Anyone can be good at rowing.

I think these days people are quick to believe that they can't do things. We hear it from an early age. For example "Your very good at maths but not writing. Your great at studying but not sport." One of the main reasons I think people from Asian countries are better at maths is that they are expected to be good. There is not this excuse that people can easily fall back on that we use frequently in many western countries. 

There is always this perception that if you're not built for it or you don't have the right genes then you can't be the best. In my view this is pretty stupid. Unless you are way way way below the physical average then there is no reason you can't get anywhere you want to in rowing. 

In the lightweight men's double at the 2012 Olympics the Danes won. Stroke man Rasmus Quist was 5 foot 8 inches. I’d say many coaches wouldn't give a guy his size the time of day but did that stop him? No. He wanted to be the best in the world and he did it. He didn't listen to people who told him he couldn't do it. (which I’m sure he heard many times over the course of his rowing career) 

People are quick to say you can't do it when in fact its not impossible but just that its going to be harder than normal to do it. The danish rower had to train twice as hard as the guy in the new zealand boat who was 6 foot 3 but only came third( yes I know they weight the same but there is 8 inches between them ). Another thing people forget is that they all Olympians started out not being able to row. They had to work hard and enjoy working hard. 

As a coach it is my job to help people achieve their goals in rowing. I believe that you should never tell someone they can't do it(most people are good at putting themselves down as it is). At the same time I think people must be realistic in what they are willing to put themselves through. If someone is willing to face the challenge of 2 to 3 times a day training 6 days a week (at the right intensity) for 4 years then yes by all means lets go to the Olympics. Otherwise they must be prepared to realign their goals toward something more realistic.

Many people want to be great rowers but not as many want to do what it takes to become great rowers.(I can't stress that enough) That said I firmly believe anyone can do it if they want to more than anything else and they are willing to train their asses off. Don't listen to people who say you can't. Prove them wrong and do it.

Best rowing blogs.

The following is a list of some of the best rowing blogs out there at the moment. These blogs offer us a glimpse into the minds of people rowing and coaching in countries around the world and are great, either as a casual read, to expand your rowing knowledge or to motivate you to achieve what your really capable of achieving. 
http://www.rowperfect.co.uk/news
This blog features many interesting articles on topics such as coaching, equipment, training plans and also has many discounts and on occasion features interesting rowing related webinars with famous names in the rowing world. Well written, and often updated, this blog is a must read!  

http://xenocoach.com/
The blog of Xeno Muller, Gold and silver medalist in the single scull and now coach to who ever is lucky enough to be able to afford him. A superb read, lots of interesting video’s on technique and other insights into the mind of a great athlete and coach.

http://megankalmoe.com
Megan Kalmoe is a two-time member of the United States Women’s Olympic Rowing Team. She competed in the London 2012 Olympic Games in the Women’s Quadruple Sculls and won a bronze medal–the first ever Olympic medal in that event for the United States.  In her blog she has been documenting her training and travels with the US Rowing Team since 2007. 

http://drewginn.blogspot.com/
Member of the silver medal winning crew at the 2012 Olympics in the coxless four. Drew Ginn gives a personal look into the hardships and good times he’s had over the last few years.

http://estherlofgren.blogspot.com/
The blog of a member of  the 2012 Olympic Gold Medal winning Women's Eight. Seven-time USA National Team rower and four-time World Champion. 

http://scottfrandsen.com/blog/
Canadian Olympic rower’s blog up to the 2012 Olympic games. An interesting read.

http://www.girlontheriver.com/
She’s also a novice rower who has rapidly developed a burning passion for a sport that doesn't always love her back. You can read more about her journey from couch potato to obsessed rower at the above link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/annabelvernon/
A blog by following the British rowers and their ups and downs on their quest for glory at the 2012 Olympics.

http://uccrowingcoach.blogspot.ie
The ramblings of an Irish university rowing coach. A combination of entertaining and thoughtful posts.

http://rowdmv.blogspot.com/
http://www.quickcatchslowslide.com/
Two American blogs covering the american rowing scene from fall, through winter to spring.

Money in rowing! Should there be more?

Yesterday morning Oxford and Cambridge held their now annual trail eights test. This is a test where both clubs top 16 athletes and 2 coxes get a chance to race the full course with umpires present. It's a good gauge for coaches to see who's progressing and who’s got the potential to make it into the final 8 and race in the world famous Oxford Cambridge boat race. 

