- These are five drills to make you better
on the rowing machine in 10 minutes.
All it takes for you to get through the next 10 minutes
is the need for a rowing machine of any kind
to have in front of you.
These drills are all about organizing your movement,
teaching your body how to move on the machine
because that is the one thing that many people fail
to realize and why people struggle with this thing
is that you have to learn where your body is
in space and time on the machine to get the most out of it,
and that's what today is about.
Welcome to Dark Horse where you build courage
without limits, write your own story
and find comfort in the discomfort.
Now, with that being said,
let's just talk about the briefs of today's workouts.
It's going to be 10 minutes.
So, you're going to program 10 minutes on your monitor.
Whoever you are, whatever machine you have,
that's what you're gonna do.
Make sure that your resistance is set to a reasonable level.
I am not an advocate of a high damper setting
or a particularly low if you are learning.
This being a beginner workout, find a happy middle ground.
Then you're going to adjust your foot stretchers
so that the straps run across the widest part of your foot.
You'll tighten those straps down.
Then you're going to sit your butt
as far forward on the seat as you can comfortably sit.
You shouldn't feel like you're falling off.
Next, grab that handle, hands nice and wide on the handle,
not pinched in close and then thumbs wrapped underneath
with a light grip on the handle.
Do not death grip.
Shouldn't be touching the palms of your hands.
All right, from that, we are going to go into
our 10 minute workout, five drills
to get you better in 10 minutes.
That's only two minutes per drill
in case you were doing the math in your head,
which is perfect because then you're not gonna get too bored
with any one drill.
Let's get into it.
Okay, grab your handle, sit ready at
we call this the catch position,
this being an important term for you to learn.
Grab that handle.
We're gonna start with what's called pause arms away.
That means we're gonna take a stroke
and pause at the backside, releasing the hands.
You'll see what I mean.
Just follow along.
Ready, go.
(rowing machine whirring)
Now you're gonna match up with my stroke
(rowing machine whirring)
and go when I go.
(rowing machine whirring)
Now, the reason that we are pushing the arms away
and pausing is to give you a moment to get comfortable
releasing the hands without the body twitching,
without the knees bending
because the objective of the stroke
is that you are letting the handle pull you up to the catch
as opposed to pulling yourself through the legs, all right?
You'll notice that the goal after I extend the arms
is to then close the hips and let the knees bend
and then take the next stroke.
I'm not in a rush to get there.
That's because the movement from here back up to the stroke
is called the recovery.
We recover, we call it the recovery because we recover.
You can't do any work to the machine here.
So, the objective is to make sure that you're relaxing,
gliding and then putting your effort into the drive.
(rowing machine whirring)
Settle into this drill for a few seconds.
I'll be quiet and let you think about it.
(rowing machine whirring)
Okay, the next drill that we're gonna implement,
which will start in 15 seconds,
is we're gonna add the body over me.
I'm gonna close my hips, and that will be my pause position.
So it's called arms and body away, or arms and body over,
in three, two, one.
On this stroke, arms away, body over, okay?
So, I'm closing that body to one o'clock
or 11 depending on which side
of the clock face you're looking at.
So, this is drill number two.
Now, why we're doing this
is because it's a natural progression
from pausing arms away
(rowing machine whirring)
to being fluid with arms and body moving
without the legs twitching.
Notice my knees are still pointing straight.
If you find yourself having those knees wanting to bend,
I would encourage you to engage your quads
as you close those hips.
(rowing machine whirring)
And by engaging your quads, it'll lock that knee in place,
which will help you with patience,
which is what you need for a good recovery position.
(rowing machine whirring)
All right, I'm gonna let you go for about 30 seconds,
feeling the drill.
Continue to move with me.
By the way, how so you like my librarian look today
with my glasses?
Trying something new.
(rowing machine whirring)
All right, the next drill that we're going to run
has a pause at the catch.
Okay, it has a pause at the catch,
in three, two, one.
Let's slide up and pause.
Good, now we're gonna drop the other pause.
So, this is gonna be our only pause moment.
Now, the reason we're adding this in again,
it's a natural progression
building off of the last drill
to get you slowing down the recovery
and coming to a nice, calm stop,
(rowing machine whirring)
as well as putting yourself
into the right position, which is hips behind the shoulders.
You notice my chest is to my knees.
