Rowing Video: An Investment for your Club
As a rowing club manager, yours is a hard job (we know). From beneath the endless tasks that pile onto your desk, you need to remember to keep innovation moving at your club. You invest in new rowing equipment often, but try investing in something small that could improve the way your rowers perform. Buy a video camera, and make it available to all coaches as a tool for connecting the rowers with what their teaching. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth 10 thousand.
Below is a short tutorial on video as a tool for rowers. Written by the experts at Rowperfect, it covers:
- Strategy
- Equipment
- Filming
- Viewing
- Sharing
Share it with the coaches around your club, and keep feeding your coaches tools to help them do what they do better (and more easily). They'll thank you for it in more members.
Strategy
The secret to useful video analysis is planning. Decide what you want to achieve from the session and how you're going to do it. This may be a general overview of a crew's rowing. It may be a specific technical aspect of the stroke which can be highlighted by certain exercises, or a demonstration of the crew's technique at race pace. Some coaches use video footage to show how a crew's technique deteriorates over the length of a 2km piece. Decide what you want to capture and plan what to film (from where? Which angles?) and what the crew need to be doing to allow you to do this.
Equipment
The key to a good video session is in 'getting' the footage. It really doesn't matter what you use to get it. You don't need to spend money on special equipment (although there is some great stuff available, and cheaper than you might think). Use what you have.
Smart Phones/Tablets
Many people now have smart phones or tablets with excellent video recording capabilities (many in HD) but they forget about them when it comes to filming rowing. These are fantastic tools which won't cost you anything extra. Just be careful using them near the water!
Photography Cameras
Most 'still photography' cameras are also equipped with video recording capabilities. If you have one already, use it. If you're buying a new camera and thinking of also using it for video analysis consider a few things. Some cameras will limit you to a certain length (or file size) per shot. This isn't usually less than 5 minutes, so not a huge problem, but it's something to be aware of. Check how much zoom is available in video mode. Some cameras lock the zoom when you start filming.
Video Cameras
The range is huge and always improving. Anything modern will be more than enough to get really useful video of rowing. If you're buying a camera specifically for your club to use it's best to look for something with simple controls. Make sure it can easily be connected to whatever displays you have available. If lots of people are going to be using the camera it should be something which isn't over-complicated by features you won't need. Ruggedness and durability will be more important than a high specification.
