Category: Training & Nutrition

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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Hey! At the end of the spring season I was one of the best rowers on my team. I had some of the strongest erg scores and was stroking the 1V8+. However I was rowing through an injury, it was a plica so there was no structural damage, and after receiving a cortisone shot, the pain went down a lot, so I was cleared to row though they said to go see another dr. over the summer for potential surgery. The Dr. I saw over the summer took an MRI and decided to try PT and an anti-inflammatory. She also said to limit my exercise to non-impact workouts, which pretty much meant no erging/rowing, running, or biking. I did do some swimming this summer and focused on building core strength. Now I’m back at school in pre-season, it definitely helped, and my knee is better. However my erg scores (obviously) haven’t been where they were and it’s been discouraging. I’ve been going to every practice to gain an advantage, before mandatory practice starts, but it’s so hard motivating myself to go when I know I’ll be in the middle of the pack, even though I know the only way to get better is by going. What’s worse is that my coach ignores me. This sucks because I’ve picked up that that’s what he does to the girls who maybe aren’t the top rowers on the team. Do you have any advice on how I can boost my moral?

Ah yes, I’m familiar with plica syndrome. I’m pretty sure the chondromalacia that the doctors say I have in the knee I dislocated is actually this. It’s definitely not a pleasant thing to deal with – I can’t believe you rowed through it! I wouldn’t keep doing that though if it starts acting up again just because you will, without question, end up exacerbating the problem and ultimately end up with an injury that is way more severe than this one and will keep you off the water for an even longer period of time.

Even though your erg scores aren’t where you want them to be right now, I think you can at least take comfort in knowing that they’re where they are for a legitimate reason and not because you were lazy and sat around on your ass all summer. There’s nothing wrong with being in the middle of the pack either. I know people look at it as some colossal failure if they were previously at the head of the pack but it’s really not that big of a deal. If you’re relatively in shape then you shouldn’t have any issue getting back to where you were in a reasonable amount of time.

Instead of focusing on getting your scores back to where they were just focus on improving where you’re at right now. If you’re currently pulling (for example) a 1:55 split for a 2k but your PR is a 1:46 then yea, no wonder you’re discouraged. That’s a lot of time to try and make up. Stop focusing on the 1:46 though and instead work on making small improvements on the 1:55. Eventually you’ll get back to where you were but it’ll be a lot easier if you set more reasonable goals for yourself (i.e. like maintaining a 1:53 on your next test…). Being able to knock off small goals on your way to a larger one is much more motivating and better for morale.

If you think your coach is ignoring you, set up a one-on-one meeting with him sometime this week so you can update him on what your doctors told you, what you did this summer in terms of working out, and what your plan is to get your times back to where they were. If he doesn’t have any idea as to what’s going on and it just looks like you came back to campus out of shape then I can understand why he’d be annoyed. I don’t necessarily condone ignoring you for it but I can at least where he might be coming from. Clue him in and go from there. I would also touch base with the sports med staff that works with your team and work something out with them too, that way you can tell your coach that you met/will be meeting with them so that he sees that you’re serious about taking care of yourself and you’re not being flippant about this whole situation.

Q&A Rowing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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How do you deal with being burned out when you can’t take a break? We only have one race left but it’s not for another couple of weeks and I can’t bail on my boat because 1. WTF bailing on your coaches/teammates isn’t an option and 2. we don’t have any suitable alternates. I love rowing I’ve just been going nonstop for so many months that I physically and mentally need a hiatus. Is it just a “suck it up” type deal or a mental block that I can bypass?

I think it’s both – if you know you can’t take time off and there’s no one suitable to replace you then your only option is pretty much to just grit your teeth and HTFU. I think it’s also something you can … maybe not bypass completely but something you can at least work towards coping with, if that makes sense.

