- What's up, Dark Horses?
I'm Shane Farmer, this is Dark Horse Rowing
and today we're talking about why your legs aren't working
on the machine and what you can do to fix that.
(theme music)
You might be wondering why one of your legs is working
more than another inside of your workout.
Or perhaps you're just not feeling your legs at all.
And the answer is both simple and complex.
The reason being, our bodies are not symmetrical
despite what we may think of
as the body being perfectly symmetrical in nature.
Before we get to the answer to that, though,
know that there are a couple ways
that we can actually work on this assymetry
to try and bring it back to a point of balance.
Now it may not be absolutely perfect,
but it's a really great way to start training
to offset what may be deficiencies in your body
that you may not know exist because they're fairly minute.
But when seen over a long period of time
can create deficiencies in our training or in our body
that we're compensating for.
The objective is to work complementary systems
to what we are doing in our normal training,
which usually constitutes bilateral training,
meaning both sides of my body are working
in the same function.
In this instance, we're going to use unilateral training,
meaning one side of my body, to work and train to offset
what can be a compensatory mechanism in my body.
For example, I have a left shoulder
that doesn't like to activate very well.
I struggle to get my scap
to really lock the shoulder in place.
It's still strong, but I know that this left shoulder
is inherently weaker than my right.
My right locks in really well
and I can tell that because when I have to sprint
on the machine, my left elbow brakes to compensate
and grab tension while my right arm can actually hang
like it's supposed to.
So, my left arm burns out faster than my right
if I'm doing sprint work.
This tells me that I need to work on the left side
and activating to help compensate
and try to bring my left shoulder back into alignment
with what's happening on the right side of my body.
Back to the question of why the body isn't symmetrical.
Well, originally it was.
When you were born you were pretty darn symmetrical.
Your body was fluid and you hadn't developed
any kind of bad habits yet.
And in fact, you were developing into your adult body.
As children, our mechanics and our bone lengths
and sizes and ratios are actually different
from those of an adult.
As you grew, you started to establish
different movement patterns that were unique to you.
Now these may have changed or been influenced
by potential injuries, how much time you spent sitting,
if you were a climber, if you were a runner, a swimmer.
All of the activities that just became part of who you are
influenced the way that your body developed,
and therefore, you started to develop biases
towards certain types of movement
which may have caused the body to start to compensate
one way or another because it was expecting
that it needed to perform in that manner for that reason.
Now that also happens if we have some major injury.
Now for a period of time that location on the body
shuts down or becomes dormant because it's injured.
And, for example, if you blow an Achilles,
you'll notice that somebody's calf on the side
where the Achilles was blown or torn is much smaller in size
than the calf on their leg that didn't tear.
This is because it atrophies,
the muscle atrophies because it's not being used.
So, if that happens, you have to understand
the body will then start to build up
a compensatory mechanism
that allows you to continue your activities of daily living
without perhaps that particular muscle doing its job
that it used to do.
And this creates a whole downstream effect
that ripples throughout your body
because the body is intimately connected.
And so it creates different ways
that certain things shut off, certain things work harder,
and you may not even notice that that's happening.
You see, the body is really, really good
at making sure that you continue to operate
and have a life to live.
And therefore, it is trying to find the shortest,
most direct route to getting you back on the road.
It's like if you blow a tire in a race,
that pit crew comes in and tries to change that tire
as fast as possible to get you out and going.
The body does the same thing.
If something goes wrong, the body's gonna find a way
to reroute, reorganize, and make sure
that you can continue doing the things
that you're used to doing.
Albeit this time, it may be a little less efficient.
All of that to say, if we haven't unwound it,
it's normal that we would expect that the body
begins to develop one pattern over another.
And it's also normal to expect
that you may have never noticed that this was happening
and that's not your fault.
It's just your body's way of doing things.
It's automatic.
It's not that you're consciously thinking about adapting,
you just adapt and change.
Therefore, if we can focus on unwinding that
or developing other ways of restrengthening
or re-bringing back a movement pattern,
we can be on a road to better strength,
better performance, and happier workouts.
Now, back to what we can do about it
and why we're here focusing specifically on the legs.
Here are two simple drills that you can implement
to start strengthening your legs,
giving you more connection, more power,
and better feeling on the machine
that's going to reduce your compensating leg
that may be stronger than a weaker leg,
and you're also gonna find that one of the drills
uses our upper body and that because the body
is so intimately connected,
by approaching our upper body we're actually
going to have an impact on the way
that our lower body performs.
Number one is the single leg row.
And that's pretty self-explanatory.
I don't think I really need to go much into
how this is gonna operate.
You'll only row with one leg.
The other foot can be sitting on the floor,
it can be on a furniture slider, it can be on a skateboard.
I've seen a lot,
just a piece of cardboard works pretty well, too.
I've seen a lot of different formats
that make this drill work.
But the point being, we remove one leg to allow you
to focus on a single leg at a time
and understand how one leg may be working a lot more
than the other and then to give training to the leg
that isn't working as well.
As an aside, a huge benefit to this drill
is in the world of injury recovery.
You'd be amazed how many people have blown Achilles,
ankle surgery, knee surgery, tweak a knee,
break a foot, all these things that allow your leg
to not be able to work the same way that it did before.
This drill's fantastic for leg injury rehab.
Now for this drill,
things that we want to be thinking about.
Number one, this leg, as I mentioned I'm not going to use
any accoutrement today.
We could have a piece of cardboard under my foot,
a furniture slider, a skateboard.
