In any relationship there is always a dominant party. This means that there must also be a submissive party. It is generally assumed that the dominant party takes control by way of greater physical presence. They rarely have to resort to physical action because the submissive person gives way to maintain the social order.Via this process, a hierarchy is established in all forms of social groups and the members of these groups are more content when they know how they fit in and become unhappy if the social structure is challenged.What's this got to do with indoor rowing? The answer is that sport is the one area where it is perfectly acceptable to challenge or at least ignore the social order, plus there is nothing we enjoy more than seeing the underdog emerge victorious.Many years ago I was coaching a group of teenagers in the East End of London. Their ages ranged from 14-18 and there was a clear social order amongst this group of eight lads. Part of the training programme involved a run and after some time it became clear to me that the finishing order of the run was the same every time and that the finishing order reflected the pecking order of the group.As long as they trained within and not challenge the pecking order then progress would be severely limited. The way I decided to break this order was to divide the group into two equal teams of four. When I sent them on their run, I tied each team together. The result was quite surprising. The two teams came in very close together but in a faster time than anyone had previously done individually. Following this it emerged that the youngest boy who had always been the slowest runner was in fact the fastest. When I asked why he was always last when they ran individually, he said that when he tried to overtake the older boys, they told him to get back or get a slap!A word was had with the group, the intimidation stopped and we went on to have a successful and enjoyable season. Amongst this group, and the environment they lived in, it was important to be tough. I had to explain the difference between a hard nut and a bully. A bully enjoys inflicting pain on others whereas a hard nut endures pain. When it came to racing they would need to decide whether they were prepared to endure the pain needed to win.In a race, there are only a couple of strategies you can adopt and they both require courage above all else. You can get out in front and hang on, risking going off too hard and blowing up. The advantage is that once in front you only have to go at the same speed as the opposition to stay there. To change the outcome, your opponents need to significantly increase their speed, initially to close the gap and then to overtake.The other way is to try to row even pace. The advantage of this is that physiologically it is the most efficient way to row but you may well find that you are behind during the race. Because you have opted to row even pace you cannot significantly increase your speed and so for the outcome to change the person in front must slow down.In either case this is the point in the race where the emphasis changes. Although the physical battle continues it is now a question of will that shall determine the outcome.When you watch races carefully, it is rare to see that positional changes towards the end of a race are as a result of someone finding another gear and producing a surge in speed. It can appear that way but more often than not it is the result of crews slowing down at different rates that leads to the change in position. In the closing stages, everyone in the race is approaching exhaustion and it is willpower that is driving them on. At this point some will decide to concede and hand victory to their opponent. So it is not an abundance of will power in the victor that determines the outcome but a lack of it in the loser.