Return-to-Train Public Service Announcement

No more “hell weeks,” post-break max erg testing, or “making up for lost time”

Whether you’ve been off the water or away from regular training due to injury, illness, vacation, or any other reason, be gradual when you return! No “hell weeks,” high volume/load training camps without preparation, introductory maximal erg tests, or other sudden spikes in training load to “make up for lost time.” It’s not sexy, but neither is being injured.

The first 2-3 weeks of resuming or beginning rigorous training is the phase of highest non-contact injury risk, including low back, ribs, and soft tissue injuries, as well as extreme medical problems like exertional rhabdomyolysis (“rhabdo”), heat stroke, and sudden cardiac death. This applies to all ages and levels of rowers.

I'm particularly focused on low back and ribs as common and costly rowing injuries, and because prior injury is a major risk for future injury. Once you have one, you're more likely to get another in the future, so preventing the first injury is absolutely key to reducing overall injury rates. We need to stop setting the stage for injury to occur.

“The largest risk factor for rowing injury remains rapid increases in training frequency, intensity and/or volume” — Rowing Injuries: An Updated Review [2016]

Rowers and coaches often want to “get back to where we were as quickly as possible.” This is short-sighted, as rushing the progression increases the risk of an injury that could derail the rest of your season, year, or rowing career. Use the return-to-train time instead to set yourself up to go beyond your prior levels of training and performance.

The guide that I use for “how easy is easy, and how gradual is gradual” is the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s “50/30/20/10 rule.” Using your training volume in meters or minutes from your most recent month or pre-layoff month as your “100%” number, train the following progression:

• Week 1: 50%, low-intensity

• Week 2: 70%, low-intensity

• Week 3: 80%, low-intensity

• Week 4: 90%, low-intensity

• Week 5: 100%, with intensity

In my (updated) 2020 return-to-train article, I lay out three scenarios with specific meters/minutes examples using variations of this progression for rowers.

Long layoff, with detraining: If you’ve been away from training entirely for 2+ weeks or experienced an illness or injury resulting in detraining, do the 4-week progression at low intensity, adding higher intensity training on the 5th week. This is most useful during the start of a new season or when returning from illness or injury that disrupted all forms of training.

Long layoff, no detraining: If you’ve been away from just rowing (and erging) for 2+ weeks, but maintained fitness through cross-training, then follow the same 4-week progression and “backfill” the remaining meters or minutes with the familiar cross-training. I use this when the rower is returning from an injury that took them off the erg or out of the boat, but allowed them to still maintain total training volume via cross-training. We progressively return to rowing without losing any of the fitness via cross-training.

Short layoff, no illness or injury: For just a short layoff of 1-2 weeks without complication from illness or injury, the NSCA recommends a 2-week progression of 50/30%. Use this after a vacation, scheduled deload, and when switching between modes of training, for example seasonal transitions.

Seasonal transitions are major opportunities for injury. This includes going from on-water fall rowing to winter erging, or from winter erging to spring on-water rowing, and mid-season training camps that change mode and also often increase volume. Making the change all at once from one mode to the other might all feel the same in terms of general fitness and strength, but the back and ribs (via the shoulder movements) in particular respond very differently to team boats versus small boats, erging versus sculling versus rowing, and to different levels of training volume and intensity. Look back at your own injury experience, and I’ll bet you can find a significant change in equipment (boats, ergs, but also oars/rigging), wholesale swap in mode of training, major technical change, or rapid increase in training volume or load. Go 50/30% in the new mode and backfill the remaining volume with the prior mode to greatly reduce that risk.

Read more in my 2020 article here, including information about strength training, rowing research, and additional resources. There are also links to my webinars on this topic from May 2020 by myself when all this was pretty raw thanks to Covid boathouse and gym closures, and an April 2021 reprisal with USRowing’s Liz Fusco to add the nutrition/hydration elements of good return-to-train practices.