Month: December 2012

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 17, 2012

I row for school, I am not in their boat but I have two good friends in one boat and they are always laughing and talking and not listening. It’s really annoying when the rest of the squad is taking it seriously! Should I say anything or just leave it for the coaches?

Since they aren’t in your boat, I wouldn’t say anything since it’s (hopefully) not directly affecting you or your boat. If they do the same stuff on land that they do in the boat, you could try having a conversation off to the side with them and explain that it’s distracting and frustrating to everyone around them when they see two teammates not taking the practice seriously. Leave it at that. They’ll either get the message or they won’t.

In general though, it’s up to the coaches and coxswains to handle stuff like this. Their coxswain needs to tell them to stop talking and pay attention when you’re on the water and the coach who’s out with them also needs to tell them to stop or get out of the boat. Unless you’re a team captain or something, I think it’d be out of place for you to say something since you’re not all in the same boat.

College Ergs High School How To Training & Nutrition

Training: 2k Test Strategy

By readyallrow December 16, 2012

A 2k test on the erg is one of the definitive physiological tests of our sport. It requires as much mental preparation as it does physical. Unlike a 6k where your endurance and mental strength are being tested, a 2k test analyzes both of those in addition to your power output and resistance of and resilience towards pain. This isn’t like going to the doctor to have a dislocated shoulder reset – it doesn’t hurt less if you don’t see it coming. It hurts more. Accepting the realization that your body is about to experience pain does a lot more for you than ignoring it.

There are infinite ways to pull a 2k and everyone’s strategy is different. Instead of reading this and thinking it is the definitive guide to developing your 2k game plan, use it as the framework to help build your own. Assuming you’ve all pulled a 2k before, you should know where you start to feel fatigued, where you start to hit that mental roadblock, and where you realize you need to go NOW. During races, coxswains use landmarks to help us call certain moves; the points I just listed are your landmarks.

The Start: 2000-1800m

Race plan: High 20 followed by 5-10 to lengthen out to your base pace

Go out of the gates hard here. Get your stroke rate where you want it within 2-3 strokes, making sure they’re controlled and not erratic. Know where your splits need to be and aim to get there within the first five to eight strokes. Take these first 10-15 strokes to get all the jitters out of your system – let the adrenaline take over.

As you go through strokes 14, 15, and 16 get ready to lengthen out. In 3, 2, 1, BOOM on this one – explosive press off the stretchers, control the slide on the recovery, drive it hard. Breathe. Get to your desired stroke rate within 2 strokes and pay attention to your split. Know what you need to be at, get there, and stay there.

At some point there will be a second where you think “I don’t feel THAT bad, I should bring my split down a little more.” Do not, under any circumstances, listen to your brain. Sabotage is the name of the game here and your brain is a master at it.

The Body: 1800-1300m

Race plan: Find your rhythm

This is where you’re going to start feeling the burn in your legs. The first 200m were largely anaerobic but that you’ve switched over to aerobic you’re gonna start feeling the lactic acid accumulation. Ignore it and focus on your splits. Concentration and consistency drives these 500m.

You’ll know you’re in trouble if your splits are sporadic and you find it hard to hold your desired number. If your split should be at a 1:48, make sure every stroke is focused on rowing a 1:48. When you get to 1500m, take a ten for … something. This is a good opportunity to check yourself and do one for form, rate, or power, if you want/need that boost to get yourself refocused on hitting your target splits.

The Pain Cave: 1300-700m

Race plan: Breathe, commit, attack

These are the worst 600m of a 2k. I like to break this part up into two smaller chunks: 1300-1000m and 1000-700m. This is where your brain is going to start saying “stop, I can’t do it, the tank’s empty, if I fake a heart attack maybe I can get out of this, wait – I don’t need to fake a heart attack, I think I’m actually having one”. Pieces are determined to be successful or not successful in this next stretch, so above anything else, your mental toughness has to prevail here.

A lot of times I’ve seen rowers get to this point and start feeling defeated by the number of meters left on the screen. They take a break from their split for a stroke or two and then it’s all over. There’s no coming back from those off strokes. You have to recognize that pulling a 1:46 is going to burn just as badly as a 1:48 so you might as well push through and stay on that 1:46.

When you get to the 1000m mark, take a 20. These next twenty strokes are for you to feel your body and what it’s still capable of. I like to call this “the attack”. Go hard like you did at the start without changing the stroke rate. Control your breathing and your body and push through these few hundred meters. When you see the meters get to triple digits, don’t get complacent. You made be halfway done but you still have another half to complete. If all is going well, you’re still holding the splits you had around the 1500m mark.

