Don’t believe us – listen to our Faster Masters members to tell you how using our programs helps their rowing.
Persephone Wynn is 63 and coming back to rowing after some health issues
My boat is a 20 yr old very tippy Fillipi – mostly tippy because I have little or no feeling in my feet due to chemo side effects, and more recently a loss of balance as a side effect of concussion at the beginning of the year – that has improved and is much better. I have been on the water three times this week – once a proper 10k – up to the top of our reach and back scull which was hard.
I loved the technique drills – [they are] drills I make my athletes do and which I used to do myself when I was racing but had got out of the habit. Getting my boat to sit is getting easier and just being patient and doing the drills is paying off. The open oarlocks ‘drill’ is something I have done several times by accident – when I was coaching juniors from my scull, in 90s, one day I wondered why the girls in the quad were grinning so much and looking at me. After 3/4 of the outing we stopped to do some practice starts, the first two went OK and on the third I went in – as this was alongside our weir I was back in my boat in a flash. The little darlings roared with laughter and said they had been waiting for me to go in as they had noticed that I not done up either side at the beginning of the outing…….It has never occurred to me to use this as a Drill – thank you – not quite ready to do it in this boat yet….
Faster Masters is definitely helping me – it is extremely hard to coach yourself sensibly.
I like the pieces – sensible, doable, but hard enough. Where I haven’t been able to get on the water I have been using the erg – not as good – and again, the daft British weather has played a part as we have had a long spell of ridiculously hot weather – I wear a HRM for training and the hot weather definitely affected my performance.
I try to train 4 times a week or every other day – as you know recovery takes longer as we get older – I am 63 and only have one working lung so that has an effect – nonetheless I find the sessions OK. This month I am doing Day 1, Day 3. Day 4, and Day 5. Next month I will change it around.
What don’t I like about Faster Masters?
Not much at the moment – it is lovely not to have to tell myself off for putting too much work on my own programme and making myself exhausted.
I have only used the water work and technique sections – I stumbled across the other sections today – maybe the menu could put all the sections up on top of the dashboard so that we can pick and choose – I am sure I am not the only person to dive straight in and miss the rest of the building blocks. I shall make time to go through them in the next week or so.
I hope this helps. Faster Masters is definitely helping me – it is extremely hard to coach yourself sensibly – the old ‘but … I used to it this fast/hard/much’ thing keeps kicking in.
