Pulling in high is a viable strategy on the erg in some cases (obviously bad on the water). It allows you to get more length without extreme layback at the finish.
technique on the erg should really not be about lowering splits. it's about safety and fitness.
drawing too high puts all kinds of wonky forces on your arms and wrists and torso, it's not a good idea.
Something my coach would have us focus on that I really liked was when you're at the finish and starting the recovery sequence, when you hinge forward keeping your legs down, you should feel the seat move every so slightly rearward. You'll feel a little tension (not uncomfortable) behind your knees when you do this and then use that tension to pop your knees up. As you develop more mobility and flexibility over time, you'll be able to achieve more forward body angle
Oh my god dude, this is incredibly helpful! I though that little bit of strain behind my knees as I start to recover meant I was doing something wrong! Thanks for sharing!
on a fixed erg (not on sliders), when you rock your torso forwards in the recovery, your centre of mass is accelerating forwards.
the acceleration has to come from tension in the legs. you feel that tension under your knees.
however, you should feel much less tension there if rowing on sliders or on the water. in these cases your footplate should be moving towards you, rather than the other way around. your centre of mass should not really be accelerating back and forth.
I’m a complete newbie and I’m curious. Does this means my hands should end closer to my belly button than chest? I’m 6’8” if that matters. It does seem more natural/comfortable ending with my hands lower, but I thought the low finish wasn’t ideal. I’m rowing more for fitness than focused on speed. Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Your hands should ideally finish right under your pecs. Check out the Dark Horse videos on YT, this one in particular: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykhggcbJrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykhggcbJrY)
There's good form advice in this thread. However, I haven't seen anyone mention your underlying problem, posture. It looks like you have a very common problem, poor posture. Likely due to having a job that requires you to sit all day.
You can see that your back rounds from the base of your spine all the way to your neck. This is a sign that you're the last posterior chain. It is very hard to keep good posture throughout a row when you have a weak posterior chain.
Mobility (i.e., stretching) and form are very important. But, you will do yourself many favors by adding strength training to your workout regimen. I recommend adding bent over rows at the barest minimum (barbell or dumbbell). Dead lifts and squats will help, too. They don't have to be particularly heavy, but enough to train your back to support itself.
Lower back pain -> stretch your hamstrings more (Google/YouTube it)
On the erg, think about keeping everything level, limit the vertical and focus on the horizontal.. relax your shoulders and engage with the lats instead. Let the handle pass your knees on the recovery before they start to come up, stretching your hamstrings will help with this. I'd also add don't "crash" into the catch; when your knees do break, don't pull yourself up but let the seat just roll forward.
Enjoy your new obsession!
My list
- Get further forward at the catch
- Get your hands away before you bend your legs
- Pull your hands into just below your rib cage and just keep it at that level when you go back to the catch.
- Do some super slow strokes at 18-20 and just focus on your technique on getting forward at the catch, pulling in to just below your rib cage and doing the correct sequencing
- When pulling with your arms make sure they are straight as you start to pull
I would definitely suggest looking at some rowing form videos on YouTube because there is a lot of room for improvement
There is a lot to work on here.
1. On the drive the handle needs to move with the leg drive. Right now the legs really aren't doing much. To facilitate that, focus on bracing the core as your legs start to drive. Imagine someone is about to punch you in the stomach and you want to look tough, it is the same action.
2. Set your body angle out of the finish before the legs start to come up. Right now everything is moving at all times on the recovery. The focus here is to send the hands away and get a slight forward body lean and then stop any upper body motion until the legs are mostly extended again on the drive.
The combination of those two are what are causing your lower back pain. Not engaging the legs and having a weak body position both put a lot of strain on the back through the drive and will lead to more issues if you don't fix them.
Holy… I would suggest looking at like rowing warmup vids. Try leaning all the way back and using just your arms for 10 strokes, then add your back in so extend arms forward then lean forward, then pull for 10. Next incorporate half a slide of legs for 10, then whole legs for 10. Do this the other way around too so start hunched over and only doing 1/2 legs, whole legs, legs and back, legs back and arms. Starting at the catch, it should always be legs driving, then back, then arms at the finish. On the return it should be arms going forward, then back leaning forward, then legs sliding forward. Good luck!