From my experience, the best thing you can do is tell your teammates. There’s four or eight other people in the boat with you and they all, theoretically, have your back. If you’re getting to the point of being over it to the max, tell them that you need some encouragement or a rousing pep talk or something to help you get your head back in the game. A couple of us did that my junior year and it resulted in all of us going on an impromptu trip to get slushies after practice and have a major bitch fest about pretty much everything we all had going on. (If I remember correctly, we were there when they closed which meant we sat there for probably close to five hours.) I think unbeknownst to each other, to varying extents we were all burned out on crew, school, college stuff, the SATs/ACTs, etc. and the thing we all really needed (in addition to getting away from the boathouse for a bit) was to know that we weren’t the only ones feeling like that. For the next two weeks or so, even though we were all scattered amongst the 1V, 2V, and lightweight 8+, we were able to give each other quick words of encouragement on the dock, in between pieces, etc. Not only did it help us stay focused but it also helped push us through that mental block, even if it was only for 2-3 hours a day for the last couple weeks of the season.

This was one of the moments where I really appreciated my teammates because I remember a couple of them saying things that I absolutely needed to hear … I just didn’t know it until they said it. We all admitted to not wanting to say anything to anyone because we didn’t want to be that person that seems like they’re not fully invested in the boat but it ended up being really good that we did. Like I said, your teammates should have your back and they should be supportive of you through good times and bad so hopefully if you bring this up with them they can give you some words of advice that’ll help you get through the next couple of weeks before your race.

If all of that isn’t an option, do your absolute BEST to only think about crew when you’re at crew. When you’re at home, at school, eating lunch, on the drive to the boathouse, walking through Target, etc. keep your thoughts on anything but rowing. Let your friends and family know that too and ask them to respect the fact that you’re feeling kinda burned out and only want to talk about/deal with crew between the hours of 3-5pm when you’re at practice. When you’re there, then like I said early, grit your teeth and suck it up for those couple of hours and then as soon as leave turn the crew part of your brain OFF.

High School Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m a high school rower and am in my team’s LW V4. We’re going to SE Regionals this weekend and have a shot to place for nationals, so I’m really excited! The whole season I have been naturally under 130, ranging from 127-130ish. At the beginning of this week my weight was up a little (I know it fluctuates day to day), but we don’t have practice after Wednesday and I was just wondering if you had any advice for how I should keep my weight in control for this weekend. I’ve heard different things like do cardio (obviously) and eat fibrous foods until the day before when you should eat energy dense food that doesn’t weigh you down. I love your blog and love to relate to other rowers during my spring season! Thanks!

The best thing you can do between now and this weekend is make sure you’re drinking water and watching what you eat. By that I mean just make sure you’re eating sensibly (five small meals a day) and not eating foods that are super calorie-dense, high in salt, etc. Salads, greek yogurt, fruit, chicken breast, steamed veggies, etc. are all solid options. If you’re not practicing on Thursday or Friday I’d recommend going for a medium to long-ish easy run (enough to get your heart rate up but not so much that you’re going to feel the effects in the following days) just so you can get a workout or two in before you weigh-in. If you’ve naturally been under though, you’ll most likely be fine. Remember, you can be 130lbs on the dot and still make weight. Just be smart about what you’re eating.

To miss a workout (for no good reason) when you’re training for the Worlds or Olympics is utterly devastating. You know that you’ll never again have that unique window of time: Wednesday, November 9, any year, 3:17 PM – 5:58 PM. You missed it. Your opponent on the other side of the country (or planet) however, did not miss it. He rowed his 20 kilometers; he managed to make a tiny little improvement, (which will then grow like a weed in his skill-set), and in eight months time he will kick your ass. No matter how you cut it, you are fucked!

Brad Alan Lewis "Lido for Time"

Ergs Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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What are some good erg workouts that you find particularly helpful to lower 2k times?

Steady state! Longer pieces (45-70min total) help to increase your aerobic capacity which in turn allows you to go harder for longer. The key is to do them at a consistent, manageable pace so that your heart rate is consistently in the 140-170bpm range, give or take a little depending on your individual fitness. If you’re going out and doing long pieces but at a high percentage of your max heart rate, you’re most likely going above your anaerobic threshold which is counter-intuitive.

