Category: Video of the Week

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Dirty Dozen Rowing Club

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This is pretty cool. Eyebrow-raising, entertaining, WTF, and cool. The video goes along with this very long article from FOX Sports but it is well worth reading when you have an hour or so to kill (i.e. in the car, at the airport, etc.).

Related: Allen Rosenberg on coaching (and coxing)

The beginning of the video pretty much sums of The Dirty Dozen’s story: “If you know what a rowing crew is supposed to look like then you know this isn’t it.” Basically it’s about a group of guys who get together, decide they want to represent the US at the 1984 Olympics, and then train and compete across the world in preparation for the trials and selection in Princeton. There are a couple names that most people familiar with rowing history will recognize, including Brad Alan Lewis and Allen Rosenberg. It’s a really neat story and one you’ve probably never heard of so definitely check it out.

Rowing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Traits of a Champion

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This is a great video to watch and absorb now that we’re all in the midst of winter training. What does being a champion mean to you? It might be some of the things mentioned here, it might be all of them, or it might be none of them but whatever your definition is, repeat it to yourself before each practice and before every erg piece, run, and lift. Don’t let a hard workout or a workout you don’t want to do make you forget what being a champion means and entails.

Here’s the list of what’s mentioned in the video.

Champions focus on the end result; they train with a sense of purpose.

A champion never thinks they’re working hard enough and want to do more.

A champion trains in the moment without thought about the next practice.

Championships are earned in the winter and champions are crowned in the spring.

Everyone wants to win but there can only be one champion.

The goal of a champion is to win and it is your decision whether you wish to pursue it or not.

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

A champion is someone who is bent over drenched in sweat and at the point of exhaustion when no one is watching.

A champion is someone who focuses on the process of becoming a winner rather than actually winning.

If being a champion is a choice then it is your choice to make.

If you have a team meeting where you discuss your goals for the upcoming season, that would be a good time to determine how you define being a champion and what traits you as a group need to employ to meet that definition and achieve your goals.

Racing Rowing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: “Do GoPros have audio?” “Yea.” “Uh oh.”

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Some of you might have seen this already but last week row2k posted on YouTube the video from the 10 year reunion row of the 2004 men’s eight that happened back in May. They took it down Sunday night and reposted it on row2k so that’s where this week’s VOTW links to since I can’t share it directly on here. Not only is the banter/commentary hilarious but it’s also fascinating to hear Pete’s stories about what was happening at each point during the race (that race being the 2004 Olympic final in Athens).

College Coxing High School Training & Nutrition Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Katelin Snyder on winter training

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This is an interview that row2k did with Katelin Snyder, the women’s national team coxswain, earlier this year on the coxswain’s role during winter training, the difference between what the winter months are like in high school vs. college vs. with the national team, her advice for a coxswain going into their first winter training season, etc. I think we can all relate to her comment about how you can “only rearrange the cox boxes so many times”. Been there, done that, right?

Related: Coxswains + winter training

There’s definitely some good stuff to take away from what she says that you can apply to your own “winter training” so make sure to watch the whole video and also check out the post linked above for more ideas on how to spend the next couple of months.

Training & Nutrition Video of the Week

Video of the Week: There’s only two things you can do…

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This video isn’t related to rowing at all but I think it’s a great one to kick off the winter training season. The part that you should really internalize and take to heart is the last line: there’s only two things you can do when people say you’re not good enough; you can prove them right or you can prove them wrong.

For those of you who aren’t too into football or are unfamiliar with the sport, here’s some background. The guy in the video is Julian Edelman, a wide receiver and punt returner for the New England Patriots. In college he played quarterback at Kent State and wasn’t expected to make much of an impact in the NFL due to his size and lack of experience at WR. People wrote him off from the get go but over the last five years he’s become one of the best guys on the Pats offense.

Use him as inspiration/motivation over the next few months. If there’s something you think you can’t do or someone has said doesn’t seem likely (whether that’s breaking 6:40 on your 2k because you’re not fit enough, earning a seat in the 1v because you’re “too small”, or medaling at nationals because you’re not experienced enough) remember that you can either prove them right or you can prove them wrong. Whatever you end up doing though, the choice is yours.

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Scullers hack

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This video is just Gevvie Stone doing a “racing shell 101” with her boat but the reason I’m posting it is because her hack of screwing a water bottle holder to the vent cap is kinda genius. Obviously you can’t do something like that in an eight or a shell you don’t own yourself but if you do happen to own your own boat, how great of an idea is that?

Coxing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Coxswains you should know and admire

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So, this week’s VOTW is a little different. I’m all for looking up to people with gold medals and whatever else but I also think it’s important (more so, even) to have role models within our sport who aren’t known simply for their athletic achievements because as much as we’d like to think that rowing is the end all be all to life, it’s not. The majority of you that are reading this right now probably won’t continue with crew in college, even fewer will do it all four years, and even fewer will make a run at the elite level. A couple of you might eventually try your hand at coaching but pretty much all of you will do something else entirely. That’s just the way it is which is why it’s important to think about “what’s next”.

I got to know Eden earlier this year and she’s an amazingly talented person, not to mention a kick-ass coxswain as well. She walked on to Princeton’s lightweight women’s team her freshman year, coxed the Canadian national team’s women’s development eight to a win at Henley and at Holland-Beker in 2012 (two years after she started coxing – TWO YEARS), and coxed Princeton’s varsity eight to a 5th place finish at IRAs this year. Oh, and she dropped out of college following her sophomore year after being awarded $100,000 from the Thiel Foundation.

The reason I’m posting this even though it has little to do with actual rowing is because I wanted to highlight someone awesome within our sport that has accomplished a lot outside of rowing while using many of the applicable-to-real-life skills she learned as a coxswain along the way. It’s important that throughout your time as a coxswain or a rower that you develop those skills so that when it comes time to apply for college, go on job interviews, pitch your ideas to potential investors, etc. you can actually put them to use and demonstrate how being a coxswain/rower taught you XYZ and be able to offer some legitimate, non-cliche examples of how you’ve used those skills off the water.