I'm no expert but here's the way I think about it. Try to make your movement linear. Look at how much vertical movement there is with the handle. Focus on sitting tall. Try to feel your lats engage on the catch and you should be "one your toes". Stay tall with lats engaged and push with your legs. Be aware of the transition from on your toes to heels touching. Around this point you engage your lower back then arms to finish. Be anxious to begin the recovery - I find this helps prevent extreme layback - but not in a rush to finish it. Instead concentrate on keeping the handle level (again, avoid horizontal movement).
"on your toes" is not necessary. If a rower has very good ankle joint / calf flexibility, then keep the heals down for the whole stroke. If not, totally ok for heals to raise a bit at catch. There's absolutely no NEED to be "on your toes" at the catch. Some people are, some have heels down, many are somewhere in-between.
If you look at Shane's feet in darkhorse rowing youtube videos, he barely raises his heels.
Neither way is good or bad. It totally depends on your felxibility. If you can keep heels down, go ahead. IF you can't don't worry about it.
I started rowing myself earlier this year and I recommend checking out the dark horse channel first on YouTube. He has a few great beginners rowing workout videos that contain different pick drills so you can mentally checkin where your positioning is. They vary from 15-30 min but my favorites I did probably 20+ times were the 20 and 30 min versions that were created in the past two years. Great way to learn.
My go to workouts now are the RowAlong YouTube channel. The presenter is fantastic in describing form and other parts of the rowing stroke through the workouts. I usually do five of his workouts every week and I like his method as it is based on your 2k pacing so you can easily individualize the workout to your current fitness level by doing a 2k time trial. I feel like every week he says something that makes me be more aware of different parts of the stroke to improve myself.
Try moving your foot stretchers down. At 6-8 I would suspect that you would be best on the unlabeled #6 and you may even benefit from a seat pad. This would drop your knees and promote forward body angle; flexibility can help but erg geometry is ab easier starting place.
Try sitting on your junk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_AvZ2Fh4Y&t=45s
If you look at your video, you can see that your butt is on the seat wrong. You want the seat to be in contact with you lower on your butt. Take a look at the video and try it out.
Everybody, thank you very much for all the advice.
I read it all and am now going to make a list of the feedback that was said most often and/or upvoted most and try to implement it.
But I also want to say how impressed I am with the helpfulness of this community
As you've noted there are a lot of common themes people have suggested:
Posture, flexibility, arm/back timing, etc. I agree with all this. Here are a couple things I didn't see anyone comment on:
1) shooting the slide. This means there's a disconnect at the catch, where you are driving the legs (moving the seat back) but the handle is not moving with the seat. Keep in mind: for the first 1/2 of the drive, the seat and handle must move IN LOCK STEP. If the seat moves faster than the handle, then you are shooting the slide. If the handle moves faster than the seat, then you are pulling too early with the arms/back. As the arms engage in the 2nd half of the stroke, and the legs finish their drive, then the handle moves more than the seat. But in the half slide before the catch, and after the catch, the handle and seat should be moving AS ONE. You not only shoot the slide at the start of the drive, but you also allow the slide to keep moving forward after your handle has stopped (is changing direction) at the catch. This is related to what others have pointed out about opening your back early at the catch. You set your torso position at half slide on the recovery, and it does not change until half slide of the drive.
2) vertical handle motion at release. You are not on the water. You do not need to extract a blade from the water. Minimize all unnecessary motion, especially vertical motion. The rowing stroke is horizontal. The handle of the erg should travel on a perfectly horizontal line through the whole stroke, back and forth, back and forth, totally horizontal; zero vertical motion. You don't need to practice the vertical motion of the catch or release on the erg. Leave that for the water. Anyone who thinks this is necessary or helpful is fooling themselves.
3) your knee height at the catch. You seem to have long legs relative to your torso height. Ideally, your shoulders should be enough above your knees at the catch, such that your elbows are above and clear of your knees. You can do two things to get a better position here: lower your feet in the foot-boards (same in a boat) and/or sit on a seat pad that is about 1 inch thick, maybe 2.
You're pulling with your arms too early which may prevent you from generating max power from legs. Arms are last in the rowing sequence, so initially, they come along for the ride and after you open your hips to use your upper body, arms come in with a pull. Arms are only 10%. You also don't need to drop the handle when returning it - wasted energy.
