The warmup that you do when heading to the starting line shouldn’t be that different from the regular routine you take your crew through during practice, rather it should just be a condensed version of what you typically do. I love long warmups but time restrictions and space constraints tend to make that pretty impossible, especially when you’re at a large regatta (like nationals, for example).
One of the things I learned early on is just because you’re launching 45 minutes before your scheduled race time does not mean that you’ll have enough time to go through your typical routine. I remember thinking before one of my first races as a freshman that I totally had time to do what I’d been doing at practice before eventually realizing that because we did so many arms, arms and body, and half-slide strokes, in addition to having to stop a couple times for the races coming down and crews stopped in front of us, that we hadn’t actually moved the boat that far up the course.
This meant that in order to get to the starting line on time and not miss our race, we had to haul ass for about 1000m, which probably took a bit of the edge off the rowers (for the sake of proving my point, let’s pretend it did) in addition to causing them to use more energy than they should have since we needed to row at a higher rate and pressure to get up there.
Here’s a couple things to remember about your warmup on race day:
Be mindful of the weather
This will definitely have an effect on what you can and can’t do. If it’s cold, raining, snowing, etc. you’ll want to make sure you’re keeping as many people moving as possible without letting them sit out for too long to avoid anyone getting too cold or stiff. This might mean rowing by all eight instead of sixes or cycling through the sixes every 10 strokes instead of every 20 before going to all eight. If you’re experiencing a crosswind or a strong headwind, rowing by anything less than sixes isn’t going to get you anywhere and will only end up slowing you down.
If it’s really hot out (particularly with minimal cloud cover), try to row up in the part of the warmup lane that is the most shaded. This will keep them out of the sun and in a slightly cooler area until it’s time to race. If there’s not a lot of shade, make sure you’re giving each pair a couple strokes out so they can get a drink or at least take a break since the sun can/will quickly deplete their energy and dehydrate them. You also don’t want to sit for too long in the staging area for those same reasons.
Keep the stroke rates reasonable
Something that I noticed about our lightweight 8+ today as I was watching their warmup was that it looked rushed. Not in terms of slide control but just in general – they were flying through each part of their warmup and it didn’t look like they were actually warming up. Instead it looked like they were just taking strokes to take strokes and that was it. When I take out a boat I very rarely let the stroke rate creep over 20spm at the beginning of practice, let alone on race day. The point is to get your muscles warmed up and get the crew in the swing of things, not to exert 1/4 of your energy reserves right off the bat. Unless you’re doing starts, keep the stroke rate around 18-20spm, 22spm at the highest if you must. And no, the excuse of “my stroke just can’t get it down that low” doesn’t fly because if you wanna be able to row fast, you’ve gotta be able to row slow. Figure it out.
Be aware of how much space you have
The warmup lanes are typically not that big. You might get lucky on some courses but the majority of the ones I’ve been on have about a lane and a half to two lanes worth of water for you to row in to get to the starting line. This usually isn’t that big of a deal because there’s always room to pass someone if you’re coming up on them but where it messes with your plans a bit is when you’re trying to get some starts in. If you’ve got a fair amount of open water between you and the crew in front of you then go for it, otherwise hold off until you’ve got at least two lengths of open to work with. Never do a start when you’re right beside someone or have little to no open water between the two of you.
If there’s a crew coming up behind you, ask their coxswain if they’d mind moving to [whichever side you want them to move to] once they pass you because you want to practice a start. I’ve done this plenty of times and have found that as long as you’re nice and communicate with them, you won’t have a problem. Unless you’re on one of those courses where the warmup area is huge, don’t try to do more than a start and five. You shouldn’t do more than that anyways because again, that’s energy and power you want to save for the race.
Be efficient
Don’t take more hard strokes or total strokes than you have to. Take as many strokes as you need to complete your warmup before going to all eight at a steady pace to get you the rest of the way to the staging area.
Pay attention to the time and manage it properly
Know how long your race warmup usually takes (this means run through it at practice a few times…), add in 3-5 minutes to account for having to stop for other crews, races that are coming down, quick water breaks, etc. and then subtract that time from the number of minutes you’re launching ahead of your race. This will give you an idea of how much time you have to play around with so that if you find you’re running ahead of or behind schedule, you can tweak things as necessary.
