David Finniff is a former middle distance runner, who was trained by Lydiard, now a masters rower.
Endurance training in rowing is often discussed in terms of heart rates, watts, and lactate, but the principles that matter most were established long before any of those tools existed.
This article grew out of a conversation with Rebecca Caroe, when I mentioned that I was coached for six years beginning in 1971 by the legendary Auckland-based track coach Arthur Lydiard. Rebecca asked three simple but important questions: What did Lydiard teach? Why was it innovative? And where do we see parallels in rowing today?
Arthur Lydiard was a relatively unknown running coach until the 1960 Rome Olympics, where athletes he coached delivered extraordinary results. Peter Snell won gold in the 800 meters, Murray Halberg won gold in the 5,000 meters, and Barry Magee earned bronze in the marathon. Four years later, at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Snell won gold in both the 800 and 1,500 meters, while another Lydiard athlete, John Davies, captured bronze in the 1,500.
These performances sparked global interest in Lydiard’s training philosophy. He published Run to the Top in 1961, outlining the program behind those Olympic medals. After 1964, Lydiard worked widely with coaches and athletes. I first met him during his U.S. lecture tour in 1970, after which he coached me primarily through correspondence, with occasional inperson meetings during later tours.
Lydiard’s training system was built around two primary goals: developing sufficient endurance to maintain race-winning speed over the full distance and structuring training so that peak fitness is reached at precisely the right time for a major championship or Olympic race.
To achieve this, he developed a periodized system based on a deliberate balance between aerobic and anaerobic work. His approach consisted of three clearly defined phases: Marathon Conditioning, Hill Training, and Race Conditioning guided by his enduring motto: “Train, Don’t Strain”.
Through years of self-experimentation, Lydiard concluded that running approximately 100 miles per week for ten weeks, plus any supplementary mileage, was ideal for developing cardiac efficiency and improving oxygen intake, transport, and utilization. This work followed a hard/easy structure, with three long runs and four medium runs per week.
A hallmark of this phase was the extra-long Sunday run, famously conducted on the 22 mile Waiatarua circuit near Auckland. These runs were performed at a brisk but conversational pace, a level we now recognize as Zone 2 or UT2 training.
What follows is the marathon-conditioning program Lydiard prescribed to Halberg, Snell, and Magee in the build-up to the 1960 Rome Olympics:
Athletes new to the program began at a modest mileages and increased volume over time. Some adapted quickly, others required years, and some never reached the 100-mile weeks. Lydiard coached them with equal care, whether they became Olympic champions or lifelong club runners, working to help each runner reach their own potential.
Another major innovation in Lydiard’s system addressed how athletes controlled training intensity. Without heart-rate monitors, he defined training intensity by perceived effort and breathing patterns. These effort levels align closely with modern rowing training zones:
Athletes were encouraged to listen closely to their bodies and adjust distances, repetitions, or effort levels as needed. Breathing served and still serves as a reliable proxy for training intensity.
Lydiard did not believe in traditional weight training. Instead, he used hill running to develop leg strength, ankle flexibility, and efficient running mechanics. In rowing terms, this phase is comparable to power strokes, technical drills, and workouts using multiple stroke rates. While modern rowing programs frequently include weight training to improve leg strength and maximal power, Lydiard achieved similar adaptations through terrain-based resistance.
His hill circuit consisted of a steep half-mile climb with a flat quarter-mile section at both the top and bottom. After a two-mile warmup, athletes sprinted uphill with exaggerated knee lift and powerful toe push-off. At the top, they jogged for recovery, then ran downhill fast but relaxed and under control. At the bottom, the half-mile flat was used for short, sharp sprints such as alternating 50- and 220-yard efforts.
Originally, the workout session consisted of four repeats of the hill loop. Monday through Saturday, followed by the 22mile Waiatarua run on Sunday, for a total of six weeks. In later years, Lydiard reduced the number of hill sessions to three per week. For the other three days, he introduced a new workout which he called the leg speed workout.
