Category: Training & Nutrition

College Coxing Novice Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 30, 2012

I’m 5’2 and weigh 153lbs. I can pull 1:58/500 m for a 30 minute test. I’ve been trying to lose weight but the nutritionist has essentially told me that my only option is to lose muscle (because of weight) or actually get bone removed through surgery (which I think is against NCAA rules). I was a walk-on to the crew team and want to row or cox but I have no idea what to do. My coach has told me I would make an excellent cox but I don’t know how to lose weight/approach this situation. Thank you!

One of your two “only” options is to have bone removed? That’s your nutritionist’s weight loss suggestion? Um…

The only way you would lose muscle is if you started starving yourself, which obviously no sane person recommends. You’re a good height to be a coxswain but maybe too short to row depending on how competitive your team is. The minimum for coxswains is 110lbs if you’re coxing women and 120lbs if your coxing men. You typically want to be as close to the minimum as possible (while still being healthy) to avoid adding unnecessary weight and drag to the boat. Coaches will typically give you some leeway though as to how far you can be over before they start nagging you about your weight (and nag they will). The best way to lose weight is pretty simple – diet and exercise. Substituting unhealthy foods for healthier options, eating several small meals a day, and adding in at least 30-45 minutes of exercise 3-4 times a week is a good way to get started.

Just something to keep in mind too … 153lbs is a pretty high starting point if you want to cox. If you’re at a competitive program that expects their coxswains to be right at or very close to racing weight, you’re looking at having to lose 25lbs at least. Not that that’s not possible but just be realistic with what you decide to do.

I would search the “weight loss” or “weight” tags on here because I know I’ve answered similar questions from both rowers and coxswains that will probably help you out.

Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 29, 2012

For winter training we have to do about 5 erg work outs, both as cardio (3 or 4x 10′) and distances (multiples of 500m/1k/2k). We can also substitute these by runs/biking/swimming, and specific times/distance for those are written down. I was just wondering what kind of balance would be good? So far I’ve pretty much only done the erg option (except for today) but I don’t know if that’s really beneficial. What would you advise? Or could you do half erg half run for example?

If I understand this correctly, I would do something like this:

Monday: Cardio erg + short run (one in the AM, one in the PM)

Tuesday: Long run

Wednesday: Distance erg + short run

Thursday: Bike or swim

Friday: Cardio OR distance + short run

Saturday & Sunday: OFF

It’s more beneficial to cross train by adding in some biking, swimming, and running vs. only training on the erg. The variety and increased workload force your body to do more, which means it has no choice but to adapt and get stronger. It also helps with injury prevention. If you’re constantly working your muscles and joints in the same way (i.e. by only erging), they’re being put under a large amount of stress via the same continuous, repetitive movements, which can eventually lead to overuse. Adding in some different training modes gives your overworked muscles a chance to rest and the underworked ones a chance to get stronger and get on the same level as the overworked ones. Plus, a psychological benefit is that the variety helps prevent you from becoming bored and burned out.

Ergs Q&A Technique Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 29, 2012

I have an erg at home. I’ve been using to train over the holidays like our coaches told us to, but I feel it’s making my technique get worse. I really want to train and do well on our erg test when we return from holidays, what should I do?

Over the winter when you’re training, there’s typically no one to correct your technique as you progress through a steady state piece so bad habits become ingrained pretty quickly. If you can, have a teammate come over and watch you erg. Have them point out any technique issues they notice and make note of it. The next day when you get on the erg, tape your list to the monitor and make a conscious effort to pay attention to each part of the stroke. Pause drills, technique rows, etc. would be good things to add into your workouts.

If having someone watch you isn’t an option, set your laptop webcam up to record you while you erg. You can either do it for 1-2 minutes or for the entire duration of your row if you don’t wanna get up and mess with the camera, that way you can see where your technique starts to deteriorate in relation to the amount of time you’ve spent on the erg. Another thing you can do is cut out a short (short) clip and email it to your coach to get some feedback.

Don’t spend ALL your time on the erg though. Having one readily available like that is awesome, but make sure the convenience isn’t guilt-tripping you into using it. Cross train and try to work in other workouts 2-3x a week that don’t involve erging, that way you don’t get burned out.

High School Novice Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 27, 2012

I’m a novice rower in my third season. I’m one of the strongest novice rowers, but also the heaviest (female) novice. This hasn’t seemed to be a problem before, I’m very healthy and strong, but when we did weight-adjusted pieces I began to realize it was a bit of a problem. I’m 5 7 and about 178 pounds, and about 20 pounds heavier than the other girls. I’m not self conscious about my weight, although according to my BMI I am slightly over weight, and now I’m realizing I could perform better if I was slightly lighter. I’ve tried dieting before, but I’ve always felt weak and worried about my strength while working out three hours every day. Do you have any tips about losing weight healthily as rower?

First, as an athlete, don’t take your BMI too seriously. BMI can’t tell how much muscle mass you have and since muscle tends to weigh more than fat, it more often than not classifies athletes (of all kinds) as overweight or obese when they’re obviously not.

