Category: Coxing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 7, 2013

I say “catch 1, 2” a lot to keep ratio but after the catch when they’re on the recovery, why do I want them sliding back slowly? Shouldn’t that be the quick part when they’re actually taking the stroke? Or maybe my coach likes me to say that just because she still wants us taking it slow?

After the catch … you mean the drive? The drive is when where they’re taking the stroke and the recovery is when the blade is out of the water and they’re sliding forward into the catch. You wouldn’t count out “catch 1, 2…” on the drive though because that’s “fast” part of the stroke when the blade is in the water. Ratio is always 2:1 or 3:1, meaning that the recovery is two to three times longer than the drive.

When you take it slow like that, are you rowing with any kind of pressure? The only time I can think where I’ve had an exaggerated drive instead of an exaggerated recovery is when we’ve done rushed-recovery drills. They work on having quick catches because you’re taking no time on the recovery. The drive, on the other hand, is slow and there’s no pressure on the stroke – you’re basically reversing the ratio, so instead of it being 3:1 it’s now 1:3. Does that sounds like what you’re doing? If that’s not it, then I’m not sure what your coach is having you do. I’d definitely ask for clarification though so you’re sure you’re communicating the right stuff to the crew.

Coxing Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 6, 2013

Under 120lbs, 5’5″ and not the strongest rower – should I switch to coxing if I want to? Thanks.

If you feel like making the switch to coxing would be a good move for you, then by all means talk about it with your coach. You’re about the size of some of my friends who have coxed for men’s teams so definitely ask them if they need a coxswain. I don’t think it’s unusual or that big of an issue to go from rowing to coxing, especially if you have an injury that could be compromised by rowing or you’re just way smaller than your teammates, but outside of those reasons is where I start to get a little annoyed.

If you’re not the strongest rower (not you specifically, just speaking in general), why not … get stronger? Work out on your own, improve your technique, pay attention to your diet, etc. The only way to get stronger is to put in the effort. It bothers me when people want to switch to coxing because I feel like it gives the impression that coxing doesn’t take much work either. Like … I’m not willing to put the work in to get better at rowing so I’ll just switch to coxing since it requires less or no work. I don’t say this because it’s what I assume people think, I say it because I’ve seen people do this on teams I’ve been a part of and that was their main reason. Coxing actually does require a lot of skill that, despite not being physical like rowing is, still takes a lot of effort to achieve.

Comparing rowing to coxing is like comparing apples to oranges – they’re both fruits but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. One is not harder than the other because they’re both equally difficult, just in different ways. It pisses me off when people say that just because we don’t do anything physical, our jobs are easy and/or we don’t do anything useful.

It takes a lot of time to learn how to cox right and even longer to learn how to be a good coxswain. It’s not just something you can/should “switch to” because rowing isn’t panning out the way you wanted. Well, you could, I guess, since most coaches probably look at this issue a lot differently than I do but regardless, I feel like going from being a rower to being a coxswain has to happen for the right reasons. Unless you’ve already put the time, effort, sweat, and hard work into becoming an all around better rower and still can’t keep up with your teammates, I would hold off on making the switch. If your team needs coxswains that slightly changes things but my feelings on the overall issue remain the same.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 5, 2013

What type of shoes do you think are appropriate for coxswains to wear in the boat?

I usually wear some rotation of Hunters, Uggs, or Bean Boots and then starting in late April through September I wear sandals every day. Sperry’s, tennis shoes, etc. are all fine too. Basically just wear something that can stand up to getting wet and will keep your feet warm when it’s cold out and you’ll be good.

Coxing Novice Rowing

An Introduction to Rigging: How to rig and de-rig a boat

By readyallrow March 5, 2013

Previously: Intro to rigging, spread, and span || Oar length, inboard, and blade profile || Pitch || Rigger height and work through

Rigging is one of those things where I feel like you can just look at the boat and see that “Oh, there are nuts and bolts holding the riggers on … so to de-rig all I need to do is take the nuts and bolts off, sit them somewhere where they won’t be lost, and then put them back on when the rigger is off.” You’d be surprised how many times that has not been the case.

