reading. And remember you are the master of your boat.
hey there!