I’ve been coaching a trio of very experienced masters rowers for the last two years, and will share some observations in this email. One is a woman and two are men, in their early 50s, training from home gyms with a moderate, though not extensive, amount of equipment. All rowed in college and for high-performance programs after college and have been rowing continuously since. They did strength training in college and after, took a break during their 30s-40s, and began again 5-10 years before we started working together.
They focus on head race events with HOCR as the culmination of their training year. They do a few 1-6km races of lesser importance along the way, and are very good about “just racing” those races and not sacrificing training time and focus. The men took second in the double this year, improving their time by 5 seconds from last year, and the woman won her event in the eight. We’re starting year three this month.
Use Athlete Experience
They’ve been rowing for longer than I’ve been alive. We’re all missing out if I’m not tapping into their accumulated knowledge of rowing, training, and most importantly, how their bodies feel and react to training. I have general ideas of where I want to go and what I want to do in their training plan, but I also ask a lot of questions and double-check things as we develop each month and phase.
One recent example is their training plan approach for HOCR and how they use middle-intensity training (MIT or “anaerobic threshold”) in their rowing plan. Middle-intensity training is typically known as a lose-lose training situation. It’s not enough duration to improve aerobic endurance as effectively as lower intensity training, nor is it high enough intensity to develop anaerobic peak power as effectively as higher intensity training, and it’s also physically challenging and hard to recover from. It can largely be avoided through use of a polarized training plan, but not when you’re racing head races that fall directly in this energy zone. I appreciated learning how they manage race pace MIT along with the other sessions for duration (endurance) and intensity (power), and how we can schedule the strength work around that to better support all domains of performance.
Basic S&C Fundamentals
We do video feedback every month or so, more often in our first year together. My comments typically focus on the basics: using full range-of-motion, using a 2:1 lowering:lifting tempo, shoulders down on pulling movements, elbows about 45-degrees from the torso on pressing movements (not flaring them out at 90 degrees), and balanced forefoot/hindfoot pressure on lower body movements (not shifting forward onto the forefoot).
Strength Training to Fill Gaps
All needed more glute work and more focus on heel pressure during lower body movements, especially in the first year. This is very common for rowers, and especially ones who have spent the last three decades running or cycling anytime they aren’t rowing. That’s a lot of quads and forefoot pressure, so strength training needs to fill the gaps around those dominant activities.
We also added plyometric exercises to their training. Plyos train rapid force absorption and generation and are a great tool for mitigating age-related losses in maximal strength, power, and bone mineral density. We’ve removed these at times when tweaky knees have interfered with training, which has been related to running volume more than anything else. These had not been a part of their training before, at least not for low reps and power, and all have come to value them in the plan.