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The Training Conundrum
Row longer and slower or shorter and faster? Low intensity or high intensity? When is more too much, and less is more? Successful coaches keep experimenting, developing victorious crews through science and art.
Biggest and Best Henley
While the traditions of Henley Royal Regatta have been preserved, the regatta has adapted and improved.
Ellen Minzner
USRowing’s director of Para high performance is most proud of the growth of the Para and inclusion events at Youth Nationals and Head of the Charles.
BY CHIP DAVIS
DEPARTMENTS
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News Promising Para Prospects in Paris Race Reports U.S. women’s eight wins World University Championships
TRAINING
Sports Science Making Time by Keeping Busy Coxing The Time to Listen and Observe Best Practices The Safety Mandate Fuel The Dangerous Duo Training The Proper Mindset Coach
PHOTOS BY PATRICK WHITE AND LISA WORTHY
BY MADELINE DAVIS TULLY
FROM THE EDITOR
CHIP DAVIS
Broader Base, Greater Heights
Sure, the older we get, the faster we were. But even as a card-carrying member of that club, I offer for your consideration the following declaration:
The sport of rowing is in its golden age, the best era in the existence of our sport, dating at least to the 1872 founding of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, which combined with the National Women’s Rowing Association in 1982 to give us our United States Rowing Association, currently operating under the brand name USRowing.
Rowing is in its golden age, with participation and enthusiasm soaring, regattas thriving, and money flowing.
As we’ve reported previously, the USRowing Youth National Championship in June broke participation and financial records for the second year in a row. This award-winning event, held on the world-class course at Nathan Benderson Park, was the best it’s ever been in ways that are harder to quantify and measure but plain to see, like a vibrant scene at the venue and the pervasive buzz among youth programs leading up to it.
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s 121st anniversary national-championship regatta this year was the biggest ever, as was the American Collegiate Rowing Association’s national championship for college club rowing programs.
Although the NCAA Championships cap participants through a qualifying and bid system, the number of Division I rowing schools will grow as the University of Albany and High Point University launch new women’s varsity rowing programs this fall, followed by the University of Toledo in 2025 (see story, page 30).
There is, and will continue to be, much handwringing and pearl-clutching about the massive changes occurring in college athletics and how they’ll be paid for. But the coming chaos should present opportunities to strengthen and improve rowing even further.
Some of the best are at it already, such as UCLA and Washington, which are raising multi-million dollar rowing endowments. Others have such endowments already, and still others are cementing their place in the athletic department by providing relatively low-cost athletic experiences for student-athletes with the best academic-progress rates, Olympic representation (41 of Team USA’s 592 Paris athletes are rowers, all of whom went to college), and successful alumni.
Our sport is also its own greatest asset: full-body exercise without concussions or other impact injuries, in which the only way to succeed is to work hard and work together. Moreover, it’s growing beyond the traditional spring racing season. The fall head-racing Big Three—Head of the Charles, Schuylkill, and Hooch— feature their biggest and best fields ever, and Beach Sprint rowing debuts as a fullfledged medal-awarding sport at our home Olympics in LA28.
This is the golden age of rowing in other important ways. The Gay + Lesbian Rowing Federation has promoted inclusion and acceptance in the rowing community successfully for over 20 years. A Rowing News cover story 21 years ago told how rowing was one of the pioneering sports in the Paralympic movement. As USRowing’s director of Para high performance points out in the Rowing News interview on pages 48 and 49, our sport is growing also to include more types of athletes.
From a broader base, rowing is rising to greater heights.
Our editorial team can be reached at editor@rowingnews.com
Mistaken Caption
In the story about RowAmerica Rye’s recent performance at Youth Nationals, the caption for the second photo says mistakenly that Rye placed second and fourth in the U17 eights. Instead, that was in the men’s second-varsity eight, with Rye A coming in 0.2 seconds behind Marin Rowing Association in the final, and Rye B finishing fourth in a close race with St. Joseph’s Prep. The picture shows the second-place U17 eight on the medal podium.
Eric Mason Larchmont, N.Y.
Remembering the Talented Tom Walsh
Tom Walsh died July 11 at home in Erie, Pa.
Rowing News featured his skillful photography in multiple Photo Annuals, past coverage of his beloved Ohio State University (he and his children attended), and, most recently, coverage of the 2024 NCAA Championships.
Tom didn’t take pictures for money or fame.
“I like to see the kids in your mag. It’s exciting for them and the parents and leaves lifetime memories,” he said in June.
Tom was a medical doctor and a pilot who served in the Navy and Naval Reserves as a lieutenant commander until 1990. He also was a talented musician and Grammy-nominated mastering engineer.
Most of all, he was a great guy.
Triple Tiger
At Henley Royal Regatta, the Princeton first varsity, with four oarsmen who have won medals at World Rowing Under-23 Championships, raced in—and won—The Ladies’ Challenge Plate event, while the second and third varsity eights competed in the Temple Challenge Cup for student eights.
PHOTO: LISA WORTHY
Cavalier Women
The University of Virginia women’s eight of coxswain Nora Grabcheski, Sofia Coppola, Catherine Williams, Jenna Hajji, Sydney Fratamico, Lauren Benedict, Paige Loh, Meagan Goldsmith, and Kate McGee raced in The Island Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. Before the regatta, Virginia named Wesley Ng its second rowing head coach in program history, following the retirement of Kevin Sauer.
“Taking over this storied program, with such a rich history of individual and team success, is humbling and inspiring,” said Ng. “Kevin and the coaches and student-athletes of the past 29 years changed the trajectory of women’s rowing in the NCAA era through their leadership, dedication, and, most importantly, by being even better people.”
PHOTO: LISA WORTHY
Youth Nationals Rematch
RowAmerica Rye, winners of the women’s youth eight event at Youth Nationals, beat Marin Rowing Association, the bronzemedal winners at Youth Nationals, in one semifinal of The Prince Philip Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. In the other semifinal of the same event, Newport Aquatic Center, the silver medalists from Youth Nationals, fell to the final event winners, Headington School (UK).
PHOTO: PATRICK WHITE
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Promising Para Prospects in Paris
The U.S. PR3 mixed four and mixed double head to the Paralympic Games as strong medal contenders. Are they good enough to beat the seemingly invincible Brits?
The U.S. Paralympic four carried a seven-year silver medal streak through the Tokyo Games in 2021, broken by a fifth-place finish at the 2022 World Rowing Championships, and resumed at last year’s Worlds. It’s a streak they’d like to break again—by finally beating the British crew.
Great Britain’s Para fours are undefeated over 13 years, including the last three Paralympic gold medals. The GB lineup has changed over the years, while the results have not.
“The Brits are together for a long period. They come fully prepared,” said USRowing’s chief of high performance, Josy Verdonkschot.
The U.S. PR3 mixed four of Gemma Wollenschlaeger, Skylar Dahl, Alex Flynn, Benjamin Washburne, and Emelie Eldracher, along with the the U.S. PR3 mixed double of Todd Vogt and Saige Harper, head to the Paris Paralympic Games as strong medal contenders.
“Getting one medal would be the minimum,”
Foggy Blackburn Challenge
Dense fog at this year’s event reinforced what competitor Matt Drayer says of the Blackburn Challenge, a 20-mile open-water circumnavigation of Cape Ann, Mass.: “It’s not a race, it’s a challenge.” The fog, thick enough to trigger seasickness in competitors, caused others to miss the turn into Gloucester Harbor and row extra miles. Coastal rowing shells fared well among the 138-boat field that included kayaks, surfskis, and traditional dories.
The U.S. Para mixed four finished second to Great Britain at the 2023 World Rowing Championships.
