High Performance Rowing

1. Mastering Rowing Technique: The Foundation of Speed

What we see therefore when we look at a crew is the state of its technique at that moment in time, and this is not necessarily the end product.

Technique is dynamic. There's no single "secret" rowing technique, but rather a set of agreed-upon principles for efficiency: a quick, lively connection at the catch, continuous blade acceleration through the stroke, and a relaxed, controlled recovery. Top crews constantly refine their technique, understanding it's an ongoing process, not a fixed state. The goal is to minimize inefficient movements and maximize horizontal power application.

Economy of movement. Every action in the boat has an energy cost. Efficient technique minimizes unnecessary movements, especially during the recovery phase, to conserve energy for propulsion. This means avoiding head and shoulder movements, bracing core muscles to prevent "shooting the slide," and initiating the catch with a rapid hand lift, not a body lift. The body should be in a mechanically advantageous position throughout the stroke, minimizing vertical pitching.

Stroke breakdown. The rowing stroke is divided into four continuous phases: blade entry, propulsive phase, blade extraction, and recovery. Each phase has specific technical points:

• Entry: Strong, tall body, vertical shins, rapid hand lift, shoulders parallel.
• Propulsive: Strong leg drive, braced core, shoulders accelerate, arms draw powerfully (outside arm emphasis).
• Extraction: Tap down with outside hand, clear blade before feathering, hands move away at boat speed.
• Recovery: Hands, body, slide sequence; hands past knees before sliding; controlled, unhurried movement to frontstops, preparing for the next catch.

2. Technical Exercises: Your Path to Precision and Efficiency

Where is the point in rowing full slide, if you cannot row properly at half slide?

Exercises are crucial. Technical exercises are not just warm-ups but vital tools for improving rowing technique. They allow complex movements to be broken down, enabling focused attention on specific components and easier identification of weaknesses. Rowers often rush through these, but dedicating sufficient time (40-50 strokes per exercise) with a clear technical focus is essential for genuine improvement.

Targeted drills. Various exercises address different aspects of technique:

• Slidework: Progressing from backstops (arms only, body swing) through quarter, half, and three-quarter slide, each with specific focuses like hip pivot, handle height, and slide steadiness.
• Square Blade Rowing: The most beneficial exercise, it forces attention on maintaining blade acceleration, correct blade height during recovery, and smooth extraction, significantly improving balance and flow.
• Placement Drills: Focus on quick, efficient blade entry with minimal disturbance. These include air strokes (blade just above water), placing the blade without leg drive, and rowing only the first two inches to feel pressure build.

Sensory and physical feedback. Other drills enhance body awareness and address common issues:

• Single Stroke Rowing: Isolates movements, improves timing between crew members, and reinforces blade acceleration.
• Rowing with One Hand: Highlights the specific roles of the inside (feather/square) and outside (extraction/cover) hands and shoulders.
• Eyes Closed Rowing: Develops "feel for the boat" by emphasizing touch and sound, improving timing and minimizing noisy movements.
• Feet Out Rowing: Illustrates the importance of weight transfer and leg drive coordination, preventing "bum-shoving."
  These exercises, when performed with patience and purpose, lead to better technique and faster crews.

3. Rigging for Performance: Optimizing Your Boat's Setup

Although what matters ultimately is how much pitch there is at the blade, it is extremely difficult to measure the pitch accurately using this method.

Rigging is critical. Often overlooked, proper rigging is as crucial as technique and training for maximizing boat speed. Small adjustments can significantly impact performance, yet many lack a full understanding of its effects. It's vital to assess crew technique before making rigging changes, as a well-rigged boat won't compensate for poor rowing.

Systematic adjustments. Rigging involves multiple interconnected adjustments, and the order matters. Key parameters include:

• Span/Spread: Distance between pins (sculling) or pin to centerline (sweep). A smaller span creates a longer arc, theoretically increasing time in the water, but requires more sustained force.
• Overlap: The extension of the oar handle past the boat's centerline. Too much or too little (sweep: 29-31cm, sculling: 14-18cm) negatively impacts technique and reach.
• Gearing: The load on the rower, calculated as outboard length divided by span. Adjusting span or outboard can maintain consistent gearing for different rowers.