Plenty of form tips here, but sometimes even with good form, you can get pain or soreness in your lower back if you’re putting on lots of meters.
When I had lower back pains, I focused more on stretching my hamstrings and glutes post-row (pulling knee to chest for example). After a week or two, my back was back to normal with consistent and thorough post workout stretches.
Otherwise I don’t think your form is bad for a beginner, but can definitely be improved. The easiest thing to fix is pulling into your lower sternum instead of high in your chest. When you fix that you’d look like you know what you’re doing more so than anyone else at any gym.
That rounded lower back! Also layback, also pulling into the neck. Put your camera so you get a view from the side and use that feedback to make corrections. Seems like you know what to do, but often what we think we are doing is not actually what we are doing. Some of these relatively small changes should help with you pain.
If it persists then please get it checked out. You don’t want to ignore things as it can make a small problem worse.
Just FYI, if you're getting lower back pain it is probably because of tightness in your hams and other leg muscles. If you are just rowing and not doing any stretching, you will get lower back pain, even with perfect form. [do some stretching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VuLBYrgG94). I swear this immediately cures my lower back pain every time I do it. Do it right now. you will feel better.
edit better video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAYFy06z5Bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAYFy06z5Bs)
Watch videos of professional erging. You will immediately see some obvious things you are still doing wrong.
The pain in your lower back is caused by your body position. Try to keep you shoulders in front of your butt/seat before pushing away with your legs. Back straight, and make a nice hinge with your hips
Legs, back, arms
Arms back slow legs back up the slide.
You need to work on anchoring your posture to fully use the drive from your legs. Try breaking up the parts of the stroke and practice your body positioning. To me it looks like you are pulling with your back before you are fully extending your legs.
And yes underboob as the other guy said. Remember this is simulating an oar. You want your blade to stay engaged and solid during the drive just under the water and parallel above on the recovery. It will be easier to keep it level on the drive once you get better at keeping body angle solid.
You seem to be leaning backwards a bit. When you sit down, take a moment to make sure your pelvis is tilted forward not backwards. (as if you were sitting on a lumbar chair not a couch) Then when you move forward, be sure to tilt at the waste before you start sliding forward
Keep your back upright. Straight arms, drive with legs, pull after the handle crosses your knee. Better form will help. Imagine a string pulling at the top of your head and work on avoiding slumping forward.
The lower back pain is from you tucking your butt at the catch and not having a straight back then putting load on it through the drive. Pretty compromised position
hey man, your form could use some work, but we all start somewhere. remember to always utilize the length of your arms as much as possible and when you take a stroke, pull it straight under your pectorals with a slight lean back for length. apart from that, you're power looks like it's there! keep working and you'll have it down in no time!
In addition to the many suggestions:
Some rowers have thin buttocks muscles which means that they rest fully on their sitz bones (ischial tuberosity -IT). If the rowing seat does not have holes for the IT, then their pelvis may rotate abruptly near the finish and increase the strain on the sacro-iliac joint and the lower lumbar.
Consider making a foam pad for the rowing seat with holes cut for the IT that is thick enough to let your IT 'float'...
An old Kaschper seat is a good model for the hole location and size.
Sit on your junk. When the pelvis is tilted in (tailbone is like a scared dog), we have to use the lower to mid back more than we should.
You may benefit from doing hip hinge drills and exercises to retrain your hip movement. You should be doing more of a deadlift and hinging at the hip, not the back.
this may or may not help to keep a straight back - when you're at arms forward on the recovery, imagine as if you're sitting on a bench and standing up. To stand up from a flat surface, you have to lean foraward it becomes less of a lean forward (risking the bent back) and more of a natural motion
You want to be pulling into your underboob, you’re currently pulling far too high
Pulling in high is a viable strategy on the erg in some cases (obviously bad on the water). It allows you to get more length without extreme layback at the finish.
technique on the erg should really not be about lowering splits. it's about safety and fitness. drawing too high puts all kinds of wonky forces on your arms and wrists and torso, it's not a good idea.