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said Verdonkschot of expectations in the lead-up to Paris. “If they equal the result of last year [two silvers at Worlds], it would be great.”
Coaching the U.S. Para double is Andrea Thies, a two-time Olympic athlete.
“The truth is when you go to the highperformance level, knowing what it feels like to be at the 1,000-meter mark, I know I can bring that into this. These Paralympic athletes don’t behave any differently. You don’t know what your capacities are until you actually come to the limit. They have a lot of potential. This is just the beginning.”
“Last year felt good,” said Alex Flynn, now in his second year in the four. “This year feels better.”
Para athletes face the same challenges as other athletes racing on the water—and overcome others getting there.
“We have different mobility levels and strength levels,” said Skylar Dahl, a member of the mixed four (two male and two female
“It does put a financial strain on our relationship, and I don’t get to see my wife.”
Vogt is also adapting to a change in the boat, as Wollenschlaeger and Harper swapped seats from last year’s medalwinning boats.
“We’re a good combination; our skills complement each other,” said Vogt of his new bow-seat partner. “I row with a longer stroke, and Saige is very explosive and dynamic. That works together.”
Also, “she steers way better than I do.”
In June, the four raced at World Rowing Cup III in Poznan, Poland, finishing second, again, to Great Britain, this time by six seconds—the margin had been less than three seconds at last year’s Worlds.
“They were a little bit disappointed about the result in Poznan; I would be as well,” said Verdonkschot. “Obviously, having such young people also means that a lot of them were still rowing in their collegiate programs, so that gives you only a little preparation before the World Cup. Still, it was very good for them, because it’s a reminder how fast it should be.”
“And then it can become tight. And when it’s tight, you just have to remember that you’re American. So you just go for it. Period.”
Josy Verdonkschot
rowers). “So the rigging comes into play not just individually but throughout the whole boat.”
“Being in the boat—that exercise improves the quality of my life,” said Todd Vogt, stroke of the double, who has Parkinson’s. “When I get done rowing, my body feels really good for several hours afterward. The days I don’t row, my tremor will be a little exacerbated, and I might not move as well as I do otherwise.”
Vogt, who is married and lives in Portland, Ore., is training in Boston as he prepares for the Paralympic regatta, Aug. 30 to Sept. 1.
“Josy and USRowing have really done a great job with Ellen [Minzner, director of Para High Performance] (interview, page 48) to create a program for us,” said Tom Siddall, coach of the Para four. “He is super helpful in creating the program for us and then giving us the flexibility to run it on a day-to-day basis and make changes as needed.”
As for how the crew will fare in Paris?
“It’s not going to be for lack of effort,” Siddall said. “It’s just, Can we get it right on the day?”
Verndonkschot agrees, noting the young U.S. Para squad is still gaining speed, while the British “will not make another big step, whereas we can.”
“And then it can become tight. And when it’s tight, you just have to remember that you’re American. So you just go for it. Period.”
Million-Dollar Gift Boosts
Momentum Heading Into Paris
Hopes are high for the U.S. squad to break a five-year winless streak and return with at least four medals—one of them gold.
As U.S. Olympic crews settled into their final pre-Games training camp in Italy, USRowing announced a million-dollar combined gift from anonymous donors. The massive—and needed—shot of financial support added momentum to what appears to be the most cohesive and promising Olympic squad USRowing has ever sent to the Games.
“We’re making progress,” said one of the donors, who was reached while fishing in Yellowstone National Park between trips to Henley and Paris. He called the gift a “big tribute to Josy and also Amanda,” referring to USRowing Chief High Performance Officer Josy Verdonkschot and CEO Amanda Kraus.
Both Verdonkschot and Kraus, along with USRowing board chair Kirsten Feldman and USRowing Foundation chair Bill McNabb, were on hand at Olympic
Media Day at the Casperson Training Center on Lake Mercer in New Jersey when the team debuted their unisuits for Paris and were available for interviews and images. The mood of the Olympic athletes and coaches was remarkable for the absence of tension, compared with similar days in the lead-up to prior Olympics.
This year’s squad has reason to be upbeat, having qualified for an incredible 12 of a possible 14 Olympic events, more than current world powers the Netherlands (10), Great Britain (10), and Italy (eight). Those three nations combined won most of the gold medals (15 of 29) at last year’s World Rowing Championships.
But the U.S. has since out-qualified each of them for the Olympic Games, thanks to historically strong performances at the Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualifying Regatta in May. Four U.S.
boats—the men’s single, men’s double, men’s eight, and women’s quad—earned spots in the limited-field Olympic regatta after the U.S. failed to finish high enough at last year’s Worlds to qualify that way.
Hopes and expectations are high for the U.S. squad at the Paris Olympics and Paralympics to break a five-year winless streak. USRowing has not won a single World Rowing Championship event since 2019 and didn’t win a single medal of any color at the last Olympics.
Board chair Feldman confirmed at Olympic Media Day that one medal of any color would be considered a success for USRowing, but expectations are much higher. Verdonkschot told Rowing News that he would be satisfied with four medals— with “at least one of them shiny [gold].”
Nine or even more is possible, though optimistic. Results from World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne created excitement as U.S. Olympic-event crews won six medals, led by gold-medal performances in the women’s double of Kristi Wagner and Sophia Vitas and the men’s four of Liam Coffigan, Michael Grady, Justin Best, and Nick Mead.
The men’s eight won silver, just twotenths of a second behind current world champion Great Britain, and the women’s four, eight, and lightweight double all won bronzes despite sub-optimal races.
Those six crews, along with the men’s double, the women’s quad, and both pairs, have the potential to advance to the Olympic grand finals, where medals are won and anything can happen.
Add to those 10 Olympic crews the single sculls, in which the U.S. has two solid athletes, and the two U.S. Paralympic crews—the PR3 mixed four and PR3 mixed double, both silver-medal winners at last year’s Worlds—and the potential for the best U.S. medal haul since the partially boycotted LA84 Games is real.
The massive gift of a million dollars was dedicated specifically to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic teams, USRowing stated. Combined with $780,000 from the National Rowing Foundation, USRowing is more than halfway toward its $3.2-million goal for the Paris 2024 fund.
Reaching the real goal of winning medals is even closer.
U.S. women have qualified for every Olympic event for a fifth consecutive Games.
U.S. Women’s Eight Wins Gold at World University Championships
The U.S. women’s eight claimed gold in Rotterdam in early July at the FISU World University Championships, the international championship for university students.
The crew, and the women’s single, spent three weeks training on Ford Lake under Eastern Michigan University coach Kemp Savage, along with the men’s four and single, who were coached by University of Michigan club men’s coach Gregg Hartsuff.
The training camp operated in conjunction with the USRowing Selection Development Camp as part of the Pathways program.
The FISU World University Championships are held for 79 sponsored sports every other year, alternating with the combined World University Games in oddnumbered years.
“It’s a great opportunity to find out if international racing is something you want to do and something you want to keep driving toward,” said head women’s coach Savage of the training camp.
“This kind of camp is open for people who might not quite be there to make the World Championship camps or Olympic camps but need the experience of how to row a camp.”
The 2025 FISU World University Games will be held in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany, with the rowing races taking place at Regattabahn Duisburg.
Marine Stadium Will Host LA2028 Rowing
The course in Long Beach was used in the 1932 Olympics but is now only 1,500 meters long—the shortest rowing racecourse in Olympic history.
The rowing events at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place at Marine Stadium in Long Beach, officials announced.
This is the same body of water used in the 1932 Olympic Games but is now only 1,500 meters long—the shortest rowing racecourse in Olympic history (standard length for international competition is 2,000 meters).
