fitness Archives | Rowing News

A World of Hurt

Rowing News — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 04:01:25 +0000

Training without purpose is tough and rarely produces results. Setting a specific goal and working toward it acts as an insurance policy to keep you on point. My recommendation? Mix it up this summer and register for a race you’ve never done before. People these days are venturing far beyond the marathons, triathlons, and masters rowing races to endurance contests like Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, and Warrior Dash. These popular events push the mind and body in a competitive yet fun way, combining running and obstacles that test strength and stamina. The names alone are enough to generate interest, but they also cleverly leave you craving details.

As race creator and director of Massachusetts’ Misery Challenge, a four-mile race to Misery Island and back from Manchester-by-the-Sea’s iconic harbor, I know how this goes. I am often told, “Misery Challenge? That sounds horrible.” After filling folks in on the facts—you choose your mode of human-powered transportation, whether swim, kayak, single, or paddle board; you will be greeted with cheers and beers at the finish line—I often can convert a look of despair into a smile and sign-up. In fact, 400 brave souls are expected this July.

So if you’re looking to up your fitness game, I encourage you to put something on the calendar. A 5k or masters race is good, but it may be time to face a little bit of the unknown and get outside your comfort zone. Just get the details, sign up, and start training. To give you a little head start, try this 30-minute speed and intensity conditioning workout and then get after it.

The Workout:

Warm up on the erg or bike for two minutes easy, followed by two minutes at a medium intensity, and one minute hard, and then do 10 to 15 burpees at a slow pace. End with 10-15 jump squats at a slow pace. Stretch and hydrate for two minutes and then go 30 seconds easy, 30 seconds hard at a 24-26 on the ergometer followed by 10-15 burpees and 10-15 jump squats. Rest and recover for two minutes and repeat the entire set two times. Cool down for two to three minutes.

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Grip it and Rip It

Rowing News — Thu, 11 May 2017 04:01:24 +0000

Sweep rowers should place the outside hand at the end of the handle and the inside hand two hand-widths from the outside hand. Keeping the hands close together allows for greater leverage. However, a wider grip can be more comfortable and makes it easier to strongly draw the handle to the body at the finish. Of course, a wider grip also means less leverage. In addition, because handles widen toward the shaft, maintaining a wide grip with the inside hand far down the shaft makes it harder to feather and can strain muscles and tendons in the forearm. As you approach the catch, twist over their hips so that your shoulders remain parallel to the handle as the oar’s angle to the boat changes. Your upper body must turn with the oar so that each arm can extend to full length and your hands retain their proper grip, the handle cupped by the fingers with the knuckles over the leading edge of the handle. At the release, use your inside hand to feather the oar while your outside hand, which has the greatest leverage, pushes down to lift the blade from the water. Your outside hand should be loose enough to allow the handle to turn inside it.

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Lights Off, Fuel On

Rowing News — Tue, 09 May 2017 04:01:59 +0000

At night, growth hormone peaks between 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., the same time kids have growth spurts. You want to take advantage of elevated growth hormone by providing your muscles with the tools they need to grow. This means eating a snack with protein, such as cottage cheese, turkey roll-ups, or three to four ounces of leftover chicken before going to bed. At around 4 a.m., when blood glucose is sinking, another hormone, cortisol, triggers muscles to break down into amino acids, the building blocks of protein. These amino acids then get converted into glucose by the liver and normalize blood glucose levels so the brain has fuel to function. A bedtime snack can help maintain normal blood glucose levels overnight. Don’t exercise on empty in the morning. When you awaken in the morning, your cortisol levels are elevated and breaking down muscle. If you eat nothing before your morning workout and skip breakfast afterward, you stay in a catabolic (muscle-loss) state. This is a bad idea. A pre-workout snack, such as a banana, granola bar, or swig of orange juice can switch your body from being in muscle breakdown mode to muscle-building mode.

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Latitude 35 for the Win

Rowing News — Mon, 01 May 2017 04:01:01 +0000

Latitude 35, a composite British-American crew, has set a new trans-Atlantic rowing record. The team outlasted 11 others to take this year’s Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, a 3,000-mile open-water race between the Canary Islands and Antigua, in 35 days, 14 hours, and three minutes. Impressively, the team—Americans Jason Caldwell and Matthew Brown and Angus Collins and Alex Simpson of the United Kingdom—managed to keep things drama-free during what’s known as “the world’s toughest row.” Said Simpson: “We put any differences aside.”

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World Indoor Sprints

Rowing News — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 04:01:11 +0000

Put this man in a boat. Texas state trooper Derek Peterson turned in a mind-blowing 1,000-meter time of 2:43.8—that’s an average split of 1:21.9—to finish first in the open men’s category in the World Rowing Indoor Sprints, a virtual indoor rowing contest run by Concept2 and World Rowing. Jordan Falcone of CrossFit Weddington put up the biggest numbers on the women’s side, covering the distance in a brisk 3:19.7. Modeled after the SkiErg world championships, the World Rowing Indoor Sprints saw competitors performing a 1,000-meter piece on the ergometer between March 10-12.