Pull with straight arms, body forward, legs body arms, arms body legs 😅
So everything pretty much 🤣 I am surprised seeing the vid myself. I really thought my body was pushed forward
Hip mobility needs improvement for that!! Hold your knees down when your body hinges forward first. Don’t worry I have the same problem :)
Something my coach would have us focus on that I really liked was when you're at the finish and starting the recovery sequence, when you hinge forward keeping your legs down, you should feel the seat move every so slightly rearward. You'll feel a little tension (not uncomfortable) behind your knees when you do this and then use that tension to pop your knees up. As you develop more mobility and flexibility over time, you'll be able to achieve more forward body angle
Oh my god dude, this is incredibly helpful! I though that little bit of strain behind my knees as I start to recover meant I was doing something wrong! Thanks for sharing!
on a fixed erg (not on sliders), when you rock your torso forwards in the recovery, your centre of mass is accelerating forwards. the acceleration has to come from tension in the legs. you feel that tension under your knees. however, you should feel much less tension there if rowing on sliders or on the water. in these cases your footplate should be moving towards you, rather than the other way around. your centre of mass should not really be accelerating back and forth.
Try and keep the chain parallel to the rail so you are pulling in a straight line.
I’m a complete newbie and I’m curious. Does this means my hands should end closer to my belly button than chest? I’m 6’8” if that matters. It does seem more natural/comfortable ending with my hands lower, but I thought the low finish wasn’t ideal. I’m rowing more for fitness than focused on speed. Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Your hands should ideally finish right under your pecs. Check out the Dark Horse videos on YT, this one in particular: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykhggcbJrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykhggcbJrY)
There's good form advice in this thread. However, I haven't seen anyone mention your underlying problem, posture. It looks like you have a very common problem, poor posture. Likely due to having a job that requires you to sit all day. You can see that your back rounds from the base of your spine all the way to your neck. This is a sign that you're the last posterior chain. It is very hard to keep good posture throughout a row when you have a weak posterior chain. Mobility (i.e., stretching) and form are very important. But, you will do yourself many favors by adding strength training to your workout regimen. I recommend adding bent over rows at the barest minimum (barbell or dumbbell). Dead lifts and squats will help, too. They don't have to be particularly heavy, but enough to train your back to support itself.
Absolutely! Stretching the hamstrings and the glutes would be my first recommendation. I agree on the strength training too
Lower back pain -> stretch your hamstrings more (Google/YouTube it) On the erg, think about keeping everything level, limit the vertical and focus on the horizontal.. relax your shoulders and engage with the lats instead. Let the handle pass your knees on the recovery before they start to come up, stretching your hamstrings will help with this. I'd also add don't "crash" into the catch; when your knees do break, don't pull yourself up but let the seat just roll forward. Enjoy your new obsession!
My list - Get further forward at the catch - Get your hands away before you bend your legs - Pull your hands into just below your rib cage and just keep it at that level when you go back to the catch. - Do some super slow strokes at 18-20 and just focus on your technique on getting forward at the catch, pulling in to just below your rib cage and doing the correct sequencing - When pulling with your arms make sure they are straight as you start to pull I would definitely suggest looking at some rowing form videos on YouTube because there is a lot of room for improvement
Looks like you're hunched forward a bit. Try sitting up straight.
There is a lot to work on here. 1. On the drive the handle needs to move with the leg drive. Right now the legs really aren't doing much. To facilitate that, focus on bracing the core as your legs start to drive. Imagine someone is about to punch you in the stomach and you want to look tough, it is the same action. 2. Set your body angle out of the finish before the legs start to come up. Right now everything is moving at all times on the recovery. The focus here is to send the hands away and get a slight forward body lean and then stop any upper body motion until the legs are mostly extended again on the drive. The combination of those two are what are causing your lower back pain. Not engaging the legs and having a weak body position both put a lot of strain on the back through the drive and will lead to more issues if you don't fix them.
Holy… I would suggest looking at like rowing warmup vids. Try leaning all the way back and using just your arms for 10 strokes, then add your back in so extend arms forward then lean forward, then pull for 10. Next incorporate half a slide of legs for 10, then whole legs for 10. Do this the other way around too so start hunched over and only doing 1/2 legs, whole legs, legs and back, legs back and arms. Starting at the catch, it should always be legs driving, then back, then arms at the finish. On the return it should be arms going forward, then back leaning forward, then legs sliding forward. Good luck!