Some coaches put their coxswains in charge of rigging the boats themselves, others go through at the end and quickly make sure everything is tightened up, others just walk around with their wrenches in case anyone needs one. All are fine for you to do but all still require you to still know how to rig the boat, which wrenches to use on which bolts, etc.

How to rig a boat

Check out the video above to see how the riggers are connected to the hull.

Before you get started, make sure that you know the parts of the rigger and what the front stay and back stay are before you rig your boat. Knowing this can help you avoid putting all the riggers on backwards.

Something very important to remember is to not tighten the bolts too much. If you tighten the bolts too much you can crack the ribs that make up the frame of the hull. My coaches have always had the rowers tighten them to finger-tight (as tight as you can get them using just your fingers) and then the coxswains would go around and two-finger tighten them with the wrenches (as tight as you can get them with only your index and middle finger leveraging the wrench). Then they’d go around and make any final adjustments.

Don’t forget to check the top nut on the oarlock either. These need to be locked on pretty tightly (more than two-finger tight) so make sure you go over them when you’re tightening everything else.

How to de-rig a boat

When you take the nuts and bolts off, put them in the shoes or in the tracks. Do not try and hold them in your hand because you’ll probably drop them. If you drop one, obviously look for it but if you can’t find it tell your coach and/or coxswain so they can bring you a spare. The rigger needs all of the nuts and bolts so if you think your coach will be pissed that you dropped one nut and/or bolt, wait until you see him when your entire rigger has come off in the middle of practice and you tell him you knew it was missing one of the pieces.

Last thing, just as a general reminder – when you’re rigging a boat, you’re usually headed out to practice or race immediately after and when you’re de-rigging you probably just got home from a regatta or you’re heading home after practice. Regardless, there’s always somewhere you have to be and you want to get there as quickly as possible. Don’t rush the rigging process to the point where things aren’t done properly but don’t move at a glacial pace either. Rigging an eight should take no more than 10-15 minutes, TOPS. De-rigging should be even quicker.

Once you’re done rigging your seat either help the person beside you or go somewhere else. Personally I like for rowers to go away when they’re done, that way I can see who’s left and how much still needs to be done. If there’s seven people all standing around the boat or one seat or whatever it just makes it hard to maneuver around the boat to check everything. You can help speed up the process by moving out of the way when you’re done so the coxswains and/or coaches can finish up.

Next week: Tools for rigging

Image via // @brianrenesorensen

Coxing Ergs Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 4, 2013

When we write down erg scores/times, I never fail to copy one down wrong. Ugh. Any advice? I know it’s SO simple but…

Trust me, you’re not the only coxswain to have a brain malfunction while trying to write down splits, times, watts, average stroke rate, etc. Multiply all of that by 25+ rowers and you’re bound to make a mistake. It happens, you’ve just gotta make sure to minimize the number of times it does so that time’s not being wasted and the data the coaches are getting is accurate.

My friends and I came up with a “system” in high school to make writing everything down easier, simpler, and faster. We had a similar system in college too that made the process a lot smoother, especially since there were twice as many rowers to collect data for. In addition to all this, another thing that helps is dividing up the rowers amongst the coxswains, i.e I’ll take the front row, you take the second row, and so on, that way you’re not rushing around trying to get everyone done.

Before

All the ergs are numbered, 1-x. Each erg must be full, meaning it can’t go someone on 2, someone on 3, no one on 4, someone on 5, etc. That’s what always trips me up when I’m writing stuff down. When they sit down, I write each person’s name down beside their erg number. Once I’ve written their name down, they can’t switch ergs. While they’re erging, each coxswain makes a “table” for whatever we’re supposed to be writing down so we can quickly fill it in when they’re done. (You can also input them directly into Excel if you’ve got a laptop on hand and a spreadsheet pre-made that’s ready to be filled in.) Also, if for example you’re taking splits and time, make sure the order you have them written down in is the same across the board, that way when you give your coach the numbers or they look at the sheets they don’t have three pieces of paper that have splits written down first and one that has their overall time down first.

