You bag your warm up and jump straight to the hard strokes. Next you conveniently forget your post-row stretch. Cutting training corners may be tempting when you are in a rush but in the long run it won’t pay. Even if you are short on time, following the rule of four will give you good gains.
4 components to training
Every training session needs four components: a warm up, a main task, a cool down, and a bit of stretching.
Stretching and warming up have different roles. The warm up raises your body temperature and heart rate, gets blood flowing to your muscles, and brings your breathing rate up. It prepares your body for the job ahead of you. Your warm up should be dynamic and include easy rowing; light erging, jogging, or spinning if on land. Dedicate 10 to 15 minutes to warming up and break into a light sweat. Stretching involves the lengthening and relaxation of the muscles that you use in rowing. It helps to restore range of motion, improve posture, stimulate circulation, reduce soreness. The best time to improve your flexibility is right after exercise when your muscles are elastic.
How to fit it all in
To pack it all into your budgeted time slot, allow 20 minutes plus the time it takes for your main workout. Keep it simple. Incorporate a warm up period by rowing easy for 10 minutes. Include some drills too. Then, do your workout. Follow up with a 5-minute cool down period so your heart and breathing rates come down to normal. Row easy or walk for 5 minutes. After your cool down, toss in a few stretches before you hit the shower. Target the muscles that feel the tightest. Hold each stretch for about 30 seconds and repeat 3 times. Focus on your low back, hips, hamstrings, quadriceps, and calf muscles.
Five minutes is enough, even a small dose is effective and you can always stretch later on when you have more time.
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The injury rate in rowing is about 0.4 per 1,000 hours of training at the elite level. Rates may be higher among non-elite recreational rowers but are far less than other sports such as (American) football at 4 per 1,000 hours of training or rugby at 40 per 1000 hours of training.
What causes rowing injuries?
Most rowing injuries are caused by the repetitive nature of the rowing stroke. Regardless of age, experience, or competitive level weaknesses, imbalances, or restrictions of muscles and joints can lead to overuse syndromes primarily affecting the neck, shoulders, elbows, ribs, low back, or hips. Repetitive stress or repetitive motion injuries develop because of microscopic tears in tissue or fractures in bone. When the body is unable to repair the damaged tissues inflammation occurs, leading to painful conditions.
You can test your physical restrictions in our Functional Movement Assessment free webinar.
Watch free training to test yourself on flexibility
Gender injury differences
Overuse injuries are more common in female than male rowers. In female rowers the most frequent complaints are chest wall pain (i.e. rib stress fractures), then low back pain, followed by tenosynovitis (inflammation of the tendon and enveloping sheath) of the wrist extensors.
In males, low back pain is most prevalent, then tenosynovitis of the wrist extensors, followed by chest wall pain. Sculling, sweep rowing, and erging are similar exercises but each discipline poses different risks due to the mechanics of the motion involved.
Factors contributing to repetitive stress injuries can be internal or external. Internal factors include your fitness level, core stability, muscle flexibility, nutrition, strength, hydration level, balance and coordination, recovery rate, age, rowing technique, posture, pre-existing injuries, emotional or perceived stress, and cross training.
External factors include a change in boat type or the size of your oars or oar handles, decreased boat stability, change in rigging, racing, changes in rowing technique, overtraining, rapid increases in training intensity, frequency, or duration, or a change from sweep to sculling, changes in seating position, change of athletes in the boat, and inadequate rest between training sessions.
To keep your training on track make changes to your program or equipment gradually including transitioning from the boat to the erg each fall (autumn).
Just as pushing your bow across the line for the first time in the 50+ age category signifies entering a mature phase of your rowing career it may also mark new adventures in maintaining equilibrium in your training schedule.
Masters athletes need to include the same intensities of work in their race preparation as their younger counterparts. However, the difference for masters is how and when workouts are planned in the weekly schedule to adjust for potentially longer recovery periods as the body requires more time.
How to improve as you age
Improving your performance as you age is linked to maintaining a relatively high VO2 max. This means that high intensity intervals at race pace need to be key elements of any master’s program in combination with the substantial endurance work that rowing demands. Such intervals also place a lot of stress on your physiological systems so the volume and frequency needs to be approached carefully to optimize the benefits. Recovery periods are when your body makes the positive adaptation to the work you just did, without a good recovery period, you risk physical break-down and injuries can occur more easily.
