I often get questions about improving recovery from training, as well as inquiries about my opinions of various methods claiming to improve recovery. These often include ice or epsom salt baths, cold or contrast showers, massage and massage guns, cupping, CBD, foam rolling, and so on.
A general training principle is that we only get two out of three of these variables for sustainable training: frequency, volume, and intensity.
Continue reading → Managing Frequency, Volume, and Intensity
Should rowers use wrist straps? My answer is generally yes. Take that, Betteridge. Wrist straps are a type of grip aid designed to make it easier to hold onto objects like barbells and dumbbells. A ~$15 investment can improve rowers’ hinge and back exercise training and spare your forearm muscles and blistered hands. There are different opinions about wrist straps, especially when you branch out beyond the sport of rowing and into bodybuilding, Crossfit, powerlifting, physical therapy, general strength training, social media stars, and so on. I’ll give you my opinions about strength training for rowers, plus a short video on how to use them. They are not as intuitive as they seem, and many rowers I’ve coached have thought that wrist straps don’t work when they just weren’t using them correctly.
The ab wheel is a popular piece of training equipment because it’s compact, inexpensive, and, when used correctly, effective at developing trunk strength. Unfortunately, it’s easy to do incorrectly, so it also has a somewhat deserved reputation as a risky exercise for back pain. I typically don’t use the ab wheel in my online strength coaching and writing. I have found that rowers need thorough and continual coaching to be able to do it correctly and stick to an appropriate progression of challenge, and I cannot provide this as a writer or remote coach. However, it is potentially useful (not on my “ban list” like bench pull) and popular enough to be worth doing a video on good technique and common errors. I’ll pass along a few more tips in this post.
A research group including authors of the World Rowing Low Back Pain taskforce (rower-scholars Fiona Wilson, Jane Thornton, and Kellie Wilkie) published a new paper examining interview responses from 25 experienced rowers about low back pain. The paper is open source and you can read the whole thing here. The discussion section is basically a “greatest hits” of athlete misconceptions, combined with the researchers’ analysis and additional information for why the misconceptions can interfere with healing, delay recovery time, and fail to reduce injury rates. I’ll pass along some specific quotes here and why they resonated with me.
Continue reading → Research: Rowers’ Low Back Pain Misconceptions
Do you use the bodyweight row in your strength training? In this article, I will detail why the bodyweight row is such a great exercise, and how we can modify and program the bodyweight row for rowers to keep it challenging and engaging for off-season and in-season strength training.
Key Points: The bodyweight row is an effective exercise to strengthen the muscles of the back, shoulders, and arms for improved rowing performance. Unlike other popular horizontal pulling exercises, the bodyweight row reduces injury risk to the low back and ribs. The bodyweight row also requires very little specialized equipment, so just about anyone can do some variation of the bodyweight row in any training environment. Use different variations of handle height, grip, stance, equipment, and set-and-rep schemes to keep the bodyweight row challenging and engaging for rowers of all ages and levels.
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We did about 30 minutes of open Q&A in my “Fundamentals of Strength Training” presentation at the recent USRowing Masters Conference. Here are a few that I think are worth passing along. I’m not transcribing directly, but getting the gist and using the opportunity to add a couple links to more information.
Rowers and coaches want to know a few things about scheduling strength training with rowing. How do we make different types of training work together to maximize performance and long-term adaptation to training? How do we minimize interference between the two and reduce risk of injury? In this article, we’ll discuss scheduling strength training with rowing at the seasonal, weekly, and daily levels.
Key Points: At the annual or seasonal level, we will use a periodization system to focus on specific elements of training at different times in the training year. At the weekly level, we decide to combine or separate our high intensity stressors using a consolidated or distributed model. At the daily level, for rowers who train twice in a single day, can we separate the sessions by at least six hours? If not, use strategies to minimize interference and fatigue spillover between types of training. If you prefer audio/video, I presented on this topic at the 2020 USRowing Convention, and you can watch the 15-minute clip with similar information to this article at the link below.
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The final article I wrote for Science of Rowing in 2022 was on a 2015 study (” A New Submaximal Rowing Test to Predict 2,000-m Rowing Ergometer Performance”) that compared a submaximal erg test with a fully motivated 2km erg test in trained, competitive, college-age male rowers. The researchers took a popular submaximal test from cycling, the “Lamberts and Lambert Submaximal Cycling Test (LSCT),” and made an adaptation for erging. They did the tests and found that the results could reasonably predict 2km performance. You can do the Submaximal Rowing Test (SmRT) yourself with an accurate heart rate max, a Concept2 (static) erg, and about 15 minutes. Let’s break it down.
Continue reading → Predict 2km Performance Using the “SmRT” Submaximal Rowing Test
Long-term athlete development (LTAD) describes the habitual development of general athletic qualities to improve health, fitness, sport performance, reduce risk of injury, and improve confidence and competence in the physical domain. Rowing LTAD begins with general LTAD and gradually progresses through stages of development to improve rowing performance over many years, not just weeks, months, and seasons.
Key Points: Rowing LTAD means building capacity for long-term improvement in rowing, as well as other athletic skills for well-rounded, holistic development. Rather than focusing on short-term performance improvement, an LTAD view can still improve performance, plus reduce risk of injury, increase engagement in sport training, and help athletes be physically active for life. LTAD practices look different at different chronological ages, stages of development, and for athletes with different motivations. I presented on strength training for rowing LTAD at a USRowing event, and you can watch the replay at the link below.
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Continue reading → Rowing LTAD: Long-Term Athlete Development