Although the original bid proposed holding the event at Lake Perris, a reservoir east of Los Angeles and three hours from the Olympic Village, that was rejected eventually as too complex and expensive. (For starters, it would have required a satellite Olympic Village.)
“It is a unique situation brought about by a very specific Los Angeles context,” explained World Rowing President JeanChristophe Rolland, “and certainly the best compromise for the benefit of our sport.”
In 1932, the course was a full 2,000 meters, but the subsequent construction of a bridge shortened the water available for a six-lane race to 1,500 meters.
The Long Beach course “will require some adaptation,” Rolland said, but it will be “a great location and an exciting opportunity to showcase rowing to the rest of the world.”
Beach Sprint rowing, a form of Coastal Rowing that is gaining popularity, will debut at the LA Olympics at a venue yet to be announced.
COLLEGIATE
Women’s Rowing Becomes Varsity Sport at Toledo
The University of Toledo will add women’s rowing as a varsity sport beginning in the 2025-26 school year.
Women’s rowing, which will compete at the NCAA Division I level, will be the 17th varsity sport at Toledo and the first addition to the athletics program since women’s soccer in 1995.
A head coach is expected to be hired later this year, with a full year of acclimation before regular-season competition in the fall of 2025. The full squad will consist of about 50 to 60 student-athletes.
“We are excited about the many opportunities that adding women’s rowing brings to the University of Toledo,” said Matt Schroeder, the university’s interim president, “including attracting new students to our campus, supporting the growth of our excellent Rocket athletics program with a 17th varsity sport, partnering more closely with Metroparks Toledo, and strengthening our presence in downtown Toledo.”
Blair added that no resources would be reallocated from any of Toledo’s current varsity sports, and infrastructure and other start-up costs will be relatively low. The team will practice and compete on the Maumee River and will utilize the Philip LeBoutillier, Jr. Memorial Boathouse in International Park in downtown Toledo. The boathouse is owned by Metroparks Toledo and is operated by the Toledo Rowing Foundation.
The Philip LeBoutillier, Jr. Memorial Boathouse in International Park is part of the Glass City Metropark and Riverwalk project. The $200 million public-private initiative will build a waterfront Metropark and riverfront destination, including 300 acres of new and revitalized green space, and a five-mile, multi-purpose trail conneciting six downtown and East Toledo neighborhoods.
How the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games rowing course might look.
Email your best rowing images to photos@rowingnews.com for a chance to be published. Images must be 300 dpi, and a minimum size of 4” x 6”.
NOVEMBER 30, 2024
THE TRAINING CONUNDRUM
Row longer and slower or shorter and faster? Low intensity or high intensity? When is more too much, and less is more? Successful coaches keep experimenting, developing victorious crews through science and art.
STORY BY MADELINE DAVIS TULLY
PHOTOS BY LISA WORTHY
Are we training enough? Are we training too much? What is everyone else doing?
All rowing coaches have asked themselves these questions at some point during their careers, perhaps as often as every day. Yet coaches remain siloed and silent for the most part, reluctant to discuss training practices with peers or ask them about theirs. As I talked to coaches for this feature, time and again I heard this refrain:
“I don’t know what other teams are doing,” Scott Frandsen, head men’s coach at Cal, told me.
“I don’t really know what other people are doing,” echoed Dave O’Neill, head coach of the NCAAchampion Texas women.
Aleksandar Radovic, head coach of the RowAmerica Rye back-to-back Youth National champion boys, took it a step further.
“We really don’t care what others are doing.”
So, if they’re not talking to each other, how are coaches making training decisions?
Personal experience, trial and error, a little science, and a dash of artistry.
Coaches begin coaching usually where they left off as athletes, continuing to pursue positive approaches or attempting to correct perceived wrongs. Which is exactly what Frandsen has done since taking over as head coach of the Cal men in 2019.
“It’s been a combination of all the different coaches and approaches I’ve had, picking the good things I liked and avoiding the bad.”
Frandsen is fortunate. The stable of coaches he’s been able to imitate and emulate is impressive: Tony Carr in high school; Craig Amerkhanian and Steve Gladstone at Cal; Sean Bowden at Oxford; Mike
Spracklen and Terry Paul of the Canadian Olympic team. When Frandsen returned to Berkeley, he served as an assistant to U.S. Olympic coach Mike Teti before taking the reins himself.
Not all coaches have such a pedigreed background or choose to pull from it.
O’Neill, with 23 years of experience as a collegiate head coach, says “chefs can follow the same recipe, but it’s always going to taste different.”
He keeps abreast of training trends in other realms of athletic endeavor and tries to adapt them to rowing. At the beginning of the 2022-23 academic year, fresh off back-to-back NCAA championships, O’Neill was looking for ways to maximize aerobic capacity while limiting the physical and mental stresses of training at an elite level.
Accordingly, the Longhorns committed to exercise physiologist Steven Seiler’s 80/20 training method—80 percent low intensity, 20 percent high.
“Let’s put in as many minutes of aerobic training as we can,” O’Neill declared as he abolished all ranked and even recorded erg workouts.
By February, however, it became evident that it didn’t feel the way it had in previous years, the mental load was no lighter, and the team lacked power. They went on to finish a relatively disappointing fourth at NCAAs.
In a dramatic departure from that, O’Neill this year was influenced by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Norwegian runner and current world-record holder for the indoor 1,500 and 2,000 meters who does “a ton of stuff at threshold.”
Ingebrigtsen’s so-called “Norwegian Method,” which calls for lactate-guided meters and doublethreshold training days, is challenging many long-held beliefs in elite endurance training.
Threshold training involves training at a pace where your body transitions from aerobic metabolism (getting fuel by burning carbohydrates and fats in the presence of oxygen) to anaerobic metabolism (getting fuel from stored sugars and producing lactic acid faster than it can be metabolized). This can be determined by measuring either oxygen consumption or lactate levels in the blood. A simpler way is the “talk test”—when during training you go from being able to speak full sentences to only short phrases and words.
This year, the Longhorns rowed many more meters at threshold. They raced. By his own admission, O’Neill integrated training philosophies into the larger context of Texas Rowing, “piecing together how the training fits into the team culture and how the training needs to have an effect on technique, even on how we want to race. We got back to looking at it from a holistic standpoint rather than just a training plan standpoint.”
Some coaches profess a combination of personal experience and training education, such as Radovic, who keeps up to date by attending coaching conferences and learning from the World Rowing website, in addition to building on his own athletic experience.
Radovic grew up in Serbia, where he competed on multiple junior, under-23, and senior national teams in the mid-2000s. Their training was adapted from the East German system, comprised almost exclusively of long, low steady state.
“Just row as much as you can,” he explained.
When Radovic came to the U.S. for college and rowed at Drexel University in Philadelphia, the training was “pretty much the total opposite,” with hard racing pieces almost every day.
In time, he saw the benefits and drawbacks of both approaches and combined them in a training plan suitable for high-school athletes. RowAmerica Rye trains once a day, six days a week, with Sundays always off.
“Some days we do steady state, some days we do pieces. One day a week is at threshold. One day a week is, depending on the season, either power strokes or higher-cadence speed work, and that’s about it.”
Many coaches, when asked to describe their approach to training, answered in terms that are similarly simplistic. Liz Trond, head coach of the Youth National champion Connecticut Boat Club women, summarized their training as “easy, hard, easy, hard, easy or hard, easy, easy, hard, easy, easy, hard.”
“Honestly, that’s the basics,” she quipped.
Such a description belies the sophisticated effort these coaches put into developing and, most important, adjusting a comprehensive training plan. Something that came up time and again in my conversations was the importance of reflecting honestly on past training and being open to feedback from trusted athletes.
