College Training & Nutrition Video of the Week
Tag: training
Training & Nutrition Video of the Week
Video of the Week: What it takes to fuel a Blue
Having been to the grocery store and out to dinner with my guys many times over the last year, I’m well aware of how much rowers (especially male rowers) eat. Two (or three) entrees at restaurants, seven eggs for breakfast, gallons of whole milk, etc. – at this point it doesn’t even shock me anymore. Luckily for them though, I don’t think their weekly grocery bills total $600+.
Coxing Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition
“Do you really need that?”
Over the last few days I’ve been emailing with a coxswain who initially wanted some advice on what to do over the summer to make sure they’re in shape for the upcoming fall season. As most of you who have asked me the same or similar questions over the last few weeks know, my response was and has been to just make sure you’re within a healthy range (which gives you plenty of leeway) of your respective racing weight by being smart about your diet and doing something like running, cycling, etc. a couple times a week. Really simple stuff, nothing too crazy.
Now, as most of you know, I have zero patience when it comes to coaches and rowers who openly disrespect coxswains and make unnecessary (and often times, pretty hurtful) comments about their weight when their weight isn’t an issue. I totally get being pissed when your coxswain is far, far over the minimum but seriously, speaking in general here, you guys have got to stop doing this. Below are some excerpts of the emails this coxswain sent me after our initial ones where we talked about getting in shape for the fall (shared with their permission).
“…Our coach is generally just impatient with us while we’re on the water and they complain about it more than I do. And to top it off, whenever we went to a meal during races, our coach would scrutinize what I ate and tell me things like. “Hey you need to fit in the seat…” Or “Do you really need that” but then tell me that she would prefer I didn’t starve myself. She mentioned me losing weight before going into summer and said that “then we can actually go fast”.”
They told me that they’re a vegetarian so a lot of what they eat when they’re traveling is fruit or something else light.
“… I honestly have never had an eating disorder, like EVER. But after being treated like that I have been so vulnerable and not confident and it is so horrible because it made me not confident in other things too, so much that when I came home I asked my mum if I could talk to a therapist about it, like I’ve been struggling to bring myself back to the person I know I am, which yeah, is completely shitty.”
Making comments like that is not cool, it’s not funny, and it’s not appropriate. There’s a difference between playfully ragging on a friend (which you can really only get away with if you have a solid relationship with the person and even then, there are limits…) and being a jerk. I don’t want to get too into this because I’ve talked about all of it numerous times on here before but consider this another reminder/plea to just think before you say anything like what’s posted above to your coxswain(s). You don’t know how it’s going to affect them and if an eating disorder is something they’re already struggling with (which you most likely wouldn’t know about), hearing someone say “you need to find in the seat” or “do you really need that” can be pretty damaging. For more on that you can check out the posts in the link below.
Related: National eating disorder awareness week
I would also stop for a sec and consider this: I get a lot of emails from coxswains and when I find them serious enough to post on here I keep the details as vague as possible so as to not give away who they are or who they cox for. There are obvious reasons for doing that but I also do it because I want everyone who reads this to assume that it was your athlete and your coxswain that emailed me because, for all you know, it was. So … if you’re reading this and are thinking “wow…that sounds like something I said to my coxswain this year…”, this post is probably about you.
Image via // @schurwanzpics
Training & Nutrition Video of the Week
Video of the Week: Inside the mind of champion athletes
This video is from TEDxPerth and “provides an overview of the kinds of techniques that elite athletes use to prepare psychologically for their sport, gives details of the scientific research into these techniques and how they work, and how the techniques might be used by competitive athletes and coaches to maximize performance.”
It’s only 12 minutes long so check it out and see which of these techniques you can apply to yourself and your training (or if you’re a coxswain, that you can apply to yourself and the crew).
Coxing High School Q&A Training & Nutrition
Question of the Day
Hey! I love your blog. I have a couple of quick questions.
1) I have been rowing bow (port) in our starboard stroked bow-loader four boat. When ever we start to row and get to the drive part of the stroke my left ankle keeps cramping up and I was wondering if you had any way to stop this from happening?
