Hi, I feel like my endurance is decent, 10K is fine, etc. but my sprinting for a 2K race is worrying me (I started in August). I don’t know how to make it brilliant and I also struggle to get the full power out of my legs (or what it seems like to me).

Sounds like a marathoner who decided they want to switch to the 100m dash. The best way to prepare for a sprint is to practice. If all you do is long steady state pieces, you’re conditioning your body to excel at those kinds of races. Throw in some 100m, 500m, 2ks, etc. and practice bringing the stroke rate up during those pieces. Don’t try and go straight from a 22 to a 34 though…if you’re not used to rowing at a high stroke rate like that, start slow and gradually bring it up. Start at one stroke rate for a few pieces and when you can hold that stroke rate without losing your form or getting tired while still maintaining a good split, bump it up two beats for the next few pieces. When you can hold that, take it up again. The number of beats you’ll be able to take it up will decrease the more conditioned you become and eventually you’ll hit a point where you physically can’t push it up anymore (similar to a plateau).

As far as getting full power out of your legs, it goes back to the marathoner vs. sprinter thing. The muscles in your body are made up of two types of fibers – slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers are responsible for slow muscle contractions and are considered to be “fatigue resistant”, meaning they can go for long periods of time before they start to get tired. Fast twitch fibers are the opposite. They contract quickly and become fatigued rapidly. Marathoners, who tend to run for long distances, have an abundance of slow twitch fibers in their systems. Sprinters, who run very fast for very short distances, have an abundance of fast twitch fibers. Rowers are the hybrid child of marathoners and sprinters, so our training programs have to adequately build up our slow twitch fibers and our fast twitch fibers.

For you, if your endurance is good but your sprinting isn’t, it sounds like you have a decent amount of slow twitch fibers but not enough fast twitch ones. To increase those, you’ll want to add things like plyometrics, specialized strength training, and short bursts on the erg (or the track) to your training program. The strength training you do, in terms of frequency, volume, exercises, etc., has to reflect the season you’re in – pre-season, in-season, post-season, and off-season (winter training for us). For rowers during winter training, we’re preparing for the spring sprint season, so your strength training should be strength-endurance based, i.e. circuit training. Then it will shift to strength (building up the main muscles used in rowing), followed by a shift towards power (Olympic lifts and plyometrics), and then finally to power-endurance (to prepare for head race season – low weights, high reps).

Tags: qotd rowing training