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- Today, we're gonna make you more forceful
on the rower in five minutes.
That's like, five minutes of like, you time on the machine.
Not five minutes of me making the video.
I swear, I do them as fast as I can.
I'm not trying to draw it out.
Let's just, let's roll the video.
You're probably here because you're trying
to put more force or power, not actually the same thing.
Often used interchangeably.
We'll discuss that in a second.
You're trying to put more force into the machine
and you just feel like where is it?
Where's, I know I have power but I can't put it
into this machine, why?
What am I doing wrong?
Is the machine broken?
No, to that last question.
Yes, and we'll answer the previous question to that.
Let's go.
We're gonna be using a little insider tip
that a lot of people might not know about
but it's really valuable and actually acts like
a little pocket coach.
A little like, if you could fit me in your pocket,
a little tool, at least on the Concept 2 machine.
On other machines as well.
I just don't know how to actually get to them
on other machines and it's called the force curve.
Let's just do a quick dip of our toe into the water
of the difference between force and power.
Force is mass times acceleration.
Now, this is where you are actually acting on the machine.
This is a push or a pull.
Those of you that have hung around the channel,
you know that it's a push in this instance
but this is your mass times acceleration.
That is what creates force.
It is an actual action on another object.
That's force.
Power is work divided by time.
So, it is taking the amount of work you are
trying to produce and determining, based off of
the amount of time that it takes,
that's what gives you power.
So, ostensibly, you could have a higher work, slower time.
A lower work and a faster time
and arrive at the same amount of power.
That lends, now, we're not gonna gonna get into that today,
but if you consider that into the direction
of the damper setting or drag factor discussion,
it lends to the concept of why you can be successful
at any given drag factor/damper setting
and that there isn't any one correct damper setting
for anybody because you can achieve power
many different ways on the spectrum.
All right, that's out of the way.
On to the good stuff.
Force curve is a screen or a monitor setting
on all Concept 2 machines.
Again, also present on other machines.
I just don't know those machines
and there're a lot of them to cover
so we're just focusing on the Concept 2 today.
It is generally the second button down
on the right hand column if you were to,
if I'm you, and I'm looking at the monitor.
The right hand column, like five buttons,
you push the second one down and it's gonna give you
the force curve screen.
The reason we're even talking about this,
is because the force curve is a literal direct insight
into what you are doing.
How you are performing on the machine.
On the rowing machine at, in real time.
It, as I mentioned earlier, it's like a little
coach Shane in your pocket at any given time
if your understand what you are seeing
when you are watching it and the other piece of this is
can you change the way that you're moving
to create a more optimal force curve
so that you can create better force.
Thus, the force in the force curve discussion.
The ideal curve that we are looking for,
all of us that are coaching in this world,
we always call it the haystack.
It's smooth, it's perfectly symmetrical,
it has a nice acceleration point,
a peak, a taper off.
There are no outliers, spikes, dips, anything like that
and the reason being, the reason we like that haystack,
is because it optimizes the amount of area under the curve.
The more area down there, the more force you are producing
and that's the goal at the end of the day.
There are two other potential curves
and both of these are okay.
They're not wrong.
They're just different ways of approaching the stroke
and if you were to take these two
on the ends of the spectrum and smash them together,
you would essentially end up with a haystack
which is why I talk about the haystack
as being the kind of perfect curve.
Now the first of those is a peaked
or pretty aggressive peaked curve
where you see it actually reach kind of a point
and then taper off.
Again, no crazy outliers on the up or the down
but it does have a more definite peak.
Now, this is what you would get if you have a more
traditional rowing technique.
Legs, body, arms and you make sure to really
stretch out each one of those so that it is
systematic in nature.
The second, would be more of a full body opening
at once where you are driving legs, opening hips,
breaking at the arms, almost at the same time.
The arms may wait a little bit longer.
That as well, it will have less of a peak
but it will have a longer base
and thus, we arrive at almost the same amount
of area under the curves which is why I say they're okay
is because you still have the same amount of area.
You're still producing the same amount of force
per stroke but you achieve it in different ways.
So, if we talk about the haystack,
it kind of encompasses all mechanics and types of strokes
that arrive at ideal smooth curves that create
connection throughout the entire stroke.
The most important part of this all however,
is can you actually make a change
if you see an issue with your force curve?
And if you're seeing other, anything other than smooth
nice acceleration all the way through the stroke,
odds are there's probably something that we can be
working on inside the stroke.
You just need to be able to read it.
To do this we need to understand what the curve
is actually reading.
For that, I'm going to use a simple prop.
