Korzeniowski Repents, explains why he switched to “pause at the finish.”
I noticed how difficult it was for young not-so-experienced rowers to execute the whole sequence of the finish.
In the fall of 1983, I came back to the States from Italy with the technical vision of the rowing stroke from Thor Nilsen, the legendary performance coach who helped rowers in Europe win eight Olympic gold medals and more than 30 world championships.
Nilsen advocated the body swing, acceleration of the oar handle, solid draw of the hands in, continuous motion of the hands around the turn and going away until body-over position. It was rebound from the water that would bring the upper body back to body-over position.
And that’s how we’d been rowing for the past 30 years. In this type of stroke, there was no place for a pause at the finish.
In the 1980s and before, Harry Parker’s Harvard boats rowed with a short pause at the finish. The difference between our boats was very visible. I never criticized his approach, and he never criticized mine. When Harvard rowers like Jack Rusher and Peter Sharis joined my U.S. National Team program, I noticed that they all had a very smooth, gliding slide forward that finished with the direct entry of the blades into the water. Harvard guys told me this was the result of training sessions with Harry and doing a ton of “placement drills” in the fall of freshman year.
In later years, as I got more involved with junior and high-school rowing, I noticed how difficult it was for young not-so-experienced rowers to execute the whole sequence of the finish. Doing pause drills at body-over was not helpful because it was too much to do. They had to swing their bodies (one would jerk, one would be slow, one wouldn’t swing at all), then bring their hands to the body (fast, slow, jerk, hit the body), then get the blade out of the water, then the hands away. Again, everyone had a different version—some would do it very fast, some very slow, and in the end they had to follow the person in front. In my experience, the pause body-over offered inexperienced rowers too many possibilities to be different.
Completely opposite is the pause at the finish. Everything is simple; execution of all these small functions, like swing or draw of the hands to the body, is dictated by the pause. This pause disallows alternatives for executing the finish of the stroke; everyone is forced to do it the same way. Result: The timing is much better, and the pause provides a very important moment of relaxation before beginning the recovery, which occurs as one gliding motion during which the sequence of hands, body, and slide happens naturally.
That’s when I became a big fan of pause at the finish, if not for steady-state rowing then definitely for teaching purposes, especially with less-experienced crews.
A couple of years ago, I posted a video of Drew Ginn with James Tompkins paddling between the races in Athens. What you see is fluid motion and very little hesitation at the finish because of the tapping down motion. I also posted a video of Drew Ginn and Dunkin Free from 2008, in which they pause at the finish. Guess which boat was faster?
“The 2004 boat felt better, but the 2008 boat was faster,” Drew said. Why? Because a little quicker slide forward after the pause forced a quick change of direction at the front and stepping on the foot stretchers—what Valery Kleshnev calls the “trampoline effect”
Watch video of the U.S. gold-medal four. They row steady-state with a well-pronounced pause. They display a uniform slide forward followed by a quick change of direction and stepping on the foot stretchers. They are capable of racing at 38 to 40 strokes per minute and sprinting at 45. Maybe the ratio of the steady state is a little different from what we’re used to, but it doesn’t affect anything at higher cadences.
Our top junior boats also row with a pause at the finish, and it’s not related to the strength of the athletes. I’m sure their coaches experimented plenty before deciding to row this way. The same applies to college rowers.
As the cadence increases, most of these pauses disappear gradually, and the stroke becomes continuous motion, with a very defined, easy rhythm.
How power is applied affects how you go about the hands at the finish. Rowers who use active body swing (pendulum) from the hips and rebound from the water tend to have very continuous hands because they’re still part of the rebound. Examples: all Mike Spracklen boats, Mike Teti’s 2004 men’s eight (especially stroke Brian Volpenhein), all Greek boats (gold-medal winner in the men’s single in Tokyo).
These boats always looked a little heavy because the hands still work at the finish and aren’t relaxed. Only the Dutch are able to relax—even before the end of the stroke (easy finish)—so their hands go around effortlessly.
For boats rowed with front-loaded power application, the rhythm of the pause at the finish is advantageous. Good examples are the U.S. gold-medal four or Drew Ginn’s pair from 2008 or video of the Australian men’s four in 2017. (Search Kris Korzeniowski on YouTube.)
The bottom line: Pause at the finish is an excellent drill for teaching kids how to row, how to move the body in the boat, and how to get the finish together. Combined with the placement drill, it creates a very simple version of the rowing stroke, and it’s excellent for rowing with a front-loaded stroke.
Kris Korzeniowski is the most influential coach in USRowing history. He rowed competitively for 10 years in his native Poland, where he also started his coaching career. He moved to the United States in 1977, worked in Italy with legendary coach Thor Nilsen from 1981-1983, returned to the United States in 1984, and has held numerous posts and titles while coaching, mentoring, and befriending generations of rowers and coaches.
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