After you finish those 20 strokes, take 5 to lengthen back out. Try to maintain the same split and stroke rate while getting as much length as possible. For most people it’s entirely possible that they don’t even see the 900-700m chunk go by because they’re inside their own heads.

The Second Half: 700-500m

Race plan: (re)Focus and prepare to start shifting the rate up

This isn’t supposed to feel good, remember? The third 500m is typically the slowest part of the piece. You’re suffering hard right now and the physical aspect of the test is taking a backseat to the mental part. Remind yourself that pain is a good thing and that you can’t quit yet. Make a shift with the stroke rate and push your split down by a second. Drive through these 200m.

The Build: 500-350m

Race plan: 10 at 500m to recommit – no turning back

All eyes on the end now. Coaches really look at this last 500m to see whether or not you went faster here than during any other part of the piece. Maintaining your split here is important. Take a 10 or 20 at the 500m mark, but don’t push your split down and let it immediately come back up. If you push it down, keep it there.

Watch your stroke rate coming into 400m. Make sure you’re not losing control and letting it creep up as you approach the end of the piece. While you want to be giving everything you’ve got, you still want to be able to give a little bit extra at the very end, so it’s important to not release that extra burst of energy too soon.

Around 400, start to gradually push the split down while letting the stroke rate come up a beat or two. This shouldn’t occur all at once, instead over a gradual period of a couple strokes. Make the commitment to go and GO.

The Sprint: 350-0m

Race plan: Stay controlled at the higher rate and go balls to the wall to the end

This is it. The legs are going to be begging for the end of this piece but you have to fight through the pain and maintain your technique. I’ve heard of some rowers who sprint at half slide and exaggerate their upper bodies to give the legs a break, which makes absolutely NO sense since the smaller upper body muscles are no match for the larger muscles of the legs. Stay long with the legs and don’t shorten your stroke as you bring the stroke rate up at the end.

Some additional important things to remember:

Food

Eat something no later than one hour before your race. You can eat a regular meal 3-4 hours before your test because the digestive system will have done it’s job by the time you get on the erg, but as time ticks down your meals should get smaller to ensure it’s digested by the start of your piece. Don’t eat anything within an hour before your test because not only do you not want to get sick before, during, or after but you most especially do not want your stomach drawing blood away from where it’s needed most – your muscles.

Also, make sure you’re hydrated. Dehydration leads to cramps and there’s few things worse for a rower’s psyche than having to stop mid-2k because of a muscle cramp.

Warm up

Don’t skip the warm up. 20ish minutes before your test is about when you should begin getting ready on the erg. Before this you should do your normal dynamic warmup or stretching/rolling routine that you usually do before practice.

When your body feels loose, get on the erg. If your coach has a specific warmup for you to do before your test, do that. If not, it’s up to you what you do. Ideally you should row around 2/3 pressure for a few minutes before moving up to 3/4 pressure. Throw in a couple of practice starts, followed by 5 high strokes and 5 lengthening strokes to mimic your full starting pattern. Spend about 5 minutes rowing at steady state pressure with some “bursts” thrown in every minute.

Following the completion of the full warm up (and assuming you’ve timed in correctly), give yourself at least 30 seconds or so to just sit at your erg and get in the zone. Grab one more drink if you need it but don’t spend too much time just sitting otherwise your muscles will cool down and negate the time you just spent warming up.

Right before the start

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath, sit up a little taller, and remind yourself that you are prepared for this. No negative thoughts, questioning, doubt, etc. is allowed.

Immediately after the test

Do not – I repeat, do NOT – make a big scene by flopping on the ground and lying there. The best thing you can do immediately following the test is keep moving. Don’t try getting off the erg right away and walking around though … the post-2k jelly leg syndrome can lead to some nasty injuries (fun fact, this is how I dislocated my knee).

It’s best to stay on the erg and row lightly for a few minutes to cool down so that the body can begin clearing all the metabolic waste from your system. The heart and liver will work to filter the lactate from the blood, which takes time, but the process is helped by keeping the body moving. If you don’t cool down and just let the lactate hang out, it can be a couple days before it’s fully cleared from your system, which means you’ll be in some serious pain.

You should do an active recovery that involves rowing around 40-50% for at least 5-10 minutes. Your coach should account for this if there aren’t enough ergs for everyone to do the test at once. Your muscles will use the majority of the lactate during the cool down, which will aid in helping clear it faster. When you’re tired you instinctively want to not do anything but after a hard erg piece it’s imperative that you keep moving and cool down. Just like the warm up, don’t skip this.