2) Like I said before, I row bow and because our coxswain doesn’t have a cox box, nobody but me can hear her when she is facing forward (the way she is supposed to be looking) so she often turns towards us and the coach keeps telling her to turn around, but then the problem is that nobody can hear her. The girl who coxed this boat last season was really good at projecting her voice but the new cox is not. Do you have any advice for her?
3) I was looking at your what to wear blog posts and I was wondering what you think rowers should wear in the rain?
4) I hate running, I always cramp up two steps in and can’t breathe by the thirty second mark. My coach is really into running and running stairs. I don’t want to be that person who doesn’t run with everybody else because I don’t like it, but do you have any advice about making running less painful?
5) What is a good snack to have right before practice if it starts at 3 or 4 and goes till 6, but lunch is at 11:30? I always get so hungry right in the middle of pieces!
Sorry this is so long! Thanks!
The only thing that I can think of that could be causing this is the position of your foot stretchers. If the angle is too steep or too shallow then that could be putting a weird amount of stress on your tendons, causing your ankle to cramp up. I’d mention it to your coach and see if he can look at the stretchers to see if that’s the problem. If it’s not then it’s probably a flexibility issue. You should be stretching before practice for at least 10 minutes so if you’re not I’d start doing that, even if it means doing it on your own. Ankle pushes are a stretch our guys do that might help – it’s basically a mini-squat where you stand on one leg and bend your knee about 30 degrees or so until you feel a stretch up through your Achilles before pushing back up. (If you don’t have very good balance you can find a wall to put your hand(s) on to help keep you stable.)
Your coxswain needs a cox box. Obviously it’s not your responsibility to make that happen but seriously, I really don’t understand how coaches can send coxswains out without one and think they’re going to have a worthwhile and effective practice, let alone a safe one. Telling everyone to just listen is all well and good until you factor in the noise from the oarlocks, the boat moving through the water, the slides, the launch, the wind, car traffic, etc. Being in a bowloader also presents the issue of the coxswain’s voice not going straight at the rowers (like it does in an eight) which makes it even harder for them to hear what they’re saying. Even a perfectly silent crew would have a hard time hearing their coxswain in that situation. It’s not safe being out without one, plain and simple. To answer your question, the only advice I have is to find a cox box. I know that’s not the most helpful answer but that’s really the only solution to the problem.
When you’re rowing in the rain you’ve basically gotta accept that you and your clothes are going to get wet no matter what (which really isn’t that much different than a normal day on the water…). As long as you’re not wearing cotton, which is pretty much the worst thing you can wear while rowing regardless of the weather, you can pretty much wear exactly what you’d wear on an otherwise “dry” day. If you’ve got a splash jacket that you can throw on to at least keep your core warm and mostly dry(ish) then that’s a good thing to do if you know it’s going to be raining during practice. Like I said though, unless it’s just sprinkling it’s not a matter of if you’ll get wet but when.
It sounds like you’re just out of shape. (I only say that because I know I’m out of shape and that’s how I feel too.) It’s just like steady state on the erg though, the better developed your cardio system gets the “easier” it is. You’ve just gotta push through it and keep going. Feeling winded is obviously a natural side effect of being out of shape (even people who are incredibly fit get winded at the start if they haven’t worked out for a week or two) but it could also be a result of asthma (speaking from experience, this is the worst…). Even if this isn’t something you’ve been diagnosed with before it’s worth checking in with your doctor just to be sure you haven’t developed it. I had several friends in high school who were all incredible athletes but all developed some form of asthma that wasn’t diagnosed by their doctors until they started training for crew.
I used to always leave a box of granola bars in my car that I could grab before practice so if you’re a fan of Clif bars then I’d definitely recommend buying a box or two and stashing them in your car, your locker, etc. so you can grab one before you leave school or on your way to practice. Bananas, PB + apples, a bagel, yogurt + fruit + granola, etc. are all tasty options too.
Ergs High School Q&A Training & Nutrition
Question of the Day
Hi! I am a High School senior lightweight rower who recently got back from injury and I 2k-tested a couple of days ago in which I pulled a 6:50 (my pr is 6:48) and I am really looking forward to lowering my 2k. I heard doing a lot of ss is good but my question is when is a lot of ss is not good? Because I don’t want to overtrain my body. I am also planning in doing ss everyday so I would like to know what type of workouts would work?