The final phase, Race Conditioning, was divided into two five-week blocks. The first emphasized repetition work, sprint training, and steady runs. The second replaced repetitions with sharpening sprints and time trials. The goal was to progressively blend speed and endurance while sharpening race-specific skills and timing. Together, these two blocks were designed to progressively blend speed and endurance while sharpening race‑specific skills and timing.
To make sense of the race‑conditioning schedules, it helps to understand how Lydiard defined the key workouts used during this phase.
Key workout concepts included:
The schedule below illustrates how this phase was structured:
| First Five Weeks: | Second Five Weeks: | |
| Monday | 2 miles | 3 miles of fifty-yard dashes |
| Tuesday | Twenty 220s at ¾ effort | Fartlek 1 hour |
| Wednesday | Sprint training and race 100/200 yards | Time trial ½ race distance |
| Thursday | Three miles at ½ effort | Sprint training |
| Friday | Sprint training and starting practice | Leg speed workout |
| Saturday | Twenty 440s at ¼ effort | Time trial or development Race |
| Sunday | 2 hours easy | 1 hour easy |
Taken together, Lydiard’s ideas predate heartrate monitors, power meters, and lactate testing, yet they map remarkably well onto how we now understand endurance training in rowing. His system explains why high-volume aerobic work matters, when strength and speed should be added, and how to peak without burning out, problems that masters’ rowers wrestle with constantly.
More than six decades later, the principles behind Lydiard’s success, patience, aerobic mastery, and precise timing, remain deeply relevant to rowing performance at every level.
David Finniff
I wrote to David to ask what the Fartlek sessions he mentioned entailed.
The fartlek sessions were not structured. Here is some background. Major high school, college and the AAU cross country races in Pittsburgh were run on trails in a very hilly city park called Schenley Park. There were 3 major courses: a 2 mile. a 3 mile and a 6 mile course. In the late 70's the courses were converted to metric distances: 3K, 5K and 10K. My understanding now is the city in the last 15 years or so has made major changes the park and the courses I ran on have been re-routed within the park. I probably would not recognize the park today as I have been living in Colorado for almost 30 years now and have gone back to Pittsburgh only about 4 times.
For my fartlek sessions I ran 2 laps of the 6 mile or 10K courses. I would run the first 2 miles for warmup. My standard warmup procedure whether on the track or the cross country course was to start out at a jog ( about 8 min/mile) and gradually build the pace so that at the end of the 2 miles I was running sub-five minute per mile pace. As for the fartlek sessions. I would randomly run parts of the trail at different speeds for different durations and then run at a comparable zone 2 or UT2 pace until I recovered. Some of the hills I would sprint hard up them and recover on others. It was the same for the downhills and the flat stretches. Running the shorter hills was comparable to Sam's 30 sec max intervals while the downhill sprints were comparable to the 60 sec max intensity intervals. Longer intervals were similar to TR pace intervals.
I hope this helps clarify the fartlek sessions. Let me know if there are any other training methods that might need further explanation.
We've been thinking about road safety. Specifically, water safety. Because let's be honest, if the road rules applied to rowing, half the crews on the river would have had their licences revoked years ago.
So we are delighted to announce that, effective today, Faster Masters Rowing is introducing the Official Masters Rowing Driver's Licence. All masters rowers must pass the following competencies before being permitted on the water unsupervised.
Accumulate 50 demerit points and your licence is suspended. You will be required to row with the juniors until further notice.
| Infraction | Points |
|---|---|
| Crabbing at the start of a race | 3 |
| Over-steering | 4 |
| Stopping in the middle of practice to "check something" | 2 |
| Blaming the equipment / the rig / the weather | 2 |
| Rowing on after a crab and pretending it didn't happen | 1 |
| Correcting the coach or the cox | 2 |
| Being the last crew back when the coach is freezing on the launch | 1 |
| Capsizing and blaming your partner | 5 |
Applications open today. Testing centres will be at your home club. Examiners will be wearing high-viz and carrying clipboards. Happy April Fools' Day from all of us at Faster Masters Rowing.
Licenses are valid for four years or until your next crab, whichever comes first.
Yes, stop immediately if you have sharp, localised pain that worsens during rowing or persists 24+ hours after. Pain is your body signalling tissue damage. "Rowing through it" risks turning a minor issue into major injuries requiring months off.
