How to Move Up Into the "A" Boat

(The following article was contributed by an author who prefers to remain anonymous.)

ADVICE FOR JUNIOR ROWERS:
HOW TO MOVE UP INTO THE “A” BOAT

My daughter was frustrated. Her second year in rowing, and she was stuck in the third boat. She realized that in rowing she had “found her sport”, but how could she progress? It wasn’t any fun never winning the big races.

I had never rowed. My high school sports were swimming and football. So I couldn’t offer any advice regarding technique, or training routines specific to rowing. I had, however, learned a bit about endurance training in general. So I took what little I knew, and we worked out a program. The result was two great years of rowing in a junior program, topped by the award of a rowing scholarship at an NCAA division I university.

Here is what we did:

1. Year-Round Rowing - Most junior rowers row only in the springtime. That is understandable, given the competition of other sports or activities in the fall (cross-country, football, band etc.), or summer jobs and vacations. However, if you are serious about rowing, you need to row more than four months a year. My daughter started rowing in the fall and summer, and the results were noticeable. She also became involved in the winter training program offered by the club.

2. Weight - My daughter will admit that she was overweight when she started rowing, and although she wasn’t gaining any more weight in her first two years of rowing, she wasn’t losing any, either. She got serious about trying to lose weight. Too serious, in my opinion – she was practically on a diet of salads, rice cakes, and yogurt. After a few arguments and some adjustments, she got to a better balance. Her decreased weight made a lot of difference in both her endurance and her weight-adjusted erg scores.

3. Purchase an Erg – During the off-season, my daughter borrowed the use of an erg at a neighbor’s house (their daughter was already in college), and she also used the ergs at the club boathouse when that was not available. By her senior year we eventually invested in a Concept 2 Erg machine for both of our kid’s use during the off-season.

4. Do More than the Others - I pointed out to my daughter that as long as she was limiting her training only with her team, she wouldn’t get much stronger than any of them, as they would all be progressing at the same pace. If she wanted to move up into the varsity boats, she would have to do more than her current boatmates did. So during the crew season, she added a morning run to her exercise program (her crew team practiced in the afternoons). During the off-season, she continued with her morning runs, and included erg sessions and other exercises (see cross-training, below).

5. Cross-Training - Especially with young athletes, it is easy to do too much. Injuries to the back, knees, and arm ligaments can result from repeating the same motions too much, too often. That is where cross-training helps – doing other exercises which help increase endurance and strength, without stressing those parts of the body which are already under stress. Good cross-training exercises are running, swimming, bicycling. Even these exercises need some variation – split up the running program into some cross-country, some wind-sprints, some stadium-step running, for example.

6. Get Expert Advice - Early on we ran into a problem with a couple of junior coaches who wanted to concentrate on the "Varsity A" boats (in order to send them to Nationals), and a comparative apathy toward the rowers in the other boats. This meant the rowers in the "B" and "C" boats weren’t getting the instruction they needed. We worked to correct that problem within the club (which was resolved by the end of that year), but in the meantime we found that the club’s masters rowers (rowers age 25+) were the source of considerable assistance. All we had to do was ask, and they were more than happy (ecstatic, really) to offer technical advice and assistance. After the junior team ended its practice on Saturday mornings, our daughter would stick around for another couple of hours to receive help from her new “mentors”, the masters rowers. Often they were very happy to have an additional rower fill out a four or an eight, and they provided valuable sculling instruction (which was a weak point at our club at that time).

The result? By the start of her junior year in rowing, she was in the Varsity "B" boat, both 8+ and 4+. But that year the "B" boats were beating the "A" boats as often as not, and they walked away from Brentwood with a gold medal for the 4+. That senior year she was recruited by several colleges, and in her senior year she rowed in the Varsity "A" boats, and ended her senior year with two offers of rowing scholarships.

Additional Resources:

Rowing Books
Rowing Health & Nutrition
Rowing Videos
Rowing DVDs

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