After

#1 rule, no one is allowed to leave their erg until their stuff has been written down. This just ensures no one gets skipped or erg #5’s times are written down in erg #4’s place. I make sure the screen that displays everything is up so I can get time, splits, meters, etc. off of it all at once without having to waste time cycling though them. If I’ve gotta write down watts, which isn’t on the main screen, it’s always written down last and is always listed last on my table. All the info on the main screen I take down in the order it’s displayed. Time goes down first, since it’s at the top, then splits, then whatever else, that way I don’t get confused as to whether I just wrote splits in the time column or time in the splits column.

Also, take your time. Be quick about it obviously but don’t rush to the point where you’re being sloppy, can’t read what you’ve written, or aren’t looking carefully at what you’re writing down. Don’t let the rowers mess with their screens either. If they want to look at something just tell them to wait until you’re done so they aren’t in the way and/or slowing you down. Also, double check everything before moving on to the next erg. #1 rule of coxing, better safe than sorry.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 4, 2013

Hi there! So I’m in my 5th year of rowing (3 years in high school as a rower on a women’s team, in my second year of coxing men’s collegiate right now) and this morning during seat racing I experienced a problem I’ve never had before. We were in fours, and my stroke seat, a port, was out-powering every 3 seat who switched in, but my bow pair were matching up pressure. It was pushing my stern to starboard a bit, but I was steering to port just enough to keep our bow pointed straight. However, we also had a cross-wind coming from port, also pushing us to starboard. The result was that I held the right point, but my course wasn’t straight because we were kind of skidding sideways while we were going forward. In a situation like that where I need to steer a straight course but I can’t actively cox my boat (beyond telling them stroke rate and position) and I can’t ask them to adjust pressure, what can I do beyond just using the rudder? Is there a way to keep my boat straight without sliding sideways across the water like that?

When you’re rowing into a crosswind the best way to avoid getting your bow knocked around is to angle it slightly into the wind so that when the gusts do hit you, they blow the bow straight and forwards instead of hitting you when you’re already straight and pushing you to the side or off at an angle. Trying to get your point back when you’re fighting the wind is a lot harder than just pointing into it from the very beginning. To anticipate this I’ll watch the water in front of or around us so I know where the wind is coming from and when we’re about to get hit by a gust, that way I can make an adjustment before the wind catches my bow and pushes it around.

As soon as you get off the water make sure to tell your coach all of that information though – stroke was overpowering everyone who was seat racing, the wind was pushing you around (even though you were pointed mostly straight), you couldn’t ask them to adjust their pressure, etc. All of that is important to the “integrity”, so to speak, of the seat races.

Sometimes weather is a factor and there’s nothing you can do about it so don’t be afraid to bring it up. If the wind or something like that is a big issue when you’re out and it’s hard for you to control the boat in it, don’t wait until you’re off the water, tell your coach right away. It might piss everyone off in the moment (especially if things are already tense due to the seat racing) but if you have to delay racing or row somewhere where the water’s calmer, that’s usually the best (and fairest) option.

Coxing Novice Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 4, 2013

We have our last big head race this Saturday, and then it’s regatta season. Our crews will probably be mixed up but I don’t know how much. I was wondering what you’d look for in a rower/crew in regatta season as opposed to head season? It’s my first regatta season and I’m loving my crew so I’m in a bit of a pickle.

I think most coaches look for the same things in both the fall and the spring. Technique, strength/power, etc. If you’re asking in terms of lineups, I don’t think coaches have a lineup they race specifically for head race season and one they specifically race for during sprint season, so my guess would be that unless people in your boat(s) made any drastic improvements over the winter that would warrant them being moved up a boat, they’ll stay mostly the same. Best suggestion though is to talk to some of the varsity rowers and/or your coach to get an idea of how they do things in the spring.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 4, 2013

What does coxing mean to you/for you personally?

Coxing is my release. It’s cheaper than therapy and I get to yell … loudly … and a lot. It’s how I relieve stress and it’s how I get my adrenaline rush. I think part of the reason why I was so excited to get back out on the water when I started coxing again was because I had five years of pent up stress to get rid of. I’ve always been an intense coxswain but damn, I surprised even myself when I called my first few bursts.