“I like to read the room with our top guys,” Trond elaborated. “Are they still joking? Are they still coming to practice light and loose or are they dragging a little bit?”
This informs her adjustments to training–when to
push the intensity or load, when to back off.
Similarly, Frandsen turns to trusted athletes to guide his training decisions.
“It’s about having the humility to talk to the guys that you trust,” he explained. “At the end of the day, you need to be able to take all that in and convey it in a way that shows this is what you believe, and this is what we’re doing, and everyone’s got to buy in.”
He learned the lesson the hard way in his first years as head coach at Cal, when the team did more of everything.
“We did more volume. We did more strength and conditioning. We did way more hard ergs.”
It was, by Frandsen’s own estimation, too much. By March, the team was exhausted. So he took a different approach, spoke with “a few guys that you trust, learn a little bit, self-reflect a little bit, and then we made some really good changes.”
A trend that emerged in conversations with coaches at both the junior and collegiate level is a move away from high-volume training.
“More volume is not the answer,” said Emily Gackowski, the newly named head coach of the Ohio State women. “We’ve reached the max that you can push volume-wise, with the rib injuries and mental hurdles that come with just doing more. There has to be something else.”
O’Neill agrees that there’s more to a successful training plan than simply training more.
“It’s not just about putting in minutes and volume,” he said. “People have to be happy about what they’re doing and happy where they are; otherwise, they’re not going to perform.”
Which is why, after experimenting with the highervolume, lower-intensity 80/20 approach in ’22-23, the Longhorns this year focused on threshold-intensity work at prescribed paces and preparation at race speed. When they did put in the necessary aerobic work, it was largely through easy minutes on the bike.
O’Neill agrees with Swedish speed skater Nils van der Poel, who never skated slower than race speed in training.
“You can’t do speed-skating slowly,” O’Neill said. So why row slowly?
A few years ago, moderating hard effort might have been dismissed as soft, but it’s hard to argue with the success of Texas and others taking this approach. Frandsen thought a lot about this after he took over at Cal. When developing the team’s training, he wondered, “How do you stretch the amount of progress you can make while limiting the stress and the injuries and the detriments of working too hard?
“How do you make as much progress as possible from September to February while teaching young people how to be tough and have those moments of adversity? They need those hard ergs, but how many do
“WE DID MORE VOLUME. WE DID MORE STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING. WE DID WAY MORE HARD ERGS.”
SCOTT FRANDSEN
“IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT PUTTING IN MINUTES AND VOLUME”
DAVE O’NEILL
they really need to learn those lessons?”
That’s why, in 2022, as soon as he knew Cal had a fit and fast varsity eight, Frandsen did less training, not more. He credits his assistant coaches, Sam Baum and Brandan Shald, with encouraging this moderation in an attempt to keep the athletes healthy.
“We’ve got the speed,” Frandsen said, recalling his thinking. “Is doing those extra two hard workouts a week going to make everybody a little bit tougher? Maybe.”
But the potential drop-off in speed if just one guy got injured was a significant hazard.
“Just keep them healthy,” emphasized the coaches. That crew did indeed stay healthy and went on to win the IRA national championship. The following year, depth was no longer a concern as the Golden Bears swept the IRAs, winning all four heavyweight men’s events.
The adoption of moderate training in a happy environment is not unique to college training and is even more important for junior rowers, who are still early in their athletic development.
“I don’t know what two by 90 minutes does for anybody, other than just taking a lot of boring strokes,” declared Trond. Like Frandsen, she questions how often athletes really need to go all out in order to perform their best on race day.
“How many times can you ask someone to go to that place?” she wondered.
Last fall, her youth women’s four hadn’t gone all out once before their race at the Head of the Charles. Trond’s charge to them before the race: “This is it. One moment, one time, you have to go as hard as you possibly can.”
The crew won the event by 14 seconds.
Many of the coaches I spoke to have been at this for many years and have the benefit of experience, the opportunity and security to experiment and to learn from trial and error. Until now, new coaches, especially new head coaches, have defaulted to adapting their own experiences to their current circumstances. As exercise science and the resources of college and junior athletics advance, however, new coaches have previously unavailable resources at their fingertips.
Gackowski took the helm of the Buckeye program in early July. When questioned shortly after about how she would be developing her team’s training program, she answered confidently, referencing a combination of programmatic history and on-campus resources. Gackowski has the last 10 years of training data, so, she explained, “I know how this team got to win a championship. I know how this team won eight Big 10 championships in a row, and that’s really helpful in starting to build my own training plan.”
Context matters, though, and Gackowski knows she can’t simply replicate the training that was done in the past. She intends to build a relationship with Ohio State’s sports science department to check what she knows along with the historical data on hand and to stay abreast of the latest trends in training. She will seek also to collaborate with the athletic training and strength and conditioning pros, since she and her staff, like most rowing coaches, lack degrees in kinesiology and sports science.
“I’m really trying to build relationships with all three of those parties to ensure that the training I want to do is scientifically what’s going to be moving the team in the right direction,” said Gackowski, one
of a growing number of coaches, especially younger ones, who are looking outside of their own experiences and even beyond rowing to inform their approach to training.
The practical limitations of training a team, which can sometimes be as large as 50 or even 100 athletes, cannot be overlooked. RowAmerica Rye is home to 100 varsity boys and girls combined, along with another 50 novices, putting space at a premium in the boathouse.
When training on land, the four teams engage in an elaborate rotation among ergs, weights, bikes, and running throughout their two-hour practices, meaning time is limited in any one modality. One day a week in the winter, the boys are on the ergs for the full session while the girls lift the whole time. The next day, the teams swap.
Connecticut Boat Club also deals with training constraints.
“We have a finite block of time,” Trond said. “We have two and a half hours, which really means an hour and 45 minutes” with different arrival times, traffic on 95, time to change clothes, and have a quick meeting. Logistical limitations are caused by the water as well. Radovic’s athletes row on Milton Harbor, which is tidal and has only 3,700 meters of protected water. Hence, opportunities for long uninterrupted strokes are in short supply.
These common limitations—shared facilities, less-than- ideal waterways—mean that coaches must tailor their training philosophies to the realities of their rowing environs.
teams train in a wide variety of styles and why even the winningest crews adapt and change their approach over time.
O’Neill believes coaches occupy a continuum. On one end, “there’s the scientist coach, where it’s all about the training plan and millimeters of lactate and watts per kilo and the force curves and the Peach System and everything is down to the numbers.”
On the other end, “there’s the artist coach, where it’s about the feel, the flow, the beauty of rowing, the power of the human spirit, team culture.”
Though he remains curious about exercise science and willing to experiment with different training methods, O’Neill places himself firmly in the artistic camp.
Sensing when to push athletes, when to back off, and when to change things, whether innate or hard won, is crucial to a coach’s ability to train a crew effectively. Scientists have some answers for how to build a training plan, but some things are more metaphysical. That’s when art takes over.
As O’Neill revamped his team’s training in response to a disappointing ‘22-23 campaign, he returned to some time-honored classic workouts.
“We needed to do some workouts that might not make sense from an exercise science standpoint, but from a team culture, trust, confidence standpoint, we needed to do some things that are memorable.”
That’s what led the Longhorns to DKR–Texas Memorial Stadium on a Friday night in March after a long week of training. Under the lights, the rowers attacked repeats of the football-stadium steps with abandon, O’Neill urging them on.
Obviously, there’s more than one way to train a winning crew, which is why successful coaches and
It might not have made sense physiologically, but good coaches know that sometimes teams just need to suffer together to be able to stand atop the podium in June.
Train Like a Champion
Test yourself by giving these workouts from championship crews a try!