Check out both of the posts linked below, they should answer your question and give you some ideas on different kinds of pieces to do.
To summarize both of those, 45-60 minutes is roughly what you should be aiming for. If you wanna mix it up and bike instead of erg then you can do a 75-90 min bike (broken up into chunks, like 3×25, 2×30, or something like that) at 75%-ish of your max HR. (I don’t often see our guys when they’re on the bike but this is the range that I think most people shoot for). How often you do it depends on your team’s training schedule – you can definitely overdo it if you’re trying to do that much extra work on top of two practices a day but since you’re in high school you probably won’t have to worry about that.
Related: What are some good erg workouts that you find particularly helpful to lower 2k times?
We practice primarily in the morning for two hours and will eventually add in one afternoon technical row each week but outside of that in the afternoons/evenings the guys have two lifts per week and on the other days they have captains practices where they erg, bike, or row in the tanks. If you practice in the afternoon then you might want to do your workout in the morning before school (yea it means waking up earlier and that’s never fun but you do what you gotta do). I wouldn’t do a steady state workout every day though – maybe 3x a week at most right now.
Related: How to prepare for a 2k test
Issues with overtraining tend to arise when you fail to give your body an adequate amount of recovery time. Give yourself a few hours between when your team is practicing and when you’re doing your own workouts (the minimum that I’ve heard several coaches say is four hours), make sure you’re taking at least one full day off per week (this is necessary for your muscles to recover and get stronger), and make sure you’re fueling yourself properly (which I talked about in the post linked above).
Ergs How To Training & Nutrition
How to Prepare for a 2k Test
Now that almost everyone is in full on spring-season mode I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about the best way to prepare for a 2k and how to do well on it. One of the more popular posts on the blog (#2 or #3 currently) is this post I wrote on 2k strategy (linked below) back in 2012. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out.
Related: 2k test strategy
Below are three more tips on how to prep for a 2k in the days before your test. Coxswains, pay particular attention to the last one.
Sleep
Seriously, get plenty of sleep. For at least the 2-3 days leading up to your test try to make sure you’re getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night. If you have to wake up at 7am for school, commit to going to bed by 10:30pm or so. I always end up laying in bed scrolling through Instagram for about 30 minutes (or more) before I actually fall asleep so whenever I know I need to be in bed by a certain time I always factor in a 20-30min buffer, that way I’m actually falling asleep roughly around when I’d initially planned to go to bed. Your body needs time to recover and a lot of that recovery happens when you’re sleeping so if you’re not getting enough, especially before a 2k, then you’re kinda putting a ceiling on your performance.
Fuel properly
Same as the sleep thing, for at least 2-3 days before your test make sure you’re drinking a lot of water. I’ve started carrying around a 32oz Nalgene and trying to drink one of those every day. Obviously while you’re training you’ll need a bit more than that (I think most of our guys probably try to drink at least two full Nalgenes each day if I had to guess) so I would carry a water bottle around with you and drink it throughout the day so you can ensure you’re properly hydrated.
More than anything, staying hydrated will help keep your heart rate from skyrocketing during your test, which is important. When you’re dehydrated your blood is thicker which means your heart has to work harder to pump it throughout your body to your muscles, which in turn increases your heart rate. When you’re working hard like you are during a 2k you don’t want your heart rate to be spiking like that because it just makes you feel heavy and fatigued and uncomfortable a lot sooner than you otherwise would.
In addition to drinking water, make sure you’re eating good foods. If you don’t typically have a healthy diet try to start making small changes and replacing the food that’s not doing anything for you nutritionally with healthier options. Definitely make sure you’re eating breakfast, even if it’s just some toast or a banana, and try to eat several small meals throughout the day instead only two or three big meals. This will help keep you fuller for longer and avoid any mindless snacking.
Eating healthy while you’re training is a good habit to get into in general but it’s also important leading up to a test or race. It’s like fueling your Maserati with regular gas vs. premium. It’ll still run on regular but it’s not going to run as efficiently as it would with premium and it might end up hurting the engine in the long run. Same thing applies with the food you eat.