When I’m out, I am 100% present and focused on what I’m doing but I’m also 100% in my own bubble where no one or nothing can bother me. It’s my thinking place. Even when I’m calling power ten after power ten after power ten and my brain is going eight hundred miles a minute, I still do some of my best thinking out there. Nothing can touch me. For two uninterrupted, blissful hours, I am completely my own.

College Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 3, 2013

How did you balance crew, classwork, and a social life while you were in college?

I didn’t at all. My college experience could be equated to Murphy’s Law – everything that could go wrong went wrong. Looking back I should have advocated for myself a lot more than I did when I talked to my coaches, I should have gone to my professors sooner when I realized I was falling behind, and I should have avoided my advisers entirely since they ended up steering me in the wrong direction more often than not. The way things panned out with rowing and college in general is without question the biggest regret I have.

College itself wasn’t a shock to my system or anything so there really wasn’t an adjustment period there but as soon as classes started I got smacked in the face with crew from every angle. Practice twice a day, weights in the morning twice a week after a row (7-8:30am before classes), not to mention having a teammate as a roommate (alarm clock going off every five minutes for an hour starting at 4:30am … I wanted to kill her) was a lot to deal with on top of the usual college stuff.

I started taking classes over the summer and already had an incredible group of friends before the year even started. I went from seeing them every day to never seeing them. I was way too exhausted to go out on the weekends so I missed a lot of opportunities to hang out and stuff. I justified missing out by saying that rowing in college was what I wanted to do and I knew there were going to be sacrifices and if this was one of them, fine. All work and no play is not healthy.

Classes were a whole separate issue entirely. I was excited about my major and most of my classes but it’s hard to maintain that excitement when you’re late to your morning class every day because you get held over by 20, 30, 40 minutes at practice (and then have to wait for the shuttle back to campus) and are so exhausted at the end of the day that you can’t manage any brain waves when it’s time to actually do your work. I’d come back from afternoon/evening practice around 6-7pm, maybe grab something to eat (justified again by not having enough time, I didn’t feel that hungry anyways, etc.), take a quick break to wind down from the day (usually in the form of a shower, which was the only time during the day when I felt no pressure to do anything), and then start my homework. That’d go from 8pm-2am usually before I’d set my alarm and go to bed. If I got more than 3 hours of sleep a night I was ecstatic. I was constantly running on empty.

I’ve always been a good student but my grades were awful and having never experienced that before, I was constantly kicking my own ass and telling myself to get it together. I was nervous to talk to my professors because I figured they would look at me as an entitled athlete expecting special treatment so I didn’t go to them for help (until it was all but too late) and instead committed myself to figuring out how to fix things on my own. Needless to say, that didn’t work.

Midway through the semester, I hated crew. Like, absolutely hated it. I didn’t feel like I was getting any opportunities to do anything useful when I was at practice and I (and some of the other coxswains) always felt like the coaches were pretty “meh” towards everyone but their “favorite” coxswain. Whenever the subject of crew, the team, etc. would get brought up by friends, family, professors, etc. I could feel the look of disgust on my face. If I never saw another oar, boat, or cox box ever again it would have been too soon. It went from being something that I loved doing more than anything to a job that I despised waking up for. I was stressed beyond belief, I was constantly getting sick (I ended missing nine straight days of classes at one point because I was so run down … the doctors I saw were horrified and almost made me check into the hospital for treatment), I had no energy, and the energy that I did have was spent convincing myself that this was what I wanted. I wanted this!

When I had conversations with my coaches or athletic advisers, I got nowhere. My athletic advisers, instead of finding ways to help me, only offered the suggestion of “just pick an easier major”, which I ignored because that’s literally the most lazy, bullshit piece of advice ever. My coaches guilt tripped me because I had committed myself to the team and I had to fulfill that, blah blah blah. I sat in their offices ready to punch the walls at a moment’s notice because it was like … do you think I don’t know that I made a commitment? Why do you think I’m running myself into the ground right now? I’m doing it because of this commitment!

Eventually it came to the point where I knew I had to walk away. My grades were the number one reason but my health (physical and mental) was another. I had never felt before what I felt my freshman year. I was in a perpetual state of fatigue, hunger, anger, stress, anxiety, depression, etc. that no one understood. The people I did talk to about what was going on knew maybe 1% of everything – the rest of it I kept to myself. People aren’t joking when they say doing that eats away at you. I could feel myself becoming less and less of the person I was before and that only added to everything I was feeling.