Every year the athletes that undertake the challenge that is the boat race are placed under more scrutiny than perhaps any other rowers out there. Speculation is rampant in the run up to the race with hundreds of thousands watching from the banks and millions watching on TVs all over the world. Its probably the one time of the year that rowing gets as much coverage as other high profile events.

The point I’m trying to make here is should there be more coverage like this? Would the changing of the sport from amature to professional change the way people train and perceive the sport( But no Olympics then unfortunately!)? A hundred years ago rowing was in many countries more popular than it is now. During the 19th century thousands flocked to watch races in america and the British isles, prize money was there to be won and betting on different crews was everywhere.

In this modern day and age with the technology available to us to record and display the races couldn't be capitalise on this and make it more open to the world. Whenever a rowing event is broadcast rowing clubs get people requesting to join rowing. After the London Olympics joining rates increased. 32,000 people attended learn to row camps in Britain alone after the games. In countries where the number of people rowing is but a fraction, of other more popular sports, why not inject money into the sport in the form of prizes. Even if local crews are few, the promise of a sizable prize would bring international athletes from afar which would then stir local interest and result in more media coverage for rowing.

Spectators watching the boat race

I think anyone who is involved in rowing would enjoy to see the sport opened up more to people less familiar to the sport. At large regattas for example screens showing spectators the crews taking part in the each race with a good commentary would work wonders for viewer engagement. Its a bit of a chicken and the egg situation really, without enough people interested in watching the regattas, the organizers won't be able to afford to implement such solutions but without such solutions many people will find it hard to be engaged by races.

Some people argue that injecting money into rowing will make it less “pure”, but at the end of the day its still going to be a hard sport that you’ll have to enjoy to put up with the levels of training to become a professional athlete. I just think that many athletes that are now “professional” (training for their countries) would be able to actually support their families with a proper income as opposed to having to take on a job that they might not enjoy(and forgo spending quality time with their families) just to have to put food on the table for their families. Only a lucky few get great sponsorship deals to sort them and their families out.

So to sum up this rant. Its my opinion that more money should be injected into the sport to give it the coverage it deserves( As to where this money should come from i’ll leave that to someone else to suggest ). So that when you say you do rowing to someone they don’t make some stupid gesture with their arms (or even worse do a kayaking motion).

Avoiding the daily grind in rowing.

Over the last few months many Olympians have started to make their decisions regarding the future in their sport, will they continue till Rio or will they go back to a desk job and spend time with their families. This kind of period is hard and if you haven't won it can be quite a feat to give 4 more years of your life to living the life of a professional rower (will little money in most cases),  as Eric Murry said "Hey, rowing's easy when you're doing well. When you're getting success, the day-to-day grind of it all is worth it.” 

To avoid it becoming a "day to day grind" as Murry put it, you have to, as another rowing Olympian Patrick Loliger Salas put it, "approach each day, and each session, as a chance to make yourself, however slightly, better than you were the day, or the session, before. " By approaching training in this way you are not viewing training as something which should be done(and therefore letting become a grind) but as something which you can do to better yourself. You have the opportunity to either get better or stay the same. Again I cant stress the importance of goal setting (a post to come on this soon).

This guy(Patrick Loliger Salas) came 14th in London and 15th in Beijing 4 years and he only improved by one position in the world. Why would he do that you ask? Why would he put him self through all this? Because he likes the challenge and he enjoys himself.

As Salas says, a hard days training for someone of that standard will mean only a tenth of a second gained in competition but he is willing to pay that price if it means hes getting closer to becoming the best he can be. Everyone should be striving to become the best that you can be. If you do that you could be the best in the world. If not you then who? How do you know until you've tried? "Records were meant to be broken. What is impossible today may not be tomorrow. " (another one of Salas' quotes).

View his video here. (turn on captions as its in Spanish)

Mental preparation for a rowing race.

Preparing mentally for a race is just as important as preparing physically for a race. One of the reasons older more experienced rowers who may not be as fit and strong as their younger counterparts often win more is because they have the experience to know what to do at the right time and they know how to prepare themselves properly. If you lack this experience you can prepare yourself for races by doing the following things:

1. Have a race plan

The importance of having a race plan to keep yourself focused can not be understated. It can keep your mind from wandering and worrying. I will use the new zealand double at london Olympics as an example. After the first 500 meters they were coming last but they stuck to their race plan and executed it perfectly which ended up with them coming first. (Video at the bottom of the post)  

2. Visualize what you are going to do.

Go through the race in your head before you go out and race. See you self next to your opponents, pushing past them or attacking their position. Specific rates or calls at certain points of a race are also useful for keeping yourself focused.