The Longhorn Night Stadium Run: When they needed to return to the fundamentals of good old-fashioned hard work, the soon-to-be NCAA champion Texas women turned to a classic workout–stadium steps. Not only is this a great workout but also a top-tier team-bonding and toughness-building exercise. Find your local stadium (it doesn’t need to hold over 100,000 spectators like UT’s DKR Texas Memorial Stadium). You can run the entire stadium or go for a set time. The key is to keep moving. For extra impact, turn on the lights and run this one at night.
The RowAmerica Rye Obstacle Course: A less common but equally memorable workout is the RowAmerica Rye obstacle course. Adapted from the coaches’ Serbian training, this is an ideal way to work on mobility and agility, while still incorporating aerobic work and bodyweight strength training—a quadruple whammy!
Radovic uses equipment that almost every boathouse will have on hand. Athletes will “jump over the erg, jump
under the bench, do a crab walk, do a duck walk, push-up, pull-up, and kids just keep running around.” The circuit is performed for a set period of time that can be extended as athletes become more experienced. At Rye, the varsity squad completes two sets of 20 minutes, while the novices do two sets of 15 minutes, completing the workout weekly throughout the winter months.
The Cal 1x30-Minute Erg: The most traditional rowing-specific workout on this list is a staple in many programs, including the Cal men and U.S. National Team, for a reason. Not only is this a great test of current fitness levels but also doubly effective as a good workout in and of itself, which many shorter erg tests are not.
Frandsen has the Golden Bears complete their 30 minutes at rate 22 to 24 to level the playing field—high enough that it doesn’t advantage the bigger athletes and low enough to test strength and cap those rowers who prefer to complete other tests at a high rate, like pulling a 2K at 42. Complete this workout every five to six weeks throughout the fall and winter to evaluate your progress.
The One-Minute Maximum Effort: No stroke-rate cap (set drag factor to 120). As Olympian Olivia Coffey wrote for Rowing News, it’s like all the emotions of a 2K wrapped up in a compact little package. You feel the free speed in the first few strokes, the buildup of lactate and burning lungs throughout the middle, and the desperation and need for damage control by the end.
It’s surprisingly hard for such a short burst of effort, and you can feel the effects for days. What the minute test can tell you that a lot of other tests can’t is the potential of an athlete who might have an underdeveloped cardiovascular system. Most athletes who produce strong power scores eventually notch 2K or 6K ergs that reflect that power, though the process can take years.
“THEY NEED THOSE HARD ERGS, BUT HOW MANY DO THEY REALLY NEED TO LEARN THOSE LESSONS?”
SCOTT FRANDSEN
Further Reading: Training Fundamentals
Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training, Tudor O. Bompa
80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster By Training Slower, Matt Fitzgerald
Rowing Faster, Volker Nolte
Daniel’s Running Formula, Jack Daniels, Ph.D
How to Skate 10K, Nils van der Poel
The BIGGEST and BEST Yet
While the traditions of Henley Royal Regatta have been preserved, the regatta has adapted and improved. The result: record numbers of rowers and spectators at this year’s rowing classic.
This year’s Henley Royal Regatta, held annually since 1839 except for the two World Wars and Covid, was the biggest—and in many ways, best—yet.
A record number of entries—772—featured 218 overseas boats (from the British perspective), including a strong North American contingent of Olympic, club, college, and youth crews. Some capped championship seasons with a trip to Henley, and others extended theirs with the rowing trip of a lifetime.
Some of the worst of English weather hit the regatta, with high winds, heavy rains, and cold temperatures adding to the challenge of dual racing inside the floating timber booms that line most of the 2,112-meter racecourse—the inspiration for the now-standard 2,000-meter proper rowing distance raced from juniors to the Olympics (except when it’s not).
Environmental factors and racing tactics move racing shells around on the course, and when blades get too close to the booms, it’s disastrous and usually race-deciding, as the University of Washington found out the hard way in the Grand Challenge Cup, the original and fastest Henley event. The course is unforgiving, heart-breaking, and quintessentially Henley—the grandest of all regattas.
In the decade since Steve Redgrave succeeded Mike Sweeney as chairman of Henley Royal Regatta, the event has gone from strength to strength, including surviving the existential threat of global Covid.
In 2015, 527 crews entered Henley, up from 494 the year before, and live video coverage streamed for free on YouTube for the first time. In addition to over 300,000 in-person visitors, this year’s livestream attracted nearly 100,000 views a day of the now six-day event, with the best camera angles, commentary, and production of any rowing event ever.
While the classic traditions of Henley have been preserved, the regatta has adapted and improved, adopting new technology and making modern accommodations thoughtfully and professionally. The result: record numbers of rowers and spectators, in person and around the world.
University rowers won six events at this year’s regatta, including four of the nine events for eights.
Southern Methodist University over the finish line in The Island Challenge Cup.
Patrick
Lisa
Boston University
. BELOW: The Harvard lightweights celebrated an IRA national- championship season, in both the first and second varsities, with a trip to Henley.
Canadian
LEFT: Oxford Brookes
Photo:
Worthy. ABOVE:
leading
Photo:
White
Photo: Patrick White. NEXT PAGE: The
women’s quad, racing as Shawnigan Lake School, won The Princess Grace Challenge Cup. Photo: Patrick White.
has grown into a six-day regatta, with 26 events on five levels. On the open and junior levels, there are eight events each for men and women, while the intermediate, student, and club events are offered mostly for men. Photo:Lisa Worthy BELOW: Cal sent two men’s fours to race in The
ABOVE: Henley Royal Regatta
Visitors’ Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. Photo: Lisa Worthy.
Canada sent three under-23 crews, including a women’s four,
was well represented with three men’s heavyweight crews and won The Ladies Challenge Plate, a
product of a lot of hard work from our entire team over the course of the last 12 months.” Photo: Lisa Worthy.
ABOVE: Oliver Zeidler won his fourth Diamond Challenge Sculls title at Henley. Photo:Lisa Worthy. BELOW: Rowing
to Henley Royal Regatta. Photo: Lisa Worthy. NEXT PAGE: Princeton University
victory coach Greg Hughes called, “the
ELLEN MINZNER THE INTERVIEW
WHAT EXCITES USROWING’S DIRECTOR OF PARA HIGH PERFORMANCE IS THE CURRENT TEAM’S YOUTH. THE ATHLETES GOING TO THE PARIS PARALYMPICS HAVE A NEW LOOK AND ENERGY—AND REAL SPEED.
Ellen Minzner serves as USRowing’s director of Para high performance, a title that describes her work responsibilities but doesn’t begin to tell the story of her career as a champion of actual inclusion, equity, and accomplishment in the sport of rowing.
At Community Rowing, Inc. in Boston, Minzner and her colleagues developed programs that welcomed people with disabilities, underserved youth, and military veterans. Her pioneering work has served as a model for similar programs across the country, and through her current efforts, she’s advancing not only U.S. Para crews but also the sport as a whole.
Minzner is also a two-time world champion athlete who won the lightweight women’s pair at the 1995 and 1996 World Rowing Championships with Christine Smith-Collins.
Rowing News caught up with Minzner at Community Rowing as the U.S. Para PR3 mixed four and mixed double prepared for the Paris Paralympic Games, which will take place Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at the Vaires-sur-Marne basin in Paris.
Both crews won silver medals at the 2023 World Rowing Championships, and the four carries the U.S. run of Para silvers—all behind Great Britain—into the Paris Games.
Rowing News: It’s been a successful run. What are you most proud of?
The thing I’m most proud of is the growth of the Para and inclusion events at Youth Nationals and Head of the Charles. That took a lot of work. We basically have to build our own pipeline. So most people just see that it has been successful at the top, which is great—I am super proud of all the medals we’ve been able to win—but when a kid at Youth Nationals says, “I just love seeing all the other competitors in this event and getting to talk to everyone and knowing that I’m not the only one because I am the only one at my boat club.”