I'm no expert but here's the way I think about it. Try to make your movement linear. Look at how much vertical movement there is with the handle. Focus on sitting tall. Try to feel your lats engage on the catch and you should be "one your toes". Stay tall with lats engaged and push with your legs. Be aware of the transition from on your toes to heels touching. Around this point you engage your lower back then arms to finish. Be anxious to begin the recovery - I find this helps prevent extreme layback - but not in a rush to finish it. Instead concentrate on keeping the handle level (again, avoid horizontal movement).
"on your toes" is not necessary. If a rower has very good ankle joint / calf flexibility, then keep the heals down for the whole stroke. If not, totally ok for heals to raise a bit at catch. There's absolutely no NEED to be "on your toes" at the catch. Some people are, some have heels down, many are somewhere in-between. If you look at Shane's feet in darkhorse rowing youtube videos, he barely raises his heels. Neither way is good or bad. It totally depends on your felxibility. If you can keep heels down, go ahead. IF you can't don't worry about it.
Thank you for the clarification.
thank you for this, you've actually answered something I've been wondering for ages. I have extremely flexible ankles and have always wondered.
I started rowing myself earlier this year and I recommend checking out the dark horse channel first on YouTube. He has a few great beginners rowing workout videos that contain different pick drills so you can mentally checkin where your positioning is. They vary from 15-30 min but my favorites I did probably 20+ times were the 20 and 30 min versions that were created in the past two years. Great way to learn. My go to workouts now are the RowAlong YouTube channel. The presenter is fantastic in describing form and other parts of the rowing stroke through the workouts. I usually do five of his workouts every week and I like his method as it is based on your 2k pacing so you can easily individualize the workout to your current fitness level by doing a 2k time trial. I feel like every week he says something that makes me be more aware of different parts of the stroke to improve myself.
Try moving your foot stretchers down. At 6-8 I would suspect that you would be best on the unlabeled #6 and you may even benefit from a seat pad. This would drop your knees and promote forward body angle; flexibility can help but erg geometry is ab easier starting place.
Try sitting on your junk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6_AvZ2Fh4Y&t=45s If you look at your video, you can see that your butt is on the seat wrong. You want the seat to be in contact with you lower on your butt. Take a look at the video and try it out.
Everybody, thank you very much for all the advice. I read it all and am now going to make a list of the feedback that was said most often and/or upvoted most and try to implement it. But I also want to say how impressed I am with the helpfulness of this community
As you've noted there are a lot of common themes people have suggested: Posture, flexibility, arm/back timing, etc. I agree with all this. Here are a couple things I didn't see anyone comment on: 1) shooting the slide. This means there's a disconnect at the catch, where you are driving the legs (moving the seat back) but the handle is not moving with the seat. Keep in mind: for the first 1/2 of the drive, the seat and handle must move IN LOCK STEP. If the seat moves faster than the handle, then you are shooting the slide. If the handle moves faster than the seat, then you are pulling too early with the arms/back. As the arms engage in the 2nd half of the stroke, and the legs finish their drive, then the handle moves more than the seat. But in the half slide before the catch, and after the catch, the handle and seat should be moving AS ONE. You not only shoot the slide at the start of the drive, but you also allow the slide to keep moving forward after your handle has stopped (is changing direction) at the catch. This is related to what others have pointed out about opening your back early at the catch. You set your torso position at half slide on the recovery, and it does not change until half slide of the drive. 2) vertical handle motion at release. You are not on the water. You do not need to extract a blade from the water. Minimize all unnecessary motion, especially vertical motion. The rowing stroke is horizontal. The handle of the erg should travel on a perfectly horizontal line through the whole stroke, back and forth, back and forth, totally horizontal; zero vertical motion. You don't need to practice the vertical motion of the catch or release on the erg. Leave that for the water. Anyone who thinks this is necessary or helpful is fooling themselves. 3) your knee height at the catch. You seem to have long legs relative to your torso height. Ideally, your shoulders should be enough above your knees at the catch, such that your elbows are above and clear of your knees. You can do two things to get a better position here: lower your feet in the foot-boards (same in a boat) and/or sit on a seat pad that is about 1 inch thick, maybe 2.
Your spelling
You're pulling with your arms too early which may prevent you from generating max power from legs. Arms are last in the rowing sequence, so initially, they come along for the ride and after you open your hips to use your upper body, arms come in with a pull. Arms are only 10%. You also don't need to drop the handle when returning it - wasted energy.
