I’m currently a novice coxswain at my school’s club team. I weigh about 125ish. I’m thinking about transferring schools but I still want to do crew. One of the schools I was looking at was D3 and they said that coxswains should weigh less than 115. Do you think they would let me cox because I have already been doing that or would I need to lose weight? I try to work out. I’m planning on doing winter training but I’m not a good runner and I don’t have much erg experience so I don’t know if it would pay off.
If you have the option you could cox for men where the minimum for coxswains is 125lbs. I think you should talk with them and explain that you’ve been coxing for X number of seasons and would like to continue but be prepared for them to reiterate that they want their coxswains at 115lbs or under. (It’s not an unreasonable request either, especially when racing weight for women is 110lbs.)
If you’re not a good runner, that’s OK. You can always walk on the treadmill (put the speed at higher than normal walking pace but lower than jogging and/or put it on an incline), do the stair stepper, or hop on the bike. You should learn how to properly erg and try doing short pieces so you can develop the muscle memory. One of the things that really bothers me with coxswains is those who tell rowers what to do in terms of the stroke, body positions, etc. but don’t know how to at least erg themselves. There are plenty of ways to workout though beyond running and erging – find something you like and that you’ll stick with and just commit to doing it.