Walking away from crew was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I know it doesn’t seem like something that a normal person would agonize over but for me it was. I knew that quitting (something I had never done before) would put an end to my dreams of competing at the elite level. I was back home when I got a call from the assistant coach who said that she could tell something had been going on. No shit, really? Do you think maybe you should have said something beforehand instead of rubbing my “commitment” in my face? I told her I needed some time to figure out what I wanted but I didn’t think I was going to be on the team next season. It wasn’t until I took a step back and realized how miserable I was making myself that I realized the choice was already made. I called my coach back and said I was done.

I hate that I’m that person who is the anomaly and couldn’t make things work out. There are thousands of collegiate rowers out there that do and on some level, I’m envious of that. I’ve realized in the years since that I should have stuck up for myself and I should have told my coaches at the very beginning that something wasn’t right. Whether they could or would have helped me is something I’ll never know but I should have made the effort to at least see what they had to say. Asking for help as a coxswain is something that’s really easy for me but asking for help in “real life” is really hard and it bit me in the ass here.

The simplest piece of advice I have is that the moment you start to feel the ground under you getting a little shaky, figure out why and then go talk to the appropriate people until you’ve got things stabilized. Even if you don’t think you need someone else’s help, down the line you will. If your professors know ahead of time that you’re juggling a lot and struggled a bit with a certain topic, problem set, etc., they can at least throw out a “Hey, how have you been doing since we last talked?” at the beginning or end of class one day. I never had any professors like this but maybe you do. They can’t help you if they don’t know there’s a problem though, regardless of how minor it is.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you to “just switch to an easier major”. In the short term that might solve the problem but in the long run you probably aren’t going to be happy. Also, don’t let your coaches guilt trip you, make school seem like an interference to crew, or make you feel like your concerns are invalid. Don’t let anyone else invalidate your concerns either – family, friends, significant others, teammates, etc. How you balance crew, classes, and having a life is different for each individual too. There’s an experimentation period of trial and error where you find out what works for you before you settle into a routine, but the key is making sure your routine is dictated by you and not someone or something else.

Coxing Rowing Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week: Your experiences

By readyallrow March 1, 2013

Previously: Introduction || Eating disorders defined + explained || Signs + symptoms || Coxswains || Lightweights

When I decided to do the posts highlighting NEDA this week I knew that this post had to be one of the ones I did. Throughout the week I’ve collected a couple of messages and emails from rowers and coxswains who have experienced, are recovered, or are currently dealing with an eating disorder. One of the biggest things that I hope you guys get out of this post is to realize that you’re not alone if you’re experiencing these issues. You aren’t the only one. Other people have faced and overcome them and if they can, so can you.

These emails have made me sad, happy, angry, encouraged, frustrated, uncomfortable, and a whole range of other emotions. It’s saddening to read about this but at the same time I feel a sense of pride for everyone who says they’re recovered, are in recovery, or want to recover.

Thanks to everyone that reached out and was willing to share their experiences.

“I think it’s amazing that you’re doing this so here’s my story. In the summer before 6th grade (I’m in 9th grade now) I stopped eating. I went from my healthy 130lbs to under 90lbs at my worst. I wore baggy clothes and no one even noticed. When I told my best friend finally she just said, “oh yeah sometimes I won’t eat for like 6 hours if I’ve just had a big meal.” She didn’t get it and didn’t help. Then in 8th grade I discovered rowing. The sport pushed me to regain my health and now I’m recovered completely. Rowing saved me from everything and I couldn’t be more appreciative. But I know my story is a lot better than a lot of people’s and I owe it all to the sport that gave me it all. Thanks again so much for doing this.”

“As a 5’7” rower who isn’t lightweight I felt a lot of pressure to drop weight from my coaches and teammates. “You either need to start eating less or throwing up more.” That’s what my COACH told me to do. Needless to say I have never been more disgusted in my entire life. The saddest part is that at the time, I listened. My coach finally got the message when I passed out just before weighing in. Luckily I’m now being coached under some more level headed people and am happily (and healthily) 10lbs over.”

