17 Warning Signs That Your Rigging Stinks

If you’ve been at this sport long enough odds are good that you have a handle on your rigging. You’re good with the equipment; you treat it well; and the equipment is there for you when you need it.

But how do you really know your rigging is good?

You’ll never really know for sure, however there are warning signs that you might have an issue. In fact, more than just an issue, there are warning signs that your rigging may just down-right stink.

A warning sign is a simple piece of information that speaks loud and clear and says “Hey you, there is a problem here!” Often rowers and coaches miss many of the warning signs until it is too late, choosing instead to ignore or discount them. If any of the following warning signs are prevalent in your rowing it might be an indication that your rigging stinks, and you need to clean things up a bit:

1. You spend more time at practice fixing things than rowing

Practice time is rowing time, not fixing-broken-things-time. Yet that is what many rowers end up doing during practice.

Yeah, yeah I know—you don’t have time to pay attention to the equipment and row. But guess what? You will be paying attention to the equipment soon enough, during the time that you scheduled for rowing. So stop whining and aside time for the equipment. It will be a good investment and will save you time and energy, and keep practice time for practice.

2. Broken things just don’t get fixed

If your rigging is good then broken things get fixed. Quickly and correctly. I don’t mean in weeks, but in hours. Broken equipment leads to broken people, and it is certainly an instance of pay me now or pay me a lot more later.

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A new weapon for your coaching and rigging arsenal—Plan B.

Okay, riddle me this . . . what do you do when you have a plan to get something done—and that plan doesn’t work?

For instance, you’re driving your trailer full of shells to an important race. The race site is only 1 hour away, you’ve got plenty of time . . . and then your trailer gets a flat. And then another. And one more.

Arggh—three flats.

Your Plan A just went down the tube. What do you do?

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You know what? You’ve got a problem. And I’m glad . . .

Yeah, I’m talking to you. I’m hoping you have a problem, and here’s why . . .

I’m in the midst of my editorial planning for the upcoming year. Trying to figure out what to post. What videos and articles would be good to put up.

You read this blog. You’ve got problems. (Come on, admit it . . . you know you do.) So tell me.

See, instead of me writing and filming things that I think are *cool* or “Yeah, man, let’s tell folks about this purple wrench holder” I should be posting things that are helpful.

That help you solve a problem.

So here’s the deal—you let me know what your problem is, and I’ll post about it. And maybe if it is a big issue, or effects many folks, I’ll do more than a simple post on it.

Okay, no survey to complete. No forms to fill out. Just drop your problem in the comment box below. And I’ll get on it.

Come on, tells me what’s bugging ya . . .

[And if you're a coach with a problem, you might find help at my new site for coaches.]

A deal for 15 readers . . .

In 1996 I published my second rowing book titled Finding Happiness Sitting On Your Butt Going Backwards.

It sold pretty well, and then we stopped printing it, because, well . . . ya know I really don’t remember why, I guess we just got busy with life.

Now 14 years later I would like to re-release it as an ebook because many of the reasons that I wrote the original (such as a lot of rowers having a hard time enjoying rowing) seem to be popping up again.

A Deal

In my mind the book is relevant as is, doesn’t need a whole lot of rewriting. But as some of you know my mind, is well, um . . . different. I want to make sure the book actually is still relevant. That it is good. That it is helpful. That it doesn’t stink.

So I propose this  . . . I’m going to give 15 copies of the ebook out to readers of this blog—free. And all I ask in return is that the reader (1) actually reads the book within 2 weeks,  (2) responds after reading it and tells me if it was good, and what was good, and, more importantly (3) if it wasn’t good, tell me the specifics about what wasn’t good.

That’s it.

Free book.

Just read it and tell me exactly what you think. No holds barred. I’m looking for the down-and-dirty-last-25-strokes truth.

What do you get out of the deal?

What’s in it for you? Hm . .

1. You get the info that a lot of readers say they liked (for free), and can start to use that info now to get more from your rowing
2. You get the chance to change a book on rowing
3. You get a free copy of the final product

How do you get your copy?

Just send me an email with a quick blast on why you want to read it, I’ll pick the 15 best and send the book right out.

This will happen quick, so send an email to me at mike at MaxRigging.com.

Keep it short. Keep it specific, and I’ll get right back to you.

Deal??

A few early morning details of racing, and a check list

I popped out the camera at the Vails, early in the morning, on race day.

Yeah, yeah . . . I know—this is a early riser sport.

But sometimes the little details, in the morning, can just slip right by.

And when they do . . . well, let’s just say that the rest of your day (season) could be shot.

Here are a few thoughts about the little details when you race really early.

Here is a quick checklist for those early am details (actually for racing at anytime).

What would you add to it?

** And want to know how to make those early mornings a little more joyful? Stay tuned for the re-release of my book Finding Happiness Sitting On Your Butt Going Backwards. Coming soon to a computer near you . . .

Rowing, cigarettes, and the World’s Fair

Friend Chris Partridge, at Rowing For Pleasure, found this great newsreel clip The Rowingest Man in the States.

Rowing 2000 miles, with a cigarette, to get to the World’s Fair.

The People of Rowing

Sage Seth Godin just wrote a thoughtful post about Andrew Carnegie’s view of people:

Carnegie apparently said, “Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors……Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.”

