Featured Video: Michigan Men's Rowing Head Coach Gregg Hartsuff's Favorite Training Clip

Michigan on the water in Ann Arbor (Photo via Michigan Men's Rowing/Facebook)

This week's featured rowing video comes to us thanks to Michigan Men's Rowing head coach Gregg Hartsuff. A roughly 5-minute training clip of the Dutch men's eight that won gold in Atlanta, this video gives a window into several key technical aspects of rowing that Hartsuff tries to instill into every rower at Michigan. (Without a doubt, all the Michigan rowers and alums who read RR will be familiar with this one!)

From Hartsuff: 

The 1996 Netherlands men's eight training—I think we have gone over this before, as this is clip is required viewership for athletes I coach.



It highlights all the important points of rowing technique I emphasize: steady and connected acceleration on the drive initiated by the legs and the body holding its angle until the legs are nearly down, and strong core-pry off the end of the leg push without a crazy amount of layback.

"'Undetected recovery,' as I call it, where the hull can't 'detect' the rowers movement."

I also like their uniform recovery speed, where there aren't crazy fast hands away with exaggerated slow slide, nor a delay with a pause after the release and then an acceleration up the slide. It's even speed. 'Undetected recovery,' as I call it, where the hull can't 'detect' the rowers movement. I love this clip and send it to my athletes a few times a year so they tune in to gain an understanding of what I am looking for.

Thanks very much to Gregg Hartsuff for his time! This video also features in this piece with us from 2015, when he was building his roster and staff for the World University Games—something he'll be tackling once again later this year. (Stay tuned for more on that here on RR in the near future.)

And, just in case you haven't seen it... Here's what it looked like when the above Dutch men's eight took gold at the Olympics in Atlanta.



Also coming up shortly, our picks for Nos. 21-30 Top Rowing Coaches of All Time, as promised (good things come to those who wait...)

-RR

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