Start With The Hands

Great pianists. International medalists in rowing. Archers. Surgeons. Dentists. Conductors. What do these people all have in common? They’ve mastered the ability to harmonize the movement of their hands with their bodies, minds and perhaps even their souls. Think Ray Charles or Mahé Drysdale.

As a coach the first thing I tend to focus on is the hands. I believe that our hands are the most crucial connection point in rowing. Learning to hold the handles and feel comfortable rotating them with minimal effort and full relaxation is key to a good catch and connection. Relaxed hands allow us to feel the water and connect with the whole body.

I’ve watched so much arduous rowing over the years and for me it all comes back to the hands. I can tell if someone has a death grip or a relaxed grip just by watching their catches. If the eyes are the windows to the soul then the hands are the equivalent in rowing. If you can’t relax or manipulate the handles comfortably you can’t really experience the pleasure of rowing or master the ability to feel the water.

Death grip and wrist bending in either direction inhibit your ability to feel the water with the blade. I like to think of the oars as an extension of your body. So if you’ve got tense forearms and blister covered palms, it’s no wonder your catches are all over the place. What you feel is pain and tension and a muscular jolt as the oar slaps the water midway through the drive. If you can keep a loose grip with neutral wrists you have a better chance of directing the blade to the water at the end of the recovery. Hopefully then you can feel the initial slicing of the blade into the water and the unique sound a clean simple catch makes. From there you can push as hard as you want because now the blades are anchored and stable.

This is why so many beginners tend to flip the first time they try rowing a single. They try to grab and muscle their way through before putting the blade in the water, which comes back to how the handle is being held and manipulated. Fear tends to make rowers tense and muscle-y so you have to learn how to relax and do less. It doesn’t really take much to turn the handle from square to feather and developing a sense for how to let the equipment do what it was designed to do takes time.

Teaching proper grip is incredibly overlooked in rowing and can lead to very bad habits that are darn near impossible to break. But you can with persistence and determination. But not with tension or muscle. Less really is more when it comes to your hands with respect to the blades.

Mastering the hands in rowing allows you to control how you feel, how you move, and how you connect. Lots of athletes that I’ve worked with get frustrated during the learning stages because they feel controlled by the equipment, or the weather, and fatigue mentally and physically much earlier than someone who focuses on relaxing and developing the tactile nuanced skills to control the oars. So it’s a combination of things: learning to relax in precarious situations and using less muscle to control the handles. Easier said than done but worth it in the long run.

My advice is don’t rush the process if you are a beginner. Spend time on the dock getting a feel for the oars and your position in the boat first. Spend time stationary on land practicing turning the handles from square to feather and hearing the subtle click from the oarlock. Spend time up front and you will save time in the long run. Everyone is in a rush to get out and row but it’s better to focus on these key skills and then test them in small doses. The more strokes you take with bad habits the more ingrained they will become. Staying on land more or doing stationary drills will help improve your grip, your ability to relax even when in tricky water and wind, and get more enjoyment out of the sport.

In another post I’ll talk about some great drills and ideas to help develop this mastery of the hands so you can become the master of your boat!