Only you can gauge how much recovery you need between the intense sessions of the week. Monitor your morning resting heart rate the day after, if it is elevated above your norm, include low intensity sessions until it returns to normal rest rate. If this typically takes two days you can schedule a total rest day, easy distance work, or low intensity cross training. Using an app to track your heart rate variability gives an even more accurate measure your state of recovery. I use the HRV4Training app.
Weekly training patterns can vary, be creative so you don’t get bored. You may find you feel more energized taking a total rest day after three training days. If a traditional weekly pattern is better for your schedule, resting Monday and Friday might give you the edge you need to maintain quality workouts during the in-between days.
Ways to recover from training
The best form of recovery as you age is sleep. Getting 40 winks, taking cat naps, or simply lying down restores your energy the fastest especially when backed up by healthy eating. Look over your weekly cycle and build your recovery days around your priority sessions of the week and follow it up with a good dose of rest.
07:45 Marlene reads the article - process goals and measured achievement goals.
Objective and subjective aspects of goal setting
12:00 What will help you move towards your goal? Diary your testing every 6 weeks.
18:00 Resources and rowing measurement suggestions included in the article. Using an app or speed coach to record data Metres per stroke at rate 18 a measure of base paddling speed A 20 minute erg test for fitness Faster5 Fitness Assessment includes the details
20:45 Heart rate is not a good measure of training intensity Row set distances or set time. Marlene likes Stroke rate 22 for 20 or 30 minutes as a regular workout.
25:00 At what intensity do you row the 20 minute test? The best effort you can on the day - it is a test. However you can’t row 100% every stroke, you have to last the distance. How to find the ideal 500 meter split which you can maintain at “comfortably hard” for the full time. You can increase the split a little during the piece. You just feel that the test is an honest reading of your capacity on that day.
Goals for non-racing masters.
29:30 Tips on goals for non-racing masters.
Technical goals - how many strokes can you row with blades off the water? Endurance goals - distance before you need to take a break. Marlene is not a fan of talking in the boat for team boats. Testing breathing - can you breathe through your nose or your mouth? Steering tests- through the bridge without over-steering.
32:00 Rate of perceived exertion scale Small wins matter.
35:30 Fitness evaluations cause less anxiety over time. Have a routine of how you approach the tests. Make them regular, part of your practice.
37:00 Is it better to rate high with low pressure? It depends - rigging affects this, gearing and your physiology. Use the Rigging for Masters Webinar to find what’s right for you.
Goals for recreational and racing masters
A webinar by Faster Masters Rowing.
How to manage the ageing process, the science of longevity and what affects your chronological and biological age.
With guest experts Clare Delmar and Hugh Dunstan.
Learn about
– The science of ageing – what we are only just learning
– How digestion, diet and hydration age you
– Ways amino acids affect sport, exercise and recovery rates
– How to monitor your own health and ageing
– Interventions to slow down ageing
– Impact of loss of muscle tone and ability to recover. The role of Vitamin D in muscle mass and ageing
– Clare Delmar Healthcare entrepreneur has worked in the medical technology and men’s health area for the last 12 years. Current venture is a company delivering state-of-the-art treatment for prostate cancer. By engaging hundreds of men with early-to intermediate-stage prostate cancer and gaining an understanding of their needs and aspirations following their diagnosis, she became interested in the recent advances in what is sometimes called longevity science or geroscience. It was particularly attractive or two key reasons: 1) ageing is the most significant risk factor in developing prostate cancer, and there is lots of new thinking and new approaches to managing ageing; and 2) much of the research base derives from years of investigation into how cancerous cells develop and operate within the body. Her aim is to help educate patients and the general public about these approaches and challenge them to think about ageing and its management in a more informed and evidence-based way. She is a a member of the Masters Womens squad at Tideway Scullers School in London.
– Hugh Dunstan Hugh Dunstan was a Professor at the University of Newcastle (Australia) until he retired in 2020. His research program was focused on understanding the biochemistry of fatigue. Hugh and his research team were able to quantify the potential losses of amino acids and electrolytes in humans. This enabled them to better understand daily amino acid requirements and then develop highly refined commercial products to support exercise and recovery. These new concepts are particularly relevant to help people stay active and healthy as they get older. Hugh is a co-founder of InnovAAte, which brings their research based OptimAAte and ElectrAAte products to the marketplace. He has been rowing for 40 years and remains active and healthy.
