Let me start with one important fact: rowing is not the most important thing in the world. It probably isn't even the most important thing in your life. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take it seriously. Let's face it: if you weren't rowing, you wouldn't be out solving global warming or doing extra maths homework. You would be watching cat videos on YouTube or reading novels about shiny vampires or something. These things are fine in moderation, but they won't teach you any useful skills, and they won't make you happy. Rowing might, if you give it a proper chance.
So how do you give it a proper chance? The first thing you need to know about rowing is that you get out of it what you put in. If you show up for every training session and try your best, your best will get better, until you start to have sessions that feel really great. Your single will glide over the river like a swan, and every stroke will feel balanced and powerful - you'll feel like you could row around the world. But if you skip sessions and only try your best once in a while, your body won't adapt to the exercise, you won't develop muscle memory for the perfect stroke, and every session will feel like a struggle. So show up, it's not that hard. Nobody was born a champion.
The next thing to keep in mind is that training is hard. When you push yourself, it hurts, and it can continue to hurt after training, when you have to go to school or to work feeling tired and achy. That is hard - but if you keep at it the pain goes away. Don't give up - because nobody is born a champion.
Having said that, even though training always takes both mental and physical effort, there are lots of easy things you can do to make sure it is worth it, and to help yourself improve faster. Many of them will seem obvious, but that doesn't mean they're not important.
1) Take your warmup seriously. A 10 minute warmup will not make you tired, even if you push yourself in it. It will loosen up your muscles and help you row better when you get into the boat. This means you won't waste the first part of the session rowing badly, and teaching yourself bad habits that you then have to unlearn. Nobody has infinite time, so don't waste yours. Warm up.
2) Stretch, and stretch often. You will row better if your body is able to rock over at the hips and you can keep your core strong when you compress at the catch. If your hamstrings are really tight, you can't get into a good catch position, as you can't rock forwards from the hips. This means your stroke is shortened, so you have to push harder to stay level with someone who is more flexible. So how do you get more flexible? There are many stretches you can do to lengthen your hamstrings, but none of them will work if you don't do them regularly. You're trying to change the shape of your muscles, so give your body a chance! You need to stretch every day, whether you're training or not. You also need to stretch before and after each session, before to avoid injury, and after to extend the muscles you've been using in training to keep them from shortening when the muscle fibres heal. According to my physio, you only need to stretch for about 30 seconds to have an impact on the muscle, and it is best if you do this several times a day. So stretch your hamstrings when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed at night. That's a whole minute of your day gone, can you handle it? Don't think about it, make it a habit.
3) Be on time for training. Being at your training session on time not only reduces your coaches' base level of rage, it also means that you get the full benefit of your training session. If you arrive on time, you will get on the water relaxed and ready to learn. If you stumble in late, you'll start your training session worrying about the hundred things that need to happen before you can get on the water. This will affect your concentration, so you won't learn as much. It will make the training session more stressful for you and everyone else, because it will make everyone run late, and it will make your coaches rage about everything more than usual. It will also annoy your crewmates who were there on time and ready to boat. Don't be that person. Those extra ten minutes of sleep won't save you if you've gone to bed too late, so set your alarm and deal with it. This is a life skill.
4) Get enough sleep. Everyone is busy, and since few of us row professionally, the odds are that you have to go to school / university / work after training, and deal with homework / assignments / hundreds of emails you've been cc'd in for no reason before you go to bed. And you probably also want to watch some cat videos, and that new superhero film, and hang out with your friends, and help your parents build a home-made space shuttle, and any number of things that are not sleeping or training. The thing is, not sleeping won't only mess with your training, it will make you miserable and stop you from being efficient with school and work and enjoying all that other stuff. Because you'll be tired and grumpy. Most adults need 6-8 hours of sleep, and most kids need 9-12, so do what you need to and get yourself to bed on time. Kids, that means a bed time of 7:30pm on rowing nights, so you're gonna need to be efficient. Generally that means doing all the dull stuff that's not optional as soon as you get home, then deciding what fun you have time for before bed. The cats will still be on the internet on the weekend, so don't stress about it. You also need to be able to sleep when you do go to bed, so don't flood your body with caffeine and sugar in the evening. Trust me, I know that chocolate is delicious, as is coffee and tea and coke and all those things. Just have them in the morning, if you must.