Stop, assess, fix the root cause, then return gradually with medical clearance. Ideally find a medic who understands rowing.
Sharp, Localised Pain:
Pain That Persists:
Mechanical Pain:
Warning: Continuing to row with these symptoms risks turning a 2-week issue into a 2-3 month forced layoff.
General Muscle Soreness:
Post-Hard-Session Fatigue:
Mild Technical Discomfort:
1. Stop the activity causing pain
2. RICE Protocol
3. Document your symptoms
4. Consider anti-inflammatories
If improving:
If not improving or worsening:
Likely causes:
What to do:
Return protocol:
Full guide: Why does my lower back hurt after rowing?
Likely causes:
What to do:
Return protocol:
Full guide: How to prevent rib stress fractures
Likely causes:
What to do:
Return protocol:
The logic: "I don't want to lose fitness" or "It's not that bad"
The reality: Minor injuries become major with continued loading. You'll lose more fitness from forced 2-3 month layoffs than from 2-week strategic rest.
Maths:
Smart choice: Take the 2 weeks now.
The trap: Normalising pain that shouldn't be there
The truth: Pain is your body's warning system. "A little" often becomes "a lot" with a single bad stroke or hard session.
Guidelines:
The trap: Rowing injured to make a race, making injury worse, missing even more races
Smart approach:
Reality check: You will NOT race well injured. You'll race poorly AND make the injury worse.
Week 1-2 post-injury:
Week 3-4:
Week 5-6:
Week 7+:
Don't rush this progression. Recurrence rates are high if return too quickly.
Technical faults:
Training errors:
Strength deficits:
Regular maintenance:
Body awareness:
Don't self-treat serious injuries. Proper diagnosis and treatment prevent chronic issues.
Our Technical Masterclass teaches injury-preventing mechanics:
Train smart, stay healthy, race consistently.
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Dr Malcolm Howard, Canadian eight Beijing 2008 “People say it was always so easy for you, so straightforward. But it’s always been about the work. Rowing, by its nature, is a beautiful sport because you get out of it exactly what you put in. The harder I worked at rowing the more success I had.”
Timestamps
00:45 Why your brain is working against you
Many masters rowers are putting in less than they think believing in a ceiling which is not real. And limited by a brain that pulls the 'alarm cord' long before you've reached your limit.
Are you paying what rowing actually costs? This is a way of measuring work and exposes pretend work. If you train by feel (Rate of Perceived Effort RPE) but feel and reality diverge with age. RPE rises as recovery slows. When you bring tiredness into training sessions your RPE can be higher even if your work output is lower.
The three columns - What you planned to do this workout, what you actually did, honest quality rating (1-5 range). Average the scores at the end of each week. Map the gap between what you intended and your execution. Write it down and bring honesty to your training.
Some masters may be leaving more on the table than you think. A limiting belief is that your effort is limited by age. This kicks in before your actual physical limit occurs - mind working separately from the body. Test yourself by picking one thing on your training plan that you dislike and so avoid doing. Am I avoiding this because my body can't do it or because I don't want to find out what it reveals about me? Masters have more choice and may take more recovery between workouts than pro athletes. Do that one session which you've been avoiding next week and notice if the ceiling is your body or your mind.
The science behind your brain limiting you in an effort to protect you. Your brain lies in order to protect you - so renegotiate with your brain. Brains are survival machines and send a STOP signal before you reach your actual limit. It's conserving resources and energy reserves in case you need it. The Central Governor Theory by Tim Noakes - brain limiting your output based on predicted cost not actual capacity. When you expose your body once to a hard effort - your brain re-anchors what hard feels like. Next time you do it the alarm goes off later. Perceived difficulty and the urge to stop reduces on the second exposure to the same stimulus. The brain's prediction model adapts. This is the physiological underpinning of Malcolm Howard's quote. The work doesn't just build the engine, it teaches the brain what your engine can do. Faster Masters Rowing training programs include workout repeats in order to help you use the repeated bout effect in your training.
The ledger shows what you're actually putting in; the ceiling test shows what's still available; the repeated bout effect shows why doing it once is enough to retrain your brain.