“I used to row and I was always the smallest on my team (who didn’t race lightweight). My coach used to always tell me to eat heaps to try to gain weight to keep up with the other girls because most of them were 40lbs heavier than me. Now I’ve stopped but I keep over eating and I know I am and it disgusts me and I want to make myself throw up to get rid of the food but that disgusts me too because I should be stronger than that but I’m not. Sorry for telling you all this, I just needed to say it out loud to somebody.”

“I’ve been reading all your posts on eating disorders awareness and I want to tell you about my dick of a coach. Last season we only had one coxswain for 18 rowers so he made this girl who was 60kg (about 130lb I think) cox cause she was the lightest novice and for the first five months he was fine with it. Then about 3 weeks before the biggest regatta of the season for the novices he told her that she was too heavy as another girl (who liked to stir a lot) had been saying that it was the coxswain’s fault that they had been losing because she was overweight (it wasn’t, the girls were just lazy and didn’t have a good attitude). The coach then told the coxswain that she had to lose 10kg (about 20lb) in 3 weeks so she was pretty much starving herself and running in track pants and jerseys every day in an effort to lose weight which didn’t work because she was of a very athletic build due to being a swimmer before and would have struggled to lose weight.

There is also another girl who had to cox for similar reasons the season before that and got similar treatment from the coach but he stopped her from coxing about 2 months before the big regattas because she was “too heavy”. She transferred to rowing where she struggled due to being 6 months behind the other novices in terms of experience. About 3 months into the next season her parents pulled her out of rowing due to the fact that she had developed anorexia and they didn’t think that rowing would be healthy for her. Luckily she is alright now.”

“I rowed for three years before coxing and when I started I was about 116lbs, no muscle, and still growing. By the end of the spring season of my freshman year of high school I was 126lbs and an inch taller. I grew a few more inches, gained some weight, and by my senior year was about 140lbs. When an injury worsened and made me unable to row, I asked to cox. To make weight for my freshman year of college I started eating a meal a day, sometimes a meal every other day. I averaged out eating 400 calories a day. I lost a lot of weight but I think the stress on my body actually prevented me from losing some of the weight I could’ve lost.

It’s sad – part of me only regrets that diet because I could’ve lost more weight if I hadn’t stressed out, not because I acknowledge that it was unhealthy for me. It’s twisted. Even today, I struggle to put enough food on my plate at school and it’s a major lose lose situation: I hate myself if I put enough food on my plate because I think I’m going to gain weight and I hate myself if I don’t put enough because I’m falling back into old habits. Long story short: eating disorders suck. People who encourage unhealthy weight loss habits don’t know what rabbit hole they’re pushing someone into. And once you develop one, I’m pretty sure it will always be with you in one capacity or another.”

“I am a lightweight rower, and, at 5’6”, quite happily have a maintenance weight of around 125lbs. I also am recovering from bulimia. My disordered eating started a few years before rowing, and it was very on and off. It started as throwing up my meals, and varied from that, to starving, to over-exercising, and everything in between. When I got into rowing, and learned about weight categories, I saw no reason to try and recover when simply throwing up was a ‘convenient’ (and soon my main) way of maintaining my weight. Despite believing this, my weight has since ranged from 87lbs to 139lbs!

I started to recover when I was weighed (90.4 lbs) after fainting during training. I was dehydrated, starving, and probably smelled of ketones. My coach took me into his office and had a long talk, because a BMI of <15 is not on, no matter who you are. He knew a bit about EDs, and he saw how mine was destroying my rowing, not to mention my health and body. He offered to help, and I accepted. I won’t pretend it was easy, but I‘m so glad I did!

He started to carefully (but not obsessively) monitor my food, making sure I kept at least a protein shake or some small meal, and moved on from there. He’s not qualified, so he also made me get help from professionals, although personally I hated them. It was important I went, but the real help came from my coach and my team. I know the coach/ therapist situation is NOT the norm, but it works for us!

