It’s crucial to stay on strength training during the in-season time or race prep. Rowers who don’t do in-season strength training are at their strongest at the start of the season when it matters least, and their weakest at the end of the season when it matters most. I’ll show you two studies in this post that demonstrate why rowers and coaches should not be so worried that in-season strength training will necessarily compromise in-season erging or rowing performance.

Continue reading → Don’t Fear In-Season Rowing Strength Training

I’ve had the first Green Racing Project athletes I’ve coached leave the team to retire from full-time competitive sport, so this has been on my mind lately and it’s timely with graduations and the end of academic year seasons coming up too. We’ll be back to normal strength training for rowing content next week.

Continue reading → Athlete Transitioning/Retirement from Sport

Sculling, rowing, and erging are mostly bilateral sports, meaning that both legs and both arms are doing approximately the same thing in approximately the same way at approximately the same time. We can enhance performance with bilateral strength training, but unilateral strength training with one arm or one leg working at a time is still important for rowers of all ages, types, and levels. This post and new video is all about the single-leg squat variations that I use.

Continue reading → New Video: Single-Leg Squat Variations for Rowers

Rowing coaches and rowers agree on a lot of things. I like to ask coaches for their rowing training opinions that they feel are controversial, or at least counter-cultural. What do they do differently than other coaches? This is a much more interesting discussion than yet more of how we all love pause drills and why the gather-at-the-release isn’t actually a micropause if it smooths out at higher rates.

Continue reading → Controversial Rowing Training Opinions

It’s bulky, fairly uncommon in a conventional gym, and really only does one thing well, but it’s worth knowing about the glute-ham raise (GHR) if you have the access and the strength to to use it. Correctly performed, the GHR is one of the best ways to strengthen the posterior chain muscles of the hamstrings, glutes, and back. We’ve seen good effect from training it with the Craftsbury GRP rowers in lower body strength, torso connection, and even reducing low back pain.

Continue reading → New Video: The Glute-Ham Raise

I got a reader question about this and have added a section in my updated “Rowing Warmup” article last month to address “cooldowns” (or the amusingly named “warmdowns,” if you prefer). I feel strongly about the importance of a warm-UP. We can identify the physiological effects of a warmup, whether or not we’ve achieved them, and how this affects subsequent performance. Not so much with a cooldown

Continue reading → About “Cooldowns”…

If you’re only going to do one movement from the full-body warmup routine before erging, rowing, and strength training, the deep squat progression is the one to do. This is a simple movement with a lot of nuance for specific technical and mobility elements. Done well, it’s a catch-all for the hip, knee, back, core, and shoulder muscles, mobilizing or stabilizing each joint from ankles to shoulders. Here’s how to put it to good use.

Continue reading → One Movement: The Deep Squat Progression

I’m taking a break from videos this week to pass along a conversation I had with a friend who coaches competitive junior rowers. He asked my opinion on the advice that, “rowers only need to strength train when their 2km average split is within six seconds of their 6km average split.” Let’s get into it.

Continue reading → Why Strength Train Before You Need To?

My new updated video includes new options for different mobility/activation categories, as well as an 8-minute train-along warmup series. Anyone who has been skipping the warmup due to boredom or lack of time, this is for you! These have been the two main pushbacks I’ve gotten over the years. I get it, but the warmup is still non-negotiable for me in my coaching and in my own training. If I don’t have time to warmup, I don’t have time to train

Continue reading → Updated: Full-Body Warmup for Rowing

The squat and deadlift errors we covered last week usually come from the rower tendency to shift the emphasis to the stronger quads and away from the weaker glutes and hamstrings under fatigue. I’ll focus in this post on the upper body exercises and transfer sites of the shoulders, hips, and core that are key for connection to rowing performance and reducing risk of injury.

Continue reading → A Few More Common Strength Training Technique Corrections