3. Spend most of you time focusing on what YOU can control.

Many people go out and race and as soon as they get passed out by someone they find it hard to keep motivated and keep the fight going. If you focus too much on what the opposition are doing then you can get distracted and make mistakes that you otherwise wouldn't have made. But on the other hand I think its important to know where you are in the race and have a strategy to deal with the outcomes. Trust yourself and what you are capable of doing.

4. Only race if you WANT to race.

I feel this one is very important. If you are not going to enjoy yourself while you race then don't do it. Remember when you are on the starting line that you're the one who wants to do this and remember why you want to do this. 

5. Don't be afraid to loose.

So many people are afraid of losing. The underdogs in many sports can perform to their best as most of the time they aren't worried about losing. It doesn't matter if you lose so don't even think about it!  

6. Its not over till its over!

This is really important to remember. If your dead last and behind by 3 lengths its STILL possible to win! As long as you haven’t crossed the line keep fighting! One of the best things I ever heard on how to approach a race is this, if you are 6th attack the guy in 5th, if your in 5th then go for 4th, if you get to 4th go for 3th etc etc. such a good way of looking at a race in my opinion. A great example of this can be seen by the new zealand double at the last Olympics who went from 4th to 1st in the last 500 meters!

Best rowing news sites

As there as so many scattered places to get your rowing news fix I compiled a small list of some of the best, most prominent rowing sites.


http://www.rowingrelated.com/
A site that features videos, news pieces, rowers and coaches opinions and more.

http://www.rowingnews.com/
An online magazine on rowing manly features US rowing topics.

http://www.rowingnews.org
Live feeds from lots of different rowing news sources grouped together in one easy to read place.

http://www.row2k.com/
One of the premier sources of rowing and sculling news, rowing results, rowing information, photos, interviews, and general information about rowing.

http://www.worldrowing.com/
The official news hub of FISA (which is the governing body of the sport of rowing).

Time management in rowing

Time management is an important life skill. If you develop it you can do many great things, some seemingly impossible to the average human being. The more you row the more you have to learn how to manage your time if you want to be successful at rowing and also the other things you do.

I, along with many other coaches think that its very important to have a counterbalance to rowing in life. If rowing is your be all and end all it is not very mentally stimulating and you can quickly find yourself in a rut, or even worse, burned out. Having something outside of rowing lets you take time away from rowing to refresh, rest and keep that motivating burning. 

But if you do have other pursuits (which you should) you should manage them so that you can be sure you're making the most of them and not wasting your time. At the end of the day you have to choose what's most important to you and work on those.

There are 168 hours in a week. Lets say you sleep 63 hours (that's 9 hours a night). It leaves you with 103 hours to split between what pursuits you deem important to you. Rowing, at different levels takes different amounts of time. So lets lets just take 30 hours for rowing as an example. 103 hours minus the 30 for rowing leaves us with 73 hours. 73 hours per week to do whatever you find important, be it earning a degree, working, socializing or all the previously mentioned. 

There is enough time in a week to what you want to do, you just have to do them in the right order and make sure they don't clash. So for those people out there who don't think there’s time to row and do other things I say LEARN TO MANAGE YOUR TIME! If you really want to do it you’ll find a way to make it work. Stop watching TV if you have an assignment to do etc etc.  Time management is a skill that can be learned!

Further reading :
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/time-management/wl00048

Rowing in bad weather

Rowing is an outdoor sport. You can't really avoid that fact! All the gym work and fitness work can be done inside but eventually to learn how a boat feels and balances you’ll need to get outside. This can be annoying in countries where the weather is very changeable. Most coaches don't have a problem pushing their athletes to row in windy and wet conditions. My view on it is, if they would cancel a regatta over the weather we’re rowing in, then is there much point rowing in it? Well actually, you want your rowers to be able to handle themselves in weather slightly worse than that because for example a race might go ahead in which the weather might suddenly pick up. So you want your crew not to freak out and to be confidant rowing in as many adverse weather conditions as possible.