I‘m happy to say that today I am (mostly) recovered. Yes, the thoughts are there, and probably always will be. Do I slip up sometimes still? Yes. But my coach and I always keep an eye on my weight. If it changes madly, we discuss options. Thanks to my collapsing/ catastrophe and being very open with the crew (who were amazingly supportive, and I love then for that), a male openweight also came forward with disordered eating, and now he’s doing really well with recovery. We are proudly an ED-free crew, and we all know each other well enough that we could come and chat if there was ever a problem, and not just ED related.

EDs have no business ruining anyone’s life, so if you’re ever in doubt, talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be a therapist. Catch your club barman, coxswain, partner, librarian, anyone you can trust. You won’t regret it. I promise.”

“I‘m a rower struggling with an ED right now and I thought I‘d share my story. It seems kind of silly to me, to already have this sort of issue, since I‘ve only completed one season. But the problem with rowing is that it consumes your life. You can’t get away from it so when trouble arises, you’re stuck with it.

For me the concept of being a “lightweight” really threw me off. When I joined the team I kept seeing all these varsity girls at my highly competitive club do weigh ins, we had this tradition of really fast lightweights going to D1 schools and all of a sudden I got this idea in my head that that is the only way I‘m going to get into a school. Currently, I am 124 lbs and 5’9″. The average 5’9″ girl on my team is at least 140.

I‘ve always been very tall and very skinny. When I joined my team, I gained 5 pounds, and that was fairly new for me, considering I‘ve never really put on weight quickly.That added weight and the new stimuli, the new idea of lightweight and weight classes and weight efficiency, it all scared me, I suppose. I look in the mirror and I hate what I see. I want my muscles more defined, I want my hard work to show, but I still want to be the twiggy little girl I was. But I want to be strong.

The wonderful part of rowing is that even with all the pressure of weight restrictions and good times for heavies or moving up a boat, even with all of that, you still see the beauty of the human body. I joined rowing because I loved how our US Women’s 8+ moved, how they were able to make it look so graceful but at the same time, holy crap, their muscles. The sport has made me love what my body can do, with the weight or without it. And so I want to keep fighting, I want to eat healthy, get good times, feel GOOD about myself, just because I‘m a goddamn rower and I put in so much effort that I deserve as much from myself.

This is really long winded, but my point is that it’s scary, the idea that if you play with the heavies, you need to get times like them, but if you ‘re a lightweight, you need to keep it down. It’s hard to find a good weight and a good time and everything, it torments me all the time, it’s terrifying, it hurts, half the time I hate my body, half the time I hate myself for hating my body.”

“It’s been almost a year since I first started my battle with my eating disorder. It’s tough to be an athlete and have one. I used to run on the treadmill to prepare for soccer season. When I got down to 107 lbs my mom stopped me. She wouldn’t let me leave the house because it was likely I would be going to the gym and on an empty stomach.

My eating disorder has brought me to my knees, especially today. Today was the start of soccer tryouts. Because I purge constantly my lungs tend to act up. In the middle of a drill it happened today. I lack just about every vitamin and mineral that I need. My back does a weird twitch from it. It’s hard to control my movements with spasms running about. Not only has my eating disorder affected my breathing, but it’s also affected my muscles. It’s true when people say you lose muscle from starving. I was never strong to begin with, but it was hard for me to run today; harder than it should have been. My bones have also lost some density and find it difficult to support myself and kick a ball far.

Playing a game on an empty stomach because you just can’t bring yourself to eat is dangerous. Feeling light-headed and faint isn’t something I wanted. This isn’t how I imagined my life to be, which is why I am where I am. I’m not sure if I want recovery. All I know is that I can’t keep this up forever. Thankfully, I’ve gotten a healthy amount of calories today. Maybe this year I’ll recover. I hope so.”

“I saw your post on EDs and lightweights, and I have a little bit of input. I had developed an ED prior to becoming a rower. I swam for several years, and putting a muscular girl into a swim suit does a number on your self esteem. So when I switched to rowing, and I learned about lightweights, I thought about trying to starve myself that much more just to get to 130. That would have killed me. I‘m 5″8, and I should be about 160 lbs, but I‘m 150 because I still have a habit of restricting. So I thought about trying to hit the light weight mark, but after my first practice with restrictions, I nearly passed out. I knew I couldn’t do it. And staying healthy was more important to me than being a lightweight.