But really you don't need that
because once the leg comes off the foot stretcher,
if you just put it on the floor
you're not gonna get any drive power
out of that leg anyways.
So, one leg off the machine.
Next leg gets tied in.
And I like to think about placing the foot
about where this foot stretcher is
so that my legs are generally in alignment.
You're then gonna pick up your handle, lock into your catch,
and you're gonna take strokes.
The things I want you to think about as you are doing this
is number one, make sure that you are staying in parallel
to the handle, shoulders being parallel to the handle.
You will, ideally, be perpendicular to that chain.
So, as you're taking a stroke you wanna make sure
that that handle isn't shifting one way or another,
and also at the backside that you're not dumping
one way or another leaning back to the left or the right.
From there, lock in with that foot, don't do anything
that you wouldn't normally do during your stroke.
You're just going to take comfortable strokes
and let's just show you how this thing looks
when you're operating.
(machine hums)
Now, things that I notice immediately that start to happen
as I'm doing this drill.
One, my glute and my back on this left side
are starting to work really hard.
I notice it, I'm cognizant of it
and it's going to help tell you,
especially after I do the other leg
which side fatigues faster.
The other thing I'm noticing, and this is really important,
is that my midline is getting worked almost immediately
because I'm having to use what we call anti-rotation.
The body is needing to resist the desire to rotate away from
or into the tension that I have on the handle.
We want that, we want that midline strength
and stability so that when we bring both legs back together
we are stronger for this drill.
The second drill is the single arm row.
Again, pretty self-explanatory.
There's the cheap way, and then there's the still cheap
you just have to do a little bit of extra work on it way.
The cheap way is that you just use the handle as is
except you're gonna grab it in the center of the handle.
And the still cheap way, but you have to do a little bit
of extra work is that you're going to purchase
a replacement handle for a shovel,
drill two holes in the bottom of it,
replace the handle on the machine,
and push the u-bolt through the other handle
that you're getting the replacement shovel handle
and you're gonna hold on to that.
Which is actually a pretty decent way of doing things,
it's just gonna take you 15 bucks
and a little bit of elbow grease.
But I digress.
The reason that we are doing this
is because there is this wonderful cross line
that goes from the shoulders across your trunk
and then connects to,
so if I'm gonna say my right shoulder,
it crosses at my trunk, there's a fascia line
connects from my right shoulder
to my left hip and down the left leg.
So, if I want to work on balancing,
especially this rotational component,
as well as how my legs and my body are interacting
on the machine, I should be spending some time rowing
with both legs connected, but only holding on with one hand
to help me isolate what's going wrong
especially on this back line of my body.
And next, the single arm drill.
This is gonna operate very similarly to the single leg.
The thing, as I mentioned, is that we are going to use
the cheap and inexpensive version
which is that I'm going to do nothing
other than just holding the handle
with my fingers through the slots here.
Now this is not the most comfortable grip.
You're not gonna love it,
it's not gonna feel good on your fingers.
So if you want, put some foam in there or towels
to cushion that, you can.
If you're going to be doing any kind of higher volume,
I would suggest that you go the route of buying
that replacement shovel handle, drilling two holes in it,
and replacing this handle with the shovel handle.
You'll probably be a lot happier
and it's going to create a more natural grip
that you would use for the single arm.
So, for example, if you have a shoulder surgery
or shoulder injury and you can't use one arm
but you still wanna row, that handle's a really great tool
that you would wanna use for the period of time
for which you can't use a single arm.
Now, with that being said, I'm gonna strap in.
I'll then grab my handle
and all the same principles apply here
except this time it's going to be a lot more likely
that my body rotates into the handle as I drive,
so I really have to think about driving that shoulder
of the arm that's connected back and into place
and not letting myself get tugged forward.
Other than that, the drill's going to operate the same,
so let's take a look at how this goes.
(machine hums)
Again, as I mentioned,
not incredibly comfortable on the hand,
but the thing that I am noticing
is that I'm getting very similar stimulus
to what happened with the single leg drill
and that my midline fires up instantly.
But the other piece is that I really notice
whether or not my trap starts to overtake tension
or if I'm using my lat to engage
or if that elbow is locked out.
All those things are gonna come forward very fast, too.
So, pay attention, make sure you implement this over time
and that you are then going to your other hand
and using both arms, paying attention to the difference
between the two, that's it.
Take those two drills, start implementing them,
and what you'll find is that you're gonna start exposing
these little weak points
that you may not have noticed before
and it may get very frustrating at first
because you're realizing that this part of your body
may not have been working for you
the way that you thought it was
and it's actually an energy leak point for you.
The goal as you implement this over time
and practice these drills, rowing single leg
or rowing single arm, is that you're going to sure up
those little weak points,
turn on more supporting musculature in that area,
which is going to start building a more balanced
and well-rounded system, being your body, as you move.
All of that means you're gonna get better, happier,
faster workouts with less energy
that's going to relay into the rest of your life,
giving you the ability to feel better
in everything else that you do.
Remember, the goal here is to just build percentage point
by percentage point.
Slowly rebuilding the system to help give you
a little bit more gravity behind your stroke
so that you can be more connected,
and it has to be done over time.
It's not gonna happen overnight.
You're not gonna have one miraculous session
where things change.
You're going to chip away, chip away, chip away
until six months from now you're stronger than you were
and you may not have even noticed it over time
because it was so subtle
and yet your performances are going to show otherwise.
So, to you my Dark Horses out there,
thank you for tuning in.
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Process over outcome, work on the process every single day
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