After attending this webinar you will
– Know which ageing specialists to follow and read
– Have practical changes to make in your own diet, exercise and hydration
– Have a path for measuring your own ageing
Bonuses
Within the webinar are downloadable bonus lessons for you.
Recording of the full event
How proteins are built
Ebook on Amino Acids for Sport and Exercise
Science of Ageing resources - who to watch / read / listen / follow
Discount Coupon for Innovaate products
Buy Now
Learn a dynamic warmup routine for rowing | Faster Masters Rowing Radio - the podcast for masters rowers. Tips, advice and discussion from Marlene Royle and Rebecca Caroe. Support this show with a donation.
Timestamps
01:00 This Past Week - what we do to advocate for masters rowing. Change of date for Masters Championships in New Zealand; Erg Racing Webinar recording is published.
08:30 What is a dynamic warmup?
Preparation to Train. The purpose is to get your joints moving; circulation going and to raise your body temperature. At the bottom of these notes is the link to download the dynamic warmup ebook. 09:50 5 minutes of aerobic exercise to start - spinning bike, erg or jog. 10:20 Start with your ankles - simple flexibility a dorsiflection stretch. 11:45 Leg swing in two directions 12:50 Hip extension, knee bent on all fours, kneeling. 13:35 Hip abduction - the "fire hydrant" exercise. 14:00 Glute bridge 14:40 Abdominal plank, Remind your body what stability feels like. 15:40 Band pull apart for the arms. 16:45 Push up with protraction - you can modify this by doing it against a wall or a step 18:30 Squad and shoulder flexion. Keep your heels down. This helps keep your spine in neutral. 20:00 If you only have time for one exercise - do the leg swings and the squats if you have time for two exercises.
Watch Marlene explain how to do a dynamic warmup for rowing
Listen to the podcast episode on Dynamic Warmup Routine for rowing
Heart rates are well known as a guide to exercise intensity.
Timestamps
0:00 Introduction 0:27 Faster Masters Rowing Radio - the podcast for masters. The show this week is brought to you by Tip of the Blade, notes on rowing. A book by Marlene Royle which is a collection of articles, presentations and interviews. https://amzn.to/3o8nUtO 2:36 This past week - check out the Global Remote Head of the Charles race - a charity event for 4702 meters from 31 January through 6 February https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/?job_id=7651&org_id=0
06:04 Intensity and heart rate
The rule of thumb 220 less your age is wildly inaccurate.
11:06 What affects heart rate? Lactate is developed in your blood and different intensities develop different lactate levels. Specificity is important and physiologists measure blood lactate in milimoles. Retest regularly as lactate changes as you train. Things that affect your heart rate include: heat, humidity, sleep, wine, altitude, dehydration. Your heart rate is a measure of stress.
05:15 Why we use performance paces
Faster Masters Rowing prefers to use these over heart rate. You do a trial and from the trial results extrapolate training paces. Keep out of the garbage training zones
20:23 When to use Heart Rate Test your morning resting heart rate - what's normal for you? Within your workout use HR to check your rest between pieces.
23:30 HR for rest and recovery Heart Rate Variability is useful for monitoring your sympathetic nervous system. Is your body in a state of stress or state of recovery?
But we can certainly influence how we age with proactive interventions and choices in our own lives. The Faster Masters Rowing Radio podcast welcomes Clare Delmar to the show to guide us through who is researching aging well and where we can find their writings and publications.
12:00 The science of longevity - Why we should be interested in aging and what we already know. Cancer research tells us what happens to cells in the body. Key tenets:- shifting healthcare, medicine and personal focus from lifespan to "health span". Living well longer.
14:45 Top risk factors for health conditions - the number 1 is aging for prostate cancer. We should think that aging is not just a fact of life - we can learn about it and about the process of aging.
Chronologial / biological age
17:45 Difference between chronological and biological age. Measure this with biomarkers. We can manage our biological age ourselves.
Who researches aging?