Another thing to factor in is, are your crew learning while being out in bad conditions? If they aren't, and the weather is affecting their ability to learn, then they should be brought in, as more beneficial work could be done on rowing machines, or if its fitness that is the focus of the training session, then bike or running would be better. I remember once being out rowing and having a coach refuse to let us come in even though we had to stop every two hundred meters to bail the water out the boat. Nothing beneficial was learned that day and I've seen the same sort of situation happen to other crews too. 

Some coaches think that by forcing their crews out into the worst weather they’ll magically become great at dealing with such conditions. In my opinion exposing your athletes to gradual increases in weather conditions is a technique that should be used, as a person who’s never been out in strong winds in a scull is going to suffer compared to someone who’s been let out in gradually more difficult conditions and has learned to adjust. However being out in snow or rain is not too bad as long as everyone is wearing proper gear to keep warm. This obviously can vary, as in extremely heavy rain or snow, productive things cannot get done.  

Learning to row before/while clocking up the miles.

With rowing, technique is very important. You can be the worlds fittest and strongest person but if you can't move a boat properly then its of no use in rowing. Therefore a person must first and foremost, learn the proper set of movements which they can use to move the boat in the most efficient way possible. 

Efficiency in rowing means long, horizontally powered strokes. Any fool can throw their back into it but it takes a lot of learning to use the correct muscles in the correct sequence. A Lot of people know that the drive should commence with the legs with the body only swinging through on the last quarter of the leg drive but how many actually do it or try and make a change for the better each and every time they go out?

Time is well spent mastering the basics of rowing, the fundamentals with which will you will later be able to reap the benefits from when they are ingrained in your brain. Some people however enjoy spending hours rowing up and down rivers and lakes further ingrained bad habits into their heads. If you're not actively trying to improve your technique every time you go out for a row then don't row. If you want to get fit get on a bike or go for a run. Better that than injuring yourself from hurling yourself up and down the river using your back and bent arms as means of propulsion. 

The leg drive, when properly used accounts for just under 50% of the boat movement. The body swing 30% and the arms 20%. Most people have a lot more boat speed in them which they can unlock just by improving their technique.

Rowing as “One”

Yes a 24 person boat the Stämpfli Express.

The best crews are the ones that move together as “one”. In a scull you can do whatever you want (if you have a good level of technique) but crew boats must be moved together. A fraction of a difference in timing and body positions between crew members can be the difference between winning and losing.

The blades must go in and out perfectly together in time. If the athletes are out of time then they are not sharing the load catch and not driving together of as long as they should be. The phrase many hands make light work really come into play here.

By catching together the load is distributed amongst the crew and the boat will have less disruptions. The same is true of the finish. By having a single finish and tapping the blades out together at the exact same time the boat will not be dragged to one side by a person leaving their blade in a second too late.

On either side of the boat the blades must be perfectly parallel and all hand heights the same, again, on the recovery, the importance of minimizing the disturbance on the boat is often overlooked but it is here that a lot of the boat speed can be found. The boat wants to glide, so leave it do its thing.  A crew that is together will get more of a response from their boat than a crew that is constantly fighting it and each other, by doing slightly different movements. 

Crews can be amazingly together and yet everyone in that crew can have their own individual technical flaws. Obviously rowing together for a period of time as a crew is important as it gives the crew time to blend their movements and become one.

In my opinion this means that crews that are together for longer, often (but not always) do better than crews that have not been together as long. This is especially true of athletes that have a certain level of technical ability as those without a solid technical base will never be truly together as a crew until they can negate their technical flaws.


Being together as a crew also means that you learn what everyone in your boat is capable of, if you can rely on them or not, what motivates them and their strengths and weaknesses are.  

Here's a video of a crew who have their own individual flaws but do the boat moving together as one which results in great, effortless looking rowing . Try pausing the video to catch them out of time.

Techniques from business world to the rowing world.

After listening to a speech from the CEO of the company I work for what really came to mind was how techniques that he was using to lead the company were essentially the same principles that rowers and coaches could use too to improve themselves and their clubs. After all, being competitive at anything in life requires the same fundamental rules, weather it be rowing or running a business. Some of the main key things that I heard were: 

Learn from your competitors that are better than you.
This ones a no brainier really. If some one is better than you they must be doing something that you are not. Find out what it is and if you work as hard as them you should be able to be as good as them.