Coxswains

Let your coxswain know if you want them to cox you during your test. If you don’t want them to talk to you, don’t assume they know that and don’t get pissed at them if they try to cox you. They’re just doing their job. Make it clear that you don’t want any coxing but be polite about it. Sometimes coxswains can take a rower telling them not to cox them as that rower saying their coxing sucks, which most of the time isn’t true.

If you want them to cox you, talk to them well before your test (like, the day before) instead of waiting until 5 minutes before and telling them every spot you want them to give you a power 10. They won’t remember all of that. If you talk to them ahead of time, they can write down where you want to take a burst, where you want to start your sprint, what you want to be reminded of, etc. and then cox you through your piece without any hiccups.

Getting on the erg with a plan is much more beneficial than getting on and just pulling until the meters read zero. It all goes back to being prepared for the pain. Obviously I’m writing this from a coxswain’s perspective since this is usually how I approach 2ks but I think one of the best ways to come up with a strategy if you’re stumped on how to do, particularly if you’re a novice or haven’t done that many erg tests, it is to talk to a coxswain on your team. Ask them where, why, and what they do during a race. This will give you some insight into what they look for and why they think it’s important to make moves at certain points in the course.

Image via // @erikdresser

College Q&A Recruiting Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 15, 2012

I’m a junior in high school and I’m 5’11”. What kind of erg times should I strive for to be recruited by colleges? I’ve heard mix things like sub 8 and sub 7:30 – is there a lot of variation among schools and divisions? I’m one of the better rowers on my team but I don’t know what kinds of times other kids have from around the country. I just started rowing a little less than a year ago and my last 2k was an 8:10. Would I realistically be able to get my time down before college?

I think generally coaches from the top openweight programs are looking for times that are sub-7:30ish. Lightweight women should shoot for times that are sub-7:40 to 7:50ish.

It’s definitely possible to get your time down before college but you’ll have to work for it. It’s not all about erging harder either. In order to go harder, you’ve got to be stronger, which means lifting, doing cardio, core, etc. The seconds aren’t going to come off as quickly as they did when you first started rowing. It’s like trying to lose weight … at first it comes off fast, but the longer you workout, the amount of weight you lose decreases as your body becomes more fit. Ideally if you are looking to be recruited, you would have already started the process of researching programs and contacting coaches in the fall. When you do talk with them, keep open lines of communication throughout the year and update them on any PRs you may achieve between now and this time next year.

There is some variation between divisions due mostly to the differing levels of competitiveness. D1 schools are going to be a lot more strict about erg times whereas D3 schools might be more lenient. Most D3 programs are clubs, not varsity (and the ones that are varsity can’t offer athletes scholarships anyways), so the majority of people on the team don’t start rowing until they join. I think on the club team I coach now there is only one rower (of 35-40ish) who rowed in high school. There are most likely some subtle differences between what individual universities are looking for as far as erg times though but to find out what they are, you’d have to reach out to the coaches and ask. The Ivies, Washington, Cal, Stanford, etc. are all very strong programs that tend to attract rowers with exceptional times.

In terms of finding out times of other people in the country, there are a few ways to find out, all involving a decent amount of research on your end. The first is to ask. Talk with your current coach or any alumni rowers from your program who row(ed) in college. Your coach should have a general idea of what previous rowers in your program had if you can’t actually talk with any of them. Second, ask people on Reddit. The rowing community is pretty vast on there and most people are willing to share their times if/when asked (although this question gets asked a lot so search the sub before starting a new thread).

Third, go through sites like CollegeConfidential and beRecruited.com. CollegeConfidential isn’t limited to rowing, so you’ll have to search “rowing”, “erg times”, etc. in the forum to bring up specific results, but there are a lot of great questions and even more great answers on there. The vast amount of information can be overwhelming though. beRecruited.com is something you should consider looking into if you’re serious about being recruited.

Coxing High School Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 14, 2012

I’m in 10th grade. I’m 5’5″ and don’t have very good erg times. I feel like it would be best if I tried to be a coxswain if I want to make it into college, but I’m also afraid I’d be too heavy. How much should a 5’5″ cox weigh and how should I talk to my coach about letting me cox sometime? I feel like it’s the way to go for me, but I don’t think my coach would let me when we have a bunch of perfectly good 5’0″ girls.

