Following Chelsea's post about the Women's Team Lift, I decided to get the Men's team perspective...

We lift every Monday and Wednesday morning throughout the Winter. Before Winter Break, our Coach, Adrian Spracklen, went to a conference held by a number of Olympic Weight Training Coaches from all over the world. Upon return, Coach informed the team that in terms of rowing, we had been lifting the wrong way. A lot of the guys had been lifting the heaviest weight they could up to this point - in a typical college male testosterone-filled way. After listening to the trainers from the New Zealand National Rowing Team speak, coach decided to switch the way we lift so that it catered to the sport of rowing specifically.

I walked around the weight room asking the guys why they felt lifting was important to the sport of rowing, and specifically how the exercise they were doing helped strengthen their stroke.

Our Wednesday morning lift goes as follows:
1) YTWL (3x25 reps)
2) Monster Walks (4x25 steps)
3) Seated cable Row (3x25 reps)
4) Hanging Body Crunch (2xMax reps)
5) Pull-ups (3xMax reps)
6) Push-ups (3xWide/Narrow/Normal)
7) 3 Minuet Core Builder


Head Coach: Adrian Spracklen
Q: Why do we lift?
A: "We lift to strengthen weak areas of the body that we can't strengthen in other workouts." Another major reason is, "Injury Prevention", strengthening these muscles will help to prevent injury down the road when we need the guys healthy. Finally, "The stronger the body, the more we can do with it." According to coach, strength training will give us a little extra speed on the water that we couldn't have gotten just from erging.

Junior Rower Harrison Kieffer
Q: In what ways do YTWL's help you as a rower?
A: "I don't think it translates directly into boat moving, but it definitely helps strengthen the core while supporting weight on the shoulders and arms" Harrison mentioned that the exercise is teaches the body to stay relaxed while carrying weight which definitely translates to the water.

Senior Rower Amel Younis 
Q: How do you see Monster Walks strengthening your "rowing muscles"?
A: "It definitely works my IT bands as well as hip and quad muscles." In terms of rowing, "It will help with maintaining speed throughout the leg drive portion of the stroke, it also strengthens the quad muscles to prevent other muscles from being injured during the leg drive."

Junior Rower Blaze Kelly
Q: How will seated cable rows help translate to when you are on the water
A: Blaze give me the "Are you seriously asking me that question right now??" look. We both laughed but he did say, "This exercise replicates the exact motion at the finish of the stroke, and builds arm and back muscles that help with explosiveness at the finish."

Senior Rower Doug Riethmuller 
Q: How are hanging body crunches helping you as a rower?
A: "I would say it primarily strengthens the core. It also works the back and shoulders a bit. More importantly, it is a mental test. If you think about it, the concept of inverting your body while only hanging on with your hands is very dangerous. I builds that mental confidence that is essential during our races."

Freshman Rower Danny Madden
Q: Why do you think we do Pull-ups?
A: "Honestly, I just go along with coaches philosophy because I trust it will make us faster. I don't like doing them at all, but I feel it working the shoulders and arms." Danny noticed that he is "Mentally and physically stronger each week because [he] can do more reps each week."

Senior Rower/Captain Gary Loo
Q: Why do we lift? How do push-ups help us as rowers?
A: "Lifting helps [with] getting the power we need be explosive on the front end of the stroke. Each exercise we do helps a specific part of the stroke. Push-ups are mainly for [strengthening] our pecs. They also help focus shoulder muscles that are important at the finish [of the stroke] especially rowing into strong head winds."

Junior Rower Milos Veres 
Q: Why is it important that we do the core assessment at the end of every lift? 
A: "It is important to do it at the end of a workout when we are already tired and fatigued. No one wants to do it, but we have a partner pushing us through it. In terms of rowing, it doesn't matter how tired you are or where you are in the race, you have to keep pushing yourself."

Breaking the Ice

The first post is always the hardest, just throwing it out there. Let me back up, my name is Brian and I will be blogging along side Chelsea this spring. Our goal is to give you, the readers, an inside look to what the life of a college rower is like. The spring is an exciting time in the sport of rowing because all of the races that we do are 2000 meter "sprints" that often come down to fractions of a second separating the crews at the finish line. I use the term "sprint" lightly because 2000 meters is a grueling distance for the body, so there is definitely an sense of pacing to it. That being said, the race only lasts around 6 minutes so it ends up being an all out sprint to the finish line between the crews.

If you don't already know, rowers end up spending around 30 hours a week in training, once you combine that with all of the time spent stretching and eating, we end up spending the majority of our lives with our teammates. With some sports, the game day memories are the only ones that live on; in rowing, there are so many personal and team goals achieved on a day to day basis that often times the greatest memories are from a Wednesday morning practice or a hot Saturday morning summer row. Throughout this spring, Chelsea and I will give you all a behind the scenes look into the memories as they are being made.

For example,

...Today a few of the guys on the team and I played in an intramural dodgeball tournament. Obviously we went in to it with a lot of confidence, too much I must admit, and came out with a good laugh (as we often do). After getting knocked out of the tournament, literally and figuratively, the guys went straight back to the rowing room to start their workout (as if dodgeball wasn't enough); this is what makes the sport so dynamic and incredible.

-Brian

It’s 5:45am on a below-freezing morning and the Mercyhurst Women’s Rowing team can be found entering the gym in the Mercyhurst Athletic Center because on Tuesday’s we lift. Spring training camp is fast approaching for the team and we’re taking advantage of every practice we have while simultaneously counting down the days until the bus takes us to sunny (hopefully) Alabama. Our morning practices consist of cross training that will condition our bodies to get us faster at the afternoon erg sessions which will all transfer over to moving the boat that much faster through the water. Lifting is an important aspect of our training in the winter because the weight repetitions is giving your body an anaerobic workout and recent studies have shown that the energy production forceful muscular contractions you’re using when lifting creates up to 23% of the energy needed for most rowing regattas. And while 23% isn’t necessarily a lot but rowing, every percent/meter/second counts and can be the difference between winning and losing. Because of this, strength training is praised by the most respected rowing coaches and even gets positive reviews from the athletes. While doing reps of heavy weights may not be the activity of choice at sunrise amongst college students, they all understand that this is what it takes to be competitive and agree that lift has many benefits to the sport of rowing. Women’s team captain and experienced senior gives her insight of morning lift practice by stating that “during lift we focus on using muscles outside of the main ones used in rowing which helps us with our stability. This transfers over to the water and contributes to keeping the boat set.” Strength training allows coaches and athletes to pick and choose certain muscle groups to focus on and strengthen during the off season. For some athletes however, lift benefits them by building up their anaerobic strength and making that 23% of the race that much more powerful. A junior rower agrees with the benefits of lifting and states that her anaerobic strength is something she finds she needs to work on during winter training. She also adds that “we need to lift to be able to get the boat moving as fast as possible right off the line at races” and every rower knows that having a bad start can have a negative effect on the rest of the race. So while you may have thought that lifting was only for bodybuilders or football players, more and more sports are starting to see the benefits to strength training and rowing is one of them. If you want to win it all and make it to the starting line of the NCAA rowing finals, some early morning lifts are likely to be in your future.

You can check out http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/peak45.htm for more information on the benefits of strength training in the sport of rowing.