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.
