- What's up, guys, and welcome back
to another episode of Dark Horse Rowing.
So, you've gotta teach an entire group of people
how to use the rowing machine, and you've
never actually rowed yourself.
Understandably, that's a daunting task,
but we've got you covered.
Today, we've got the top 10 tips for you
to use if you're gonna be teaching a group class
how to use the rowing machine
and how to do it quickly and efficiently.
DJ, roll that intro.
(steady music)
So I just love coaching.
On top of coaching people, I love coaching coaches.
I like being the coach's coach.
I like the profession of coaching
and coaching those who want to coach better.
I know that's redundant.
I'm okay with that.
So, yeah, it's redundant, but it's honestly the truth.
I actually love the profession of coaching,
and it's something that's extremely important
and near and dear to my heart.
Quick aside, if you are a trainer yourself
and you wanna get better at teaching this machine
to your gym, to your members and to your athletes,
I would encourage you to head on over
to our website, darkhorserowing.com/trainer
where you're going to be able to sign up for our wait list
for our twice-annual opening of our trainer's course
for the Concept 2 machine where you can become
a certified coach and find an entire community
of coaches who are like-minded
and are going to be able to help you through your process.
Alright, I'll stop being so sappy,
and let's just get on with the top 10 things
that you need to know as a trainer
when you are teaching the rower to a whole bunch of people
and you may have no idea what you are talking about.
Number one, nobody cares about rowing.
♪ Nobody cares ♪
Wah wah.
Seriously, though, while you may care
and while you guys are here watching,
which means that inherently, you have some interest
in this, a lotta the people that come to the gym
on a daily basis just, it's not a passion for them.
It's simply a thing that sits in the corner
of the gym and gets used to make their workouts miserable
and make life hard for them, so just go into it
keeping that in mind.
They may not care, and you don't necessarily
have to change their mind about how
they view the machine, but if you can do
an excellent job of just making the machine
seem a little bit more accessible,
you may find that they do begin to enjoy it more
instead of fighting you or hating the machine
like a lotta people in the fitness community do.
People think that rowing is either kayaking
or paddle boating, like the big wooden boats
where you do this.
♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪
♪ Gently down the stream ♪
♪ If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream ♪
(screaming)
- Or this, and you're gonna have to deal with that
because what that means is that it creates
people's perceived movement pattern
of what the movement is which is why
we get so many people that want to pull
on the handles because they're thinking
of a paddle boat where your butt is fixed,
your legs don't do anything, and you sit there
and just paddle over and over.
That's why, when somebody says,
"Oh, you're a rower," they go,
"Oh, you're a rower" because they're thinking
of paddle boating, not rowing.
Yeah, that's what we're up against.
So, you have to keep that in mind
because when you go to explain the movement,
understand that that is, for a lot of people,
the main perception that they have
of how to move on this machine.
If you can clear that outta the way,
you're on a really good start.
Number three, when your clients have a handle
in their hands, it is like
they're wearing earmuffs or earplugs.
Honestly, I cannot emphasize this enough.
That handle is a demon tool sent to make your clients
not listen to a word you have to say as a coach.
Something about putting it in their hands,
we just stop listening when we have the handle in our hands,
so whenever you're going to be working or coaching
a group class, insure, insure, I can't emphasize
this enough, have them put the handles down
before you start talking about the movement,
because the instant the handle is in their hands,
they are not hearing a word you say.
Number four, remove the word pull from your dictionary,
and instead, start talking about pushing.
There's a reason we put it on a shirt.
Push, don't pull.
Back to the idea where people are thinking about
paddle boating, I guess.
Paddle boating makes people think pull.
I have to pull with my arms on the handle,
but that's the biggest mistake that we see.
If you can get people to push, more often than not,
they're thinking about pushing with their legs,
so if you can institute the verbiage of push
and eliminate the word pull from your vocabulary
as a coach, you're going to have a lot better impact
because what you'll notice is that you can make
a paradigm shift in somebody's brain
about the way that they move without even having
to give them a drill.
Instead, you can just change the way
that they perceive the movement,
and that's a huge advantage to you as a coach.
Number five, it takes 10 times longer
to explain a drill than you think it's going to.
I still run into this.
I'm like, I'm gonna do X, Y, Z.
I'm gonna run the pick drill, I'm gonna run
the pause drills, I'm gonna run counting drills.
- [Man] Now we've got this card,
and we've got this card, and we've got this card.
- And I start to run the first drill,
and before I know it, I am 15 minutes into a session,
and I still haven't even gotten the class moving,
so make sure you keep that in mind.
It's going to take a while to get a single drill
implemented across 20 people that may be using 10 machines.
You have to get them understanding it,
knowing what they're going to do,
get them on, have them do it, be able to coach them,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and.
