Tag: height

Q&A Rowing

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Hi! I’m the tallest girl on the team and have a lot of trouble carrying boats because I feel as if I’m being crushed. I’m 6 feet tall. I’d say my shoulders are about 2-4 inches higher than everyone else’s. Do you have any suggestions on how to make it not as heavy or more evenly spread or something? (Oh and by the way…. I love your blog!)

An easy solution is to line up by height so that you’ve got someone of similar or equal height on the other side of you but you might be stuck in an uncomfortable situation if you’re the tallest out of everyone.

Related: How to cox a boat in and out of the house

It might end up being that you just have to carry the boat off your shoulder and hold it beside you so it’s at the same level as everyone else. Get the next tallest rower in your boat though and pair up with them when you get the boat off the racks or out of the water. Even if they aren’t as tall as you, it might lessen the burden on your shoulder a little bit.

Q&A Training & Nutrition

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Are lightweight rowers expected to be taller? I always see a ton of heavies on the shorter side, but I’m 5’9″ and a lightweight so would I probably need to gain some weight?

Lightweights are actually shorter than most heavy/openweight rowers simply because it’s harder to be that tall and maintain a lightweight’s body weight (130lbs or 160lbs). If you aren’t struggling to maintain your weight, are healthy, and the weight you’re at now is fairly natural for you, I wouldn’t worry about it. The most important thing is that you aren’t taking any extraordinary measures to be at or below the lightweight max. When lightweights are borderline and finally decide that they don’t want to keep trying to maintain 130 or 160lbs, I equate it to their body exhaling a sigh of relief. They’ll gain some weight but it’ll mostly be without any extra effort on their part. Their body essentially does all the work in order to get them up to the weight that is natural for them.

Looking at the lightweights that were on this year’s Olympic team, on the men’s side in the LWT 4- their height ranged from 5’11” to 6’2″ (tall yes, but short in comparison to the heavies who were all 6’5″ and taller). The women only competed in the LWT 2x and both of them were 5’6″.

College Q&A Recruiting Rowing

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So you told that other anon that height is what stops good rowers. I’m 5′ 7” and one of the better people on my team, though one of the shortest. I think I may grow just another inch, give or take. My coach always tells me, “you’re shorter than I think you would be from your scores.” Is that good or bad? And is it not possible for me to get recruited for a D1 college if I’m too short? What is “too short?” Sorry that’s a lot of questions. Thanks!

Well, it doesn’t necessarily “stop” them, per se, the national teams just have specific requirements that only a specific group of people meet. It makes sense, to be honest. Taller rowers typically have a longer reach and can generate more power so it’s understandable that those would be the type of people they’d be looking for. On the other hand it’s a little unfortunate since there are many great rowers out there who don’t meet the height requirements.

If I’m reading that correctly, I’d definitely take it as a compliment. I think what he’s saying is that looking at you, it doesn’t seem, based on whatever factors, that you’d be able to pull the times that you do, so to see you pulling times that are comparable with the taller people is really impressive.

I don’t think it limits you from being recruited at all. I’ve said in a couple other responses that if being a lightweight is something you can do (in a healthy way), it’s worth considering since lightweight programs were created for people of “normal height” but being 5’7″ – 5’8″ definitely doesn’t rule you out of openweight programs. As I’ve said before, there are a lot of factors that go into recruiting an athlete and one’s height is probably not the biggest one when compared to other things like erg times, academics, etc., mainly because it’s something you don’t have any control over.

College Rowing

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Is it unrealistic for someone who is 5’7 to row at a D1 school or would I be better off on the club level? I’m really interested in the challenge of rowing in college, I just don’t know if I’d physically be able to. I was just wondering since in your last answer you said the average person on your club team is 5’3-5’7.

Depends – are you a guy or a girl? If you’re a guy then you’re gonna be on the short side by several inches if you’re looking at pretty much any of the Sprints schools. If you’re a girl, you might still be on the shorter side but not so much that you’d be out of the running for any of the boats.

Height is just one factor when it comes to rowing (and it’s far from being the most important). If your erg times measure up to what college teams are looking for and you’ve got a solid rowing resume there’s no reason why you wouldn’t get an equal look when compared to someone who’s 6’0″. Plus, if you’re a lightweight that can work in your favor too when looking at colleges. Lightweight teams were in essence created specifically for shorter rowers – and by shorter I mean “average height” people, not the freakishly tall amazons that dominate most collegiate teams. Not a lot of teams have dedicated lightweight squads, so you’d have to do some research to find out what schools have them if that’s something you’re interested in.

Ultimately, I wouldn’t worry too much about your height. Your height isn’t something you have control over but how strong you are, your erg times, what you bring to the team … all of that is stuff you have control over. Focus on the variables you can change, not the ones you can’t.