The policy leadership masters sport needs if it is to grow. What can public policy measures do to improve and grow masters rowing?
Timestamps
Sophie Harrington is researching recommendations to improve access to womens and girls sport using public policy measures. Her focus on the male/female side opened up masters sport as a new area where sport for life outcomes could work.
To grow masters sport requires finding the inhibitors which exist and prevent improvement. Some are structural - how we organise, think and run volunteer sport.
Ways to improve access and people's enthusiasm and interest in masters sport. Constraints include memberships - many clubs are annual fees/dues. Can we offer pay-to-play memberships? Also what about time of day pricing as our rowing equipment lies idle for 22 hours a day. Training at quieter times of day between early mornings and school afternoon sport times. Sweat your assets to get more money in for use when not in demand.
05:15 Coach education
Teaching methods used for youth are not as appropriate for older adults. Consider psychology and physiology of athletes so coaches know how to work with a broader range of athletes.
Competition structure is a growth inhibitor. We need 3 layers - local / regional and national competitions including those which are participatory not races e.g. Park Run. What is the rowing equivalent? Scrimmages, touring row or visiting another club. Some people take years before trying racing. Competition for those new to competing needs to be organised so you can go to hyper-local events with low friction (no equipment trailer).
08:00 Athletic pathways for masters
Ways for those of limited experience to go to races against those whose experience is similar. Age doesn't work as a level playing field when years of experience is considered. Having plural athlete pathways which incorporate fitness rowers with challenges (not necessarily races) that move folks into competition gently.
Social inclusion - having a coffee after the workout is important to build friendships and encourages them to stick around as a group.
Facilitating sport for life is the outcome goal.
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How to improve your rowing using self-diagnosis coaching and progressive drills.
Timestamps
00:45 A powerful coaching tool for both coaches and athletes.
Masters rowers like autonomy. Enabling the athlete to work things out for themselves facilitates mastery in a self-directed environment. The change is more likely to stick.
Canada research by Derrik Motz, University of Ottawa on athlete coach relationship Coaching Masters Athletes – Advancing Research & Practice in Adult Sport
If you don't have regular coaching, this is a tool to try.
This has to have common understanding across your group. The rowing stroke cycle diagram is a good place to start.
Where your rowing goes wrong - an example of a boat going "wonky" which was caused by the athletes stamping hard on the foot stretcher.
Start by working out when you do not have the problem. In this case increase the pressure progressively from 60% pressure, 70% etc and work out when the issue started to happen. Discuss this with your crew about the cause of the problem. Then decide what fixes the problem? Can you make the change in 1 stroke?
The boat is balanced generally when the oars are under the water and the imbalance occurs on the recovery when the oars are out of the water. Our model of good rowing has the boat balanced throughout the stroke cycle.
Is the boat balanced as the oars come out of the water? Yes. Is it still balanced when we get our arms straight / body rock forwards / roll up the slide. Work out where the problem starts to happen and then decide what to do to effect a change. The cause might be timing of the oar handle movement at the finish transition to the recovery.
What fixes this? Probably handle heights or sequencing of the finish body movement. If handle height is the issue. Choose a drill like rowing with the oar flat on the water on the recovery. Then progressively change this to increase the depth of handle push down to take the oar out of the water. Then keep the handle at this height throughout the recovery until the next catch.
The progression is to start with a 1 cm tap down; move to 2 cm and 3 cm. Can you keep the boat level at these stages?
The self - diagnosis method helps us to diagnose the issue, fix the problem and then row in the new way. Use your autonomy to try to fix the issue and see if you can make it work in practice.
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Masters rowing is about rowing with adaptations.
Timestamps:
00:45 Grant Faulkner quote: The speed the clock moves forwards and the things it takes away. Masters learn to enjoy age and the things we have to adjust for our rowing.
Nobody told me it was going to be like this!
Strength and Mobility are the main things you will notice first. Strength diminishes differently between men and women 50s versus 60s. Your 60s is a 'hold steady' decade. Read article. Use the Facebook group to post questions and get answers from people who have the same issues.
Range of movement in joints is important - pelvic mobility in the hips to get into the rowing stroke positions. Flexibility is also key.
Programs page has FREE STUFF including How to test your functional movement and strengthening exercises. David Frost's webinar on Functional Strength and Movement is a deeper dive into exercises for body strengthening for daily life - essential for older women who find it hard to lift a boat. If athletes can't get into the right positions for rowing it's difficult to teach them.
Adjustments to take account of mobility issues. Adapting Rowing Rigging For Masters Physiology article Try to maintain your technique and range of motion as you age. Adjust rigging to accommodate physical limitations - some are easy, medium and hard - they take tools and more time to set up.
