- What's up, Dark Horses?
I'm Shane Farmer.
This is Dark Horse Rowing,
and today we're talking butts.
(energetic music)
Let's talk sitting on your butt on the seat in particular.
Now, there are three main connection points to the machine,
feet, seat and handle.
We've covered two of those already,
so make sure you go check out those videos
if you haven't already.
But today we're discussing
how the seat impacts your performance
and why it's actually far more important to your performance
than you may have previously thought.
As the point at which the majority
of your weight rests during a workout
where you are grounded really into this machine,
there are four main points that we can be thinking about
that are going to improve the way
that you are both feeling during your workouts
and also will give you performance enhancement
as you're going through the workout.
That would be number one, your hip position,
what your hips are actually doing on the machine.
Number two is what your swing angle looks like
because your hips are directly responsible
for how your trunk moves.
Then where your weight is hanging out
in the seat in particular.
And finally, we have what your seat is actually doing
as the stroke is happening.
All of these things will go into play,
and if you're not thinking about them,
you could seriously be undercutting
the way that you are actually performing
through your workout.
What's so important about the way
that you're actually sitting on the seat?
Because you have one primary focal point
that is your contact with the seat,
every stroke, you rock back and forth,
and this can either be an advantage
or it can really aggravate your body
depending on if you're doing it right.
To make sure that your hips are in the right position,
you're going to actually grab your butt.
I want you to straight up put your hands on your butt,
and you're going to lift your butt cheeks backwards
as if you were trying to point your tailbone behind you.
And this is going to get your hips
into what we would call an anterior pelvic tilt.
Now, that sounds super fancy,
but it simply means that your hips
are going to get into a forward tilted position
instead of being dumped behind you,
and that way, you avoid grinding your tailbone into the seat
and instead, set yourself up to be in good posture.
Next, lock in your swing position.
The ideal hip swing position is between 11 and one
or I guess for you, that would be 11 and one.
And what I mean by swing position,
'cause I understand that may not make any sense,
is simply what your trunk or your torso,
everything from the waist up is doing
as it moves back and forth,
how it's swinging through space and time,
if that makes sense.
What we're looking at ideally is 11 to one o'clock.
Now, that creates the perfect range of motion
for the hips to be able to do work
without overextending or over-compressing on either end.
Practice getting on your machine
and swinging 11 to one without any other movement.
You want to allow your body to be the only thing that moves.
So don't use your arms.
Don't use your legs.
Let your trunk swing between 11 and one o'clock
over and over and over.
If you have a mirror, put it next to the machine
so that you can watch yourself as you move,
but this is the way
that you are going to lock in that position
and learn where 11 o'clock and one o'clock are
for your body.
Another great way to practice this
is standing close to a wall,
as close as you can, but I like to think
about a foot's length away from the wall.
You will then maintain good posture,
and you're going to push your hips back
with a slightly bent knee,
attempting to touch your butt to the wall
without rounding your back and giving up your posture.
This is an excellent way of practicing good posture,
as well as hip swing
without those two things getting mixed up with one another.
Next, what's our weight actually doing in the seat?
To preface this discussion,
it's important for you to take a look
at the angle of the foot stretchers.
Generally it's angled at about 45 degrees.
Technically it's 43, but we're gonna say 45
for discussion purposes.
Now, with that being said, that angle of the foot stretcher
effectively determines how we should be driving our weight
through the stroke.
Now, when we are pushing,
if you were to consider the angle of the foot stretchers
as our floor angle,
if we kept physics relative to the angle of the floor.
So if my floor is flat and I were to travel up and down
according to gravity, if I were squatting up and down,
I would squat 90 degrees.
I'd basically squat in this rectangular box,
down and up, down and up,
perpendicular to the floor.
If I took my foot stretchers, angled them at 45 degrees
and kept physics relative, in and out, in and out,
in and out, it would basically be telling me
that I am not just driving vertically or horizontally.
It's that I'm trying to find a combination
of horizontal and vertical drive force.
Where does that all go?
I know that may sound complicated.
It simply means that as you are moving through the stroke,
there is a need to drive a little bit vertically,
as well as horizontally,
and what that will do is take your weight
and momentarily elevate it out of the seat
before settling it back down into the seat
at the release position or the back side of the stroke.
That, by taking your weight out of the seat,
is going to help put your mass on the handle,
which is going to become free speed for you
because you aren't having to fight the machine as much.
Instead, your body mass is going to start doing some
of the movement for you.
So to summarize that and make it a little bit simpler,
as you are pushing into the machine
and trying to create force,
your goal is to push through your entire foot,
meaning your heel and your forefoot,
so that you creating a somewhat vertical drive,
as well as horizontal,
which is going to take a little bit of your weight,
elevate it out of the seat momentarily
before settling back down at the back side of the stroke.
Now, as an asterisk to this,
this is more of a good intentions kind of thing
than it is an easily visible drill.
It would require another person
to be here in the gym with me, and I don't have that.
So just think about it.
Do your best to really embody this idea.
Finally, how the seat moves with you
is really, really important
to the way that you're gonna perform on this machine,
and it's a very clear indicator
as to what's happening inside your stroke if it's not.
For every inch that your seat is moving,
your handle should be moving in kind with it.
Think about it.
As the two are moving,
they are effectively determining
the two position points of your body,
your shoulders and your hips.
If those are moving out of sync,
that was actually pretty cool.
I watched myself do that on camera.
I'm impressed.
You're gonna actually find a little bit of a disconnect
because that means that somewhere in between your hips
and your shoulders, something has gone wrong
to change the order of operations of the stroke.
As you are pushing against the machine,
you really need to be thinking
about bracing through your trunk or your torso,
whatever you wanna call it,
making sure that your trunk is strong and rigid
so you have a strong midline.
Your posture's in good position.
Your lats are tight and engaged.
Your triceps are extended
so that your arms are nice and rigid and connected
to the handle when the trunk is braced.
That means that when you go to push through the legs,
everything's gonna be locked in tight and moving together.
And that, my Dark Horses, is why we wanna pay attention
to our butts on the seats on the rower.
You'd be amazed how much you can gain
from focusing on this singular connection point,
and as I mentioned, we've done feet and hands
in previous videos.
So make sure you go watch those
so that you get all three points
of your connection to the machine shored up,
and when you do, you're gonna find
that your workouts get easier, way more fun,
and you're gonna get a lot more out of them
because you're gonna spend less time worrying
about if you're doing it right or wrong,
and you're gonna have a lot more enjoyment knowing
that you're getting a lot out of the workouts,
and that's what's important
that on your Dark Horse journey,
that as you are fighting to become the best that you can be
at what you care about, who you wanna be, what you wanna be,
that this machine becomes a piece of that puzzle
that you enjoy and get
to gain a lot of traction and value from.
And listen, if you consider yourself a Dark Horse
and you wanna tune in and hang out with us
because you wanna take the message
of being the underdog of your own life
and being able to spread that with others
and being able to just hang out
with a community of other people
that believe that they have control of their own lives,
then you're in the right place.
Make sure you hit that subscribe button
and that bell next to it
so that you get alerted whenever we come out with new videos
for the Dark Horse community,
those of you that consider yourself underdogs
and taking power into your own hands.
Guys, thank you as always.
We'll see you on the other side.
(upbeat music)
Hey, thanks for watching the video.
If you enjoyed this and you're looking for more
and you want workouts, continuous coaching from me
and my other coaches in our private Facebook community,
it's our monthly workout program.
It's $39 a month.
Just go over to darkhorserowing.com/athlete
to sign up now.