If somethings not working out( we're not making money), find out why, and do something to fix it, check if things are improving. Constantly monitoring will help us see trends developing.
If you are not getting better. Find out why. Try and keep track of your self/ your athletes training so you can analyse it and spot trends either good or bad.


If your to over stretched then step back a bit and see that your not doing too much.
Improve at the right rate. Too fast, you can burn out and not peak at the right time. For example if your goal is to win the most important regatta of the year, winning at the start of the year is not what you should be aiming to do.


Be passionate, and enjoy your work.
The same applies to rowing/coaching, enjoy what you do.


Focus on your weak spots. Work the most at the things you are the worst at. 
This is especially true when it comes to rowing. If you have a weak core, work on it and you'll reduce your chances of injure. If you suck at weights, work on them and you'll see a big increase in speed if your technique is already good.


Keep setting your sites higher. By keeping your self challenged you are keeping things interesting for your self. 
We should all be trying to challenge yourselves, be it as coaches or athletes. Push your self to learn new things. Be open.


Stay up to date with current technology.
The way we train for rowing and monitor our improvement in skills and fitness has changed greatly in the last 20 years. These days we have wide access to heart rate monitors, lactate testing, and even labs, which before might have been too expensive to visit to get your Vo2 Max and stats, are now much more accessible to clubs not only national teams.


From the above we can see that many rules from the corporate world can be used in rowing. This also means that many good CEO's of successful companies would make a good job of running successful clubs. This is the case in Germany, where Mario Woldt the Performance Director of rowing, came from the Steel industry where he had been in charge of a successful steel company. The same can be said for rowing transitioning from high performance rowing into high positions in businesses as can be seen below.

http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/when-the-road-ends-what-athletes-do-after-the-olympics/

http://www.thegrindstone.com/2012/08/02/work-life-balance/olympic-rowers-are-most-likely-to-have-the-best-careers-in-business-240/

Learning to say no and follow your dreams.

Another topic that came from the danish coach at the world rowing coaches conference was learning to say no. Saying "No" to what exactly? Saying no when people are asking you to go out for a few drinks, going to the cinema, going on holidays, etc etc. The more serious you become about rowing, the more training you have to do and the more you have to learn to say no to things.

Athletes can often feel like they're missing out on a lot, but the majority of it (the drinking, cinema, holidays, dinners etc.) gets pretty repetitive. Nothing new comes of it. Your not moving towards completing a goal. Its just what people without goals choose to do with their time, while people with goals are working towards achieving their dreams. After another night out of drinking what will you have to show for it apart from a few Facebook pictures and a sore head?

 I'm not saying don't go to the cinema and go or go out with your friends! That's really important and at the end of the day we are nothing without friends and family, but if for example you've gone out twice this week already, and by going out a third time you will be missing training or it will affect your training, then if your goal is to be a good rower and help your crew achieve its goal then maybe you should reconsider and say no. You have to sit down and decide what is at the end of the day important to you. If its going out for the third time this week then go out, if its going training and improving your strength and fitness then don't go out.

You can go through life following the crowd and never make anything special of your self or you can work towards your goals and passions and excel at them, making you feel 100 time more fulfilled than doing meaning less things just because other people are doing so - unless of course you are taking a break from all the hard work you've just been doing achieving what you want to achieve. Rest is always important!

What I enjoy about coaching.

The role of a rowing coach is one that comprises of many different roles. You must be a teacher, motivator, planner, psychologist, sports scientist etc. As these fields are always progressing, its our duty as coaches to be constantly learning and improving ourselves if we are to give the best coaching possible to our athletes. Below are some of the main things that I enjoy as a rowing coach.

Improvement
Constant learning and having to accept that I do not know everything and therefore must learn more is something I highly enjoy and hope I keep, as I believe it is an important trait. The main thing that I enjoy about coaching is seeing your athletes improve due to your coaching. Watching them go from total beginner to someone who can go against the best in their class is extremely rewarding.

Motivating and achieving goals
Being a fan of psychology I also enjoy finding out what motivates and pushes people. Watching people push themselves to their limit due to the motivation and drive that you have instilled within them is brilliant. Ultimately we are there as coaches to help them achieve there goal. Which, if it is to be the best they can be, then just makes us happy, as then we have a common goal.

Sports science
I enjoy learning how to train the anaerobic, aerobic systems along with the muscles properly to form a complete athlete who by becoming physically fit has also gained confidence in their ability to preform.