Well, the minimum for a coxswain on a women’s team is 110lbs and 120lbs for a men’s team. Weight can be an uncomfortable and tricky topic to discuss when it comes to coxswains, so I’ll just say this: you want to be as close to the minimum as you can be while still being healthy. The school you go to will dictate how rigidly you need to stick to these minimums. Division 1 schools are strict about it because it is the highest level of competition – it’s to be expected. Division 3 is much less strict because it’s typically a club sport not ruled by NCAA, so you don’t have to have the “stereotypical” coxswain’s body. The varsity D3 programs though are gonna approach it the same way as D1 though – you should be as close to racing weight as possible.

It’s hard to say what you should weigh, but if I had to give a vague, overarching answer, I would say that if you are 15+ lbs OVER the minimum, you might consider adjusting your diet and making time in your schedule for exercise. That doesn’t mean though that you should strive to be 110lbs. That isn’t normal or healthy for everyone and it can’t be expected that every coxswain be the same weight. For you specifically, since I don’t know what you currently weigh, I would say you should try and maintain a 3-5lb range over the minimum. That’s based PURELY on your height and nothing else, since that’s all I know about you.

If you’re interested in coxing, just say so! Before you do though, think about your reasons for wanting to cox. Are they based purely on poor erg times or do you genuinely think that you could perform the duties of a coxswain at the level your team (and a collegiate team) requires? Can you be a leader and motivator for your team? Can you be your coach’s right hand man? Can you authoritatively run a practice and get things done? Do you have the skills to be able to point out what the rowers are doing wrong and what they need to do to fix it? If you can confidently answer all of those questions with a “yes”, talk to your coach. I’m not going to say that height and weight don’t matter because they do, but if your coach thinks that you can handle those responsibilities as well as your vertically challenged counterparts, I don’t see why he wouldn’t give you a shot. Ask if you can try running a workout or a practice over the winter. When you get back on the water (if you’re already off), ask to go out with the novice crews. Everyone will be on the same footing in a novice boat, so there won’t be as much pressure on you.

Be prepared though for him to say “Thanks for your interest, but we already have more than enough coxswains. I’d really like to see you stick with being a rower.” If he says that, don’t take it personally. It’s purely a logistical thing and not a reflection on you. If that’s what he says, say “OK, I understand. I’m still discouraged about my erg times though and know that I need to improve. What can I do to work towards bringing my times down?”. Ask for their advice on what you can do to improve and then go from there. A couple people have asked me similar questions on here. If you search the “ergs” tag or the “Q&A” tag you’ll come across them (eventually).

Part of being a coxswain is being confident. If you go into a conversation with your coach thinking he won’t let you cox since you already have a bunch of “perfectly good 5’0″ girls”, you’re already failing the first step towards becoming a great coxswain. If it’s something you want, be confident, recognize your potential, and GO FOR IT.

How To Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 14, 2012

How do you fight off the stress of rowing? I can’t just stop because it helps me ease school stuff but at the same time it makes everything pile up and I can’t hold everything in anymore.

I’ve been there. I’ve realized though that my stress from rowing is/was never actually coming from rowing – it was from everything else. When I was in college, I was majorly and unhealthily stressed over school issues, which led to a lot of late nights that turned into early mornings. I’d get maybe an hour or two of sleep before I’d have to get up for practice. I didn’t really hang out with (or like) anyone on the team because we had nothing in common, so I wasn’t particularly thrilled to have to spend my mornings and evenings with them six days a week. I didn’t feel like the coaches were giving me any opportunities to improve or do anything “legitimate”, so I started becoming disinterested – painfully and obviously disinterested.

What was actually happening was I was getting burned out, hard and fast. Even though I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore, the time I was on the water was the only time in the 24 hour span of a day that I was somewhat at peace. I wasn’t thinking about anything – it was like I was in a fog, just floating along. My interest was still waning hard and I was furious that I had committed myself to coxing when it seemed to indirectly be the root of all my problems. It was a double edged sword. After some serious reflection on everything, I ended up removing myself from the team. I then spent the next five years away from the sport and it was the most miserable five years of my life. I literally had nothing to wake up for anymore. For five years all I did was go through the motions. Nothing I did was done with passion or interest or eagerness or desire. I had no one to talk to, no one to turn to, and no one who understood the struggle I went through every morning just to get myself out of bed. My parents were obligatorily concerned but didn’t really understand and my boyfriend wasn’t supportive and acted like I was just being lazy and whining about dumb shit. The ONE thing that had always brought me tranquility and a few hours of stress relief was gone. It wasn’t until I started coaching that I realized how important rowing was to me, not just for what it is, but because it kept me from falling apart. Without it, I fell apart. I had no way to release my frustrations like I did when I was coxing and keeping that energy pent up for 5+ years nearly drove me towards a total breakdown.