I am really proud that rowing is something that young people want to come out for in the Paralympic boat classes. I hope that continues to grow.
Rowing News: That’s been part of your success on the elite level, getting more athletes from the colleges than from people who were Para athletes first and then came to rowing? You’re finding the Para among the already rowing ?
The way to compete, especially in the PR3 boat class, is you have to come at it with a highly competitive background before you come into Para rowing. It was mainly about realizing that there’s probably
way more people with Paralympic eligibility than even I was aware of.
The collegiate coaches were probably not aware that they had the opportunity to put an athlete on the highest stage who may or may not be able to make their top boat. So we spent a couple of years just doing straight-up email campaigns to college rowers and college coaches saying, “Hey, by the way, you may have an athlete on your squad. This is the kind of experience an athlete on your squad with Paralympic eligibility could have if they were to come out for our squad and make a national team.”
That’s how we got a lot of referrals. Many weren’t eligible, but that’s OK because they’re coming to us now as opposed to our having to go and find athletes. We had a very successful selection camp this year. It was a combined camp with the PR3 double and the PR3 four. Even to get invited was tough, because it was a very competitive camp.
What I’m really proud of is that it’s really hard to make these boats, especially in the PR3 boat class. And with some of the young people who come out for Youth Nationals, and our development camp, and Canadian Henley program, we’re getting there also in the fixed-seat boat classes.
We’re trying to provide a way for fixed-seat athletes to find their way
to the international level without the infrastructure of a U23 and a U19 worldchampionship program. That’s something that’s now being discussed. Once we begin identifying younger talent and giving them more opportunity to race, we’ll have more success in the fixed-seat boat classes.
Rowing News: Lightweight rowing is getting cut out of the Olympics because of arguments like “People don’t understand it” and “Those athletes have an opportunity to row in the open class, so they don’t need a special one.” Those same bad arguments could be applied to Para. Do you think that’s a threat?
There is some conversation about changing the Paralympic program. Paralympic rowing is still fairly new— 2008 was the first Paralympics for rowing. And we’re still looking at the program. The big change, to move the PR3 double from a world championship to a Paralympic event, was a positive one. Some events, when they’re not part of the Olympic program, struggle for a subscription in any given year. But we have an eye toward developing the sport overall with World Rowing.
Paralympic rowing is awesome. It’s here to stay. It’s a matter of how we define our sport and our universality.
Rowing News: And what’s holding it back? Equipment?
It’s time we revisit what’s best for the athlete in terms of safety and competitive speed. The level of athletes who are coming out for Paralympic rowing is better and better each year. And the athletes deserve to be in something that is bespoke to them, that works for them.
In Paralympic boat classes for PR1, PR2, there’s essentially one weight range [of boats]. That’s difficult because you have very big athletes whom the boats don’t fit and you have to change the whole structure of how you position the rigger on the hull. You can’t achieve the seat-to-heel height differential you want because the boat is so shallow.
To make that work, you’re putting the athlete higher. Then you’re putting the rigger higher, and soon enough, you’re losing stability. So I’m a fan of taking a look at what’s best for the athlete. There are all kinds of designs and technology that exist right now for almost no cost.
We should be entertaining ideas and talking to the athletes about what’s going to work for them, not only in terms of speed but also in terms of the health of athletes who have high-level impairments having to row the heaviest boat in the sport. It’s a problem.
Why is weight a big factor? Couldn’t we look to something like canoe and
kayak, where it’s similar to the open program and you can do whatever you want within certain parameters?
The one-design approach to PR1 and PR2 isn’t all that helpful because it ends up not working for any individual, really. It takes quite a lot of time and effort on the coaches’ part to do some basic geometry that we would set up in no time in an open boat. It’s time we really look at the equipment.
Rowing News: In Paris, what can fans look forward to out of the USA?
The real excitement is the youth of our team right now. We’ve got our senior guy in Todd [Vogt], but for the most part what these athletes bring is a new look and a new energy. They’ve got some speed, and it’s really up to them what they’re going to do out there.
It’s really exciting—the enthusiasm that we’ve had for Para rowing, the young people who are looking to this crew and saying, “Hey, I could be there in two or three years.”
We’ve got some youthful enthusiasm and we’re going to look to capitalize on that when we get to the racecourse.
Rowing News: Can you beat the Brits?
Of course we can. The question is, Will we?
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HEAD OF THE SCHUYLKILL REGATTA
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TRAINING
Making Time by Keeping Busy
During busy times, students benefit from the chronological structure of training sessions and regattas. When you have a lot to do, there’s not much time to procrastinate.
The rowing season at Canadian universities takes place in the fall during the first semester of the school year. As the head coach of the rowing program at the University of Western Ontario, I received an overview of the academic performance of the rowing students after the second semester.
One fact always surprised me: Grades were consistently better during the rowing season! In other words, better grades were achieved when the students were busiest. Besides classes, lectures, and coursework, my rowers had to cope with daily training sessions and weekend regattas.
One would think it would be more difficult for students to meet all their commitments than during the offseason, when training sessions are less frequent and they have more latitude for their activities.
My hunch is that during busy times students benefit from the chronological structure of training sessions and regattas. When you have a lot to do, there’s not much time to procrastinate. Students realize that they need to take care of coursework, meal prep, and recreation and get them done. Completing schoolwork and making athletic progress simultaneously are motivating, which
further reinforces the habit. Paradoxically, it’s during such hectic times that athletes manage their time best.
Time management involves organizing and planning the time available to complete various activities. If you do it right and work smarter instead of harder, you can get things done in less time, even when you’re short on time and under pressure.
Most coaches talk about time management at the beginning of the school year, and more experienced team members help new rowers get on the right track. Time management is important
TRAINING
for everyone, however; it’s always helpful to know what you need to accomplish in the time allotted so you can make plans accordingly.
It’s best to put things on paper. Write down the tasks that need to be done in a day, prioritize them, and estimate the time each will take to complete. Then decide
Major detriments to good time management are things that eat up your time but don’t help you get the necessary tasks done.
what time of day you want to begin each task. Fixed times that can’t be changed will help you structure your day.
The first thing you’ll find is that there are usually enough hours in a day to do what you want to do, as long as you put in the right effort for each task. On those rare occasions when there aren’t enough hours in a day, you can break a task into smaller chunks that you can complete the next day.
Major detriments to good time management are things that eat up your time but don’t help you get the necessary tasks done. Not only do they take valuable time away from the task at hand but also getting back on task consumes more time. Among such time-eating distractions are social media, video games, email, phone calls, and frequent breaks to snack. The best way to deal with such time robbers is to ignore them when you’re supposed to be concentrating. Turn off your smartphone and put it in another room. Eat and drink before you begin the task.
The time-multiplying power of switching off distractions is clear when we are out on the water training. The smartphones stay on land, and the fridge is far away. This allows us to focus on rowing.
The Time to Listen and Observe
Anticipating the coach’s needs and being a steady presence and bridge between your teammates and coach can build your credibility with both coach and crew.
In a few short weeks, rowers and coxswains from all over the country will pack their bags and arrive at a boathouse for the first time. Whether switching high-school teams for a better commute, heading off to college, or joining a new masters team, it’s time for coxswains to take their talents and wrenches to a new team. If you’re headed back to a familiar boathouse, you’ll still find yourself with new teammates and possibly a new coach.
In rowing, as in life, first impressions matter. Of course, you want to put your best foot forward upon arriving at the boathouse. But how?