We can still always improve our technique as we age. Despite losing strength, masters rowers can always be more skilful at the catch, get the blade in without slip, get a full leg drive, recruit extra muscles to add to power delivery. Technique has no regard for age - you can improve at all ages.
What is the next horizon for you? Most of us delay making changes - if you are losing strength, you should be shortening your oars (Volker Nolte's Rigging Webinar has charts for oar designs, Men and Women). Most masters row on oars which are too long for their strength and capability.
This webinar includes
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Slowing down makes you faster in the future. What is rowing circles good for?
Timestamps
00.30 Rowing in Circles
I know I could make a lot of progress if I could just practice my stroke over and over.
Yes, this is the purpose of rowing in circles. Get the intense, focused practice in a stable environment.
01:30 One person rows at a time in sweep; in sculling you row one side at a time. Often done in small boats so that the effect is all about what you're doing - the boat movement isn't muffled by what others are doing. It gives direct feedback and a strong learning outcome.
Level bladework - are your oars going into the water at the correct depth in the power phase and are they staying at the correct height above the water in the recovery phase. If you row "over the barrel" this is good.
Catch placement - how to time lifting the handle so your blade goes into the water when your seat is just arriving at the change of direction at full compression? Get the oar under the water before the seat stops moving.
Recovery height of blade above the water - Sweep align which hand does the height and squaring/feathering. Single hand or wide grip rowing can be practiced in circles.
How to row square blades - see exactly what is needed to get the oar out of the water square.
Learn the basic skill at light pressure, then make it harder by moving to firm pressure rowing. Try not watching your blade while rowing to keep the same technique. Remember when you are learning something new - there is a ladder of learning. Step up to make it more challenging but if this isn't working well, step down to re-establish the pattern of technique movement before trying to make it harder again.
06:15 Do it 3 times
It takes time to acquire a new skill - repetitions help you to learn. Rest and reflect while your partner tries the rowing in circles. Many people learn in an interesting way - your brain processes the movement between practices. It may be better at the next practice.
Watch this video to see Marlene Royle coaching a single sculler on Rowing Circles with level bladework drills.
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Why thinking like a scientist will fix the voice in your head and ways harness it to coach yourself in a rowing boat.
When you row you are thinking about what you do - it's the voice in your head. The devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. Masters work best when thinking about one thing at a time. Create the outcome you want with different ways of saying it - how will you do it, when will you do it.
When you no longer need to use your brain to think about one technical point, you free up your mind to think about other things. Acquire the skill, learn it and put it into the background in your mind so you can do the skill without thinking about it. The voice in your head is working hard.
04:30 Objectivity is key
The voice in your head can be devilish. It talks subjectively to you which can make a negative spiral of thoughts which do not help you to row better. Train the voice in your head by thinking like a scientist. They are objective (no value judgements), it's an observation only. Assess if you did or did not do the movement e.g. squaring early. It's not "good" or "bad". Keep the voice in your head 'on task'.
Watching your blade is a good way to start self-coaching. The blade is a good indicator of how you are rowing. Look at it at the catch, blade depth at the mid-stroke, look at the finish. Row in circles watching one oar at a time.
Play games with yourself - on the water have some fun. Take a small challenge - little goals give a focus for self-coaching. Try exaggerating part of the stroke so your body moves with precision and consistency as if you're demonstrating to a beginner. Notice how this impacts your stroke and how the boat moves.
You can do it deliberately wrong too. That's great fun. It creates a contrast between the two - find a happy mid point.
Enable your brain to be a positive thought that adds to your rowing. Try rowing for 10 strokes without thinking of anything. After those ten, allow your brain to focus on your technique point and do the scientist observation again. If yes, continue rowing without thinking; if no, make a small change to get back to the technique and then continue rowing without thinking. Use this skill to train your brain through the 4 competency stages towards unconscious competence.
Train your rowing mindset course
A useful article self-coaching in the single
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The three stages of masters rowing and a checklist of the skills learned in each stage - Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced.
Timestamps
When learning to row you move up through experience and grades.
Beginners - learning to row and getting familiarity with the boathouse, equipment and people. Be open to different frequencies showing up and learning styles. Progress is varied based on how much practice they do.
02:40 Clubs miss opportunities with intermediate rowers.
Intermediate - often very keen to assist and engage with running the learner group. Include them in the learner program so they're included as tutors / helpers. Challenge them to try something new like being in stroke seat, small boats, toe steering or doing the calls for the crew. New horizons make rowing more fun and challenging.
04:00 Advanced
The number of athletes is quite low - but does your coaching accommodate their needs? These people need specific training if they are racing - a program which builds up to a peak performance at key regattas. A coach needs to understand racing skills, periodisation for the program, how to read a race and respond. Long distance racing needs include steering, overtaking tactics, varied race rate and pace.