Being outside and watching the boat move
Being outside, wind in my face, following the boats, and seeing improvements in technique, fitness and strength take the form of boat speed, is for me, brilliant to watch. I also enjoy watching the boat when its moving well as the athletes and the boat are in time and they are working together as one, reaping the benefits.

The importance of enjoying your sport.

Yesterday evening I attended a lecture by Dr. John Kremer who is a sports psychologist. Sport psychology is an increasingly important field these days after being neglected for many years in favours of bio-mechanical testing and the field of sports science. One of the points that was stressed the most by Dr. Kremer was that to be successful, athletes should enjoy their sport.

Athletes can get into a sport because they enjoy it and as they get better at it they can loose that sense of enjoyment and fun. If your in a race against some one and ye both have the same set of skills and fitness then the crew who is enjoying themselves the most will, in my opinion, win. If your just racing because you enjoy racing and testing your skills against the best at competitions you won't be under any real pressure, in contrast to if your sole purpose is to win. You should want to win, but it should be obsessing about it. If you obsess about it, failing to win can then become all you think about. Your goal should be to do your best and have fun. Winning should be a by-product of this.

On the other hand if your only goal is to win the pressure to preform can cause your mind to over think, over analyse, and ultimately, if you haven't learned to control your mind, you can freeze and end up doing stupid things etc, even though you are perfectly capable under normal circumstances of doing this task which you have practised over and over again while training. So just relax, enjoy it, and remember that no one is making you compete. If you don't want to go out there and race, then don't.

World rowing coaches conference.

Last weekends world rowing coaches conference had many great speakers over the two days. One of my favourite speakers was one of the Danish light weight coaches. He talked about many topics that I found interesting, some of which I will now out line below.

Common goals

A very important of life is goal setting. Without goals in life we would just wander around aimlessly. In the lead up to the Olympic games the light weight coxed four got together with their coach and all wrote on individual pieces of paper what they wanted to get out of the Olympics.

Was their goal winning the gold, getting a medal or just qualifying for the final? Once they had analysed all the pieces of paper they realized that everyone had different goals including the coach. They then opened up a discussion on the subject and came to agreeing upon a common goal.

I believe that having a common goal is vital. There is no point saying your goal is to medal at the Olympics if you've never made an a final at world championship level. Its much better to have a realistic goal to head towards.

The coaches enabling the rowers

As coaches our jobs are to work with the rowers to achieve a common goal. Some times I find that coaches are trying to use their athletes to achieve their own personal goals without finding out if the athletes are fully on board and willing to reach for the same targets.

There is nothing wrong with having different goals but the goals must be known by everyone so there is no confusion when, for example, some one does not win a race and their coach or team mates ask why they didn't try harder. As it might have been their goal to come in the top three.

Smart training

The danish athletes seem to train less than athletes(in total hours) in some of the other systems such as GB or GER. I believe this is because they have found a way of pushing their athletes in such a way that they do more intensive workouts which results in more time needed between workouts for recovery and less time needed for steady state.

 A thing to also take into account is that the danish hold onto their top level rowers for many years at a time as they don't have that many of then to begin with. As time goes on and technique is perfected all that is needed to work upon is the aerobic, anaerobic, strength, and flexibility side of things.

Instead of calculating the difficulty of weeks using total hours or kilometers rowed. They use a points system in which the higher the intensity of a workout the more points it is given, using this method they can calculate the amount of stress that's being placed on their athletes and make sure they are not being over trained or get injured and that they are getting enough recovery, which in turn leads to improvement.

Passing on of experience

As Denmark doesn't have that large a rowing population to draw its crews from it tries to keep them in the system as long as possible, to do that they encourage their athletes to study and get jobs. According to their coach, almost everyone on the danish team has a job or is in third level education. As the athletes have other focuses and therefore stay on longer, they can pass on their knowledge and experience to the younger athletes coming into the system.

Although, at times, this can be testing for the older more experienced athletes who have to put up with more immature and less proficient rowers, in the end it provides a good mix of experience and ensures that the experiences of the older athletes are passed on, which in turn make the team stronger as experience always plays a part in rowing.

Building a good club.

Clubs that produce good athletes are systems with many people working together, using their strengths to create a well run environment where competitive people are supported and taught to train hard and excel. As one person (helping the development of the club) you can only do so much. Instead of being able to excel in your chosen area, you end up doing other tasks which you don't care about and which over time will dilute your focus. 