You also want to keep the stroke rates fairly low – somewhere in the 18-22ish range is usually good. If you know your 2k split you want your steady state split to be 16-18ish seconds above that. If you’re going off your 6k split it should be about 10-12 seconds above that.

Some examples of workouts include 7×10′ (2′ off between pieces), 10k at 18-20spm, 3 x 20′, etc. There’s tons of good examples on the /r/rowing sub on Reddit – just search “steady state” and you’ll easily be able to see what other people are doing.

Don’t forget to include interval stuff as well – 8x500m, 4x1k, 1:40 on/0:20 off, etc. In order to row well you’ve got to have a good balance of aerobic and anaerobic fitness so that you can go hard and fast when you need to and then be able to settle into a solid pace for an extended period of time.

College Q&A Training & Nutrition

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This winter I got injured. I’ve tried different treatments but haven’t had success. I tried cortisone shots but that made my pain worse. From what I’ve been told it seems like my next step is surgery. Though it’s arthroscopic the recovery time is 4-6 weeks. I’m terrified of the surgery and upset over maybe missing my first college spring season. Do you have any words of wisdom to help me through this? Also if I competed in the fall would I be able to redshirt or would I have had to be out in the fall?

Regarding redshirting, here’s a copy and paste of what it says in the NCAA Rulebook. I’ve bolded the important parts to make it easier to understand. If you want to look it up yourself it’s Bylaw 14.2.4, “Hardship Waiver”, but it’d be in your best interest to go talk to your compliance officer about it since they know the rule book and logistics surrounding everything far better than I do.

“A student-athlete may be granted an additional year of competition by the conference or the Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement for reasons of “hardship.” Hardship is defined as an incapacity resulting from an injury or illness that has occurred under all of the following conditions:

(a) The incapacitating injury or illness occurs in one of the four seasons of intercollegiate competition at any two-year or four-year collegiate institutions or occurs after the first day of classes in the student-athlete’s senior year in high school;

(b) The injury or illness occurs prior to the first competition of the second half of the playing season that concludes with the NCAA championship in that sport (see Bylaw 14.2.4.3.4) and results in incapacity to compete for the remainder of that playing season;

(c) In team sports, the injury or illness occurs when the student-athlete has not participated in more than three contests or dates of competition (whichever is applicable to that sport) or 30 percent (whichever number is greater) of the institution’s scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition in his or her sport. Only scheduled or completed competition against outside participants during the playing season that concludes with the NCAA championship, or, if so designated, during the official NCAA championship playing season in that sport (e.g., spring baseball, fall soccer), shall be countable under this limitation in calculating both the number of contests or dates of competition in which the student-athlete has participated and the number of scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition during that season in the sport.

Dates of competition that are exempted (e.g., alumni contests, foreign team in the United States) from the maximum permissible number of contests or dates of competition shall count toward the number of contests or dates in which the student-athlete has participated and the number of scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition in the season, except for scrimmages and exhibition contests that are specifically identified as such in the sport’s Bylaw 17 playing and practice season regulations. Scrimmages and exhibition contests that are not exempted from the maximum permissible number of contests or dates of competition may be excluded from the calculation only if they are identified as such in the sport’s Bylaw 17 playing and practice season regulations.

(There’s a part “d” but it applies to individual sports, which rowing is not, so I didn’t include it.)

If you raced in the fall I don’t think that matters since part “b” says the injury has to happen before the first competition of the second half of the season that ends with the NCAA championships. Talk to your compliance person to be sure though. All that being said, you have to be able to provide proof (aka medical documentation from the athletic trainers and your doctors/surgeons) that the injury is season-ending. I’m not saying yours isn’t or couldn’t be considered that but an arthroscopic surgery with a recovery time of 4-6 weeks might make the rules committee question its severity.

Be realistic too, do you really want to stay in school any longer than necessary just to say you raced all four seasons? This is just my opinion obviously but there’s no way I’d shell out an extra semester or year’s worth of tuition just to row for another season. If I was a football or basketball player with serious NFL/NBA potential, I’d probably consider it (then again, I’d also probably be on scholarship which would make it an easier decision) but for rowing, I don’t think so.

