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Training Guidelines
If you win at the Canada Cup and Henley - you don't win them in August. Sure, that's when an official hangs a medal around your neck, but that's not when you did all the background work necessary to give yourself a solid chance of winning. You win these competitions NOW, and every day between last season ending and the start of this year's competition. There is no substitute for Persistence and HARD WORK, and the more you do it through the winter, the faster you'll be in the summer. If you win at the World Championship or Olympic Games, again, you didn't win them in August or September, it's what you've done in the 3 - 8 years preceding these events that determines if you've even the slightest hope of winning. Try to make every row a "Technique" row - in that no matter what the duration of the training session, and no matter what the intensity of the work you're doing, you're trying to improve yourself technically. Blind "pulling" will get you fit, but if you get sloppy in your rowing, you might as well be out jogging. Even if you are on an ergometer, pay attention to the aspects of technique that you can, on the machine, so that when you get back on the water, your time "erging" hasn't been spent learning to do movements that are unproductive with respect to boat moving skill. The "gross body motion" of rowing an ergometer are similar enough to sculling and rowing that you can get a positive training benefit from rowing the ergometer, but only if you are paying attention to the body motion sequence and rhythm that you would use to make a boat go fast. Your training should be "progressive", and "periodised". The physical demands of the training should progress from "this is an oar" level of effort to whatever amount of work you need to do to continue to improve towards your target within the sport. This is something that needs to be determined in discussion with your coach, family, and friends. If your goals are to row for health and fitness, you may not actually need a training program for anything beyond variety, to keep the rowing sessions interesting. If your goals are for competition, training program needs can go from relatively simple (for a novice, rowing locally) to rather complex and involved (for a "Senior A," rowing internationally). A winning attitude comes in part from confidence that your training is going in the right direction. This confidence is largely derived from YOU ensuring that you do your training, and from your trusting that your coach knows what he or she is doing. (i.e., your coach cannot get fit on your behalf, only you can - coaching is a means of guiding you on the way to your discovery of your potential) Please recall that Rowing Canada uses the "Category 1-6 system" of training intensities. There are copies of this all over most rowing clubs and I encourage you to become familiar with it. Some of the best coaches in the world have collaborated to produce it, and their results have been impressive. It doesn't really matter what you call a training session. In New Zealand, GB, and other places (and in Canada prior to the importation of the Cat 1-6 system) the nomenclature "U-2 or UT2" was used to roughly define what Canada now calls Category 6. This is also known as "Long Slow Distance" or "Low Sub Threshold" or by some French, as "B-1" Cyclists use Level I as their lowest intensity, RCA uses Cat 6 as the lowest intensity. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." We're in Canada, so please become familiar with the Category 1-6 system that we use. Tailor Your Training to Your GoalsIf your goals include international competition, you can pursue that by training 2-3 times per day (building yourself up to that over a couple of months if you're not already doing that) You CANNOT start international-level training from scratch - most people need at least 2 and more likely 4 years of building up from novice-level to "club competitive" at the local/regional level to "national competitive" at the interprovincial level, before attempting to train at the continuing hard work level of the national rowing team candidate. The training recommendations contained in this information newsletter are not sufficient to that level of competition. If you're new to training, you need to build yourself up to the 2-3 times/day over a few years, not months. This should be done in consultation with a coach, and require several years' dedicated training with very few interruptions. If your goals include interprovincial competition, you can train for rowing 1 time per day through a large chunk of the winter, but by February it's probably a good idea to start working back to 2-a-day. (Use February and March to build the volume back up - add 1 workout per week so that it's not too much shock to your body - if you're a student, exam time and the week or so leading up to it can be brought back to 1/day or 1 per 2 days, depending on your schedule.) If your goals include local competition or recreational rowing for health and enjoyment of being on the water in a boat, Category V and VI can be the main part of your rowing, some strength/Pilates/Yoga type training off-water. For health, 3-6 rowing sessions per week with 2-3 off-water sessions are probably sufficient. If you are training on rowing ergometers. I am beginning to believe that you should "erg" no more than 4/week in winter if you are training for rowing, and that your base-body endurance can be developed through running, cross-country skiing, stairs/hills running, cycling, speed skating, snow-shoeing (we're in Canada, after all) or long hikes in the mountains, for that matter. Mike Spracklen's programs for the Canadian men include one or two regular ergometer training sessions per week. I haven't asked Mike why this is, but I SUSPECT it's because the ergometer's read-out doesn't lie about how hard you're working, and the group of men training in Victoria is VERY competitive internally as well as externally. If you feel it necessary to train on ergs more than 4/week, be careful to work on flexibility and "balancing" work to counteract the mechanical inefficiency of the ergo - you have to stop and restart your entire body at each end of the stroke, interacting with the planet to which your erg is fixed, whereas in a boat the relationship between you and the boat is much more gentle on your lower back/hip flexor area. If you do plan on erging 4-7 or more times per week, please try to use "RowPerfect" machines or "slides" under Concept 2 machines for any erging beyond 4 sessions. 24 Hour Athlete In keeping with the concept of focusing on training and giving your best performance possible during racing, I have to encourage people to think of being a "24 Hour Athlete". This does NOT imply training 24/7. However, 24/7, you live in the body with which you train. If you have the attitude that you only need to eat well during the day of competition, or that you can get by with only 4 hours of sleep per night, then you're not paying attention to getting the best out of your self. You CAN get the best out of yourself by remembering that for 24 hours/day, you are "wearing" the body with which you will be competing. You need to keep that body well fed, well rested, well hydrated, and the things you put in your body have all to be good. Good for you, good tasting (so you'll eat it), and LEGAL. You are what you eat, and the fuel you put into your body is what makes you a competitive athlete. The rest you get sleeping is how the training demands are serviced by the body, and is used to repair and build your body's ability to perform, providing you have given it a good chance with enough nutritious food. Monthly training recomendations are contained in the "training" section of the AB Rowing Coach, which is linked within the coaching newsletter.
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