Low back pain is the most common rowing injury, causing around 60% of rowers to miss at least one session per year. The vast majority of low back pain is non-specific, meaning not medically serious and not diagnosed to a specific tissue pathology causing pain or dysfunction. Non-specific low back pain in rowing is mostly due to training factors that are under the control of coaches and rowers, with secondary causes under individual athlete control. This article is a practical guide to what rowers and coaches need to know about rowing low back pain, focusing on preventing, managing, and returning from injury to full performance.

Key Points: Check out this summary graphic for a one-page flowchart of key points to rowing low back pain symptoms, management, and returning from injury. Also, read a partner guide here for the more detailed medical side of diagnosing and treating rowing low back pain, written by my friend and rowing physical therapist Dr. Lisa Lowe. I also have a reference section at the end of this article where you can read a lot more about rowing low back pain from the resources I have found most helpful. Finally, read my article, “Rowing Injuries: Understanding, Preventing, and Managing,” that sets up the basics of general injury understanding and prevention before the injury-specifics of this article and “Rowing Rib Stress Injuries.”

Table of Contents:

• Defining Rowing Low Back Pain
• Low Back Pain Risk Factors: Rowing and Individual
• Reducing Risk of Rowing Low Back Pain
• Low Back Pain Initial Care and Reducing Pain
• Low Back Pain Longer-Term Workarounds
• Returning to Training After Low Back Pain

Continue reading → Rowing Low Back Pain: What Rowers and Coaches Need to Know

Rib stress injuries are an overuse injury affecting up to approximately 10% of rowers in a given year of training. While not as common as other injuries, the long recovery time of a bone injury makes it the costliest injury in terms of total missed training time per injury. Injury risk increases with training volume: Collegiate and elite rowers doing more total training volume experience more rib stress injuries than masters and junior rowers. This article is a practical guide to what rowers and coaches need to know about rowing rib stress injuries, focusing on preventing, managing, and returning from injury to full performance.

Key Points: Check out this summary graphic for a one-page flowchart of key points to rowing rib stress injury symptoms, management, and returning from injury. Also, read a partner guide here for the more detailed medical side of diagnosing and treating rowing low back pain, written by my friend and rowing physical therapist Dr. Lisa Lowe. I also have a reference section at the end of this article where you can read a lot more about rowing rib stress injury from the resources I have found most helpful. Finally, read my article, “Rowing Injuries: Understanding, Preventing, and Managing,” that sets up the basics of general injury understanding and prevention before the injury-specifics of this article and “Rowing Low Back Pain.”

Table of Contents:

• Defining the Rowing Rib Stress Injury
• Rowing Rib Stress Injury Symptoms and Red Flags
• RSI Risk Factors: Rowing and Individual
• Reducing Risk of Rowing Rib Stress Injury
• Care and Reducing Pain from Rib Stress Injury
• Returning to Training After Rib Stress Injury

Continue reading → Rowing Rib Stress Injury: What Rowers and Coaches Need to Know

Rowing injuries are typically defined as pain limiting the ability to fully participate in training as planned for more than 24 hours. This excludes minor tweaks or aches that just require a little extra warmup time, recovery attention, or occasional slight modifications to training for a day or less. More significant pain that limits an rower for more than a day can be stressful, aggravating, and disrupt training and impair performance. This article is a detailed guide to understanding, preventing, and managing common rowing injuries.

Key Points: The best rowing injury prevention and management occurs with an interdisciplinary program including the rower, rowing coach, strength coach, physical therapist, physician, dietitian, sport psychologist, and potentially more if available. Understanding and reducing pain requires a biopsychosocial model that considers biomedical, psychological, and social elements of training and outside life, as well as rowing-specific knowledge. We improve injury recovery outcomes when we can preserve fitness, strength, and muscle mass through pain-free forms of cross-training and strength training while healing, whether for a short-term or longer-term rowing injury. Rowers returning from injury should use specific training strategies to achieve approximately a 1:1 return timeline, spending as much time returning to full training as the rower was away or doing modified training. A gradual return progression to full training and performance improves recovery outcomes and reduces risk of reinjury or other injury.

Table of Contents:

• Get Qualified Professional Help
• Biopsychosocial Understanding of Pain and Injury
• Training or Competing Through Pain
• Short-Term Rowing Injuries: Offloading and Reducing Pain
• Longer-Term Rowing Injuries: Rehabilitation and Modified Training
• Returning to Training and Performance
• Wrap-Up and Guides to Low Back Pain and Rib Stress Injuries

Continue reading → Rowing Injuries: Understanding, Preventing, and Managing

Rowing has changed immensely in the last 40 years, with watershed points in training methods and performance standards due to equipment, access to the sport, sport science developments, and more. Modern rowing strength training needs to keep up with these changes to best serve rowers and continue pushing the performance level. I started writing in 2015 because I recognized that I offer a different perspective on strength training for rowing than what I saw first as a rower myself and later as a coach. In this article, I will outline some of my overarching key concepts to strength training that I’ve built around over the years. You can then read more on my website and beyond about specific ideas and methods that support these principles, linked at the end of this article.