In a weird way, rowing actually helped my ED. I couldn’t restrict my intake like I had done while I was swimming. Rowing took more out of me than I had anticipated, and I ended up dropping weight without even trying. So I learned that I was allowed to eat, even if I wasn’t one of the lightest girls on the team.”

“I was in pain for a long time. As is the case in anyone with an eating disorder, or anyone with a mental disorder in general. I was quite underweight – never to the point that I needed to go to the hospital, but I was definitely hurting my body. I didn’t get my period anymore, and I regularly had trouble with my blood glucose levels. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t concentrate, and I couldn’t remember much. How I managed to get a 3.6 GPA by the time I graduated, bearing in my I had been struggling with this for 2/3 of my college years, is still a miracle to me. But I did it, and after an extremely stressful last semester where my ED was the worst of all time, I started feeling peaceful. I don’t know where it came from, but I had ended another chapter of my life, I had achieved my academic goals and had another adventure in front of me. The adventure being moving to another country to go to graduate school. I associated my college town with my disorder, and I associated my hometown with stress and family problems, so I wanted to get away. But I didn’t want to taint my experience abroad with this stupid disorder, I was done with it, I didn’t want it in my life any longer.

There wasn’t a moment where it all clicked. Sometimes you hear that from people, ED survivors, that they went out and did something and suddenly it clicked. Or they went to therapy and had an epiphany. It didn’t work like that for me. I didn’t go to therapy. I didn’t go to the doctor. I wasn’t even diagnosed. As far as I know, no one knew except for the people I told. But I wanted to get better. I started eating more regularly and I felt better. My body image was still very distorted and it was a struggle not to look in the mirror and not to stand on the scale, but at a certain point it became normal not to. It sounds so much easier when I write it down like this, but I promise to anyone who is reading this: it was the fucking hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It is harder than a 2k. It is harder than a 5k, 6k, 10k, power hour, ergathon, anything. But you distract yourself. You find things that make you feel good. Whether that’s a song, or a bath, or knitting, or drawing – anything. YOU KEEP GOING, until it becomes normal.

I was looking at my graduate university’s website and after being sedentary for quite a long time (aside from the occasional yoga and run a bit earlier in my disorder), I wanted to do some exercise. I didn’t know what, until I found information about rowing. I was scared at first, because rowers tend to look quite buff, but I read up on it and I got excited. I watched youtube videos and I got excited. I wanted that connection with people, after being alone in my disorder for so long. At first I thought I would cox, because I was still quite small, but on the open day at the beginning of the academic year I decided I was gonna row. I realised I was only this small because I hadn’t been taking care of myself, and if I would eat normally and work out normally like any other person, I would be too big for coxing, as I am quite tall. I was still scared of the weight gain, but I hadn’t been weighing myself for a long time, and I finally started wanting something more than I wanted to be thin. I wanted to be fast and strong more than I wanted to be thin. I started training with the novices, and although I was obviously out of shape, I caught on quickly and made first novice boat in November. That’s when I decided I was more interested in what my body could do than what it looked like.

It was a struggle, especially during winter training where you pack on the pounds (of muscle, but still) but I got through it. I realised that in order to be a fast rower, you need the calories. You need the food. And if that sometimes means that you have to force yourself to eat, and force yourself to overeat to the point of being uncomfortable every so often, then so be it. I remember vividly the first time I realised that my thighs were touching once more – it’s a silly little thing but for someone with an ED it’s important. It shows your ‘status’. Losing your ‘status’ means failing and failure isn’t fun for anyone. The only way I got over that was by ignoring it. Ignoring it, doing other things, ignoring it some more until it no longer matters. Until you know longer care. Make it angry. Show it who’s boss. I gained the weight and leaped over the lightweight limit over Christmas break, and leaned back down to my normal, pre-ED weight a month and a half later, just within the lightweight zone. But I’m beating PB after PB. I’m winning medals. I’m stronger, and faster, and more determined to move the boat to the finish line as fast as I can, than I ever was to be skinny.”