Have a plan
I posted this picture on Instagram a couple weeks ago after our guys did their second 2k test of the season. Something we’ve started doing with them this year is having them write out on a note card how they’re envisioning their race plan and taping it either on the side of their screen or down near the handle rest. It’s honestly more for them than it is for us but it’s also been a great tool for the coxswains as well because they can see what your goals are in terms of splits and overall time and use that to cox them.
Some of the guys have also written down specific things they want the coxswains to say (including if they want a specific coxswain to cox them, which you can see on that picture) which is also really helpful for us and them. If you don’t want to be coxed this is also a great place to write that down (large enough that it’s visible) so the coxswains/coaches know not to bother you.
Related: Words
When it comes to having and writing out your plan, it doesn’t need to be super detailed. All these guys are engineers so they’re super methodical about pretty much everything but there are a few guys who keep things simple and just write down the splits they want to hold for each 500m. Others write down little reminders to themselves, like “breathe” or a technical focus that they’ve been working on recently. There’s really no right or wrong way to do this, just write down what works for you.
Ultimately what it does it break down the race into smaller, more manageable components and gives you targets/mini-goals to go after … that way once you’ve passed them it’s a kind of like a little mental victory which can be a huge motivating factor as you get closer to the end. We’ve gotten pretty positive feedback from the guys (and the coxswains) so it’s definitely something I’d recommend trying at least once.
Image via // @schurwanzpics
College Coxing High School Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition
Mental health + rowing
This week, Feb. 22nd – 28th, is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I’ve talked about eating disorders on here before and wanted to link those posts here for those of you who haven’t seen them before or for those who might want to revisit them again.
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week: Intro
Eating disorders defined + explained
More so than probably any other set of posts on the blog, I think I’m most proud of these ones because of the discussion/realizations that they sparked. It was scary when I got so many emails initially saying “I have an eating disorder, I’ve been dealing with it for awhile” or “That describes me, I know I have bad habits when it comes to food, I think this might be me, what do I do?” because eating disorders aren’t something you mess around with. There’s obviously a huge mental component to it and with the stigma around mental health issues in the US it’s no wonder why so many people don’t know where to turn or what to do.
I remember spending a good deal of time thinking “Oh shit, what did I get myself into” when I first wrote those posts because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing or give the wrong advice but I learned really quickly that what a lot of the people needed was someone to talk to and just some genuine encouragement to seek help. It’s been so exciting to hear back from a lot of those people and hear them say that they did talk to their coaches, parents, doctors, teammates, etc. and are working on normalizing their relationship with food and their bodies. That alone takes more willpower and strength than any 2k you’ll ever pull.
Below I’m posting an excerpt from an email I got at the beginning of the year from a rower-turned-coxswain who has really motivated me to make sure that I’m doing my part to keep this discussion alive.
“You were the first one that I confessed to after my coaches. Things have gotten worse (broken foot, plus being put in the B boat and freaking out forever until we won the second novice race) and better (not being able to work out sucks and I already eat healthy – sometimes borderline orthorexia), my weight is nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing still, and everything still feels “off” (energy levels, thyroid, mood, ability to lose weight is nonexistent I swear it drives me crazy) – but that’s definitely a byproduct of almost seven years of disordered eating. And after talking to you and feeling your understanding and support, I was brave enough to open up to so many other people in my life who have been incredibly supportive.
Thank you for always reminding us to take care of ourselves. Whenever I start to slip up and make bad decisions the NEDA week posts are my go-to reading. Your frank, honest attitude and advice about telling people who make those insensitive comments to your readers are so refreshing and they always remind me to take care of myself. When I freak out about weighing more than the four (for two boats!) other, shorter coxswains on my team and losing my spot, you always remind me that I cannot steer and motivate a boat if I do not take care of myself. Thank you for always, always, stressing your advice with weight with “healthy” and “sensible” and “obligatory reading.” Because sometimes you don’t want to admit your darkest parts to yourself until someone else makes you face them.”
