Not enough stretching in rowing.

In my opinion, many people (coaches included) do not place enough importance on stretching. Why don't they stretch you ask? For a few reasons, such as.... 

1. They believe that there is nothing to be gained from stretching.

I think this is due to the benefits not being seen immediately and not being advertised enough.
People are mad to go and buy protein and the such as they are widely advertised in health stores and people in gyms always seem to have them. But there are never enough people advertising stretches and their benefits.

2. Its time that could be used doing something else.

Well there's no point in having massive legs and a well built upper body if you cant use them well due to your lack of flexibility  If your not flexible enough then your more than lightly not getting the right muscles firing and over compensation with some areas which after a time will result in injury. Why work hard for most of the year to then be injured for the rest?? Its NOT fun.

3. They believe that injury only happens to other people. 

If you row then you probably know another rower who is or has been injured at some point in their rowing careers. It can and WILL effect you if you don't stretch enough. 

The following is a great piece on stretching from http://www.mensfitness.com describing how not stretching can go from nothing to a serious problem.

"What happens when you don’t stretch? Nothing. For a while. You lift you train. You get stronger. You improve your diet a bit. You get leaner. You look good. Who needs to stretch? Stretching is for yoga girls and geriatrics. Then you wake up one day and you have a slight pain in your lower back. Nothing major. “Damn,” you say, as you roll out of bed. You instinctively try to stretch it out. Maybe you lean over and touch your toes, which, coincidentally are very far from the tips of your fingers. It helps a bit, so you forget about it. 

You keep training. In the weights room(and on the erg), you are an animal. Other people look at you and say your lifts are good. But you start to notice that after sitting all day, your lower back is aching. You try to stretch it out. Maybe you put your hands on your lower back and do the old man, hips forward stretch with a bustling sigh, but it lingers. Not the biggest deal though, because once you get warmed up at the gym, things feel A-okay. 

So you forget about it. You keep lifting. You keep getting stronger. You can now squat a small automobile, which feels good. But one day you’re doing a deep squat and you feel something tweak in your lower back. “Damn it,” you say as you rack the weight. That hurt. You don’t stretch it out this time because it’s hard to breathe. It feels like you need your spine popped back in place. Something’s wrong."

The above paragraph describes what I have seen many people go through myself included.

Why do we not feel pain straight away which would cause us to stretch?

Where there’s tightness and lack of flexibility, you’re going to have added stress on the back.  In fact, the body tends to try to “make up” for lack of flexibility in these places by altering the low back and pelvis position in our movements.  In other words, we’re very good at inadvertently cheating or side-stepping proper form.  

We may think we’re getting away with it — or maybe we’re not even aware that we’re even doing it.  But our low back absorbs the wear and tear, either way.  On the other hand, if we take the time to stretch and release even a little bit of the tightness in these other muscles, we instantly take pressure off the low back, paving the way for proper, safe technique.

Other benefits of stretching.

If injury prevention is not enough of a reason for you to stretch then also consider the following...

Stretching should become a part of your workout because it will indirectly help to increase muscular strength by expanding your range of motion, which will transfer to your rowing technique (for example by being able to rock over from your hips due to having your hamstrings stretched out) and of course weightlifting. When lifting over a greater movement pattern, more muscle fibers are recruited, thus making your muscles stronger.

Another way stretching helps is by decreasing your DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness)It does this  by Elongating muscles helps which then increases blood flow and aids in the recovery process. This means that your body will be per paired for your next session sooner, resulting in faster muscle growth and you feeling better at tomorrows training session.


So to sum it all up. Stretch! For the love of all that is good in the world stretch!! If you had no reason to before then I hope you do now. Click here to view Xeno doing some good hamstring stretches.

You might like my other post on Lower Back Pain