20:00 Which people are doing work in aging who we should follow? There are scientific geneticists, society researchers (employment, housing, transport), medical (treatments and interventions) and personal health (what we can do ourselves). Cell senescence is key - cells are dying and not being replaced. 24:00 Gurus on longevity. What they are talking about
David Sinclair is a professor at Harvard Medical School whose book, Lifespan is evidence-based. https://amzn.to/3ntcj9O Nir Barzilai also has a book Age Later, the new science of longevity. https://amzn.to/3A20YCB Interventions he suggests include supplements and drugs to help reduce aging. 28:00 Covid has taught us about repurposing drugs. Metformin is a diabetes drug Mir is working on. 29:30 Eleanor Sheeky has a great YouTube channel the Sheeky Science show. https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSheekeyScienceShow/about
30:30 Researchers into societal and cultural perspectives and the policies needed Sergei Young https://amzn.to/3fsxF2H Susan Flory
https://www.susanflory.com/ Tina Woods has a book on AI driving interventions. She's also on the UK Parliamentary advisory group. https://amzn.to/33Gc2sK Andrew Scott at London Business School has a book https://amzn.to/3qw4uSC Ashton Applewhite - social media around ageism @thischairrocks 36:30 Novos Labs are a supplements company. Their website is informative.
37:15 How you you monitor our own health? Clare takes supplements not because she feels bad. She wants to live well. Daily yoga practice has been massively helpful for strength, balance and mobility. Daily exercise - sculling, run or cycle Diet and nutrition - the impact on physical and mental / emotional health. I eat gut-friendly foods. I have cut out sugars so I'm less dependent and greek yoghurt daily. 44:00 Tips - apply to your everyday. A dietary intervention is the concept of intermittent fasting - body ketosis. Everybody is different. 47:00 Opinions on a vegan diet? It's an individual choice. With aging it's protein levels that are critical to less stress and cell repair. Women need fat in our diet. Clare is a convert to non-meat proteins - pulses / beans and plant based milks.
Rowing and aging show audio recording
Baz Moffat is the co-founder of the Well HQ, a community that promotes womens health in sport. She has a personal interest in pelvic health and is working to counter the mis-understandings about pelvic floor, bladder and bowel health.
This video is part of the Rowing Through Menopause webinar - Baz talks for 40 minutes (details below) and will teach you what we should know.
Use Discount Coupon MENO1524 to get 15% off the purchase price of Rowing Through Menopause.
An in-depth review of all the detail you should know about your pelvis.
Pelvic floor for rowing - what should your pelvic floor be able to do and what is 'normal'?
Bladder health - how often a day should you wee?
Bowel health - In mid-life we have a lot of stress hormones. If you don’t go to the bathroom regularly and excreting these hormones they get re-absorbed and stored around your middle as fat. That's why mid-life women struggle to lose weight if we are stressed / lack of sleep / constipated.
Strength and conditioning in mid life as part of looking after your pelvic floor.
How to "cue" your core to strengthen and align with your breathing, your diaphragm and pelvic floor
Baz Moffat - pelvic health expert
10:00 Baz Moffat from The Well HQ. Interest in pelvic floor but it was "medicalised" as a topic. And hadn't been re-interpreted into sport. The team at the Well includes an exercise physiologist and a general practitioner (family) doctor. 16:00 The "Caught Short" kit of period products for your club changing room
90% of women will leave a venue if her period starts and they don't have a product to use.
Baz Moffat, The Well HQ with her model pelvis.
Pelvic floor for rowing
18:30 pelvic health for rowing What is your pelvic floor? Its role is to hold everything up and keep you dry. Coughing, laughing, sneezing, jumping should not make you leak, wind or urea /faeces. Athletes have higher levels of dysfunction than the population. Upwards of 50% of masters rowers (women) have prolapse or stress incontinence issues. We have normalised this and it should not be so.
23:00 Kegle exercises are pelvic floor drills which are OK for starting. 26:00 It's taboo to mention because we are arrogant about our physicality. Prolapse is when the vaginal wall is not strong enough to hold up everything inside. Level 1 or 2 feels like a drag and can be fixed with pelvic floor exercises and pessaries to protect the vagina during exercise.
Bladder & Bowel Health
30:00 Bladders.
