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A few years ago, when I was first-year varsity, I asked my coach what rush feels like. I’ve left his notes for y’all below:
The recovery needs to be controlled and relaxed. Rowers have pulled hard on the drive and need a chance to "recover" before they do it again. Rush is a feeling that you cannot relax on the recovery. The catch needs to be deliberate and accurate. Rowers need to feel like putting the oar in the water is easy and controlled. Rush makes it almost impossible to do that. The stroke seat needs to lead the boat. Everyone needs to follow their swing, their slide, their catch, their finish. Rush is most often felt by a good stroke seat who is trying to lead a controlled recovery but the rest of the boat (or at least some of the rowers) are not following that rhythm.
The most common form of rush comes from a lack of slide control. Some (or all) of the rowers are zipping into the stern and crash up to the catch position much faster then they want to. The ones who are causing it usually don't know they're causing it. Sometimes the stroke seat is causing it, doesn't know that, and complains of being rushed (this is rare). The people being rushed fell like everyone else is say "hurry up and get to the catch," so their mental response is "stop rushing me." Even when rush is not purely a slide control issue, getting the crew to focus on sliding together is often the best solution.
Assume all 8 rowers in the boat weigh 150lbs. Their total weight is 1200lbs. Now assume the combined weight of the boat, oars, and coxswain is 350lbs. The rowers (weight moving on the slide) are more than 3 times heavier than the rest of the system (weight not moving on the slide). When the rowers slide, they are barely moving into the stern. Because they weigh more, they are actually moving the shell forward underneath them. The boat is actually getting faster or holding a fairly constant speed. This is what you need to feel. And how that feels is how you recognize rush.
For the coxswain, rush feels like the boat is being yanked out from underneath you. You're the dishes on the table, the rowers are the magician, and the hull is the table cloth. If at any point before the oars go in the water you fell yanked forward, the crew is rushing. Of course this is all relative. Higher ratings have faster recoveries (faster slides), so the pull forward will be stronger than at lower rating. Lower ratings should be gradual enough that the boat speed feels more constant.
For the rowers being rushed, there are two different ways rush can feel:
First, consider if the entire bow 7 is starting the slide too early and pulling the boat forward before the stroke seat (or any other rower) is ready to start their slide (that rower is still setting the body over into the stern). That one rower is going to feel pushed over and into the start of the slide. And they will have to fight to control the speed of their slide. But then since the crew is ahead of them, they'll need to slide faster than the rest of the boat to catch up. It starts to hurt the front of your shins as you pull through the toes to get to full slide.
Second, consider if the entire crew is starting the slide together but the stroke seat wants to slide slower. The boat is being yanked forward, so the stroke feels like their feet are being jammed up underneath them and they have to fight to prevent slamming into the catch. The next thing that happens is the bow 7 either pauses at the catch or start to catch before the stroke seat wants to. The stroke seat (in both cases) again fights to pull all the way to full compression and the front of the shins start to burn. Plus, it's often hard to control body position because you're getting shoved around by the rest of the boat.
Remember that rush is relative. If everyone has agreed that we want to zip down the slide then no one is "being rushed". Some crews specifically accelerate into the stern, which would feel like rush to someone not expecting that. Our recovery is decelerating. It means the turn-around at the catch should be gentle, and the boat should be slowing down during the recovery. Watch the stroke seat's slide versus the timing of the catch, and the motion of the oars up to the catch. Judge theirs speed down the slide based on how their oars swing from perpendicular to the hull out to the catch angle. Oars moving perfectly parallel is a good sign of a crew swinging and sliding together. If you can see everyone reaching the catch too early for stroke seat, they are rushing.
While I'm talking about the feeling of rush, it's worth mentioning the feeling of boat check: it's basically the opposite. Boat check is any force to stop forward momentum of the hull. The most common form is not being locked on at the catch and kicking the boat backward as rowers drive the legs without their oars being able to lever the boat forward. Again, the rowers outweigh the shell/oars/coxswain by a lot. In really bad boat check, the hull can slow way down very quickly until the oars engage and get it going again.
The feel of this is opposite to rush. In the coxswain seat you feel like the boat hits a wall and your torso wants to fall forward so your face hits the knees of the stroke seat. Jerking back and forth at the catch is probably boat check. Our soft catches mean that our boats should not jerk much around the catch. Any jerking happens at the finish when we snap our drive off and quickly get the hands/body out of the bow. Rowers have trouble feeling boat check, but coxswains feel it no matter what. The question becomes how much is there, and can it be reduced any so the boat holds better speed?