Coaches, I really encourage you to talk about these issues with your teams (regardless of whether you coach men or women) because this stuff is real. There are probably rowers and coxswains on your team right now who are dealing with an eating disorder or walking that fine line between trying to be healthy and experiencing disordered eating. If you’re not comfortable doing it, reach out to a nutritionist at a local hospital or within the athletic department and have them come talk to the team. Trust me, it’s worth losing 45 minutes of practice time for. I’ve said this a thousand times but part of being a good teammate is looking out for each other. If you think that one of your teammates might be dealing with something like this, don’t jump the gun and accuse them because when has that ever been a logical and successful approach? Instead, just let them know that if they need someone to talk to you’re there if they need anything. More often than not that’s all it takes, just knowing that someone is willing to listen without being judgmental.
And on that note I also wanted to link back to this post on suicide awareness. Last week the rowing community lost a high school rower named Draven Rodriguez. Some of you might know him as “laser cat meme guy“, others of you might know him as a teammate and member of Shenendehowa Crew. I remembered reading the story about the yearbook and his cat (seriously though, how great is that picture…) last year but I didn’t know he was a rower until this weekend when someone messaged me on Tumblr about it. They said they didn’t know him personally but as a fellow 17 year old rower they were upset and shocked and didn’t know how to react.
Related: Suicide awareness + prevention
I’ve never known anyone who’s died (at least not that I’ve been close enough to that would evoke some kind of response) so I don’t really know how to react in situations like this either. I think the only thing you can really do is use this to reinforce to yourself that everybody’s got their own shit that they’re dealing with and you never truly know how someone is feeling at any given moment. Be supportive of your teammates, even the ones you might not be friends with, and if you’re going through something find someone you trust to talk to about it. You can always email me of course (sometimes it’s a lot easier to talk to someone who doesn’t know you personally … I totally get that) but I would encourage you to reach out to someone at home too, whether it’s a sibling, parent, coach, friend, teammate, teacher, etc. just so that you have a support system nearby if/when you need it.
I know that this is a pretty random post and not at all about rowing or coxing but like I said earlier, I think we all have a responsibility to do our part in eliminating the stigma that surrounds these issues by talking about it with our teams and teammates. I encourage all of you to read the posts I’ve linked to in here and find some small way to do your part, either by making the decision to seek help if you need it or by reaching out to a teammate who might be having a hard time. At the end of the day, all of this is a lot bigger than crew and I hope reading through all of this helps to hammer that point home.
Image via // @rowinginmainz
Q&A Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition
Question of the Day
Hi I am a rower who recently developed some unknown sickness which long story short means I cannot do any workouts of value and am losing speed by the second. I’ve always been a top rower on my team and trained really hard to stay there. I’ve never been the one on the sidelines and it is really frustrating watching people beat my times and know that I can’t do anything to get better. Basically I’m just wondering if you have any advice on how to not get so upset when I’m watching myself lose all of this training time as I try to figure out what is wrong with me.
Being sick is the worst. Not only do you feel like shit physically, you feel like shit mentally too. I get that because I’ve been there too, just as probably everyone reading this has, but you cannot – CAN NOT – throw yourself pity party after pity party day after day. By all means, give yourself a day or so to wallow in the fact that yes, this is gonna set you back a bit and yes, your teammates are gonna make some progress without you but recognize that that’s the reality of the situation and you’re not a special snowflake by being the only person to ever experience this. I say that because a) that person who turns every practice into their own personal “woe is me” session is the worst kind of person to be around and b) that kind of attitude isn’t confined to just you – it transmits to everyone around you via your body language, facial expression, and overall demeanor. If you’re gonna be a Debbie Downer, don’t go to practice. Just don’t. It’s not good for your mental health, first of all, but it’s also just not good for your teammates because you’re inevitably going to make them feel guilty for something they have no control over and isn’t even their problem.
If you’re the contagious kind of sick then you shouldn’t be going to practice at all because, as I’ve said plenty of times before, that’s selfish and kinda makes you an asshole because you’re exposing your teammates and coaches to whatever you have and increasing the likelihood that they’re gonna get sick. I’m particularly salty about that this year because both times that I’ve gotten really sick have been because guys were at the boathouse when they should have stayed home. Don’t be that person that thinks they have to show up when you’re hacking up organs and spewing germs everywhere just to stay in people’s good graces.