The major stages of learning to row. This is a summary checklist - you can get a more detailed one if you join the Coach Mastermind Group - customise this to suit your waterway and local safety practices.
Beginner skills - follow traffic navigation, emergency stop, turning on the spot and backing down.
Intermediate skills - bladework skills, stroking and following in a crew, consistent rate / pressure. De rigging a boat, loading a trailer and do oar gearing adjustment. Diagnose faults and suggest drills to improve.
Advanced skills - Add to the above lists - safety in weather/wind; launch in rough water, row square blades at firm pressure, catch start pick drill, using a pitch gauge to rig, measure span/spread and do a trailer loading diagram, confident coaching inside the boat - peer-to-peer coaching.
Know where your skills are now and where you want to go next. Download the summary skills checklist.
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Meet Jonathan Drake who teaches rowing using Alexander Technique methods.
01:00 Jonathan is an expert in rowing, Tai Chi and the Alexander Technique. His awareness of his co-ordination issues comes from being an Alexander teacher. Insights into how adults learn. His book is Rowing from the inside out: The art of indoor rowing with on the water in mind.
What is it like to scull on the water while you're learning to row indoors?
Understand how rowing is "in your head" and how to connect this to what your body does. Ingrained movement habits are hard to change especially as you get older. Move more lightly, freely and less movements creating tension.
Pulling your neck forwards and downwards creates tension in the rowing stroke. Feel how the dynamic opposition of one part of the body connects or separates from another part. Using your body changes through the rowing stroke. In the power phase the spine lengthens and changes at the finish before lengthening again on the recovery. The perspective is novel - indoor and outdoor rowing combined with Alexander Technique and Tai Chi. Learn from the inside rather than copying someone else from the outside.
10:00 There's a sequence in the feet - pushing off the balls of your feet causes calves to tighten and then after your heels are down and the stroke finishes, people lift the balls of their feet again. That's why gym rowers strap in their feet tightly. The basic dynamic is through the feet - the inside of your heels means you access the whole of your foot arch, this gives you the power you need to perform rowing while sitting dynamically.
It gives you more awareness of when you're using more effort than necessary. Engage in the journey yourself because you cannot teach what you do not know. You can get results without all the effort.
Encourage your athletes not to strap in your feet from the beginning. How to hold the handle without gripping (creates tight wrists and shoulders). When you understand about how to control the blades in the water - feather into your fingers - you can use your fingers on the indoor rower in the same way.
The key to coordination is the relationship between the neck, the head and the back. If your neck stiffens it creates spinal compression and tension. Our habits feel comfortable. Come to a state of quiet to help the body to organise itself. Learn to do less in order to achieve more. At the start of the drive the connection comes from the feet, then moves into the legs / hips / back and into the arms. As the recovery begins the pelvis takes the energy into the arms and body.
Ed Coode, rowed for Great Britain in Athens 2004 - he was taught AT.
20:00 The book is very clear on how you teach. When Jonathan is on the rowing machine he views each stroke as a potentially new experience. Use them as an opportunity to be constantly refining and improving your movement patterns. It's never too late to make improvements. The book has links to video clips on YouTube to show what to do.
Contact Jonathan [email protected] www.everydayfitness.co.uk
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Handling varying levels of dedication to the sport in masters clubs. How do you give the both the person who wants to practice once a week and the person who trains daily a meaningful race situation?
01:00 This is normal for masters rowing. Training and practice commitment isn't an issue usually until it comes to racing. When going to a regatta you want to be in a crew where where you're the 'worst' in the crew. Competitive people want the best possible crew.
In most youth rowing clubs the coaches do selection - this takes the emotion out of the lineups. Types of race - in your calendar there are local events and bigger events like the masters national championships. Each year you will have 2 or 3 peaks which help you manage your training load. Typically most masters will do 3 + races in a single day.
In local regattas your racing priorities may be different. The more experienced people can race both with less experienced (mixed ability crews) as well as their own regular training group. To get the racing priorities accurate, the single scull is the best measure. The outcome is up to you alone.
Regatta organisers can enable a pathway into racing for masters - novice - new masters - age group. Differentiate based on rowing experience, not age for the first 5 years of racing.
Aligning can be challenging. Fitness matters a lot in racing; bladework skills are also important. Enabling compromise as part of your lineup selection can help give a meaningful experience. The fitter athletes find compromise less palatable rowing when with less experienced people.
There is satisfaction to be had from a mixed ability crew. Skill judging stroke rate and technical calls through the race is a worthwhile endeavour. "That was harder than childbirth". Achieving the best possible outcome for this crew.