5) Eat the right stuff in the right quantities. This one is quite subjective, because everyone's body is different. Obviously a 100kg open-weight man in his thirties will not eat the same stuff as a 57kg lightweight girl in her teens. So try to find out what is best for you - speak to a sports nutritionist, and balance your diet with your training program to make sure you stay fit and healthy. Even if you don't feel like you're seriously enough into sport to go to a nutritionist, you should be aware of what you're eating and what effect foods have on your body. This is particularly important if you're growing, and is important for both rowing and life in general. So here's a list of general guidelines:
So how do you give it a proper chance? The first thing you need to know about rowing is that you get out of it what you put in. If you show up for every training session and try your best, your best will get better, until you start to have sessions that feel really great. Your single will glide over the river like a swan, and every stroke will feel balanced and powerful - you'll feel like you could row around the world. But if you skip sessions and only try your best once in a while, your body won't adapt to the exercise, you won't develop muscle memory for the perfect stroke, and every session will feel like a struggle. So show up, it's not that hard. Nobody was born a champion.
The next thing to keep in mind is that training is hard. When you push yourself, it hurts, and it can continue to hurt after training, when you have to go to school or to work feeling tired and achy. That is hard - but if you keep at it the pain goes away. Don't give up - because nobody is born a champion.
Having said that, even though training always takes both mental and physical effort, there are lots of easy things you can do to make sure it is worth it, and to help yourself improve faster. Many of them will seem obvious, but that doesn't mean they're not important.
1) Take your warmup seriously. A 10 minute warmup will not make you tired, even if you push yourself in it. It will loosen up your muscles and help you row better when you get into the boat. This means you won't waste the first part of the session rowing badly, and teaching yourself bad habits that you then have to unlearn. Nobody has infinite time, so don't waste yours. Warm up.
2) Stretch, and stretch often. You will row better if your body is able to rock over at the hips and you can keep your core strong when you compress at the catch. If your hamstrings are really tight, you can't get into a good catch position, as you can't rock forwards from the hips. This means your stroke is shortened, so you have to push harder to stay level with someone who is more flexible. So how do you get more flexible? There are many stretches you can do to lengthen your hamstrings, but none of them will work if you don't do them regularly. You're trying to change the shape of your muscles, so give your body a chance! You need to stretch every day, whether you're training or not. You also need to stretch before and after each session, before to avoid injury, and after to extend the muscles you've been using in training to keep them from shortening when the muscle fibres heal. According to my physio, you only need to stretch for about 30 seconds to have an impact on the muscle, and it is best if you do this several times a day. So stretch your hamstrings when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed at night. That's a whole minute of your day gone, can you handle it? Don't think about it, make it a habit.
3) Be on time for training. Being at your training session on time not only reduces your coaches' base level of rage, it also means that you get the full benefit of your training session. If you arrive on time, you will get on the water relaxed and ready to learn. If you stumble in late, you'll start your training session worrying about the hundred things that need to happen before you can get on the water. This will affect your concentration, so you won't learn as much. It will make the training session more stressful for you and everyone else, because it will make everyone run late, and it will make your coaches rage about everything more than usual. It will also annoy your crewmates who were there on time and ready to boat. Don't be that person. Those extra ten minutes of sleep won't save you if you've gone to bed too late, so set your alarm and deal with it. This is a life skill.
