The more I coach, the more I appreciate the importance of early body preparation out of bow. Most coaches will agree that early body prep is important, but in the next breath many emphasize hands out of bow, and the faster the better. Many problems arise when we focus on hands, instead of body, out of bow.
Quite a few years ago we noticed the Olympic and World Championship rowers getting their bodies out of bow with their hands, sometimes with the shoulders moving to the stern almost before the hands have finished the feather. Instead of hands then body, it was very much body and hands together out of bow. This allowed them to be very efficient at the finish, spending no wasted time there and getting the rating up while making it look as if they had lots of time on the slide. This emphasis on body out of bow, rather than just hands, is full of advantages.
A couple videos of the 2012 GB Men's Lightweight 2x show this concept very nicely.
First, see this video from the 2012 Olympics (sorry, the video is not embeddable); at about 42 minutes in, there's a nice shot from the side. Also, at around 41' in, there a good stern shot though easier to see how quickly the bodies move out of bow with the side angle.
Another video of the crew in training in 2010:
So how to do this? It’s not easy or maybe I’m just a slow learner but after 10 years, I still can’t seem to do it anywhere near as well as the Olympians. It takes core strength, focus on using your lower abs to draw your body out of bow. If you’ve ever done pilates, one basic movement is rolling up and down from a lying position one vertebra at a time. That’s the movement we’re trying to mimic both rolling into the finish and rolling out. Think nose and chin out of bow and if you look at your arms, try to form your elbows in a diamond shape (for scullers) or inside arm at a 90 degree angle (for sweep rowers).
The timing is difficult so one drill I came up with is to say to yourself “when” or “now” when you begin to feather the oar and as soon as you say that word, start working on moving the body out of bow.
If you watch the Olympians closely, you’ll see this movement from most every one of them, but the Great Britain Men’s Lightweight 2x from the 2012 Olympics do this exceptionally well.