Listen to audio version
Remember the days of having drinking straws gummed to the side of the boat to mark your catch angle? Well it's impossible to buy plastic drinking straws now - so we are using cable ties instead.
What I found from having a marked catch angle was that despite being an experienced rower, I am actually very variable in my forward angle. I found that when I get the body set correctly off the finish, I achieve the catch angle - when I do not, I am 2-4 cm short of touching the wand.
The perpendicular is the reference line — it runs at exactly 90° to the boat's centreline through the pin. Everything is measured from here.
Catch angle is how far the blade enters forward of the perpendicular. A larger catch angle means the athlete is reaching further toward the bow at the catch — more arc, but harder to accelerate through.
Finish angle is how far the blade extracts behind the perpendicular. Finish angles are almost always smaller than catch angles.
Total arc (catch + finish) is the key number, typically 75–90° for most sweep and sculling setups.
The values (47° catch / 33° finish) are close to typical Masters sweep targets. These are dependent on athlete height, flexibility and technique level.
This [not to scale] diagram show a sculling boat and the angles. Click it to see an animation of the oars moving through the arcs.
The U-Row team has designed a neat tool to help you measure the catch and finish angles on sweep rowing shells - it sits on top of the oarlock pin (there's a tube to keep it centered). Then using a string line, you measure 90 degrees square off to get the tool aligned, and then take the string to the catch, where the angles are already marked on the circle. This makes it easy to define the catch angle.
Once you have the string in place at your preferred angle, put the U-Sweep wand mount onto the sax board (it wedges on easily); move the vertical black wand to gently touch the orange string line. Mark the position so it can easily be removed and repositioned.
The wand mounts press over the sax board of most modern boats - and can be removed after each practice. The black wand is flexible and your goal is to touch it with the leading edge of your sweep oar handle each catch. Oh, and the wand stores inside the long arm - saving space and less risk of damage.
It took us about 30 minutes to set the angles on an eight. Then each practice, the athletes can align their wand with the marks after it's on the water.
Buy a kit for a pair, four or eight - comes with one circular sweep tool and one wand per seat.
The risks of abrupt changes of your training and surprising outcomes from practice lineups, rigging, and winter to summer transitions with guest Marlene Royle.
Timestamps
Marlene sees these as a red flag for masters rowers. Her experience as a coach when racing season comes around was a trend from mid-summer on where their season got derailed. All were caused by quick changes, unfamiliar boats and doing a training session from another coach on top of their normal training. These are all avoidable.
Let your muscles and tendons adapt to different stresses like moving from an indoor rower to a boat. The difference between a sculling erg and a sweep boat is clear in movement patterns. All these abrupt changes resulted in injury to tendons or muscle strain. Rule of thumb for moving onto the water is to start at 50% volume in week one and build up to full training in the new mode over 4 weeks. You won't get as fit on the water initially as you did on the rowing machine so use this time for technique.
The temptation is to stop rowing your normal pattern and instead to "flex" and go with what you feel in the boat. This is an abrupt change in technique and not conducive to protecting your body. If you have a sensitive low back, then an unstable boat can cause a flare up. Common sense - think before you do. Common sense is not very common. For equipment make gradual changes.
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Masters rowing has a secret that most athletes in individual sports never have to confront:
YOU. CANNOT. HIDE.
In cycling, running, or golf, a strong performer can carry a result. Not here. Rowing is what Brian Klaas, in his book Fluke, calls a weak-link sport. Speed is a function of synchronisation, balance, and timing. If even one rower in an eight is fractionally off the run of the shell suffers. You are only ever as good as your least coordinated rower. Every seat is load-bearing.
Think of team ball sports like basketball where a strong-link scenario exists “you can ignore the bad stuff and focus on making the best stuff better”. Michael Jordan was a transformational athlete, but it was not essential that his “supporting cast” of team mates had to also operate at his skill level.
This is not the case with rowing.
Rowing is the exact opposite. Speed is a function of synchronisation, balance, and timing. In a crew boat if even one person is a bit off, the boat will lurch creating drag. That crew will lose to a more co-ordinated lineup. Unlike basketball, we’re only as good as our worst athlete. That makes it a weak-link problem”.