It takes forever to implement a drill,
so just go into that with eyes wide open
knowing that any drill you wanna institute
is going to take longer than you anticipate.
Number six, yeah, everyone wants to know
what damper setting to use.
Just watch this video right over here.
Gonna link to it right now and save you all that headache.
Number seven, and I alluded to this a little bit earlier,
but you can run multiple people on multiple machines.
As in, you can have more than one person per machine
when you have a large class.
("National Aerobic Championship Theme" by Ty Parr)
♪ We push ourselves to the maximum ♪
You could run up to three or four people per machine.
You just have to be creative as a coach.
Now there are a lot of ways to spin that,
but it is absolutely possible to run a group class
and an actual warmup coaching session or a drill
with four people per machine.
It's totally doable.
Trust me, I've done it.
Get creative.
Number eight.
Nobody's gonna clean those machines
unless you make it a part of your daily class,
and trust me, these machines need regular cleaning.
They don't need regular maintenance,
but do wipe down the slide, clean the seat,
clean the handles, and just keep them generally dust-free,
but you have to train your class or your clients to do that.
So begin to institute that as a daily part
of your practice whenever the machines are used.
Get your clients to leave them cleaner than they found them,
and the lifespan on these things will be a whole lot longer
and, not to mention, it's gonna be less maintenance
for you to do in the long run.
Number nine, get sneaky with your drills.
What do I mean by that?
Well, don't tell them that you're gonna drill 'em.
A lotta people, as soon as they hear
that they're drilling or practicing rowing,
they're not as interested as they could be,
so instead, if you institute a drill as a warmup,
you'll find that you have much better adoption
with your athletes.
If you simply say, "We're warming up on the rower today.
"Here's how that warmup is gonna run,"
it goes a whole lot better than when you say,
"Today, we're gonna learn how to row,
"and I'm gonna teach you a rowing drill."
Nobody cares.
Remember number one?
Nobody cares.
Go back to that, and if you sneakily bring drills
into their warmup, you'll find that adoption rates
go way up, and people can be a lot more perceptive
to learning the movement, and number 10,
and honestly, I think this may be one of the
most important points, so I'm glad you hung around.
I hope you did hang around.
For those of you that booted out,
you're gonna be sad you missed this one.
Number 10 is that it's not about rowing.
It's about good movement.
Honestly, at the end of the day,
and this is extremely important for you to keep in mind,
and for me to keep in mind when I'm making these videos,
at the end of the day, I don't care
if somebody loves or hates rowing,
and it's not my job to try and convince them otherwise.
It's my job as a coaching professional
to try and help somebody get a great workout,
have fun, and try to achieve their fitness goals,
whatever those may be.
Now is rowing a tool to help get there?
Sure, but is it about the rowing?
Not really.
It's about good movement, and you as a coach
can really help your clients if you keep that in mind.
It is about good movement.
Be about it, 'kay?
If you go in trying to say, eh, well,
I'm gonna teach you how to row, again, you get pushback.
Avoid the pushback.
Bring down the barriers to entry.
Help people understand that this is just good movement,
and you will reduce people's ability
to argue with or have a desire to approach
this training tool, because when it's about good movement,
it's just like anything else that we do in the gym.
It's for their benefit.
If it's about rowing, it's for you to try
and relay that there needs to be a desire
for that thing, and frankly, that just is not the case,
and what else I've found, let me just add this to it,
I have found a lot more people
find a love for rowing when I'm not trying
to make it about rowing, and that's because
you let somebody find their own path
to enjoyment on this machine or on the water
or in a boat, whatever it may be.
You let them find their own path,
and people become a lot more open
to the idea when we simply start the conversation with,
it's about good movement.
That's it.
That's all 10.
There's no bonus.
I bet you thought I was gonna throw a bonus one in there.
Not going to.
I swear.
Zero bonuses offered.
You just get 10.
Not a single, not a no more.
You don't get an 11th.
If there were an 11th, I would say,
be the expert to your class, and know that you can do
a great job of coaching them, but I'm not going to say that.
There is no bonus 11th tip, so for those of you
that hung around, that's it.
You only get 10.
You definitely don't get the 11th.
Be the expert.
Trust in your own abilities and know
that you can have an incredible impact
on the people that are standing in front of you.
That's it.
No more.
And that's it, guys.
Thank you for tuning in to another
fantastic episode with me.
I love you all, especially the coaches.
Thank you for being here.
Go spread the amazing message and good word,
and guys, if you really love this video,
make sure you hit subscribe and if you really loved it,
you just, right here in the feels,
hit that little bell next to the subscribe button
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and as always, we will see on on the other side.
(upbeat music)
Oh.
Scratch that, start that over.