Jack Burns - Edge Rowing

What technical improvements can you do to drop your erg score?
Change the way you use your body at the front of the stroke.
Apply force at a more compressed position. This allows you to hang effectively
What can you do to achieve this?
Start lifting with mobility in mind.
But the most important part: Treat every stroke as an opportunity to improve!
Comment ”checklist“ for the full technical checklist.

Inger Seim Kavlie raced internationally for a decade with zero senior medals. Then in 2024 she won Norway’s first ever women’s medal in the Olympic boat classes - the single and the double

So what changed?

She came to rowing late through a local gym group in Norway that was obsessed with the erg. They sponsored her to go to CRASH-Bs in Boston, and that is where it started.

Then for years afterwards, she just kept showing up with no senior medals or media attention.

This is what she did:

She got into the single scull properly for the first time, which forced her to figure out what she needed individually to go fast with nobody else to lean on.

She got a coach who genuinely cared about her, who she said never stopped believing in their goals.

And she found the right partner in Thea Helseth. She described Thea as a nightmare to race against in the single but a dream to row with in the double.

She took everything the single had taught her about herself and put it into the double, and it clicked immediately. They beat Romania twice on the way to European gold and went on to win the overall World Rowing Cup that year.

If you have been training for years and feel like nothing is changing, it does not mean nothing is building.

Lean into what is challenging and you can transform your outcomes, even after a decade of seemingly no progress.

Follow for more stories from the sport that most people never hear.

Comment “over 40” - time to stop wasting your training time!

Do you feel like you are working hard, but not actually moving the boat?
(Nerves in the arms)

The reason you struggle with this is down to our anatomy as humans

We have more nerves in our upper body

So when we work our upper body, it feels like we are doing more.

When in reality you arent transferring force into your lower body

Which is stopping you from going fast.

So as you change your focus to finding connection in the legs, bear in mind that it may not feel more connected for a time.

But as you develop the neural pathways, you will start to feel it in the legs.

And you will start to go faster.

Paul O’Donovan was asked what his race plan was for the Olympic final. He said “close your eyes and pull like a dog.”

He described the tactics as “it is not too complex really. A to B as fast as you can go.”

That man is a double Olympic champion, seven-time world champion, and a qualified doctor who graduated with first class honours while winning world titles.

He grew up milking cows on a dairy farm in West Cork. He pulled a 5:58 as a lightweight.

When he was asked about his technique, he said “you’re getting less technical each year, a bit more brute force and ignorance every time we go away. I’m not a huge fan of the technique.”

A double Olympic champion saying he is getting less technical, not more.

And when asked about balancing medical school with elite rowing, he said “you think about things a little bit. If you decide it is possible, that is when you stop thinking and start doing. A lot of the time people are sitting about thinking about things an awful amount and while they are doing that thinking they should be actually doing things.”

The secret is not an exotic training method or complicated periodisation. It is doing less thinking and more doing.

Most rowers I meet spend more time researching the perfect programme than actually following one. More time comparing drag factors than getting on the erg.

More time worrying about whether they are training right than just training.

So if you are struggling, and I had to guess what the double olympic champions advice is to you, it would be something like “just get on with it”

While you want to pay attention to detail, you also need to not over complicate things, sometimes it is really is not that complex.

Follow for more on what the best rowers in the world actually do versus what most people think they do.

A new habit I see masters rowers wrongly get into is due to the fact that they are trying to rate too high.

It’s also what separates elite rowers like Lauren Henry or damir Martin with their technique.

Masters rowers dont draw through their stroke enough.

They cut it off too early

This causes their hands to be close together when they take the blades out which disrupts balance

It is bio mechanically inefficient

And its the easiest thing to change…

…all you need to do….

…is pull through more.

And if you really cant do that, your footplate position or rig is likely wrong.

Making this change is probably one of the simplest things you can do to get faster.

So do it!

This is Olli Zeidler. He pulls a 5:34 2k, he is the current Olympic champion in the single…

…and here he is talking to our athletes. This is what we learned.

First, his low intensity is around 1:47 to 1:48 for an hour on the erg.

His 2k is a 5:34. That gap is massive.

And he trains based on heart rate and lactate testing, not ego.

He said this winter he deliberately kept the intensity lower than he ever has, and his improvements were more significant than in any year where he trained harder over winter.

Second, his 2k prep is simpler than you would think. He only has 4 prep sessions.

Six times 500 at goal pace.

Then three to four times 750.

Then two times 1000 with longer rest.

Then one 1500 at race pace where he should feel like he could go another 200 metres.

That is it.

He builds into it gradually, not by smashing himself.

Third, and this one surprised me, he deliberately rows short.

He does not get to parallel shins.

He said he is faster and stronger in that position, his boat does not dip, and he is quicker at the catch.

A few centimetres of extra length is not worth it if it puts him in a weaker position.

The Olympic champion trains easier than most club rowers think, preps simpler than most club rowers expect, and rows shorter than most club rowers would dare.

If you want to watch part 1 of 3 of these chats that we did with Olli, comment “chat” and I’ll send you the recording for free.

I changed my footplate height by one notch and did a 500 metre burst. The split dropped by 3 seconds.

This is one of the most overlooked things in rowing and almost no one talks about it. Your footplate height changes the angle your shins are at when you arrive at full slide. That changes your hip angle, your back angle, and how much of your bodyweight you can actually load onto the handle at the catch.

If your footplate is too low, you over compress at the catch, your shins go past vertical, and you cannot drive properly. If it is too high, you cannot get to the front of the slide at all and you lose effective length.

Most rowers set their footplate height once when they get in the boat and never touch it again. That is fine if you got it right. But most people did not, and they have no idea what they are missing.

The way to get it set up right is check are your shins perpendicular to the water at the catch, and is your body angle rocked forward enough?

If it is, raise your feet until you cant keep your shins parallel and your body comfortably rocked forward.

If you have never adjusted your footplate height, do it tomorrow. It is the cheapest performance gain in rowing and most rowers leave it on the table for years.

Follow for more rigging tips that actually move the boat.