Watch a crew from the bank and you can often spot the problem before the boat passes you. The rhythm stutters. The bow digs in. Someone's shoulders are up around their ears. Technique errors rarely announce themselves as dramatic faults — they hide in small habits that feel efficient and quietly cost you speed on every stroke. The good news is that most of them are fixable within a few sessions once you know what to look for. Here are seven faults that show up again and again, and the corrections that actually stick.

Rushing the Slide Back Up

On the recovery, the seat should travel forward more slowly than it travelled back on the drive. Plenty of rowers do the opposite: they kick the feet away, let momentum carry them up the slide, arrive at the catch early, and then sit there waiting. The boat checks, the run dies, and the next drive starts from a near standstill.

The rhythm you want is roughly two parts recovery to one part drive, which is why steady state at 18 to 20 strokes per minute is the best place to fix it. Break the recovery into three pieces and keep them in that order:

1. Hands away. Push the handle away from the body quickly, with relaxed arms.
2. Body over. Rock forward from the hips, keeping the back long and the chest open.
3. Slide. Let the seat roll forward last, under control, arriving at the catch just as the blade drops in.

If you still feel a pause at the front, try the pause drill: row normally but hold for two counts at the finish before starting the recovery. It feels strange and slow. It also teaches your body what patience at the catch actually costs.

Over-Gripping the Handle

A grip tight enough to hold the handle is tight enough to row. Anything more wastes energy you need for the drive, and you will feel it as burning forearms and tired shoulders long before your legs are done. Blisters, sore wrists and a cramped thumb are usually grip problems, not fitness problems.

Hold the handle in the fingers rather than the palm, with the thumbs resting lightly on the end instead of clamping down. On the recovery, let the handle sit on your fingertips and open the fingers slightly as you feather. Every few strokes, ask yourself a simple question: could I wiggle my fingers right now? If the answer is no, you are gripping too hard.

Grip is often a symptom rather than the cause. If your hands won't relax, it usually means you are pulling with the arms too early — which brings us to the next faults.

Shooting the Tail and Opening the Back Too Early

These two go together because they come from the same missing piece: connection at the front of the stroke. Both rob you of the leg drive, which is where most of your power lives.

Shooting the tail

The seat shoots backwards faster than the handle. The legs extend, the body slides away from the blade, and the handle barely moves. It happens when you push the feet without taking the pressure through your arms and back, so the first few inches of the drive do nothing at all.

The cue: push the boat away from the blade, don't push your body away from the handle. Take the slack out at the catch — blade in, a moment of pressure, then legs. The drill is legs-only rowing: arms straight, back fixed, twenty strokes of nothing but leg drive at a low rate. Notice how much faster the boat feels when the handle moves with you rather than after you.

Opening the back too early

The back swings open from the hips before the legs have finished. It looks busy and powerful, but the legs are now doing half a job while the lower back carries the load. This is one of the most common causes of rowing back pain.

Sequence matters: legs, then body, then arms. On the drive, hang from the handle and let the legs do the first half of the work before the torso swings back. Try the pick drill, building the stroke one piece at a time: arms only, add the body, then add the legs. If a coach can watch from the side, ask them to call "legs" through the first few inches — outside feedback catches this one faster than feel does.

Breaking the Arms Before the Legs Finish

The elbows bend almost immediately at the catch, so the shoulders and biceps take over a stroke your legs should be dominating. You finish with tired arms and a boat that never reached its hull speed.

Keep the arms long but not stiff, with a slight bend in the elbows, until the legs are nearly down. Only then draw the handle to your body. A useful checkpoint: if your arms bend while your knees are still heavily bent, you have given away the drive. Try a few strokes where you deliberately keep the elbows locked straight until the legs are flat, then finish normally. It will feel exaggerated, and that is fine — corrections usually do.

Cutting the Finish Short

Rowers rush the last few inches. The handle stops before it reaches the body, the hands drop, and the blade comes out early. The finish is where the boat runs, so cutting it short means throwing away the fastest part of the stroke.

Draw the handle to the bottom of the ribcage, keeping the wrists flat and the elbows past the body rather than flared out. Resist the urge to lean back hard — a long, exaggerated layback puts your weight behind the boat and slows the run. Feather the blade quickly, then send the hands away promptly. Quick hands at the finish are what give you the relaxed recovery you need at the front.

Poor Posture and a Wandering Head

Slumped shoulders at the catch, a rounded lower back, and a chin tipped up to the sky. None of these look dramatic, and all of them limit how much power you can transfer through the body. A collapsed posture narrows the space for your breathing, too, which shows up in the last 500 metres.

Sit tall on the bones of your seat, hinge from the hips rather than curling the spine, and keep your neck neutral with your eyes level with the back of the person in front of you. Breathe on the drive and let the exhale carry you into the recovery. Posture is the one fault here that shows up even when you are rowing well, so make it a habit you check on every outing, not just a correction you apply when things go wrong.

Making the Fixes Stick

You cannot fix seven things at once, and trying to will leave you rowing stiffly and thinking about your body instead of moving the boat. Pick one fault per session and leave the rest alone.

• Row the correction at 18 to 20 strokes per minute, where you have time to feel what changes.
• Use one drill for the whole session rather than switching every few minutes.
• Film yourself from the side with a phone propped on a bag. Feel lies; footage doesn't.
• On the erg, watch the force curve and the sequencing rather than the split.

Expect the new movement to feel odd for a week or two. That discomfort is usually a sign you are actually changing something. If your lower back, ribs, wrists or knees give you sharp or persistent pain, stop and get it checked by a physio or doctor rather than rowing through it — technique work is far easier when nothing hurts.

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