Key Points: The ultimate goal of modern rowing strength training is to support a high rowing workload and transfer to improved rowing performance. We do not need to use strength training to attempt to simulate the rowing stroke movement, because rowers already achieve a high workload in the rowing stroke movement via year-round erging and rowing at high volumes. This is different since the 1980s, marked by the popularization of the Concept2 ergometer. The hatchet-shaped blade, also invented by Concept2, became the standard in the 1990s. This changed rowing technique, increased per-stroke loading, and emphasized the anaerobic system in racing with accelerated times. These two innovations represent watershed changes in rowing training, performance, and strength training methods. The modern rowing strength coach is now responsible for more general athletic qualities such as strength, coordination, muscle mass, power, and injury prevention. We work to increase rower force production so that the rowing race pace becomes a smaller percentage of the maximum force potential, improving endurance at submaximal intensities. Modern rowing strength training must be organized (periodized) around a commonly year-round, high-volume, high-load rowing training system. These key concepts shape our use of strength training methods from exercise-selection to loading scheme design.

Table of Contents:

• Strength Training is Transferable, NOT Identical
• Strength, Coordination, Muscle Mass, Power, and Injury Prevention
• Force is the Ceiling, Endurance is the Floor
• Organize (Periodize) Rowing and Strength Training
• Where to Find More Information

Continue reading → Modern Rowing Strength Training Key Concepts

The Second Edition of my book, “Rowing Stronger: Strength Training to Maximize Rowing Performance,” came out five years ago this month. I’ve coached, written, and learned a lot since then, perhaps even more than in the four years after the First Edition. I don’t have time in the foreseeable future to write a Third Edition, so I have written a supplemental PDF for now.

This “Five-Year Update” details the major things that I’m doing differently as of winter 2024 that I would include in a Third Edition. I have also added several strength training templates and sample programs. You can buy it using the Paypal button below for $5. The update is just under 40 pages, about half text and half training program templates with explanations of when and how I use each one. If you want to save the $5, you can read the articles that I’ve linked below and put the concepts into action yourself. The supplemental PDF is included if you buy a book in print or ebook from today onward, with no price increase. If you bought a book recently and feel screwed by this, please just email me with some sort of proof of purchase and I’ll send you the update for free.

Continue reading → Five-Year Update to “Rowing Stronger, Second Edition”

It’s hard to gain strength, gain muscle, lose body fat, and increase rowing or erging performance all at once. Even getting just two of those is great, and most rowers need to focus on just one at a time while maintaining the others. In this article, we’ll discuss changing body composition and rowing and how to make different goals work at different times of the year from a training and strength training perspective.

Table of Contents:

• Body Composition Challenges of Rowing Training
• Sports Nutrition Resources
• Gaining Muscle Mass for Rowing
• Losing Bodyfat for Rowing
• Final Notes

Continue reading → Gaining Muscle, Losing Bodyfat, and Rowing Training

What are the key elements in a good rowing strength training program? In this article, we’ll cover five priorities for each major area of exercise selection, strength training performance, and annual training program design. These priorities are where we see the greatest benefits in rowing strength training and changes that we make when I work with coaches and rowers of all ages, types, and levels.

Key Points: In exercise selection, all rowers should be doing some form of squat, hinge, upper body pull, upper body push, and specific minor exercises for the hip, shoulder, and core. These exercises train for specific performance elements of rowing, and also fill gaps in physical development from only rowing and erging. When strength training, rowers should use good technique, tempo control of the lowering and lifting phases of each rep and exercise, as much range of motion as they can effectively control (with a few exceptions), and achieve the appropriate strain targets for each set and exercise. Only after these four factors is the load (weight) of the exercise important for progression. The rowing strength training program design factors that I’ve found most important are knowing when and how to individualize training, having an off-season building phase for general physical development, planning a transition phase to prepare for in-season training, a maintenance plan for the in-season or race prep, and making time to rejuvenate following the final race.

Table of Contents:

• Priorities for exercise selection
• Priorities for strength training performance
• Priorities for program design
• Program priority summary

Continue reading → Rowing Strength Training Program Priorities

I’ve worked with many coaches and rowers of all ages, types, and levels who are ready to start strength training for rowing, but just don’t know exactly when to start, what to do, and how to progress from there. In this article, we’ll cut through the mass of information and get right to action with a simple system to start strength training for rowing, including free example beginner strength training sessions.

Key Points: When you’re ready to start strength training for rowing, the initial goals are introducing different and possibly new ways of moving the body, practicing the technique of basic strength training exercises, and beginning to build a foundation of coordination and muscular strength. Rowers starting strength training should avoid using high loads or high reps due to technique breakdown, instead focusing efforts on more moderate outputs in the 8-15-rep range with an emphasis on good technique and a controlled lifting tempo. The 30-30-for-30 circuit training system offers a simple way to achieve all of these goals in a 30-minute strength training session appropriate for rowers of all ages, types, and competitive levels starting or restarting strength training.

Table of Contents:

• Who should start strength training for rowing?
• Goals of beginning strength training
• Common mistakes of early strength training
• The 30-30-for-30 system
• Example strength training sessions
• When to start strength training for rowing
• Combining strength training and rowing
• Progressing to the next level

Continue reading → How to Start Strength Training for Rowing

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.

Table of Contents:

• Horizontal Pulling Pros and Cons
• Bodyweight Row Exercise Variations
• Programming the Bodyweight Row

Continue reading → Why I Love the Bodyweight Row for Rowers

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.

Table of Contents:

• Why Scheduling Matters
• Seasonal Periodization
• Weekly Scheduling
• Multiple Sessions in One Day
• USRowing Presentation Replay

Continue reading → Scheduling Strength Training with Rowing