The most important thing a coxswain on a new team or with a new coach can do is listen. The vocabulary of rowing can differ among coaches and boathouses. Do you “weigh enough” or “let it run”? Drills, landmarks, and even shells in the boathouse can have multiple names. Listen and observe. You don’t need to parrot the other coxswains, but it’s important to understand the team’s vernacular.
Next, listen to your new coach. Beyond listening to direct instructions
to you, listen to how your coach gives feedback to rowers and how she or he breaks down the rowing stroke. Before you try to be a step ahead, make sure that you’re in step with the person at the helm of your program.
“Your coach is going to tell you everything they want you to say to the crew. It’s not a complicated process, but sometimes we [as coxswains] forget to listen and absorb that, because we’re so set on trying to do it ourselves,” said Ariel Handler, assistant coach at Northeastern University and a former coxswain at UCLA.
Listening to your coach and getting a good sense of his or her vocabulary, rhythm, and priorities will make you a great asset and is the first step toward anticipating the coach’s needs.
“What makes the coxswain really good is when they can predict what needs to be done without asking the question,” said Handler.
If you’re an experienced coxswain with a new coach, the same advice applies. Remember, your coach is trying to
assess the new team and establish clear expectations. You can help by being a steady presence and by translating the coach’s needs to the crew effectively. Being a good bridge between your teammates and new coach can help you build credibility with the coach and the crew.
Perhaps most important is the power of a fresh start.
“You can reinvent yourself. You don’t have to be the same coxswain you were the season before or the year before,” said Handler. Arriving at—or returning to— the boathouse with a different mentality is powerful.
Do some honest introspection about your weaknesses but regard addressing them as learning new skills as a coxswain, not shifting who you are as a person. That can help break changes into smaller, doable chunks that you can achieve this fall. Be professional, confident, and resilient, and remember that your successes this year can be built one practice at a time beginning in September.
HANNAH WOODRUFF
COXING
TRAINING
The Safety Mandate
Well-being on the water begins by learning the plan on land.
Ideally, safety should never be an exciting topic for a coach, but it does still need consistent attention. Any time there is a transition—the start of the new season or school year, moving from land training back to the water, the arrival of new novices or coaches—is an ideal time to re-examine and emphasize safety.
It all begins with a well-understood safety plan. This is a practical plan that may addresses how to avoid dangerous situations but focuses on how to react if danger occurs. Plan it in advance, communicate it to all new rowers and coaches, reiterate it regularly, and post it clearly where all can see it. The plan will have different characteristics depending on the local situation, but it typically addresses what to do when there is serious trouble. Athletes and coaches need to understand their responsibilities—especially how to summon professional help—when confronted with an emergency. Start today by making sure everyone knows where the AED and first-aid kits are located.
In addition to a safety plan, policies and procedures must be in place to keep everyone safe. These include having everyone pass a swim test; learn drown-proofing and other rules of rowing; receive proper training in CPR and use of an AED; and more. It also includes the trickier tasks of educating coaches on how to drive a launch and possibly driving athletes and hauling trailers. SafeSport standards, which outline how
coaches behave around young athletes, must be articulated and adhered to by all adults. USRowing has resources to help with these topics.
Safety is both a collective and individual responsibility. Some safety considerations don’t rise to the level of emergencies but still need personal attention to mitigate long-term trouble. For coaches, simple steps like putting on sunscreen and using hearing protection around outboard engines can make a
Safety must be an attitude shared by all involved.
difference. Athletes, especially younger ones and those new to rowing, need to learn about the importance of warming up properly, dressing for the weather, hydration, and basic hygiene with shared oars and ergs. Older coaches all know how to treat blisters, but they don’t. Safety cannot afford assumptions. There is a lot to consider, and the time to do so is now—before an incident. Safety must be an attitude shared by all involved. Questioning the relative safety of any activity before undertaking it should be a given. There are no short cuts. There can never be the exception of “just this one time.” One hundred-percent adherence to the safety plan and policies is the minimum expectation.
BILL MANNING
The Dangerous Duo
Want your body to crash and your performance to plummet? Here’s a surefire formula: Overtrain and undereat.
Most athletes want to perform at their best. They train hard and fuel and refuel in a manner that supports the physique that’s best for their sport. Despite their best efforts, they sometimes end up disappointed. So they begin to train harder and restrict food to get even leaner.
And that’s where problems often begin. Are they overtraining? Why aren’t they losing weight? Are they eating the wrong combinations of foods at the wrong times? Should they be eating more to support their training? Or eating less to drop a few pounds? How can they lose weight?
At the American College of Sports Medicine’s recent annual meeting, speakers addressed the questions frustrated athletes have about how much to train to achieve maximal performance, lose undesired body fat, and stay healthy.
Some interesting answers and food for thought:
Restricting food intake while training hard might lead to leanness and lightness, but that might not make you a better athlete.
The “lighter is better” mantra that curbs many athletes’ food intake can hurt performance by injuring muscles and tendons and causing crippling fatigue. When the calorie intake needed to support performance is higher than the diet provides, athletes can experience deleterious outcomes. Sometimes, food restriction is purposeful, and other times, athletes struggle to find time to eat enough food to match the demands of their training.
Exercising in energy deficit for prolonged periods often means the body gets deprived of important nutrients— adequate protein to heal niggling injuries, adequate vitamins and minerals to support health, and enough grains and other carbs
to resupply depleted glycogen stores.
Trent Stellingwerff, an overtraining researcher at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, has found that up to 70 percent of athletes can be underfueled. Many of today’s athletes report undereating carbs (supposedly because they’re fattening). Instead, they focus on eating more than enough protein. Declared Stellingwerff: “Athletes need to rethink that strategy, because the immune system needs adequate carbs and calories to function.”
When food intake is low and exercise volume is high, underfueled athletes may not lose body fat as expected because the body compensates for the imbalance.
Eimear Dolan of the University of São Paulo presented two examples of how the body seeks to conserve energy:
1) Endurance athletes who train six hours a day tend to spend the remaining 18 hours resting, doing sedentary activities, and sleeping. They fidget less. This decreased activity helps the body cope with the high level of training.
2) Male and female athletes experience a drop in reproductive function. With too little energy available to fuel normal
physiological functions, females stop having regular menstrual periods and male athletes experience reduced libido, sperm density, and morning erections.
An accumulation of stress related to training (and life) can result in Overtraining Syndrome and a long-term drop in performance.
Overtraining Syndrome can take months or even years to resolve, said Justin Carrard of the University of Basel. He wasn’t talking about what happens at training camps, where athletes overreach typically to improve performance. Instead, he addressed what happens when athletes push too hard for too long and performance drops.
If you feel tired for weeks in a row and experience a drop in performance, consider taking some rest days. Training needs to be balanced with recovery, which allows for improved performance. Get enough sleep, eat enough nourishing food, and spend time having some fun.
The zeal of some athletes outstrips their body’s ability to adapt to the workload .
Exercise physiologist David Nieman of Appalachian State University has studied
the effect of exercise on the immune system and illness. His conclusion: The immune system is very responsive to physiological stress.
With moderate activity, the immune system works effectively. With high exercise loads, such as marathons, immune function can decline and then bounce back. But when athletes push too hard for too long, the immune system can break down, and Overtraining Syndrome sets in.
Because doing research that can harm an athlete is unethical, Nieman studies athletes who overtrain on their own. Many of these overtrained athletes report symptoms similar to chronic fatigue or Long Covid: lethargy, muscle/joint pain, easy fatigability, exercise intolerance, brain fog, unrefreshing sleep. Some of these athletes take two to three years to recover. Is this because their immune system got exhausted?