To lose weight in a healthy manner, it’s requires a fairly simple, boring combination of diet and exercise. To lose fat mass, cardio is the way to go – biking, runnng, swimming, erging, etc. 3-4x a week. To maintain your strength, do core and weight training 2x a week. The biggest change will come from your diet. Successful weight loss tends to be about 70% diet and 30% exercise. As a rower, you’ve got the exercise part covered, so your diet is where you’ll want to focus your attention. Take inventory of what you eat and then spend some time finding healthy substitutes and slowly phasing out the unhealthy stuff. Don’t try and go cold turkey on Ben & Jerry’s or whatever because that’ll just make you want it more.

The reason you were probably feeling weak before when you were dieting is because you weren’t doing it the right way. To some extent, yes, dieting is about adjusting your caloric intake, but it’s more about just making healthier overall choices. You’re young and active, so your metabolism is probably still fairly high, so you’re burning energy a lot faster than the normal person, which means you need to be eating foods that provide an adequate amount of energy for a long period of time. Don’t try and limit how much you eat..if anything, you want to increase the number of meals you eat (instead of 3 large meals, eat 5 small meals) and substitute healthier options for the not-so-healthy stuff.

Also, don’t focus too much on what the scale says. Check it periodically (like, every couple of days or once a week) but look for more noticeable changes, like your jeans fitting a little looser or changes in your measurements – tangible stuff like that is a better indication of weight loss than the scale.

Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 27, 2012

What’s your opinion on rowers smoking/drinking? Do you think there can ever be a balance or should athletes just avoid it?

Well, smoking for one is a straight no because lung function is kind of important to rower and smoking, obviously, hinders that. I also feel like drinking is fairly self-explanatory too. When you’re training and in-season, there’s really no place for it. If you’re just having like, a beer then whatever but if you’re pounding Jagerbombs knowing that you have practice the following morning then maybe take a step back and reevaluate your priorities.

Many teams implement a “dry policy” when they’re in season too that everyone’s expected to adhere to. You also have to consider how your behavior is going to effect yourself, your boat, and your team if you’re drinking or partying too much. That’s an important one to consider because with any other sport, you can put the second-string player in and it wouldn’t effect much. With rowing, adding in a new person to the boat that you’re not used to rowing with or being coxed by can unintentionally mess everything up.

Common sense isn’t all that common but it really reigns supreme here. Situations like this are all about exercising good judgement and just using your common sense.

Ergs Q&A Racing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 24, 2012

Where I live we are in the mid of racing season and obviously have the Christmas break off from set trainings. I am planning to lose a little bit of weight for rowing, hopefully have finished just after mid January when we have seat racing planned just before summer camp. I am only aiming to lose 6kg and I have already nearly lost 2, I might not quite get there but yeah. Our coaches generally only weigh us at the start of the season (as we are too young for weights). Should I ask to be weighed before the seat racing so it doesn’t affect the results? When doing seat racing do you take into account rower’s weight? If I lose weight, will it affect my erg score? I am ‘lightweight’ but we don’t race under weight categories, but under age & gender.

If you only race under age/gender, I don’t think it would matter too much. If you’re racing against another “lightweight” they’re just going to look at whether you’re under 130lbs (or whatever lightweight is for you) and go from there. They won’t care about the specific weight. If you want to weigh yourself, you can, but I doubt your coaches would take it into consideration. It’s a question worth asking them though just to be sure.

If you lose weight but maintain or gain muscle in place of the fat you lose, then no, I doubt there will be a change in your erg score since you’ll be maintaining your strength. If it is affected in some way, I would assume it’d be positively because hopefully you’re losing weight through proper diet and strength training, which means you’d be building muscle. Increased muscle mass = increased power = lower splits. If you lose weight (typically in an unhealthy way) that causes you to lose both muscle AND fat, then yes, your erg score will probably be negatively affected.

Ergs Q&A Rowing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 24, 2012

This question was sparked from the answers involving fast twitch/ slow twitch fibers. My team is off for a few weeks for the holidays (yay my coaches have hearts!) but we were told 2 things before we went off to enjoy our break: 1) to keep up with our workouts (obviously) and 2) to expect a 2k when we get back. What would the best workouts for me to do to prep for a 2k?

I think I mentioned this in the previous question, but plyometrics and intervals are great because the amount of time spent doing “work” is short, which works your anaerobic system. Depending on how much time you have available during the week to workout, I’d try to do something like this:

Monday: Steady state + lift
Tuesday: Intervals (8×500, 40 seconds on/20 seconds off, etc.)
Wednesday: Circuit
Thursday: Steady state
Friday: Steady state + core

That’s a very rough outline, but hopefully you get the idea. On Saturday or Sunday, I’d try to do a long run just to switch up your training and get you off the erg for a bit. You don’t want the fast twitch to overtake the slow twitch by too much – there needs to be an equal balance of the two, so make sure you’re not dropping the marathoner in favor of the sprinter.