Pitch and height. These fine-tune blade interaction with water:

• Pitch: The blade's angle in the water, a combination of oar, swivel face, stern pin, and lateral pin pitch. Positive pitch aids catch and extraction but reduces horizontal force. Lateral pitch (1-2 degrees) increases pitch at the catch and decreases it at the finish, which is desirable.
• Swivel Height: Distance from swivel base to seat (or water surface). Affects draw height, muscle engagement, reach, and boat stability. Sculling often has the bow-side rigger slightly higher (0.5-2cm) for hand crossover.
• Foot Stretcher: Height (heels 15-18cm below seat) influences body position and force direction. Rake (angle, 38-45 degrees) affects hip pivot and ankle flexibility. Fore and aft position (66cm men, 62cm women behind line of work) optimizes stroke arc.

Personalized setup. Rigging should be individualized for each crew. Record all measurements, adjust one variable at a time, and test for several sessions. Regular time trials are essential to determine the most effective settings, always remembering: "If it isn't broken, don't fix it."

4. Training Principles: The Core of Athletic Development

If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you have got.

Overload and recovery. The human body adapts to stress. Overload means systematically subjecting muscles to progressively higher stress to develop them. This adaptation, known as "overcompensation," occurs during the recovery period after exercise, not during it. Insufficient recovery leads to "failing adaptation" or "overtraining," where the body breaks down instead of strengthening.

Specificity and reversibility. Training must be specific to the desired outcome. Endurance training develops capillaries around muscles (localized effect), so it's best done in the boat. Strength training builds muscle force. Cross-training offers variety and reduces overuse injuries. The principle of "reversibility" means that training gains are quickly lost if training stops, often three times faster than they were gained, highlighting the need for continuous engagement.

Evaluation is key. Regular testing and evaluation are essential to monitor progress, determine when to increase training load, and assess the effectiveness of the training program. Without consistent evaluation, coaches and athletes risk repeating ineffective routines or pushing too hard without knowing if the body is adapting positively. This data-driven approach ensures that training remains productive and aligned with performance goals.

5. Holistic Training: Water, Land, Strength, Power, and Flexibility

Rowing is primarily a strength-endurance event, and so the training should aim primarily to improve these two characteristics.

Water training focus. The bulk of a rower's training is on the water, targeting aerobic and anaerobic capacities. This includes:

• Oxygen Utilization (UT1, UT2): Improves muscles' ability to use oxygen, increasing capillaries and mitochondria. Best done in the boat due to localized adaptations.
• Oxygen Transport (TR): Strengthens the heart, increasing its size and pumping force to deliver more oxygenated blood.
• Anaerobic Threshold (AT): Raises the maximum workload before lactic acid accumulates, enhancing aerobic capacity. Requires precise intensity monitoring, often with heart rate.
• Lactate (L): Develops anaerobic work capacity, either through tolerance (accumulating lactic acid) or production/removal (high levels with recovery breaks).
• Alactate (AL): Instant energy for short bursts, less emphasized in rowing.

Land training benefits. Land training complements water sessions, especially for strength and power development, which are difficult to achieve against water's dynamic resistance. It also provides alternatives when water training isn't possible (weather, dark, individual schedules) and helps prevent overuse injuries by engaging different muscle groups.

• Strength: The ability to overcome resistance. Developed through weight training (e.g., 80-95% max for 3-8 reps) or bodyweight circuits.
• Power: The ability to generate force quickly. Achieved with lower weights (60-75% max for 8-10 reps) performed explosively, or through plyometrics (bounding, depth jumps). Power training should follow a base of maximum strength.

Flexibility and mobility. These are often underestimated but crucial for efficient rowing and injury prevention. Flexibility (range of joint movement) and mobility (ease of joint movement) improve economy of movement, allowing rowers to maintain optimal body positions without unnecessary energy expenditure. Key areas include hamstrings, shoulders, and calves. Static stretching (holding for 10+ seconds to activate the inverse stretch reflex) after a warm-up is preferred over ballistic stretching.