So, if you know your warmup usually takes around 11 minutes, you factor in about 4 minutes of “stoppage” time, plus the 5ish minutes that you’ll need for staging (getting lined up, locked on to the stake boats 2 minutes before the start, etc.), that adds up to around 20 minutes. If you launch on first call, which is usually 35- 40 minutes before your scheduled race time, that’ll leave you with about 15 minutes. Once your warmup is done, you can row by all eight the rest of the way to the starting line (let’s assume that takes 5-7 minutes) and then hang out up there with the other crews for the final few minutes before they call you up to the line for staging.
Make sure you have a watch (or your phone) with you so you can keep an eye on the time – do not be that coxswain that is asking their rowers, the officials, other coxswains, etc. what time it is or gets their crew to the start late. You look unprofessional and ultimately it’s disrespectful to the competition and officials. I don’t care if you’re a novice or a college varsity coxswain – get a watch. On the flip side, don’t be that crew that feels the need to be first to the starting area. You don’t get a prize for that and it more than likely means your rowers will spend more time sitting stationary than they should be, which can lead to them getting cold, tense, etc.
I usually start with a simple drill, like the pick drill by 6s on the square, and rotate through before picking it up all eight at steady state-ish pressure at 18-20spm-ish. My coaches liked to have us do quarter feather for awhile when we were rowing all eight but I only did that about half the time. (I’m not a fan.) Another thing I’ll do if we don’t have the time or room to do starts is I’ll do some quick builders while we’re rowing by all eight. Usually I’ll do one ten (with 3 to build) at roughly our starting SPM and another at base pace with about 10-15 strokes in between. I’ll also try to throw in 15 strokes at our sprinting pace, going “up 2 in 2” every 5 strokes. I’ll usually only do this after stopping for a quick break and asking the rowers how they feel and if they want to do this one. If we didn’t get much time to practice our sprint during the week we’ll do it, otherwise most of the time we’ll just pick it up all eight at a steady pace the rest of the way to the starting area.
One thing you have to remember is that you’ve got – GOT – to be flexible. Sometimes you’re not gonna have time to do part of your warmup and other times you’re going to have tons of time and/or space. Not having a lot of time doesn’t mean that you should rush, rush, rush through everything though because that accomplishes nothing – all it does is communicate a sense of frantic-ness that you don’t want the crew to be experiencing.
It’s your responsibility to keep them (and yourself, obviously) calm, cool, and relaxed. If you find yourself short on time for whatever reason, calmly communicate that to them as you’re coming out of the launching area and say “Alright guys, we’re not gonna have time to go through our usual routine so let’s go ahead and pick it up by all eight at an 18 on the quarter feather. This’ll be our warmup so let’s make sure we’re taking smooth strokes together and getting long at both ends to warmup the muscles.” It’s much smarter to eliminate things than to fly through them just for the sake of being able to say you did them.
This is where paying attention to the time is very important too. If you find yourself far enough up the course with a bit of time on your side now, go ahead and drop down to sixes for 10-15ish strokes each to give each pair a chance to make any necessary adjustments, grab a quick drink, etc. If you find yourself to still be behind schedule a bit, have the crew add just a bit of pressure to their strokes. I wouldn’t recommend having them row any more than 3/4 pressure max because, again, that’s energy they should/could be using during the race. (If you have to row all eight, full pressure to the starting line somebody somewhere screwed up big time.)
If you find yourself out there with tons of time, lengthen out your strokes a bit or throw in an extra 30 second break. If you normally row at an 18, row at 16 or row by 6s a little longer than you otherwise would. The goal here is to make sure you don’t go through your warmup at a normal pace and then find yourself sitting up at the starting line for 20 minutes instead of your usual 5-10. Resting for too long is just as bad as not resting for long enough because as I mentioned before, the rowers can get cold, stiff, dehydrated, fatigued, etc. depending on the conditions. I’m always jittery going to the starting line so getting there earlier than I needed to would only end up exacerbating my nerves and making me imagine every possible way that I could fail at getting into the stake boats (or something equally as dumb since backing into stake boats is pretty freakin’ easy after the first time or two).
To summarize, have a race day warmup plan that is a condensed version of your usual day-to-day warmup, be flexible and able to tweak things at a moments notice if/when necessary, and pay attention to the elements and know how to adjust if the conditions don’t allow you to follow your usual plan. Also, have a watch or timepiece of some kind so you don’t have to rely on your rowers or anyone else on the water to tell you what time it is.