Q&A Rowing Technique Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 23, 2012

Hi! I was looking at this past question from back in October. I know I do this too but, I watched the video and I don’t know if I do the shooting the slide thing but I do get pain in my lower back after longer rowing sessions. I don’t understand how to fix the problem unless I am in a single. My coaches mentioned placing the oars, then waiting to feel something to ‘grip’ on to then take the stroke. How am I meant to apply this in a boat?

To answer the first part regarding the pain in your low back: it’s possible that you shoot your slide a little bit but not enough that you’d be able to see it on video unless you slowed it down. When I’ve watched video before with my coaches I’ve seen things in slow motion that I never noticed at regular speed. It’s usually the really intricate stuff that most rowers don’t worry about until late high school and college, but if you look closely, you can see it. Other causes of low back pain that I can think of are:

Arching your back. In an effort to sit up straighter, some rowers will unknowingly puff their chests out and exaggerate the curvature in their backs

Not enough core strength. If your core muscles aren’t developed enough, it can make your low back sore from trying to maintain good posture. Planks and side planks are two of the best exercises a rower can do in order to develop their core strength. Try adding those into your stretching/workout routine if you don’t already do them and see if that helps. A really basic assessment for core strength is to do a plank and see how long you can hold it for. 30-60 seconds is average, longer than 60 seconds is considered strong, and less than 30 seconds means you’re a weakling.

Herniated disc. This is one of the most common injuries with rowers. This article from the New York Times explains everything you’ve ever wanted to know about them. Even if you think this is a slim possibility, you should still go to the doctor just to have it ruled out. Rowers careers have ended over these things and it’s unfortunate when they find out that if they’d gone to the doctor sooner, something could have been done to correct it.

There are many other causes of low back pain, including just plain poor technique, but these are some of the most common causes. Regardless of whether or not the pain is acute or constant, you should really get it checked out. Better safe than sorry. Also make sure you stretch before AND after practice.

Going back to what your coach said about “placing the oars”, this is something I’ve heard one of the Harvard coaches say and it’s one of the reasons why you don’t want to have a “death grip” on your oar otherwise you can’t feel what your coach is talking about. When you’re on the recovery you’re pushing the oars away from you (in the direction of your fingertips). At the catch when you place the blades in the water, you’ll feel the oars change direction because there will be a slight push-back into your palms. When you feel that push-back, that’s when you start your drive (which is why it’s important to make sure your slide is synced with your blades).

College Ergs Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 22, 2012

How much steady state is too much and how do you know if you’re pushing too hard or not enough? Currently I’m doing: 70′, 17s/m, 2:05-2:10/500m three times a week (Heavyweight male U23). Thank you!

This is a fairly common debate amongst rowers and coaches – how much is too much and is there actually such a thing as too much steady state. When rowers do steady state, the focus is typically on improving endurance, which is controlled by the aerobic system. This usually does result in endurance gains but the effectiveness of your anaerobic system declines. It changes the makeup of your skeletal muscle and converts fast twitch fibers to slow twitch fibers. This change in your muscle makeup leads to a decrease in speed and power production. To use the example I used in the post I linked to, think of marathoners and sprinters. Marathoners are primarily made up of slow twitch fibers (their races are run “slow” and steady) whereas sprinters are primarily comprised of fast twitch fibers (they’re speed demons). Rowers need to be an equal balance of both, hence why I said rowers are the hybrids of marathoners and sprinters.

To sum it up, volume-wise, I don’t think you’re doing too much. The other one or two days a week, you should add in some interval work at or near your 2k pace. In terms of knowing whether you’re going hard enough or not, my biggest suggestion is to invest in a heart rate monitor so you’ll be able to more accurately see if you’re staying within the various training bands (UT2, UT1, AT, etc.).

High School Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow December 21, 2012

So this might sound funny but why am I always hungry?I I’m a high school girl and I began rowing about a year ago so while I have my general bearings, I’m still learning something new about the sport everyday and I was just curious. Ever since I’ve started rowing I’ve noticed that I have a much bigger appetite than when I participated in other sports. Is it just cause I’m a growing teenager or is this every rower?

It’s partially because you’re a growing teenager, but it really is every rower. Rowing is a full body sport in that it requires a LOT of muscles from nearly every major muscle group. In order for your body to have enough energy to fuel those muscles during practice or a race, you have to eat … a LOT. The number of calories you burn is a lot more than with any other sport, so the calories you take in has to be significantly higher than what you’re probably used to. Elite rowers (and I’m sure many collegiate rowers as well) tend to eat something small when they wake up before practice, something small after practice, breakfast, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, followed by dinner, and maybe another small snack after that. During the Olympics I remember reading many articles that talked about the diets of some elite rowers and they were taking in something like 6,000 calories a day at the peak of their training, which is (hopefully) 2-3x what the normal person would eat.

If you have a bigger appetite than normal, don’t ignore it. Make healthy decisions on what to eat and recognize the fact that it’s just your body telling you that it’s working hard. As long as you’re not shoving Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory down your throat every time you sit down for a meal, the likelihood that you’ll gain any weight is slim since you’re burning it off through practice/racing and daily living.