6. Effective Coaching: Cultivating Trust, Positivity, and Athlete Ownership

Effective coaching is a process whereby both the athlete and the coach work together, in harmony, to achieve shared goals, in the most productive and time-effective way.

Humanist approach. A good coach prioritizes the athlete's needs, building absolute trust. This involves actively involving athletes in decision-making, from setting goals to structuring training. Even less experienced rowers can contribute, fostering a sense of ownership and commitment. This collaborative approach ensures shared goals, which are fundamental for progress.

Responsibility and positivity. Allocating responsibility to crew members, including the cox, reduces common issues like lateness and negative attitudes, promoting interdependence and respect. Coaches must maintain a positive environment, using encouraging language and focusing on "areas for improvement" rather than "faults." Every instruction should be constructive, guiding athletes toward desired movements rather than reinforcing what's wrong.

Strategic engagement. Coaches should:

• Be organized: Plan meticulously, anticipate challenges, and have strategies for unexpected events.
• Inspire: Set high standards and provide opportunities for athletes to impress, reinforcing progress and motivation.
• Manage focus: Break down long training sessions into manageable chunks with varied technical focuses to combat boredom and maximize learning.
• Check understanding: Ask questions, encourage self-analysis, and use video feedback to ensure athletes grasp concepts and agree on changes.
• Allow time: Recognize that changing ingrained habits takes consistent effort over time, often requiring many repetitions to "groove in" new movement patterns.

7. Strategic Program Design: Periodization and Peaking for Success

If you have not done the work beforehand, you can have as much determination as you like, but you will still not win the race.

Performance-focused goals. Training programs should prioritize performance goals (e.g., specific ergometer times, technical improvements) over outcome goals (e.g., winning a medal), as performance goals are directly controllable. This focus provides clear, measurable targets that maintain motivation, especially during long training periods. Regular evaluation is crucial to monitor progress and adapt the program as needed.

Overcompensation and periodization. Training relies on the body's ability to overcompensate for stress, adapting to handle increased loads. Programs must systematically increase load while allowing sufficient recovery to avoid "overstress" or "failing adaptation." Periodization structures training throughout the year, alternating emphasis on different aspects (strength, endurance, power) to prevent overtraining and maximize development, as it's impossible to train everything at maximum effort simultaneously.

The rowing year and peaking. The training year is divided into three phases:

• Transition (September): Mental and physical recuperation, break from rowing.
• Preparation (October-March):
  • General (Oct-Jan): Restore fitness, build general endurance and maximum strength gradually to prevent injury.
  • Specific (Feb-Mar): Develop power and strength endurance, building on the strength base.
• Competition (April-August):
  • Pre-competition (Apr-May): Maintain strength (retention work), increase boat speed, and raise stroke rates. These are typically the hardest months.
  • Competition (Jun-Aug): Focus on perfecting technique at racing speed, using cyclic loading (build-up, then unload before regattas) and peaking strategies.

Peaking for races. Peaking is a planning process to ensure peak physiological and psychological performance for a specific event. It involves gradually increasing workload throughout the season, then significantly reducing training volume (30-60%) in the final 7-10 days before a major race, while maintaining quality and intensity. The total maximum effort work in any session during this period should not exceed the race duration.

8. Monitoring Progress: Data-Driven Improvement and Motivation

Nobody is perfect in every sense and so there is always room for improvement — the trick is finding the best way of showing it.

Benefits of monitoring. Regular monitoring and evaluation are essential for maximizing training effectiveness. They help identify strengths and weaknesses, assess if the program is working, allow for adjustments, boost motivation, detect signs of overstress, predict performance potential, and aid in crew selection. Consistent testing provides objective data to guide training decisions.

Testing guidelines. Any test used must be:

• Relevant: Measures what's important for rowing (e.g., 3-rep max for strength, not 1-rep).
• Valid: Accurately measures the intended characteristic (e.g., hamstring flexibility test, not sit-and-reach for lower back).
• Reproducible: Yields consistent results when repeated, ensuring reliability.
• Sports Specific: Simulates rowing action as closely as possible.
• Standardized: Conducted consistently (same warm-up, order, equipment, time of day) for accurate comparisons.