The saying many hands make light work is especially true when it comes to the coaching and the organisation of a rowing club. If one person were to take everything on they would soon find that they had bitten off more than they could chew especially if they are looking after a large amount of athletes.Its like trying to win an eights race with only your self in the eight, by your self you'll accomplish nothing but with seven others, working towards a common goal, anything can be achieved. 

Giving people responsibility gets them involved and in most cases committed to your cause. So much work needs to be done to run a club, fundraising, people management, coaching, equipment maintenance, tracking of finances and much more, having dedicated people for each job ensures enough time is spent on each one and that the club wont suffer due to lacking commitment or time in a certain area. 

The people who under take these rolls can be current members, ex members, parents, coaches, alumni, etc. However that only covers one side. If a club is to be successful, it must, in most cases have members of different ability. This ensures as some members leave. There are new members coming up to fill the gaps. This must be done not only for rowers but also for the coaching, and administrative positions throughout the club so that all of a sudden the club is left struggling due to a few key members leaving.

Making learning interesting. The fine line.

People learn faster when they find things interesting and they're interest is held. So as a coach I think its important to make things interesting and keep the athletes I coach challenged. If things are too easy people tend to switch off. Especial novice rowers. On the other hand if things are too challenging then it can be detrimental as the athletes feel overwhelmed  confused and as they just aren't up to physically or mentally, doing what your asking of them they will think they are not able to do it and start associating rowing with not being able to do anything right. 

So there is a fine line between the two. Not making it too hard and not making it too easy.The exercises picked must be doable and tailored for the athletes ability. For example doing pick drills from front stops in a beginner 8 all 8 is a recipe for disaster where as in a competent 8 it will challenge them and keep them on their toes.

Improvements and different methods needed to coach.

Nothing warms a coaches heart more than seeing his or her crew improve. This is what gets me up in the morning. Seeing a person who has never rowed before take on, and over come a challenge. As long as they are learning I am happy. In rowing learning is defiantly an important part of training.

The best Olympians still have things to improve upon to make their boat go faster. Nothing annoys me more than someone who is making no effort to improve. Why would you waste my time and yours? Other people are improving and getting better so why would I spend my days trying to get you to do something you seem to not want to do??

 In fairness some people do listen and want to improve but rather don't understand what your trying to get across  This I can handle.
 Not everyone learns things the same way. Some people learn visually and require demonstrations while others are great listeners and can understand what you mean when you say it then others learn by having you put them into the proper positions manually and telling them to feel and remember their body positions.

 I have to remind myself of this fact and not get annoyed with people who have trouble learning audibly. As there are many different ways of getting what you are trying to say into peoples heads, having another coach around who maybe able to explain what you are trying to teach is indispensable.

2k erg tests

Ah the 2k erg test. A test of both mental and physical strength which coaches use among other tests as a method of profiling their athletes. Some people like them, most people hate them. I have several questions I have been asking myself in relation to them. Here are the questions I have and my answers to them...

1. Is it right to ask that all rowers do the 2k test in a standardized fashion?

I am of the opinion that each athlete needs to find their own way of approaching 2ks. Some people like going hard at the start and then hanging on for the second half, others prefer a consistent approach where by the split vary's only slightly throughout and of course some enjoy a lea-surly pace for the first half and then a crazy second half. There are many others methods of course.

Some coaches think that everyone should do them the same way but my problem with this is that people approach things differently and it is after all only the end result that matters so why not let them find and use the approach that works the best for them.

If a coach is to prescribe a certain method I would be inclined to go with the keeping it as consistent as possible. Studies of rowing races at Olympic and world championship level have shown that the best method for winning races is the one that has the least variation between each 500 meter split. Therefore we can take from this that consistency is key.   

2. Why are people so against doing 2ks?

Apart from the mental and physical pain that you will endure I think many people put unnecessary stress on themselves to break a certain time over the course of the 2k, or to at a certain point to be doing better than they are. This results in them feeling terrible and associating the 2k with a bad feeling. It is always better to give your self a realistic goal to achieve. 

For example there is no point saying your going to hit 6:20 training just 2 to 3 days a week. It would be much better to set your goal at 7.00 and then by beating that you associate the 2k with positivity and you will be more likely to train harder and do better next time due to the renewed confidence.