My heels are down.
My arms are long, and my lats are engaged.
That's a good catch position.
Now, a little story time.
For those of you who don't know,
the reason that we call you dark horses,
the reason that this is called Dark Horse Rowing,
if you've ever heard of the idiom of a dark horse,
essentially, it's somebody who wasn't supposed to win,
who came from behind, who wasn't discovered.
You're an underdog.
You're a dark horse, you're an underdog.
It means that other people aren't giving you a shake.
They're not giving you anything.
You are out there to earn it on your own,
and that has basically been my life
at every turn, especially through my business,
through my athletic life, through my school life,
my scholastic life.
I didn't have anybody that really believed in me,
and every moment, if I wanted to get somewhere,
it was me trying to figure it out
'cause there wasn't anybody supporting me behind
until I found rowing.
And that's why I ended up in this sport,
why I ended up teaching this.
It's because it's meant so much to me
that I really hope to be able to pass on the values
and the lessons I've learned.
Okay, 15 seconds left of this drill.
(rowing machine whirring)
Next, we're gonna go to legs and body only
from the catch, and you'll see what that means
in a second here in three, two, one.
Legs and body only.
I'm not gonna use my arms.
I'm dropping pauses.
I'm focusing on closing the hips
and pushing away through the legs.
Now, why legs and body over any other drill?
Well, that's because it teaches you
to both hang off the handle
and to use your legs to push the machine away
instead of your arms.
The legs are the biggest driver of the rowing stroke,
and if you're bending at the elbow,
trying to pull on the handle
instead of push the machine away,
push, don't pull,
then you're taking up all of that potential
to create a lotta good force into the machine,
and instead,
(rowing machine whirring)
you're giving it to your weak arms,
and I'm not saying your arms are weak (chuckling).
Your arms are weak, you're saying!
No.
All of our arms are much weaker than our legs,
and so, we wanna spend as much time using our legs
to push as possible.
Just think about how much more time you spend walking
than you do walking on your hands.
That right there is a clear indicator
of how much stronger your legs are than your arms.
Gonna use those legs to push that machine away.
It's a huge lesson.
Push, don't pull.
Learn that if you're a dark horse.
We use it a lot.
(rowing machine whirring)
10 seconds until our final drill,
which is going to be a rolling drill.
Every five strokes, we're gonna take an arms
and body only strokes,
in three, two, one.
Here we're taking a full stroke.
That's one.
We're gonna take five full strokes,
and on the fifth one, every time,
we're gonna add in arms and body only, taking the legs out.
That's three.
That's four.
So, on this one, arms and body only.
(rowing machine whirring)
And then back to full slide strokes.
We call this cut the cake drill.
Why?
I don't actually know,
but I think that's three,
four, and on this one,
arms and body only.
But the reason why did we select arms and body only
as one of five great beginner drills
is because right now,
you should be trying to implement, that's three,
everything that we worked on through the other drills,
that's four, on this one.
(rowing machine whirring)
And this cut the cake acts as a bit of
a reminder to come back to the drill in good position.
Instead of taking the training wheels off
and just flying down a hill,
we're controlling it still.
Four, on this one, arms and body only.
(rowing machine whirring)
It's teaching you good behavior,
good order of operations.
(rowing machine whirring)
Four.
Five.
Think we're gonna get one more cycle of that.
Maybe not even.
One.
(rowing machine whirring)
Two.
(rowing machine whirring)
Three.
All right, we're just gonna do it on this one
to finish it out.
(rowing machine whirring)
Phew, and that is that.
So, lessons learned today,
things that you should be taking away,
number one, always prioritize that positioning
of your body as you move through, especially early on.
This is a beginner's workout for a reason.
You're looking for drills to make you faster
in 10 minutes, nonetheless.
The drills of rowing are about putting your body
into the right positions because you have to learn
how the body moves on this machine
in order to get better.
It's not like a treadmill or an elliptical or a bike
where it guides you through the movement.
You have to be placing yourself to get the most out of it,
and that is why we're here
is essentially to provide those tools for you
to learn how to get better on this machine
so that it can be become of value for you.
So, guys, thank you so much.
Go, do, be, be your best,
and as always,
I'll see ya on the other side.
I love ya.
Hey, guys, and thanks for watching.
If you enjoyed this and you want more,
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