Most people don't know how many times a day they should go to the loo. You should be weeing 8-12 seconds around 5-8 times per day. Healthy habits - we lose collagen as we age and this can cause a floppy bladder so it doesn't retract. Go every 3 hours or so. Respond to the urge. Bladder irritants - sugar, caffeine, spices, cold temperatures, alcohol. We get more sensitive with age.
35:00 Bowel health - bowels are different from bladders. Excreting waste product includes hormones. In mid-life we have a lot of stress hormones. If you don't go to the loo they get re-absorbed and stored around your middle. Stress, lack of sleep and constipation mean you cannot lose weight. When you get the urge you have 15-20 minutes to go. People prefer to go at home. You should respond to the urge, not wait. As we age digestion slows. Lack of oestrogen and more progesterone make you more likely to be constipated. Complementary health therapies and naturopaths can help a lot. Sit on the toilet with your knees higher than your hips is helpful if you are constipated. Lean forward, relax and let go. Your menstrual cycle also affects your bowel health.
Strength and conditioning in midlife
43:00 Strength and conditioning in mid life Evidence is from age 30 women lose muscle strength, muscle mass and bone density. Counteract the rate of decline with exercise. Lifting technique matters - learn this first. Function and form are your limitations. Focus on the "big lifts" squat, bench pull, bench press and dead lift. Check you are breathing. We do not need to hold the breath in order to stabilise the core if we are lifting 10-40kgs. Use a flowing breath.
49:00 In the Faster Masters subscription training programs we focus on do-able exercises and things you can do at home.
52:00 Keep your core long and ensure your stomach doesn't puff out. What should coaches cue when a female athlete sits in a rowing boat? Do not tell her to "hold" her core. Breathing in and out should move both the diaphragm and the pelvic floor - holding the core stops this happening. Tell her to seek "length" because a long muscle is a strong muscle.
58:00 We have 3 arches in our body - feet, diaphragm and pelvic floor. All are needed.
Train Like a Woman webinar 8 December 2021- it's free and also recorded so sign up
Following a training plan sounds so simple. You just read the workout and do it, right?
Well - yes, but. There are many things which can get in the way of an effective training program - firstly training on the right day with the correct workout. Rowers are competitive folks and many harbor fears of missing a workout and then guilt that they need to "catch up" on the missed session. This is the most common trap you can fall into when getting your training wrong.
Our podcast explains some of the reasons why you should vary your workouts, how to plan workouts to fit your schedule and when you should not change the workout programed.
How to follow a plan
How and when to vary the plan
What to do when life or the weather gets in the way of your plan
What to do if you get sick or injured and can't train
When it's NOT OK to vary the training plan
What to do when your crew is on a different program.
Follow a rowing program
05:28 This Past Week - what we do to advocate for masters rowing.
Have you got a club newsletter and would you like to use masters rowing articles we've written? Get in touch https://fastermastersrowing.com/contact-us/
Marlene's article on the oarlocks open drill is published in Rowing News Magazine
15:30 Rowing into a headwind with lumpy water is it better to keep the rate up to maintain boat speed or stay long and row slower?
Hold onto your finishes - know why you make your compromise.
23:00 Guidance on painting blades. Clean / Sand / Prime / Paint one colour.
masking tape skill is essential. Pull it off immediately you've painted. Paint the other side of the oar the next day.
29:00 How to follow a training program or training plan
You need structure to your week. Map your days and align to your training phases.
A plan is organised to build progressively - skills, fitness and mental skills.
What is the plan is set to achieve? Strengths, weaknesses or a race event and a peak?
35:30 General preparation times of year are different from specific preparation. More flexibility is possible. But stick to the sequence.
37:00 Varying the plan (how and when). We keep sessions to 60 minutes in the Faster Masters Rowing training plan so consider your days. If you are tired or under-recovered you should vary the plan.
39:30 What to do when life or the weather gets in the way of your plan. Wait a day. If you are injured or sick, be conservative and rest.
42:00 When it's NOT OK to vary the training plan. coming into a peak event, the taper is designed to restore your muscle glycogen to its full levels. This takes 7 - 10 days. Too much work will hinder this and you won't get a peak performance.
45:00 What to do when your crew is on a different program. don't overdo the intensity if you combine programmes. Can you blend the club team boats into your programme?
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