Often in clubs crew selection is a matter of finding enough people to fill up the boat. If you are lucky enough to have a surplus then you are faced with the problem of who to leave out.

In order to determine which is the best crew there are several factors to take into consideration. There are many cases where the performance of the crew is less than the sum total of the component parts. The physically strongest crews may not be able to work at their maximum because of technical weaknesses. Once they are in the same boat differences in application will affect the crew as a whole and they will be working against one another rather working together.

On the other hand there are crew's who perform greater than the sum of their parts. Crews in this category tend to be technically very proficient. Some oarsmen are only aware of their actions; their output is relative to their physical capacity and how hard they are pulling with little regard to the destabilising effect of their action. Technical oarsmen are sensitive to the reaction of the boat and control their output to achieve the highest boat performance.

One thing you have to bear in mind is neither a great physical presence nor a natural god given gift are guarantees for success. Often perseverance and endeavour will result in triumph for the most unlikely candidate.

When dealing with a squad of people, in order for their technical development to progress in a similar way, then the majority of their water work should be done in the boat that they will end up racing in. There are good reasons to spend some of the training time in smaller boats but there are also some popular myths about selecting crews based on small boat performance.

The balance between the main boat and small boat training should be 60%-40% in favour of the main boat. If you are preparing an eight then training in two fours will provide excellent competitive training sessions. The combinations of the fours should be rotated regularly which will not only help simultaneous development but also give clues to the final order of the crew.

Some people believe that 4 good pairs will make a good 8 and 2 good pairs will make a good 4. Although this is possible it should not be taken as gospel, it is not a fact. I realised this when I was coaching the 8+ for the Olympic in Seoul. We were developing the whole team from pairs, the fastest pair would race that boat and the next fastest went into the 4 and so on. I had the largest group and I introduced the matrix system. This was quite enlightening as it showed clearly some rowers went well with certain partners but were ineffective with others. I needed people who would be effective as a group and was not too concerned about pair performance in isolation.

The matrix provides an overall ranking for bow and stroke side oarsmen and is as good as any system of crew selection. When training in pairs as part of the development of a larger crew it is important not only to rotate the pair combinations but also to rotate which man rows at bow. Rowing at bow in a pair is the most sensitive position in sweep rowing and the best place to learn about the reaction of the boat to the oarsman's action. However although it requires greater mental concentration and awareness it is less physically demanding.
A pair is asymmetrical and the oarsman at bow has a tremendous advantage of leverage. If two men rowing a pair applied the same force to the pin the boat could not travel in a straight line. The advantage to the bowman is in the region of 50 watts per stroke and a good pair bowman matches his output to that of the stroke rather than rowing flat out. When you row in a four or an eight then the moments can be balanced between the sides. The fact that fours and eights are much longer than pairs means it is also more difficult to move them off line.

To see why combinations of fast pairs may not necessarily make a fast 8+ or 4, we have to look at the biomechanics of the rowing stroke. Here there are two components that are vital to a good crew, timing and phasing. Timing in simple terms is identified as the crew arriving at the different points of the stroke simultaneously. Timing is easy to monitor and it is assumed that if a crew are in time then they are in phase. This is not necessarily the case because phasing refers to the angles of entry and extraction but more importantly where and when in the stroke cycle the oarsmen reach maximum power.

The boat speed is directly proportional to the sum of the power supplied by the individual oarsmen forming the crew. If during the power phase of the stroke, all the crew does not reach maximum power simultaneously, then instead of getting the total of the maximum power of all the crew you get an average. This is far more difficult for a coach to see than timing. It is also quite a subtle thing for the oarsmen to feel and therefore takes a long time to develop. These are the reason why you need to spend so much of your time preparing in the boat you intend to race in.



A similar situation applies to sculling, it is possible to develop quite a unique style of sculling and move the single quickly but when you attempt to build up crew sculling boats it does not work. If fact it is easier to teach a coxless four to crew scull than it is to make a quad from 4 scullers with different techniques. Proof of this was seen at the recent Olympics in Athens 2004. The winners of the men's quads were Spinev, Fedorovtsen, Svirin and Kravtsov from Russia but the year before, the same four guys were the Russian 4- who finished 5th in the final of the World Championships in Milan. They switched disciplines from the 4- to the 4x and went onto win Olympic gold.

There are several reasons to explain why this should be. If we deal with sculling first there are several stages of development that an individual has to go through before they become a competent team player. First there are three stages of psychological development that you go through. The first stage is to feel comfortable in the group. The second stage is to establish a position in the hierarchy of the group before reaching the final stage where what is best for the crew takes priority over personal ambition.
The second factor is physical. Single sculling is the slowest of the disciplines while only the 8+ is faster than the quad. The feel to the oarsman is totally different to what he is used to in the single. This is because of the difference in rig, stroke length and the speed of application. Only when the quad is going slowly does it feel "right" to the single sculler.

The third factor is the differences in technique. With four individual scullers in the same boat each one will want to dominate the crew action to closely fit his own. When switching a sweep crew to a sculling crew there is no unique action. They are used to working together and so they do not start off by fighting each other but by cooperating in developing the sculling skills. This process if far quicker than the individual scullers way.
Four individual scullers do have the potential to be a better option but requires far more time to develop. Although they have to unlearn the technique, which made them move their singles quickly and learn the technique to move the quad, they will retain that mental toughness that is unique to single scullers.

I mentioned that there are several factors you need to consider when selecting your crew. The objective is clear, it is to select the fastest combination possible. This should be based on objective considerations using various tools, performance in the boat, gym and testing on the rowing machine. Other factors are reliability or a disruptive personality.

Seat racing is commonly used amongst larger squads. The principle is to have two fours rowing over a set distance at a prescribed rate. You then simple swap two of the crew from one boat to the other and note the effect over the same distance at the same rate. It is better if there is a third boat used as a reference but not directly involved in the selection process. Because this boat is constant it will indicate if conditions changed during the seat racing. Without a reference boat if you suddenly find a fast combination you cannot be sure that it is just down to the crew or if conditions have changed. By taking into account the speed of the reference boat you can determine the significance of the crew changes.
The problem with the seat racing system is you are not only relying on the performance of the individual you are looking at but also the other members of the crew. In order that fatigue does not corrupt the process the seat racing is usually done over a shorter distance and at stroke rates below race pace. Therefore the test is not specific.

All forms of selection have their good and weak points and so selection should be carried out over a long period and not rest on the performance on one day. For me perhaps the most reliable selection tool is found on the faces of the squad members themselves. When you are naming combinations watch the faces and if you start to see the faces cringe when a certain name is mentioned then it is a sure bet that this person is a bucket.

What you should never do is to contrive a system of races to bring about the result you want. As the coach you have the trust of the athletes. They follow you programme and have confidence in your judgement. It therefore seems a bit ridiculous not to rely on this judgement

When it comes to crew selection. Leaving someone out of a crew is perhaps the most unpleasant part of coaching. When you have to do this of course the individual concerned will not be happy but if it is your honest opinion then they will respect you even though they disagree. A coach has a goal for the crew and will select those people who have the best chance of achieving this goal. It will be based on watching the whole group completing thousands of strokes, cross training and testing. To ignore this and leave an athlete's fate to a single performance seems to me to be perverse and not in the best interest of either the individual or the crew.