As Coach Ted Humphries says
The skill of the boat is the teamwork of the boat. The boat needs continual, repetitive, endless practice. The coach can never be satisfied. Nor can the crew. In our information age, every newsletter and every coach dispenses advice, but advice is not the answer. The answer is repetition until every part of the boat gets it right. Klaas’s refrain is “Everything matters.”
It is the combination, relentlessly pursued; never quite perfected, that produces the harmony former UCLA player Steve Patterson described as “as close to perfection as you can imagine”.
This is why John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, would have made a brilliant rowing coach. His Pyramid of Success places Conditioning, Skill, and Team Spirit at its middle layer. He understood these not as separate qualities but as a single, interlocking system. Skill without Team Spirit produces brilliant individuals who wreck boat flow. Conditioning without Skill is just fitness.
For masters rowers specifically, three things follow from this.
Lower back pain in rowing typically stems from two technical errors: excessive lumbar flexion (rounding) at the catch, and early back engagement during the drive. Both create compressive and shear forces on your lower spine. The fix requires specific technical adjustments and targeted strengthening, definitely not just "rowing through it" or stopping entirely.
What's happening: You're reaching forward with a rounded lower back instead of maintaining a neutral spine. Every stroke creates hundreds of pounds of compressive force through your lumbar discs.
Why it hurts more after 40: Your spinal discs have less water content and reduced shock absorption capacity. The same position that you "got away with" at 25 now creates pain and potential injury later in life.
Visual check: Have someone video you from the side. At the catch, if your lower back is rounded (shoulders hunched toward knees), you've found your problem.
What's happening: Your back opens before your legs finish driving. You're essentially trying to "lift" the load with your lumbar spine instead of transferring power from your legs.
The force problem: This creates massive shear forces on L4-L5. Multiply by 10,000 strokes per week, and you have chronic low back pain.
Feel check: If your lower back fatigues before your legs during a hard piece, your sequencing is wrong. If your lower ribs touch your thighs when you are at the catch and they stop touching early, chances are you lifted your shoulders to start the power phase.
What's happening: Your superficial abs (six-pack muscles) work fine, but your deep stabilisers (transverse abdominis, multifidus) are weak. These muscles should stabilise your spine during the rowing stroke.
Why this matters: Without deep core stability, your spine moves too much during the stroke, creating irritation and inflammation.
What's happening: Tight hip flexors prevent full hip flexion at the catch, or tight hamstrings prevent pelvic rotation so you compensate by rounding your lower back to achieve compression.
The compensation: Your body finds range of motion somewhere. If your hips can't flex enough, your spine flexes instead, and that hurts.
Setup position:
Key cue: Your forward reach comes from hip flexion (folding at the hips), not spinal flexion (rounding your back).
Trade-off: You may lose 1-2cm of reach. You'll gain 10+ years of healthy rowing.
Practice drill:
Correct sequence: Legs → Back → Arms
Not: Everything opens at once, or back-before-legs (shoulder lifting)
Practice progression:
Mental cue: "Push then swing" not "lift and pull."
Feel check: Your hamstrings and glutes should fatigue before your lower back. If your back is screaming and your legs feel fresh, you're still sequencing wrong.
Why this matters: A rushed, uncontrolled recovery forces you into poor catch position, which creates the back pain downstream.
Recovery principles:
Ratio: Recovery should be 2-3x longer than the drive at low rates If your drive is 1 second, recovery should be 2-3 seconds.
Dead bug progressions:
Bird dog:
Plank variations:
Key principle: Quality over quantity. Perfect position for 20 seconds beats sloppy form for 2 minutes.
Kneeling hip flexor stretch:
Couch stretch:
Goal: Improve hip flexion range so you don't compensate with lumbar flexion.
Deadlifts or Romanian deadlifts:
Single-leg deadlifts:
Glute bridges:
Go and see a medical professional who is sports-trained. A family doctor or general practitioner is not suitable for sports injuries. Be proactive - seek a physical therapist who understands rowing. Physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and sports massage experts may all be suitable for you. Find one who helps your condition - do ask other rowers who they use.
