Summary of the week

So this week I only managed two rows, I did however play squash and badminton so all in all a fairly active week.

This evenings row I was putting into place the new Flex-foot system setup. Decided on a short row (20 minutes) to test out the new foot placement. Certainly felt different muscles working. Felt the row more in the legs - bad news is that pins and needles after 20 minutes. Need to look further into this.

Had a quick look at my rows over 20 minutes - definite improvement on pace and meters rowed. Will post in blog next week.

Another busy week planned, squash tomorrow and badminton scheduled.

Rowing machine total now at approx 230k (140+ miles)

Flex-foot System Setup - The answer....and immediate improvement

So I have been looking for guidance on how to setup the what I now know to be called Flex-Foot System. I wanted to make sure that I am gaining the maximum benefits from the rowing I do. So this morning, I decided to take a quick look on YouTube on the subject of Concept 2 and setup. Result below:



No surprise, I quickly found my answer, in summary :

1) The Ball of your foot should rest on the ridged platform
2) Air on the high side so that during the push or drive your more horizontal than vertical.

So having made this discovery I ventured downstairs to look at how I have it setup. I should probably add at this point, that I'm feeling somewhat stupid at my findings. To my surprise the balls of my feet where not resting firmly on the ridged platform, in order to do this I needed to raise the platform by two (2) notches. Now the difference that this very small setup change has made is significant. Over the past two weeks, I have been struggling with technique, in particular focusing on not over reaching during the recovery, now that I have made this setup change, this ability to overreach has been significantly reduced. In fact I would go as far as saying, that I can no longer move my shins past vertical.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating so I plan on doing exactly that later this afternoon. I will report on my findings.