The lens cap to my camera.
Now, I'm going to imagine that this is the force curve
graph that you are seeing on your screen.
This is the X axis, this is the Y axis.
Now, imagine that this is my fly wheel.
It's gonna go right here.
Now, from here, imagine that the rower is extending out.
What I'm doing is just, imagine if I could overlay my graph
with a picture of a rowing machine.
So, fly wheel, slide, back leg, all right?
Essentially, as the graph is drawn,
it's showing you exactly how force is applied
throughout the stroke.
Meaning, it begins with leg drive.
The legs are the most powerful part of the body,
so we begin to accelerate and create a lot of force here.
The leg drive into the hip connection
starts to create a lot of acceleration
plus peak force application during the stroke
and that's why we start to reach that peak
right at about the middle part of the stroke
because that's where the legs and the hips are connecting.
Then as the hips or trunk and the arms connect,
we start to see a taper off because we are both
reaching the end of the stroke as well as the ability
to place strength into the machine because of the arms
being basically the weakest part of the stroke.
I hope that all made sense.
Basically, just take your graph.
Imagine an erd overlayed or a rowing machine
overlayed over that graph and it becomes much easier
to understand what you are seeing when there's a force curve
drawn every single time.
Now, the fix comes in wherever you may see the blip.
The weirdly spaced peak.
The dips.
Any of those things are the moments in time
in which you need to observe a change should be made.
If the blip happens on that, that initial up stroke,
right, it could be a number of things.
If you peak really fast and then it's a long taper off,
that tells you that you're putting too much force
too early into the stroke and you should be
distributing it more over the rest of the stroke.
If you're seeing a dip at the very middle,
perhaps it peaks, dips, peaks again and then drops off,
if that's the case, you're seeing an issue
in connection between the legs, the hips, and the arms
somewhere in that transitionary period in the middle.
If you are just long flat lined, you're not actually
creating much force.
You're able to apply much force to the machine.
We should be working on how you actually connect
meaning better bracing at the catch.
Better application of force into the machine.
The thing we prioritize all the time, right,
better positioning.
There are all sorts of errors that you can find.
All you're looking for are inconsistencies
in that smooth line.
Wherever that inconsistency comes in,
that is where you are observing the issue
and that comes back to what we were discussing
with, if you overlay the rower on that graph,
it will just tell you.
It's saying, hey, there's an issue with,
if it's early in the curve, probably your legs.
If it's in the middle, probably something having
to do with the legs connecting to the hips.
If it's the middle, it's hips.
If it's the backside or somewhere in that
transitionary period, it's the hips connecting to the arms
or maybe it's the arms.
Anyways, that's why I say it's a coach in your pocket.
It's a little me, Shane, coach Shane,
sitting in your pocket because it's telling you
where to look.
It's like throwing a dart, just like, right there.
That's what you should be working on.
Go chase after it, you.
At the end of the day, the goal is to be able to create
consistently smooth, beautiful, large area
under the curve, curves.
That's what I meant to say.
And to do that, I'm going to give you
a little bit of homework.
It's not really homework.
Here's a workout that'll help you
to work on your force production.
It is just five minutes with the ultimate goal
of creating the same force curve every single stroke.
If there are deviations at any point,
then that five minutes is going to be about
trying to correct that deviation and messing
with parts of the stroke.
Messing with when you apply your force.
Messing with when you use your hip swing.
Messing with when you break the elbows
to try and fix that and you're gonna spend
the five minutes trying to work towards a smooth curve.
You're gonna keep repeating that until you can get
to the point at which five minutes of rowing
gives you five minutes of the same force curve
over and over and over.
That tells you A, you're producing good force
but B, you're also creating consistency
in the way that you practice on the machine
which equals better, happier, faster workouts
in the long run.
Less confusion and a more enjoyable experience.
So my friends, go be more forceful.
Take this knowledge.
Use it as you will.
It's, yeah, it was a bit more technical
but this is one of those learning points
that is very educational and very very useful
and not a lot of people even know
that the force curve exists or what it does
but once you tap into this, it becomes a really great
tool to make you better, faster, more explosive,
just all around better on the machine.
So, with that being said guys, thank you
all for hanging out.
As always, I love you all.
You all mean the world to me.
Thank you for being Dark Horses
and if that's you, if you wanna be the hero
of your own story and you're happy with us
helping you be the guide to get you there,
then you are a Dark Horse.
And if that's you, hit that subscribe button
and the little bell next to it so that you get alerted
whenever we come out with a new video
and as always, I'll see ya on the other side.
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