Each training session should be viewed as an opportunity to get better than your opponents, as an opportunity to make your self better than you were before. As an athlete it is important that you create a high performance mindset where you as an athlete try and “win” each session and make it as productive as possible.
I always think of the danish national team as an example, with their very high intensity training program that makes the most of the time they have, as they all have jobs or are in college while training throughout the year.
If you make it your duty to do the best you can each session and to push your self and be constantly trying to learn while in the boat, then your rowing will vastly improve.
So next time you have training, do yourself a favor and “win” it.
Lets cut straight to it. Rowing is an extremely expensive sport. With equipment that costs thousands to buy and maintain, clubhouses and boat sheds to be built, trailers, pontoons/ slips, not to mention the gear that need to be bought, why then do so many clubs only charge a membership based on what other sports are charging per year? Especially at junior level where juniors in other sports might play/train 2-4 times a week with a rare few (swimming comes to mind) training every day. All that happens then is, a club can only buy limited amounts of equipment, can’t afford to pay for professional coaching or even a minimum of good coaching education for the non professionals( Everyone needs to learn somewhere). Usually they also have a huge rower to coach ratio, which then leads to diluted coaching and injured/frustrated rowers in the future. If you are not a university club and aren't given huge amounts of money then start charging for the amount of time the athletes are actually at the club training for. For example, lets take a junior rower training 6 times a week for a total of 10 hours a week. Over 40 weeks that amounts to 400 hours of time using the clubs resources. A typicalsoccer club training 3 times a week for a total of 6 hours amounts to 240 hours over the 40 weeks. Now though lets look at the expenses that the soccer club have to pay..... hmmmm a few balls and some gear and the maintenance of grounds. Maybe they have changing rooms and so on. Still nothing on the boats rowing clubs have to get/maintain. So 240 hours vs 400 hours both to be average(not medal winning at all) in each sport. (I'm taking numbers out of the air for the soccer)
Soccer Club
Rowing Club
Yearly costs for club
10,000
50,000
Time training
240 hours
400 hours
Membership fees
100 euro
150 - 250 euro
The numbers in the table above are approximate figures but you can still get the jist of it. Rowing clubs need to be charging more. But then you have the other side of the coin that says what about those that can't afford to be paying those huge amounts of money. Shouldn't they be able to enjoy the sport too? Yes I think they should.
Rowing is known for its "elitism" and it being a favorite sport at many English boarding schools. My idea, would be for clubs to run learn to row camps as they already do, and then identify individuals with talent. If upon hearing about the full cost of the fees the parents are just unwilling to pay then a form of concession could be made, maybe in the form of a half price membership or even free membership but again only if the family needs it.
Yes I know there are flaws in this plan and there are probably many other ways that it could be implemented, but to finish it off, I have seen many clubs struggling with debt and terrible rower to coach ratios which could both be fixed with more money. At the end of the day its only the rowers who suffer when there aren't enough boats to go out in or only one coach who can't give the proper attention needed to the kids as they learn.
They(the kids) then go off and learn bad habits and later unless the situation improves keep loosing races due to horrible technique or even worse end up injured or quitting.
Everything in rowing, like in life in general, is relative. How good you are at rowing is relative to the skills of everyone else who rows. Racing is important as it gives us a vital chance to compare ourselves against people from other clubs/countries who we wouldn't be rowing against every day. Once you are the best, then the test becomes to break down the barriers and become the fastest in the world/your club/ your country.
In the run up to the start of the regatta season its always hard to keep the motivation going. People go training and do the same things with only the same people to test themselves against and little notion to how they compare to others in they're boat classes.
Now is the time to keep pushing on. When others are loosing motivation its the time you have to get ahead and make yourselves even better, instead of putting it off till the races start, and then suddenly realizing that not enough work was put in and that you might not be able to catch up to win the important races.
Again, the races are not won on the day, they are won in the gym, on the erg, and on the cold horrible mornings, on the lakes and rivers when you decide to push your self out of your comfort zone and into the realm where you can make yourself better rower. Its not easy, but no one ever said it was.
Rowing is a sport where the opportunity to race only comes around 4 or 5 times a year.
Therefore learning to race is an important skill to learn. Go off to hard at the start and the race can seem to last for hours. Let the competition get too far ahead, and unless you trust yourself, and really know what you are capable of then you are at risk of not having the mental strength to come back.
Trusting your own ability and staying in control
Being ahead is always satisfying but when your not it can be a bit demoralizing if you don't trust yourself to come. One of the best things you can learn is to stay calm and trust yourself while your competition is ahead. So many crews panic and let all the hours of hard training go out the window. When you freak out and give in to panic you are in effect helping the opposition.
Remember that everyone around you is in just as much pain. This is something that is quickly forgotten as soon as the pain sets in. Everyone is human. Everyone feels pain. It comes down to a battle of wills where either one crew gives up and cracks and the other crew moves through them or they stay battling the whole way to the line. A great example of such a battle would be the 2003 boat race where the crews were neck and neck for over 6800 meters. With the winners only determined in the last stroke. Many people fail to remember is that a race is not over till you cross the line.
Another reason I think people start freaking out and loosing control of themselves during a race is because they become to concerned with winning. Winning is only a by product of you doing your best and your best being better than the others on the day of competition. Doing your best is 100 times more important than winning. But when I say doing your best I don't mean doing the best you have done before. In many races you will need to be pushing the boundaries of what you have done before. (Unless your like the Canadian 8+ who once said, we're training so we can win the Olympics on our worst day, and don't have to rely on our us being at our best. Which is a good way to train.) So on race day you have to be ready and waiting to give a performance that is 110%.