4) Get enough sleep. Everyone is busy, and since few of us row professionally, the odds are that you have to go to school / university / work after training, and deal with homework / assignments / hundreds of emails you've been cc'd in for no reason before you go to bed. And you probably also want to watch some cat videos, and that new superhero film, and hang out with your friends, and help your parents build a home-made space shuttle, and any number of things that are not sleeping or training. The thing is, not sleeping won't only mess with your training, it will make you miserable and stop you from being efficient with school and work and enjoying all that other stuff. Because you'll be tired and grumpy. Most adults need 6-8 hours of sleep, and most kids need 9-12, so do what you need to and get yourself to bed on time. Kids, that means a bed time of 7:30pm on rowing nights, so you're gonna need to be efficient. Generally that means doing all the dull stuff that's not optional as soon as you get home, then deciding what fun you have time for before bed. The cats will still be on the internet on the weekend, so don't stress about it. You also need to be able to sleep when you do go to bed, so don't flood your body with caffeine and sugar in the evening. Trust me, I know that chocolate is delicious, as is coffee and tea and coke and all those things. Just have them in the morning, if you must.
5) Eat the right stuff in the right quantities. This one is quite subjective, because everyone's body is different. Obviously a 100kg open-weight man in his thirties will not eat the same stuff as a 57kg lightweight girl in her teens. So try to find out what is best for you - speak to a sports nutritionist, and balance your diet with your training program to make sure you stay fit and healthy. Even if you don't feel like you're seriously enough into sport to go to a nutritionist, you should be aware of what you're eating and what effect foods have on your body. This is particularly important if you're growing, and is important for both rowing and life in general. So here's a list of general guidelines:
- Make sure you eat enough calories in healthy foods. If you're doing it right, rowing will burn lots of calories, and you need to replace them, otherwise you will be tired and slow.
- Don't overeat. You won't be faster carrying an extra 15kg in chocolate cake, so moderation is key. Yes, you're burning lots of calories, but replace them with good stuff: fresh fruit and vegetables, low gi carbohydrates and protein. If you haven't got advice from a nutritionist, listen to your body and stop eating when you're full - you can save your leftovers for later.
- Eat your veggies. People always mention carbs and protein when talking about sports nutrition, and sure, they're important. But vegetables are good for you, so eat up. You don't have to enjoy it.
- Cake is a treat, not a food group. Believe me, I struggle with this one. For my love of cake is boundless as the oceans are wide. But here's the thing: foods that are high in sugar may feel very satisfying when you're tired, because they give you a delicious sugar buzz - but this is a false gain. When the buzz is over you will crash, feel worse than before, and crave more sugary treats to get you out of your trough of despair. Don't do it to yourself! Eat proper food first - toast with avocado is a good option, or bananas (food of the rowing gods), or anything with a low Glycemic Index (aka GI). Then have some cake, because cake is great. But be kind to your body - don't expect it to perform at training on sugar and wishful thinking. You need slow-release carbs for energy, protein for muscle growth, and vegetables for vitamins, minerals and moral superiority.
6) Come prepared for your training session. In Australian (hot) summer, this means you bring a water bottle, sun hat, sunscreen, sunglasses and a banana. In British (cold) winter this means you bring a water bottle, layers of lycra, waterproofs, dry clothes and a banana. Is it hard to drink water? No. Is it hard to recover from dehydration? Hell yes. Is it hard to put on a dry jumper? No. Is it hard to recover from pneumonia?... You get the idea. Control the small things that you can control, and when something does go wrong you'll bounce back that much faster. Get a kit bag, put your stuff in it and buy a bunch of bananas every week. That's not hard.
This may seem like a long and complicated list, but most of these things are easy to do if you make them part of your daily routine. If you don't procrastinate, they don't take long either. And these habits won't just make you a better rower, they will make you a healthier and happier person. If you are organised, well-rested and well-fed, you will also be calm, efficient and able to fit more in. Feeling fit and healthy is a really great thing, and rowing can get you there if you will let it. So let's do it - see you at the boathouse in the morning.