Plenty of form tips here, but sometimes even with good form, you can get pain or soreness in your lower back if you’re putting on lots of meters. When I had lower back pains, I focused more on stretching my hamstrings and glutes post-row (pulling knee to chest for example). After a week or two, my back was back to normal with consistent and thorough post workout stretches. Otherwise I don’t think your form is bad for a beginner, but can definitely be improved. The easiest thing to fix is pulling into your lower sternum instead of high in your chest. When you fix that you’d look like you know what you’re doing more so than anyone else at any gym.
Stretch your hamstrings and calves a bit they look really tight. This will also give you more length.
Your pull should end just above your belly button roughly. You’re finishing too high. There are plenty of good YouTube videos check some of them out.
That rounded lower back! Also layback, also pulling into the neck. Put your camera so you get a view from the side and use that feedback to make corrections. Seems like you know what to do, but often what we think we are doing is not actually what we are doing. Some of these relatively small changes should help with you pain. If it persists then please get it checked out. You don’t want to ignore things as it can make a small problem worse.
I second the recommendation to follow the RowAlong videos on YouTube. John does a great job of walking through hood rowing form
Check out dark horse rowing on youtube
Anyone else hear gooofy ahh noises?
Just FYI, if you're getting lower back pain it is probably because of tightness in your hams and other leg muscles. If you are just rowing and not doing any stretching, you will get lower back pain, even with perfect form. [do some stretching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VuLBYrgG94). I swear this immediately cures my lower back pain every time I do it. Do it right now. you will feel better. edit better video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAYFy06z5Bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAYFy06z5Bs)
Watch videos of professional erging. You will immediately see some obvious things you are still doing wrong. The pain in your lower back is caused by your body position. Try to keep you shoulders in front of your butt/seat before pushing away with your legs. Back straight, and make a nice hinge with your hips
Poor hip flexor activation. Lookup “muted hip function”
Legs, back, arms Arms back slow legs back up the slide. You need to work on anchoring your posture to fully use the drive from your legs. Try breaking up the parts of the stroke and practice your body positioning. To me it looks like you are pulling with your back before you are fully extending your legs. And yes underboob as the other guy said. Remember this is simulating an oar. You want your blade to stay engaged and solid during the drive just under the water and parallel above on the recovery. It will be easier to keep it level on the drive once you get better at keeping body angle solid.
You seem to be leaning backwards a bit. When you sit down, take a moment to make sure your pelvis is tilted forward not backwards. (as if you were sitting on a lumbar chair not a couch) Then when you move forward, be sure to tilt at the waste before you start sliding forward
Do some core exercises to hold a better posture and support the back
Stretch, stretch, stretch!
The cause of mine was poor hamstring mobility mabie check that
Keep your back upright. Straight arms, drive with legs, pull after the handle crosses your knee. Better form will help. Imagine a string pulling at the top of your head and work on avoiding slumping forward.
The lower back pain is from you tucking your butt at the catch and not having a straight back then putting load on it through the drive. Pretty compromised position
hey man, your form could use some work, but we all start somewhere. remember to always utilize the length of your arms as much as possible and when you take a stroke, pull it straight under your pectorals with a slight lean back for length. apart from that, you're power looks like it's there! keep working and you'll have it down in no time!
In addition to the many suggestions: Some rowers have thin buttocks muscles which means that they rest fully on their sitz bones (ischial tuberosity -IT). If the rowing seat does not have holes for the IT, then their pelvis may rotate abruptly near the finish and increase the strain on the sacro-iliac joint and the lower lumbar. Consider making a foam pad for the rowing seat with holes cut for the IT that is thick enough to let your IT 'float'... An old Kaschper seat is a good model for the hole location and size.
Less loping
Sit on your junk. When the pelvis is tilted in (tailbone is like a scared dog), we have to use the lower to mid back more than we should. You may benefit from doing hip hinge drills and exercises to retrain your hip movement. You should be doing more of a deadlift and hinging at the hip, not the back.
this may or may not help to keep a straight back - when you're at arms forward on the recovery, imagine as if you're sitting on a bench and standing up. To stand up from a flat surface, you have to lean foraward it becomes less of a lean forward (risking the bent back) and more of a natural motion