Many ultrarunners competing in the Western States 100-miler managed to stay healthy, Nieman reported, but some generated levels of erosive metabolites (cytokines) that were as high as those in patients dying from Covid. Some athletes have high creatine kinase levels (indicative of high muscle damage); others, not much. Each person’s immune system is unique, so athletes need to find the sweet spot that enhances rather than hurts performance.
To minimize the development of Overtraining Syndrome, the IOC is initiating a surveillance system with guidelines for coaches and athletes. The guidelines encourage sufficient recovery time, sleep, nutrition, and hydration, as well as psychological strategies to manage stress. Most important: Don’t train when you’re sick.
If you exceed what your body can tolerate, you’ll have to climb out of that hole by exercising minimally and keeping other stressors under control. Consuming adequate fuel every day is an investment guaranteed to yield long-term benefits in performance.
That is science about which there’s absolutely no doubt.
Sports nutritionist NANCY CLARK, M.S., R.D., counsels both casual and competitive athletes in the Boston area (Newton; 617-795-1875). Her best-selling Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook can help you eat to win. For more information, visit NancyClarkRD.com.
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Mentor Power
Having a good mentor can be the difference between landing that next hot assistant-coach job and staying stuck in a role you’ve outgrown.
Having good mentors —ones who are informed about the field and invested in your success—can make all the difference in how, and how fast, you grow as a coach and advance through the profession, not to mention how satisfied you are with what you’re doing.
People with mentors often experience faster career advancement than nonmentored peers, studies show. Having a good mentor can be the difference between landing that next hot assistant-coach job and staying stuck in a role you’ve outgrown.
Mentored coaches tend to perform better because they receive honest, constructive feedback, learn best practices from those more experienced, and gain insights into overcoming challenges more effectively.
If you’re a lucky assistant coach, your head coach is already serving as mentor. Regardless, you must take matters into your own hands and seek several different kinds of mentors actively.
Wise leaders are coaches who have been there, done that; they have achieved things you hope to accomplish someday and are
respected within the rowing or coaching community. They are experienced in the ever-evolving challenges coaches face and are willing to share what they know— what has worked and, just as important, what hasn’t. They also have a large network they’ll tap—other head coaches, administrators, board members—when the time comes for you to plot your next move.
Peer mentors are overlooked often but just as critical to your personal development. They understand what you’re going through because they’re sharing similar experiences. Peer mentors are a great resource for bouncing around ideas in a less intimidating setting and providing a knowledgeable outside perspective. In my years of coaching, I’ve learned and grown just as much from honest, open conversations with trusted peers— competitors, even—as I have from wise leaders.
Confidantes are not so much mentors as friends and sounding boards. These are the people you can turn to without fear of judgment to bat around outsidethe-box ideas, vent about challenges, and confirm gut checks. Their steady presence and sympathetic ear will help you feel less alone.
Finally, don’t be afraid to mentor yourself. Listening to your inner mentor means trusting your intuition. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate what we’re feeling deep down inside—an uneasy feeling or jolt of energy. The advantage of mentoring yourself is direct access to your history, your goals, and the reality of your current experience. By listening astutely, you can discern what next move is best.
Meanwhile, seize every opportunity to connect with others in the rowing and coaching worlds. Introduce yourself in the boatyard. Participate in athleticdepartment meetings. Make an effort to stay in touch with those whom you may have met only briefly but want to get to know better.
To reap the benefits of your network, put yourself out there.
MADELINE DAVIS TULLY
BOSTON
Massachusetts, USA
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Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup the next day against Shiplake. Rowing at 36 and 37, they showed not a trace of a pause in their rhythm. They celebrated their triple—a quadruple if we add the Head of the Charles to the year’s big regattas.
I spoke with a fellow coach at Henley, Bill Manning of Penn AC, who said that he does pause drills at the finish to get the crew to prepare and feel the boat run. But after that conscious pause, he shifts them to “now pause for half that amount of time, now half of that,” so that before they know it, there is no pause at all.
“The micropause is a teaching device that functions well at lower rates and intensities and then disappears when the rate comes up,” Manning elaborated. “When I teach pause at the release, this is what I do. It helps them complete the drive rather than cut the finish when the rate increases, but I never expect any pause at race rates.”
We agreed that the bicycle chain analogy still holds water. Will I try a micropause next spring? I like Manning’s pause drill, so we’ll see.
Overheard at Henley:
One of the pleasures of being at Henley is being surrounded by so much rowing over the six days of the regatta. I like to keep my ears open.
I asked a friend how his daughter’s season had gone.
“She didn’t row this year because of a back problem, but she is rowing now at Henley.”
“And her back?”
“Well, she’s at bow, so not really straining.”
Spoken like the true five man that he was.
The showers at Henley are famed for their frigid water. There is no hot-water faucet, and rowers have been known to scream when the icy blast hits them. But this year, to the disappointment of many, athletes were reporting that the showers didn’t seem so bad.
One vet shared a memory: “In the old days, you could always tell a rookie because he’d put his palm under the water waiting for it to warm up. I loved to see it slowly dawn on him that it’s not going to get any warmer.”
ANDY ANDERSON
Meditations on the Micropause
After watching the races at Henley, our curious columnist isn’t sold. He clings to the bicycle-chain analogy of the stroke as a continuous cycle.
Three years ago, one of my high-school oarsmen who had rowed in England before rowing for me returned from vacation talking about a new thing that was spreading through the UK—the micropause at the finish. He wanted us to adopt it.
“It gets everyone together at the finish,” he said.
I could see that it would do that, but my concept of the rowing stroke was the metaphor of the bicycle chain; the more you can keep the motion moving constantly, the less chance for a break in the rhythm of the rowing stroke. We did not adopt a micropause.
Since that time, I’ve watched as numerous crews have glommed on to this British innovation. Many of them have been good crews. Maybe I should take another look. Mrs. Dr. Rowing and I decided that we needed to take a look first hand at some superb crews and see what they did. I got in touch with Bobby Thatcher, the super-successful coach at St. Paul’s School in London and asked whether we could spend a week in his launch.
“The micropause is a teaching device that functions well at lower rates and intensities and then disappears when the rate comes up.”
I had seen videos of SPS at steady state; to my eye they did practice the micropause. Bobby was welcoming. On the Tideway, that section of the Thames River that flows through the heart of London, it did, in fact, look like his crew paused.
SPS was the winner of the 2023 Head of the Charles by a whopping 20 seconds, a race in which the crew passed 14 boats despite starting way back at number 74 of 90 eights. More recently, SPS won the first two legs of the Schools Triple Crown—the Schools Head in London and the National Schools Regatta at the 2012 Olympic course at Dorney.
I asked Bobby about the micropause.
“We are not pausing,” he said. “We are finishing the stroke and organizing the next stroke.”
At rate 22, it sure looked to me like there was a distinct pause. It may be a matter of semantics; Thatcher was certainly not coaching them to pause, but he was insistent that they needed to organize at the finish in preparation for the next catch. It was also clear that at low rates, the oarsmen were feeling the boat run out, a desirable result.
As Volker Nolte explained in the January issue of this magazine, “With most training done at lower stroke rates and corresponding lower boat velocity, the best way to engrain this movement is to row with a slow recovery followed by a quick motion into the catch. This is the source of the so-called micro-pause.”
I’d add that there is a danger in coaching a pause because this “gather” at the finish may lead to a rush down the slide. If the crew is not skilled at catching the water, a coach may be encouraging a technique that will produce hanging and missing water.
I was fortunate to be at Henley this summer and get a launch ticket for the premier high school race of the year, the semifinal between St. Paul’s and its rival and last year’s Henley winner, St. Edward’s. It was a terrific race, with both crews rowing very well.
St. Paul’s took a very aggressive move early on and won by a length and a quarter. The team followed up by winning the
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