Rush and boat check are most prominent at the catch (at the same time), and one often leads to the other. But that's not always the case. It's important to recognize which one is going on (or is worse), and then work to fix the problem. Think hard about what you feel. Look for other signs in the oars on in the motion of the stern pair. Fixing the real problem is rarely done by saying "stop rushing." A more precise solution like "control your slides so we can get rid of this rush," is probably better. Then spends some strokes saying "swing and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide, swing and sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide," during the recovery is a good idea.
Our coach is a huge geek, & sent us this email after a 6k in my junior year:
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Poe is captured by the First Order and interrogated by Kylo Ren. As he is resisting the force mind probe, Poe screams out. There's no way he can win. He's going to give up the information. But he's fighting with all he has to keep the secret of the map's location. A scene like that makes for fun movie-going. I hope you've seen it. And I hope you really enjoyed it through empathy with that character. Imagine the fear of that moment, the desperation, the pain, the anger, the courage. That's why movies are such a powerful media force, and remain so in the age of youtube/netflix/etc. We get to experience moments like that through the safety of fiction.
Not all of us will view that scene in the same way, so I'll offer one perspective for you to consider: the question of "could I do that?"
We all wonder from time to time how brave we are. We want the opportunity to prove ourselves. We want to know just how hard we can fight. Part of enjoying that scene might be asking yourselves those questions.
Now we come to the point. There was a bunch of screaming during the 6k. It was motivating, intimidating, exciting, etc. And it reminded me of that scene. The erg is the dark side of the force. You can never beat the erg (the dark side will always exist). You can only fight back. You can resist. You can refuse to give up. Your physical/mental limits are Kylo Ren. You fear the workout because you fear pushing those limits.
It might not be in a galaxy far, far away, but it's the same fight. Poe didn't have to suffer. He could have just given up. He resisted because it was a battle worth fighting. You didn't have to suffer during the 6k. From the sound of things you weren't giving up either. Maybe use tomorrow's erg to explore your ability to fight that battle. It's your chance to ask the question "could I do that?"
Just remember: there are some days, some workouts, some races where you aren't Poe. Sometimes you're Rey (when she defeats Kylo Ren's force mind probe). You'll confront a challenge, and rise to meet it with strength you didn't realize you had. Rey and Poe are the same. Rey has to suffer, to fight, to believed just like Poe. She just has the tools to resist. Sometimes you'll have those tools.
My team has winter weight room practices, where we specifically focus on deadlifting due to its similarity to the rowing stroke. My coach has gone into depth on how to properly practice a hip hinge.
Grab a broom handle or other straight bar of sufficient length and complete some hip-hinge drills:
Start by standing up straight. Then hold the broom handle as shown so it is in contact with the back of your head, your thoracic spine, and your tailbone.
Note the position and grip of the hands on the bar. The top hand (outside of fingers) is in contact with your cervical spine. The bottom hand (back of palm) is in contact with your lumbar spine. There may be a few adjustments to make depending on your spine shape. The key is to start standing up straight with squeezed glutes, abs tight, chest out, and shoulders down. The spine, bar, and hands have to be properly set or the drill won't work.
Hinge over at the hips by pushing your butt back as you bend at the crease between the legs and the hips. The knees bend, but only to maintain balance over your mid-foot. The point is rotate at the joint where the femur inserts to the pelvis. The shape of the spine does not change. The contact points on the bar and on your hands remain the same. As soon as there is any change in spine shape, stop bending over, reset, and do it again. The point is to bend all the way over feeling no change in contact with the bar. Any feel of contact change means start over and fix that mistake on the next rep.
Ultimately you need to bend over far enough to reach down to the middle of your shins (where the bar is for deadlift). Once you've got it prefect with the broom handle, do it perfectly without the broom (preferably while looking in a mirror). Training on spine neutrality for deadlift will help you do it on squats, bent-over-rows, jumpies, erging, and much more. Once the deadlift practice is done, do some deep squats with the broom handle to test your spine neutrality (preferably while looking in a mirror).
As the amount we're lifting goes way up in the weight room, you are risking injury during squat and deadlift if you don't know how to properly hip-hinge and maintain a neutral spine. Way too many of us round the lower back, instead of rotating at the hips. If you want to maximize the amount you can lift, you have to learn this proper form.