It's important to get injuries seen quickly - do not wait two weeks and hope the pain subsides using pain medication.
Training recovery protocol
Week 1-2: Reduce volume by 50%, focus on technique at low intensity Week 3-4: Gradually increase volume if pain is resolving Ongoing: Maintain technical precision even when fatigued
Warning signs to stop:
Immediately after rowing:
Ongoing support:
Check your settings: Lower your feet - the measurement of shoe heel cup to seat top is what you need to know. And/or use a seat pad to raise your seat further. This effectively improves your compression by making it easier to tilt the pelvis. This can eliminate the need to over-reach into problematic positions.
Heel position: If your heels are popping up early in the drive, your stretcher may be too high, forcing you into excessive forward lean.
Monthly video analysis: Have someone film your stroke from the side. Watch specifically for:
Maintenance work: Even when pain-free, continue daily core stability and hip mobility work. Prevention is easier than cure.
Lower back pain is almost always fixable with proper technique and strengthening. Our Technical Masterclass include:
Don't row hurt. Fix the mechanics.
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Have you ever tried to fly with rowing equipment? Grant Craies took crews to race in China and (despite checking ahead) the airline changed the aeroplane. The sweep oars wouldn't fit in the hold. The 'helpful' flight attendant suggested cutting them in half. They got home eventually with all the oars.
Many airlines will transport personal sporting equipment. If you do want to fly with oars be aware most airlines limit length to 3 meters. Pack alternate oars end-to-end for compact space usage (many charge by volumetric space), take off the buttons and remove handles so they pack tighter; wrap the spoons in bubble wrap and hard cardboard. Concept2 sell a rugged scull transport case.
When you book, the ticket usually says what type of plane you will be in. So pre-book as specialised / outsize baggage. And I recommend marking the box "Rowing Oars" and "Fragile, top load only".
COXIES! When you travel by plane, do you put your cox box in a checked bag or take it with you as a carry on?
I’ve done checked bag before, but I’m worried about luggage delays/lost but I’m nervous about TSA because the box looks crazy. Heading to HOCR!
UPDATE: made it through TSA, no questions asked! Here's the full discussion on Facebook.
Yes. The original packaging is just within the size limits for a bicycle case and the whole lot is inside the weight limit. Concept2 sell the packaging if you haven’t kept yours. I put a couple of ties round it to help lifting etc. we’ve taken ours from UK to Lanzarote on Jet2 twice.
Concept2 definitely sell box and packaging. Alternatively if you could find someone or a gym who has bought one recently you could “borrow “ theirs?
Here's the full discussion on Facebook.
How watching videos of good rowing can help improve your technique.
Timestamps
Parts of our brain get activated when watching movement. Researchers noticed monkeys' brains were firing when watching the researchers eat lunch - as if the monkeys were also eating.
Mirror neurons help you to understand and internalise actions, emotions and intentions. This is helpful when learning the subtleties of rowing timing points.
When I yawn the chances are you will too. This is your mirror neurons. Dr Laby from Sports Vision researched if you watch correct performances and see the technique being used. He noted that the video needs to be as close as possible to reality. This means you get best results watching at race stroke rates, not slow motion.
Try to create a race situation rather than a training row. You need both - understand the movement first and then be able to do it at stroke rates comparable to a race.
Find videos online to watch - they need to be good athletes, rowing well in high cadence high stroke rate situations. Check out MostynARC YouTube channel for Penny Chuter's video collection.
When a coach tells a story about rowing, your mirror neurons activate as you listen. They make you feel that you are experiencing what the coach describes. Neural coupling with the story teller.
First get the athletes to observe the task done well - demonstrate the task first yourself. This is more likely to trigger the mirror neurons as the athletes think themselves into what you're describing.
Then explain the action at the same time as demonstrating as a second stage.
Our Drills Compendium uses this method and adds written captions as well.
Real-time observation and real time skill correction improves skill acquisition.
The experts recommend peer-to-peer observation as a further stage. Teach observation and comparison to good technique - this also has a permission-based feedback structure allows the athletes to see if they are getting the movement right.
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