I’ve realized over the years and especially since I’ve started coxing and coaching again that rowing isn’t a source of stress for me. It’s a relief from my stress. There are things about rowing that stress me out but it’s never actually rowing. I get upset when I’m coxing because I realize I could have done better or if I’d called the end of that piece differently, would we have met our goal. I get angry at the time commitment and dedication it requires because it’s caused a lot of problems with my relationship. I get upset because I can’t pay my bills or because I’ve committed myself to coaching but finding a real, full time coaching job that pays well is tough. So many things about rowing piss me off that I ask myself at least once a day why I put myself through all of this … but then I go out on the water. I get in the boat and start practice and immediately feel this enormous weight leave my shoulders. For two hours in the morning, I have no stress, no worries, no problems, no bills to pay, no failing relationships, no reason to crawl into bed and cry, no anger … nothing. When I get on the water, that’s MY time. In order for me to have a successful practice and enjoy myself, I have to leave EVERYTHING and EVERYONE else on land. On the rare occasions that I bring practice off the water and let something nag me, I can’t escape it. It infiltrates everything and I do get frustrated and stressed. The only way for me to alleviate that stress is to turn around and throw it all into the next day’s practice. It’s a cyclical process sometimes and it makes NO sense to anyone but me, I think.

The moral of this (most likely unhelpful and far too long answer) is don’t let anything about rowing stress you out. Use what would/could stress you out to fuel you. If something shitty happens at practice, leave it at practice. Don’t take it home with you. You’ve got to teach yourself to cut the stress off. Take a step back and look at what exactly is causing your stress…is it actually related to rowing or is it outside stuff that just exacerbates the normal unavoidable craziness of crew? Figure out what you can do to alleviate some of that stress so that it doesn’t infiltrate your practices. You need that one thing you can turn to when you have nothing else and for me, that’s always been rowing. If I let my shitty life circumstances break that bubble, I might as well stop coaching and coxing because I’ll never be able to give 100%.

If rowing helps you deal with school stuff, that’s OK. Figure out why it makes everything pile up and what you can do differently or better so that doesn’t happen. If you ever need to talk or anything, I’m always here. I know the feeling of being on the brink of losing it and I know what it feels like to not have anyone who really understands. The thing with rowing is that unless you do it, you don’t understand it. My inbox is open, so don’t be afraid to use and abuse it.

Ergs Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 13, 2012

How do you stop competition over erg times from ruining a friendship?

Just … don’t?

The only real suggestion I can offer is that someone in has to be the bigger person and remove themselves from the situation entirely. Make it clear to the other person that erg times are separate from the friendship and wanting to pulling a better time than someone isn’t indicative of anything other than dedication to the team and motivation towards getting in the best boat possible. I would say that if these people were really friends they would be encouraging each other to get the best times they can instead of letting something silly tear them apart. In the grand scheme of things, i.e. life, erg scores aren’t important. It’s really not worth ruining a friendship over something so trivial.

The athlete’s anaerobic threshold, the point at which the body’s muscles have exhausted their oxygen store and start burning other fuel. For regular folks, reaching that threshold is quitting time; anaerobic work is 19 times harder than aerobic work. But rowing is all about harder. Elite rowers fire off the start at sprint speed — 53 strokes per minute. With 95 pounds of force on the blade end, each stroke is a weightlifter’s power clean. Rowers cross their anaerobic threshold with that first stroke. Then there are 225 more to the finish line.

High School Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 11, 2012

If I’m currently a lightweight at 129 but on the border of open weight. Do you think it is better to be a small open weight or a big lightweight? (Btw I’m a sophomore in high school.)

Lightweight max (for women) is 130lbs so … I think it’d be better to stay a lightweight if you can do so safely and in a healthy manner, especially if that range is where your natural weight lies. The lightweights that I’ve known who have tried to row with the openweights have had a hard time with it (and have gotten injured in some cases) simply because it’s harder to keep up with rowers who are at a different level than you. For comparison’s sake, it’s like basketball for me. I’m 4’11” and when I play with other short people, I’m pretty good, but when I try and play with the taller people, I suck because I can’t guard them, I can’t power through an open lane against them, and I can’t shoot over them. Our bodies are different and that affects how well we play.

