THE SPORT OF ROWING the blade biting. You use up some of your legs in biting the water. “This is the Jesus Bell-Note.6064 We could actually get the sound at a low rate. We could do it at mild pressure, but as soon as the rates came up, the bell-note went. “The sound is like the ‘pop’ or ‘crack’ of an electric light bulb when the glass shatters. What happens is the blade moves quickly and creates an air pocket behind the blade. It’s got to be at the right depth and the right speed to do it. I do not know what actually makes the sound, but it must have to do with the cavity made by the blade. “It is not a skill easily acquired, and whilst crews I have coached could row with bell-notes at low rates, the faster the boat travelled the more difficult it was for them to maintain the bell-note beginning. Athletes who have been taught blade control from the moment they start rowing have better skills than oarsmen who try to learn later in their careers.”6065 The Pullthrough Spracklen: “What’s the pullthrough like? At the beginning of the stroke the blade is guided into the water with the hands but driven with the legs. You catch by holding that back angle so the focus goes entirely on leg drive, and then the body starts to open. So you drive with the legs, [then] open the body. “If you want to do anything with power, even when you throw a punch, you use your body, your arm and your fist in that order, and if you use your smallest muscles first, you lose power straightaway.6066 The same with rowing. If you start with your smallest muscles first, you detract from your power. 6064 See Chapter 19. 6065 Spracklen, RCA Coaches’ Conference, 2005 6066 This is a repetition of a common miscon- ception amongst rowers and coaches. See Andrew Carter’s discussion in Chapter 14. 6067 Spracklen, op. cit. 6068 Redgrave, op. cit. If you start the stroke with your arms, as some people do, it detracts from power.”6067 Redgrave: “Whenever Mike found in training that his crew were making some sort of mistake, through a long period of time he made them exaggerate it. “You get to a certain part of the stroke that’s very easy to coach, like the legs are very easy. If they are not very strong in the stroke, you drive the legs harder. But after three or four weeks of concentrating on faster legs, they start going too fast, and you start bum-shoving. “When to actually open the back is very difficult to coach, so after working on the legs, you don’t concentrate so much on them and think more about holding the back strong, and you naturally find the right point you should open up. “So with Mike we would go through these phases. You’d be working on legs, and suddenly you start bum shoving, and then you’d be working more on other phases that would bring you back, so it was always this sort of [demonstrating an up-and-down wave motion with his hand] of what was needed at the time.”6068 Spracklen: ““The role of the coach is to identify parts of the stroke that will improve boat speed and to work them through the training programme. The basic technical focus in our programme has been consistently on efficiency at both ends of the stroke, but if other parts of the stroke require development, flowing movement the emphasis switches accordingly. That’s how we train. “Fairbairn taught his men to drive hard with the legs and to think more about the blade than the bodies. It’s the blade that moves the boat. That’s how we move the boat: with the blade! 1698