If you’re the kind of sick that’s not contagious, which it sounds like you are, go to practice and be the best sidelined teammate you can be. Don’t turn into Cheerleader Barbie (please don’t) but at the very least have a positive attitude. I’m a fan of turning non-contagious-sick-people into honorary coxswains while they’re out just because it gives them something to do (thus eliminating the chances that they’ll be in pity party mode for two hours) and gives them a new perspective on things for a change (which is always fun). If you can help the coxswains set up the ergs, re-fill water bottles, etc. that’d be awesome. When the rowers are doing their pieces, talk with the coxswains about what they’re seeing and then figure out how you can use those observations to your advantage. This is kind of your opportunity to ask questions about technique issues that you have, observe the good (and not good) habits of your teammates, etc. – all things that can really benefit you once you’re able to start training again. Another thing you could/should do is cheer your teammates on when they’re doing hard pieces, particularly if they’re testing. We did our first 2k of the season last week and one of our guys who is unfortunately out for the spring with a back injury was there supporting the other guys, getting right in their ears like the coxswains were, and just making sure that he was giving them the same amount of support that the guys have given him.
Watching your teammates improve really shouldn’t be that much of a downer for you. If anything, it should be motivation to really put your heart into training when you’re able to so you can get back to where you want to be. When you’re training you’ve always got a target on your back because there’s always someone vying for your spot and up to this point you’ve probably been one of those people with a pretty big target on your back. Now you’re the one chasing the target though but keep in mind that that’s a good thing. Good solid, respectful competition amongst teammates can only make everyone better. It’s like how in order to have a really strong first eight you’ve gotta have an equally strong or nearly as strong second eight that pushes the first eight in every piece they do together.
Keep in mind that that getting back to your former glory might not happen right away or even this season depending on how long you’re out but that’s no excuse to just give up entirely. Rob Gronkowski was out for like, two years with the issues he had with his arm and whatever else he had going on and this year he won Comeback Player of the Year. Be the Gronk of your team. Don’t look at the workouts you can do as lacking value just because they don’t involve 80′ of SS at 6k + 7″ or 30′ of 50 on/10 off circuits. Something is almost always better than nothing so find something you’re able to do and commit to it. Yoga is a good workout because is there really such a thing as too much flexibility when you’re a rower? Plus it’s relaxing (or so I’ve heard … I don’t really have the patience for it but the benefits for rowers really can’t be denied so it’s worth trying even if you’re impatient like me and prefer more high-intensity workouts).
If you can do some core workouts, try to do 10-15 min (or whatever you can handle) of easy exercises that’ll at least help you maintain some some your core strength. My suggestion though, if you haven’t already, is to talk with a physical therapist or one of the trainers in the athletic department if you’re in college, simply because they can probably give you a better idea of what your body can tolerate (compared to what a general practitioner could) while you wait to hear what’s actually wrong with you. As long as you heed the advice of your doctors and don’t push yourself too far in the name of not losing any more speed then you’ll be fine.
Last thing I’d suggest is to look at this whole ordeal as an opportunity to really work on your mental toughness game. We’re all well aware of how important it is for an athlete to be mentally strong and situations like the one you’re in where you’re sidelined and having to watch everything happen without you can really test that (positively and negatively). There’s a reason why when elite athletes are injured part of their recovery training is regularly meeting with a sports psychologist. In most cases they’re part of their regular training plan too, even when they’re not injured. It’s a skill that has to be developed just like anything else so try to spend some time reading up on sport psychology (it really is a fascinating subject – easily one of my favorite classes at Syracuse), mindfulness training, etc. and start working some of those techniques into your everyday routine. I’m not sure about D2/D3 schools but most of the big D1 schools have sport psychologists on staff or at the very least have relationships with some at local hospitals that they could put you in touch with. It’s definitely something worth looking into though, especially if you think you might be out for an extended period of time.
Anyways, hopefully all that helps and gives you some food for thought. If anybody else has been in a similar situation or are dealing with something similar now, feel free to leave a comment down below with any advice, tips, or tricks you have on how to stay positive while not being able to train with your team.