Types of tests. A comprehensive test battery includes:

• Anthropometric: Height, weight, limb lengths (useful for juniors and rigging).
• Physiological:
  • Maximum Strength: 3-rep max for power clean, bench pull, squats.
  • Strength Endurance: Bench pull test (reps at specific weight).
  • Power: 10-stroke ergometer test (average watts).
  • Aerobic Capacity: 2000m/5000m ergometer tests (monitor power per stroke).
  • Anaerobic Capacity: 30-second ergometer test (average watts).
  • Anaerobic Threshold (AT): Incremental ergometer test with heart rate monitor (identifies HR plateau).
  • Flexibility: Hamstring flexibility (leg raise test, aiming for 12-1 o'clock position).
  • Daily Heart Rate: Resting HR as an early indicator of fitness, overstress, or illness.
• Psychological: Questionnaires like the "Daily Analysis of Life Demands of Athletes" to assess stress levels.

Water-based assessments. On-water tests provide direct performance feedback:

• Long Distance Trials: 6-16km over 15+ minutes, regularly, to monitor endurance and power per stroke.
• Pairs Matrix: Systematically pairs rowers to rank stroke and bow sides, identifying compatible combinations.
• Seat Racing: Swapping rowers between crews to find the fastest boat combination, crucial for crew selection.
• Predicted Gold Standard Times: Comparing crew performance to target winning times to prioritize event entries.

Video analysis. Video recording training sessions is the most effective tool for technical feedback. Film 10-20 strokes per rower from various angles, using light, fitted clothing. Review immediately after, encouraging self-analysis first, then coach feedback. Utilize freeze-frame and slow-motion to analyze individual differences, timing of catches, and work-to-recovery ratios, providing objective, quantifiable targets for improvement.

9. Winning Strategies: Pre-Competition and Race Day Execution

Get your pace wrong and you will either ‘blow up’ before the end of the race, or find yourself feeling too ‘fresh’ as you approach the line, either of which could cost you a medal.

Pre-competition strategies (PCS). A well-devised PCS minimizes anxiety and maximizes performance by planning every detail from the end of the last training session to the end of the competition. This includes:

• Transport: Meticulous planning for equipment and crew, allocating responsibilities, and allowing ample travel time.
• Accommodation: Researching hotels for proximity, transport, and ability to cater to rowers' specific dietary and leisure needs.
• Food: Pre-arranging menus with hotels to ensure sufficient high-carbohydrate, non-greasy food and water, especially for lightweights.
• Equipment: Preparing a comprehensive regatta box with spare parts, regularly updated, to avoid last-minute crises.

Race day tactics. A successful race strategy hinges on knowing your crew's physiological, psychological, and technical strengths and weaknesses. Key performance capabilities to assess include:

• Maximum Boat Speed: Flat-out speed over short bursts.
• Mean Boat Speed (Cruising Pace): The maximum sustainable speed without excessive lactic acid accumulation, crucial for pacing.
• Optimal Rating: The stroke rate at which cruising pace is best achieved.

Pacing and pushes. Physiologically, maintaining an even pace throughout the race is most economical, though real races often see faster first and last 500m. The goal is to maintain boat speed and rhythm, especially in the second half when fatigue sets in. While "pushes" are common, increasing rate without maintaining power can actually slow the boat. To effectively increase speed:

• Focus on power: Emphasize accelerating the blade through the water (or boat past the blade) at the finish, then quickening hands and leg drive at the catch.
• Synchronized effort: All crew members must execute changes simultaneously; individual efforts are wasteful and ineffective.
• One caller: Designate one experienced person to make calls during the race to ensure unified action.

Head races. For head-of-the-river races, avoid treating them as long training pieces. Know your optimum cruising pace and maintain it, minimizing speed variations. Start hard for 2-3 minutes, settle into race pace, and gradually increase speed towards the finish. The hardest part is getting the boat up to speed; the focus then shifts to not letting it slow down.