As I read it, out jumped the A-ha of how relevant that concept is to our sport. A few word substitutions gives us:

“Take away my rowers, but leave my equipment and soon grass will grow on the boathouse floor……Take away my equipment, but leave my rowers and soon we will have a new and better equipment .”

Rowing is a people sport, but unfortunately it is so easy to forget that—to get distracted by the equipment.

As I write this, my team’s trailer is broken down along the interstate in Georgia. That is a drag.

But all my rowers are safe at the hotel—that is infinitely more important.

The Critical Note After Talking To C2

I’ve spent a bunch of time over the years getting to know the folks at Concept II—a great bunch.

Recently I had a long discussion with them about oar blade shapes, and how best to rig them.

Although these notes are scribbled there is one note on the page that is absolutely of critical importance to anyone who rows.

Can you tell which one it is?

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The Speed of Speed

Most rowers and coaches will have the expectation that their speed will come fast. Thinking that if they are dedicated to finding it the speed will quickly show up. The majority of us are not very patient so expectations are high.

In a theoretical world, without all the human factors that affect us, that would be the case. In such a perfect world a simple graph of your speed over a season would probably look like this:

However our worlds are anything BUT perfect, with illnesses, injuries, economy, weather, and a wealth of other things effecting us. A realistic speed graph for an individual might actually look like this:

That graph is just for one person trying to get fast. Add a partner or team mates and suddenly the variations become much more pronounced:

We would love for our speed to come quick, and to see improvements daily. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen. The road to fast is often full of bumps and takes longer than we think it should.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Chime in below.

• Rigging Videos
• Post 1: A Hunt For Speed
• Post 2:  A Cheater’s Guide To Making A Boat Go Fast
• Post 3: Coxswain’s Head Explodes. Too Much Speed The Cause
• Post 4: Step 1 of Your Personal Speed System: Fierce Mindset
• Post 5: Step 2 of Your Personal Speed System: Rock-star Athlete(s)
• Post 6: Step 3 of Your Personal Speed System: Mindful Training
• Post 7: Step 4 of Your Personal Speed System: Freak Your Technique
• Post 8: Step 5 of Your Personal Speed System: Rock-solid Equipment
• Post 9: Step 6 of Your Personal Speed System: Real Rigging
• Post 10: Step 7 of Your Personal Speed System: Your Speed Pyramid
• Rowing Slow: The Secret For Going Fast And Getting What You Really Want From Rowing

The Final Step: Your Speed Pyramid

The last 9 posts have been about speed—specifically about building your own Personal Speed System. Time now to tie all those bits and pieces together. I would like to introduce you to the Rowing Speed Pyramid.

Pyramids

When the ancients wanted to construct something strong and lasting they built a pyramid. A pyramid is a structure where the outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a point. These were some of the original large buildings, and have proven themselves to be strong, durable, and very stable. And some of them look pretty darn cool.

Closer to home, on the left hand corner of my desk is a book titled: Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. It details the system that John Wooden used to develop his 10 national championship basketball teams at UCLA. As you can see from the image below Coach invested a great deal of time into the development and perfection of his system.

Rowing Speed Pyramid

We can look at speed in a similar view, in fact a pyramid is a great metaphor for how our Personal Speed System operates. I’ll let the image below speak for itself but there are a few points that need to be brought out.

First: simple geometry tells us that if you want a tall pyramid (which you do in this case because the taller it is the more speed you can find) then you need a wide base. In our case the base is your fierce mindset. A strong, wide mindset, include critical component such as vision, failure, giving up control, and finding joy will help you build a taller structure.

Second: the foundation of any pyramid is a critical part of how long the pyramid stands, and how high it can be built. Without a strong foundation all the hard work may be for naught. The Egyptians knew the importance of a strong foundation, and spent a long time working on before they started the main structure. In fact, they built several Pyramids on bases of solid rock.

In our case, the foundation for our Speed Pyrmaimd is built on a foundation of hardwork, a supportive community, and using a system.

Third: pyramids take a lot of time to build. Estimates are some Egyptian pyramids took well over 25 years to build. Yours won’t take that long, but do expect to invest time in constructing yours. [However, keep in mind if you want to be world-class fast you can expect to invest upwards of 10,000 hours building your pyramid.]

Take Action Now

Are you in the process of hunting for the speed you need? Then hopefully this helps tie up some loose ends as you go about trying to get faster. See something that needs to be changed, updated, or fixed? Let me know what you think.

• Rigging Videos
• Post 1: A Hunt For Speed
• Post 2:  A Cheater’s Guide To Making A Boat Go Fast
• Post 3: Coxswain’s Head Explodes. Too Much Speed The Cause
• Post 4: Step 1 of Your Personal Speed System: Fierce Mindset
• Post 5: Step 2 of Your Personal Speed System: Rock-star Athlete(s)
• Post 6: Step 3 of Your Personal Speed System: Mindful Training
• Post 7: Step 4 of Your Personal Speed System: Freak Your Technique
• Post 8: Step 5 of Your Personal Speed System: Rock-solid Equipment
• Post 9: Step 6 of Your Personal Speed System: Real Rigging
• Rowing Slow: The Secret For Going Fast And Getting What You Really Want From Rowing

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