I would stick with being a lightweight for now and if over the next few seasons you find that that weight is harder to maintain, you can talk with your coaches about being an openweight. Talk with your coaches right now though too and see what they say. They’d probably be able to give you better advice because not only do they know you better, but they also know the kind of rowers on your team that you’d be with if you moved up to openweight.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 11, 2012

Winter training has caused all of the rowers at my club to become insanely competitive. Our junior team is now completely broken into cliques and honestly everyone (including me) is completely on edge. Only some of us train twice a day based on if we have morning spares for school and the people that go to that suddenly think they’re more elite than anyone else. Do you think there’s anything we could do? Also it doesn’t help that half the team is in a relationship with someone else on the team, so there’s tension there.

Yikes. Not the best situation to be in during the cabin fever months of winter training. My first thought was “team meeting”. The captains (or coxswains, if you don’t have captains) need to recognize and assess the situation, then hold a team meeting to tell everybody to basically get their shit together. I can kind of understand the cliques thing because during the season each boat kind of becomes it’s own little clique, but if it’s getting to the point of people being in cliques à la Mean Girls, that has to stop. Captains and/or coxswains need to take responsibility and get that under control. A divided team during winter training does not bode well for a happy, collective team during racing season.

Training twice a day does not make you better than people who train once a day. You can go to the gym thirty times a day and it doesn’t make you any more dedicated than someone who goes once. The beauty of winter training is that things can be done on one’s own schedule, so if some people have the time to go twice a day, then great, but not everyone does. Winter training is also the one time during the year where if people need a break, they can take one. Unless you specifically know that people aren’t working out because they don’t care, don’t want to, or some other illegitimate reason, those rowers have no right to think they’re more “elite” than anyone else. The way you said that also made it seem (to me, at least) that the only reason they go twice a day is to say they’re going twice a day and to hold it over other people’s heads, which in turn makes me question how hard they’re actually working out.

Relationships within the team is a messy situation all around. People know the risks of dating someone else on the team and if they don’t … they’re potentially in for a rude awakening. The tension that comes with that unfortunately can’t be avoided in most cases unless those involved take action to ensure such tension does not exist. You can’t really make a rule saying “members of the crew team can’t date each other” (well…technically, I guess you could), so you’ve just got to deal with the effects of it as they come along.

It sounds like your team needs to do some serious bonding. One of the main reasons why collegiate teams go on training trips far, far away from campus is because it helps the rowers get to know one another and thus, everyone is closer as spring season draws near. Read #4 on this post and this post. They say practically the same thing but there might be one or two ideas that are different. The biggest thing that needs to happen though is a team meeting of some kind where those in charge put an end to the petty crap. If it’s serious enough to get the coach involved, do it. You could even talk to him/her and explain the situation and what advice can they give you on how to handle it? Then the captains/coxswains can take it from there. If that doesn’t work, you’ve got to step back and let your coach handle it. Hopefully though everyone on the team can see the effect that this is having and they’ll all be willing to make some changes so that it doesn’t continue.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 11, 2012

At the moment I have been doing quite well within my squad, I have been in the A boat (quad). I row for school and next term part way through the season we have a new rower joining us as one left. She is really tall and said her older brothers were quite good rowers. Today was her first time in a boat and she has never been on an erg. Is it possible that she could take “my” spot? This is my second season rowing and I am not very tall, 5’3. I am really worried she will!!

I’d say probably not. The thing about rowing is that no matter what, everyone sucks when they first start rowing. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who immediately hopped in a boat or on an erg and didn’t suck. You can pick up the sport fairly quickly, but you’ll spend the next 30 years perfecting every inch of the stroke. If you’ve been rowing in the top boat for awhile and she is just now joining the sport, I would think that your spot it safe. Don’t worry about things that don’t matter like whether her brothers were good or how tall she is. Technique, strength, focus, dedication, determination, and commitment matter 100x more than any of that stuff.

Instead of worrying about whether she’s going to take your seat, focus on YOUR training and making sure that your coach has no reason to take you out of the boat. Don’t give them a reason to think that she deserves it more than you when she has less experience. Focus on your training, your technique, your erg times, etc. and let your coaches worry about teaching the new girl. I assume since you’re in the A boat, there’s a B and C boat? She’ll probably start off in one of those and then as she improves, maybe she’ll be put into the A boat. If she is, set the example for how “A boat” rowers do things. Until that point comes though, don’t worry about hypotheticals.