The problem can be when people focus on winning (when they aren't capable of winning) instead of doing their best then they get distracted when they aren't winning and loose their heads instead of trying to row to the best of their ability and hunting down the person/ crew closest to them.
Learn from your race mistakes
If you screwed up a race. Learn from it. See what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again. If you happened to go off to hard or didn't sprint at the finish until it was to late then you'll know for next time. Often the worst mistakes are the ones you learn the most from. If you didn't train hard enough during the year, then getting beaten might just give you enough of an incentive to train harder and make it.
Say its possible. Say to your self every day its possible. Most people operate out of their memory things they have done, things they have experienced, things they have seen. Operate on what you want to do. Operate on your imagination not on your memory. Your memories will tell you you cant do it. Block out this inner voice that says you can't. After a time most people being to think they can't do it and resign themselves to a life where they don't push themselves and where they don't reach for their dreams.
Many people do this out of fear. Fear that they'll be different, fear that they'll be missing out, fear that they'll be left behind. But if you operate on this idea then you'll never discover anything new about yourself. You have to believe its possible. If you know its possible you'll try your hardest, if you think its impossible, you wont be fully committing yourself. Of course, this has to be backed up with hard work. But I really do believe any thing is possible.
As a rower you should be able to do more than just row. You should learn how to become an athlete. What I mean by this is to have respect for and enjoy other athletic sports. Getting to a high level in every sport requires huge amounts of training. In my opinion rowers tend to have a bit of a snobby view of their sport. I think this is partly due to everyone thinking rowing is an easy sport in the first place.
Due to the nature of our sport we tend to do a lot of cross training. So we have to chance to experience and get good at the likes of cycling, running, swimming, cross country skiing( if you go on nice training camps).
To become truly "athletic" the 5 components of fitness should be mastered.
The 5 components of fitness
Body composition
Body fat is necessary for your body to help with hormone production, vitamin absorption and to pad the internal organs but once you go over 5-6% its just adding on weight in the boat you don't need. For Women the minimum needed is about 10 - 11%. This extra weight increases the drag on the boat and makes it heavier.
Cardiovascular fitness
Cardiovascular fitness is the ability of the body to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues and to remove wastes.
Flexibility
Flexibility is the ability of the joints in the body to move to their full range of motion.
Muscular endurance
It is the ability of muscles, whether in a group or separated to sustain repeated contractions against resistance for an extended period of time. This is related to muscular strength and cardio-respiratory endurance. If a person can perform more number of repetitions of a particular strength training exercise, then it shows- that person has good muscular endurance.
Muscle strength
The muscular strength is measured by maximum amount of strength a muscle has while lifting or during an exertion. In short, muscular strength is the ability of the muscle to exert strength during a workout or an activity. It is capability of the muscle to lift the weight.
A nice little video on what constitutes a good rower.....
Lower back pain is often associated with rowing. Having been a victim of it myself I'm going to go over a few causes and remedies for it.
Why do people get lower back pain?
Most often the answer is:
1.They have a bad core and glutes which can't support your body position which means you then compensate with other muscles and put your body at risk of injury.
2.Bad flexibility can mean that you end up using putting pressure on the places that shouldn't have pressure. For example, putting strain on your lower back due to not being able to hinge over at your hip joint due to tight hamstrings.
3. Bad technique. (This could be due to not being told what to do properly or either or both of the two points above)
How to relieve pain in your back if its sore?
Don't use the erg.
Ergs, especially static ergs put pressure on your back. While rowing on the water the boat will normally always sink down into the water(at least some bit) and take some of the pressure off your back. Unless you have a amazing 100% horizontal drive in which case you probably have good technique.
Go to a physio.
A good physio is a must if the pain your feeling has been there for over two to three days. They can find your weaknesses and tell you how to fix them so it wont happen again.
Do yoga.
Speaking from experience yoga was amazing at relieving pain I had in my lower back. I went from not being able to bend over in the slightest to being mobile, and not feeling pain, in the space of an hour class. If only the pain free time lasted longer! Still though yoga is great and I'd recommend it to anyone. Flexibility and core strength are a must for anyone who calls themselves an athlete.
Rest your back.
Don't do anything that hurts your back. Seriously. Its a lot easier said than done too. Some normal mundane things that you take for granted should be avoided if you feel pain doing them for the sake of your back.
Use heat packs
Heat packs which are widely available in pharmacies are great at re-leaving muscle pain.
The heat dilates the blood vessels of the muscles surrounding the lumbar spine. This process increases the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, helping to heal the damaged tissue.
Heat application facilitates the stretching of soft tissues around the spine, including muscles, connective tissue, and adhesions. Consequently, with heat therapy, there will be a decrease in stiffness as well as injury, with an increase in flexibility and overall feeling of comfort. Flexibility is very important for a healthy back.
How to prevent back pain in the future?
Develop your core.
Core strength and control should be emphasised in rowing training largely due to the important role it plays in injury prevention. Core muscles play an important part in holding the trunk firm – control of these muscles allows the athlete to pre-load the abdomen against the reverse loading caused by the leg-drive, reducing backlash in the lumbar spine.
Improve your technique rowing in the boat.
Stretching the arms forwards out of the release and pushing the handles out, against the gates in the final third of the recovery helps the athlete to both push themselves onto the stretcher and stabilise the upper body on the approach to the catch. Gently pushing out against the gate activates the rotator-cuff muscles and latissimus dorsi muscles, pre-loading the shoulder joints and reducing the backlash. The athlete should not feel tense, but they should feel poised and ready to take the force of the leg drive through their pre-loaded core, trunk and arms so that the leg drive is effective right from the moment the blades are locked in the water.
Improve your flexibility
Do exactly that. Stretch everything, all the time.