If none of the therapies you’ve tried so far have worked and the doctors are saying the next step is surgery then you should probably have the surgery. Admittedly I’m a terrible person to ask about things like this because if I’m injured I’m just gonna do whatever I’ve gotta do to get back on the water. Being scared of having the surgery is a totally foreign concept to me because I tend to take a very pragmatic approach to these kinds of situations. I’d rather get knocked out for a few hours and be in some pain for a few days afterwards but know that the problem is fixed than be in a consistent amount of pain for weeks, months, or years on end because I’m afraid of the scalpel or whatever. Anyways, that’s just my point of view. If you look up any college roster you’ll probably see at least two or three rowers with “sat out their sophomore season due to medical hardship” or “redshirted their freshman year” in their bios. It’s not uncommon.

My advice? Schedule the surgery ASAP, get it done, and be extremely diligent with your rehab. You could conceivably be back before the end of the season if you had the surgery soon and while you might not be in the best boat, you could probably still vie for a spot in a boat. Something is better than nothing, right? Don’t rush anything though. If the doctors say you need to take the season off, do it.

Training & Nutrition Video of the Week

Video of the Week: “I Seek Failure”

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Adam Kreek, a 2008 gold medalist in the M8+ from Canada, gave a Ted Talk back in mid-December on an interesting topic: “the power of non-attainment”, aka what you learn and get out of failing at something.

Here are three things I liked from his talk.

“Even though we’re competing against each other, we’re on the same team. I can learn something from him.”

At 6:40 listen to his explanation of what “I seek failure” means. If you embraced that idea and applied it to one workout every week, how much better of an athlete could/would you be?

“…I’ve realized you can fail and be happy or fail and be sad. You can succeed and be happy or you can succeed and be sad.” I bet if you think about every erg test, every training session, and every race you’ve been apart of you’ll find at least one thing that falls into each of those categories.

Put this in the context of a 2k test. You can succeed and be happy because you trained hard for the test and the result was a new PR. You can succeed and be sad knowing that even though you set a new PR you didn’t train as hard as you could have, didn’t push yourself throughout the piece like you know you’re capable of, and didn’t PR by as much as you were hoping for. You can fail and be happy because even though you didn’t set a new PR you finally pushed through the wall you always hit at 300m left. Or … you can fail and be sad because everything that could have gone wrong in this piece went wrong. Shit happens, right? You should look at this as a learning opportunity, regardless of what the outcome was, because there’s always something to be learned from a 2k, be it something physical or psychological.

Don’t underestimate the things you can learn from your teammates either. I’ve said this numerous times to the coxswains on here – if one of your teammates is really good at something and you’re actively trying to get better at that same thing, go ask them what they did to get so good at it. You never know when they’ll drop a knowledge bomb like “I seek failure” on you.

Coxing Q&A Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

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Hi! I’m a high school women’s coxswain and I recently weighed myself for the first time in a while. I weigh 124 and I’m 5’3″. I know this is heavy for a women’s coxswain and I know that I didn’t weigh this much during the summer. I’ve decided that I want to lose about 7 pounds by monitoring what I eat more and doing a little more exercise. Do you know about how long that would take me? Also, if you could suggest some workouts I could do at home that are good for losing weight, it would really be appreciated. Thank you so much!

How long it takes depends on a lot of individual factors but if you loosely followed the “suggested” guideline of losing no more than 2lbs per week I’d say it’d take maybe a month, give or take a week. Workouts that get your heart rate up will be what you want to focus on so going for a 45-60 minute bike ride or run would be good. Just make sure that you’re making healthy choices with the foods you eat – working out isn’t going to make any difference if you’re still eating crappy food.

Also, don’t weigh yourself every day because you’re not going to notice a difference. The average person fluctuates +/- 2-5lbs every day so if you want to get an accurate idea of how much you’ve lost, try to only weigh yourself once every few days.