Can you mentally set yourself up to see satisfaction from both types of races with experienced people and less experienced people?
Folks who always train together means there is no way in for a newcomer. Club priorities can enable coaches to make selections and validate their choices with the Captain (who's independent). A goal could be to enable your groups (elite, intermediate, new masters, novices) to all have at least one event in which they stand a chance of being competitive. I've found this is a method which helps to bring on less experienced people so that in future years they advance faster than if you just leave them to race in their skill group.
17:00 The art of compromise is discussion without emotion. Rebecca invites people to choose a priority crew which she tries to guarantee that race. Everything else is secondary. This means some events are "sub-optimal. The competitive spirit drives racers to selfish outcomes. This is an attribute of successful racers. It can be hard for athletes to accept their perception of being put in sub-optimal crew lineups. Independent lineup confirmation and discussion of compromises helps to frame these decisions. Balance our priority against the opportunity of this one regatta.
The club is the entity which should set the goals (3-5 years) and how this impacts regatta entry choices. Tell us how your club manages their crews for regattas.
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Three innovations to improve your learn to row classes and prevent drop-outs. Time to get your club organised for LTR 2025. What's new that you could do this year?
Timestamps
Clubs do these to grow their membership. New joiners are an investment in time and effort - it takes time before that pays off. Around one third of all masters rowers started to row as adults. There are two pathways into masters rowing - people who started in their youth and then come back later in life, and those who start as adult beginners.
02:00 How to run a good adult learn to row class. Buy the book Masters Rowing by Nolte & Fritsch - the chapter on how to structure and teach LTR is really good.
Masters Rowing – Training for fitness, technique and competition – Volker Nolte & Wolfgang Fritsch
The experience of your first lesson is very important to the success of the program. Can paperwork be done ahead of time? Rebecca starts with an interior tour of the boathouse, the oars, the boat types, the changing rooms. Handling the oars - how to hold the oar handle. How to put the oars on the dock, positioning so nobody trips. How to do the sculling crossover. Parts of the boat - how to open an oarlock, the button position, how to adjust the foot stretcher. Carrying the boat, getting in and out of the boat safely.
06:00 They start rowing. We don't give instruction about how to row in the first lesson. They do some confidence drills and then start rowing - working it out for themselves. This may sound like they've being pushed quickly into doing something they haven't been told how to do.
This method serves a purpose - they work stuff out for themselves - take personal control. There is a lot of rest and waiting while others row in the first lesson. Short periods of rowing then stopping and talking or watching - a learning from Tony Buzan (the Mind Mapping man).
You need volunteers to help, give support and be alongside the beginners. Ask those who did the prior learn to row class to be the helpers - they know enough. It helps the new beginners to see how quickly they'll learn. Invite them to coffee after the lesson.
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Researching masters physiology - aging from 50 to 70 affects your rowing.
01:00 Guests from Athlone, Ireland Lorcan Daly and Paul Gallen
Lorcan is a sport science researcher starting with his grandfather, Richard Morgan who was an erg champion. Uniquely he was sedentary for most of his life, was a smoker and at 73 took up indoor rowing. He was tested aged 92 and some of the tests were on a par with a 30 year old. Three world champion indoor rowers were his next test subjects - described as a "game changer" by Irish Rowing.
Paul Gallen Dennis and Ken were recruited after winning their divisions at the 2024 World Rowing Indoor Championships. The tests were done over 2 visits - diet, lung and muscle function and sporting history.
06:00 Paul Gallen rejoined masters rowing
He took 30 years out of the sport and his first event back was the Head of the Charles Regatta. Learned to scull aged 60 and indoor rowing competitions. His 8s crew includes school friends. For the winter season he does a 10 week lead in to the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships. The three age gaps gave a good framing for the study.
Lorcan found that their muscle oxygen take-up was similar to an Olympic champion. The deterioration over life is much flatter than non-trained people.
Paul has 10 years of his splits at the indoor champs 6:59 - 7.14 times over ten year drop off. Paul does daily Yoga for rowers - 12 moves a day. Off season 2 weights; mix of high intensity and longer rowers. At least one high intensity per week.
13:00 General advice on aging well
The principles for healthy aging - keep your full body system going is a mix of resistance exercise and the mix of aerobic exercise is key. The two together is the winning formula.
15:00 Returning rowers
Paul the big thing about people coming back to rowing - it depends on how busy your life is. Start at recreational level and not commit fully to being in competition. Build up if your life gets less busy.
Lorcan's paper is called Toward the Limits of Human Ageing Physiology: Characteristics of the 50+, 60+ & 70+ Male Indoor Rowing Champions
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