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Mealtime 101

Rowing News — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 04:01:54 +0000

Meals and snacking patterns have changed over the past 40 years. Many of us are eating fewer calories from meals and more calories from snacks. As a result, I get questions from both athletes and non-athletes alike about how and when to best fuel their bodies. Food consumption affects the central clock in your brain. This clock controls circadian rhythms and impacts all aspects of metabolism, including how your organs function. Erratic meal timing can thus impact the development of cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and obesity. If you define breakfast as eating 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories within two hours of waking, about one-fourth of U.S. adults do not eat breakfast. This drop in breakfast consumption over the past 40 years parallels the increase in obesity. Breakfast skippers tend to snack impulsively and end up with poorer quality diets and increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity.

Most active women and men can and should enjoy about 500 to 700 calories four times a day: breakfast, early lunch, second lunch, and dinner. To overcome the fear that this much food will make you fat, reframe your thoughts. You are simply moving calories in your pre- and/or post-dinner snacks into a substantial and wholesome second lunch. The purpose of this second lunch is to curb your evening appetite, refuel your muscles from your workout earlier in the day, and align your food intake to your circadian rhythms.

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Get a Leg Up

Rowing News — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 04:01:20 +0000

Social media makes it easy for people to ask me for training tips, workouts, or videos. Recently I received this message from a woman just getting started with indoor rowing. “I am an avid runner and purchased your WaterRowerGx rowing machine so I could have more of an upper-body/total-body workout. Here is the problem. I keep reading about how the power in rowing comes from the legs, but I don’t feel like I am giving my legs a workout. I have the order correct, pushing with my legs first and then using the core and arms, but I don’t feel any power from the legs. Any tips on what I might be doing wrong?”
The leg drive—leg connection and leg power—is indeed the power player in rowing. Whether you are starting cross-training on an indoor rower or fine-tuning your boat speed, without leg engagement, you’re not going to get anywhere. Try these simple tips and workout to begin leveraging this most powerful muscle group.
1. As you initiate the stroke with the legs, make sure your handle and seat simultaneously move backwards. If the seat moves by itself, independently of the handle, you are pushing with the legs first, but you don’t have the resistance or “grip on the water.”
2. As you begin to push with the legs, pay attention to the tugging feeling on your fingers from the handle as the energy from your legs travels up through the core, out to the arms, to the fingers, and finally to the flywheel.
3. Still not feeling it? Push harder and quicker with the legs right from the catch. On each drive, think like you are trying to jump off the back of the machine as far as you can.
Warm-up: 5-10 minutes of easy rowing focusing on pushing with the legs first, then opening with the core/torso, and finally drawing the arms to the chest. On the return just reverse it and take twice as long coming forward as you do going backwards.
Austin Meyer racing in the lightweight men’s single at last year’s World Rowing Cup in Lucerne.
The Workout:
6 minutes with 1 minute easy at a 20; 1 minute medium at a 20; 1 minute hard at a 20; 1 minute easy at a 22; 1 minute medium at a 22; and 1 minute hard at a 22. Rest for 90 seconds.
Repeat the same sequence, upping the stroke rate to 24 and 26 strokes per minute respectively. Rest for 2-3 minutes.
Repeat the 6-minute sequence, going back to a 20 and 22 respectively. Break 90 seconds.
Repeat the sequence one last time, with stroke rate changes of 22 and 28 strokes per minute respectively. Maintain the leg connection at the higher rate.

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Princeton Makes History While Mother Nature Wins Knecht Cup

Rowing News — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 21:40:17 +0000

Today, in historic fashion, the Princeton Tigers beat out the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University to win the 2017 Child’s Cup for the 50th time in the annual events 107th iteration. The University of Pennsylvania came in behind the Tigers with the Columbia Lions trailing in third place in the varsity eight.
Meanwhile, a few minutes from the racing on Lake Carnegie, Mercer Lake was getting blasted by heavy winds. Only nine races took place today at this year’s Knecht Cup before racing was suspended until Sunday due to high winds. Sunday’s schedule has been adjusted to make up for the postponed races. For a full list of results and the adjusted schedule visit http://www.regattaworks.com/knecht/schedule.php?id=139.

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Miles Make Champions

Rowing News — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 04:01:15 +0000

Masters are known for their endurance—it’s one of the good parts of aging—so we should build on our strengths. If you have worked on general strength and endurance in the winter, your periodization focus in April should be on improving your endurance. Rowing long distances at low rates may not be exciting, but it’s what is needed. Rowing with a partner or partners can help with the tedium. If speeds vary among the group, work in some turns rather than adjusting your rate and pressure. To keep your focus, insert a few 10s or 20-stroke sprints. You can also use interval training to build endurance. Row any predetermined distance, such as 500 meters. Record the time. Paddle the same distance and then repeat the interval, only pushing harder. Keep repeating the intervals until your times slow or your rowing begins to break down. Next day out, return to long, low-rate rowing. Maintain this focus for the remainder of the month while working on technique. In May, begin incorporating speed work, followed by an even greater focus on speed in June. After this periodization training, you will be well-prepared for racing.

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Smooth Move

Rowing News — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 13:04:04 +0000

A fruit smoothie that includes Greek yogurt, banana, and berries offers plenty of satiating and muscle-building protein as well as the carbohydrates to refuel and replenish after a tough session. As a general rule, your muscles want three or four times more calories from carbohydrates than from protein. If you like the convenience of protein shakes, toss in some carbs.

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