The Pre-Season-to-In-Season Strength Training Transition
Slides from my presentation at last weekend’s “Chasing Excellence” conference
Special extra here to pass along slides and notes from my presentation at the weekend’s “Chasing Excellence” virtual conference for junior and college coaches and rowers. I talked about the strength training transition from the pre-season phase to the in-season phase, happening now or very soon on the standard spring 2km rowing schedule. Most of this I’ve written about on my website already, but I always enjoy the opportunity to put things together in one place and go back over my older work to make updates.
Masters rowers can apply these concepts as well, at whatever time of the year makes sense given your training schedule and priorities. You’ll have a virtual event coming up soon, too! Stay tuned for details.
Here are the slides (PDF), with a few notes below. Please feel free to ask any questions. Commenting on Substack helps everyone else learn along too, but direct email replies are fine if you prefer.
Here’s what I really wanted people to leave the session knowing:
#1. Use the off-season to teach fundamentals. Don’t have an off-season? Teach fundamentals in the pre-season if possible, or in-season if necessary. If you’re in-season-only, train more for physical education rather than strength and conditioning.
#2. If you have an off-season or at least a pre-season, start to speed up rate of force production to prepare for sprint rowing as you come into the spring. Athletes need a base of coordination and strength first, but then they can start doing plyos and the 2:X tempo. Pretty much everyone can do “good plyos” to achieve the speeding up. Follow some basic principles:
2-3 plyo sessions per week with 1-3 plyos per session done for 3-6 sets of 2-4 reps per exercise, with a 1:4+ work-to-rest ratio.
Teach landing before progressing jump height/challenge.
Train plyos earlier in the session before athletes are fatigued, not at the end of a session after strength training or erging/rowing.
I did a new video ahead of this event on plyometric exercises, with about a dozen jump and throw variations that I use and coaching key points. I’ll write more about in the future. For now, watch the video here and read more about plyos in my updated article here.
#3. Strength training in the in-season phase is about keeping athletes healthy (available to practice and race) and at least maintaining what we did in the prior phase or phases of training. We want two steps forward in the off-season and pre-season, and no steps back in the in-season. You can do this a number of ways depending on your athletes, equipment, and other program parameters, from just a full-body land warmup to the minimalist sessions if you don’t have gym access to one of the in-season programs if you do have gym access.