Two rowing coaches on a river bank…. what are they saying?
Hello again Reader
What will help you best invest in your skills as a rowing coach? Learning and development isn’t just formal training courses – it can also be on the job learning and informal conversations.
I often have a mental image of two rowing coaches on the bank of a river, both watching a crew row past. What would they be saying and thinking? I know what I’d be doing – looking at the technique and thinking what could I do to help them improve.
Watching rowing videos online can be a great coaching tool. Ask yourself what would I do if I was coaching them? Or if the video is of a race, why is one crew going faster than another?
And I sincerely hope you are not like the coaches at this rowing club.
A coaching challenge
I got this question from a coach in Australia this week. It sets out a dilemma that I’m sure you have also faced, Reader
From a coaching standpoint sometimes we have to decide who gets priority of attention. Do we focus on the young person who has decades of rowing in front of them or the masters rower who is primarily a social athlete?
Who will get the most benefit from my time and effort? Which athlete has the greatest potential to add to the sport? It’s not a simple question to answer.
I am both a masters rower (G grade now, started at 13) and a coach so I see and have seen the dilemma from both sides of the coin. Ultimately we all have to recognise that these tensions exist and that sometimes we can’t get exactly what we want when we want it.
Dermot Balaam, Canberra RC, Australia
As Dermot says, I don’t think there is a hard-and-fast rule to answer this. However, I know that I have a tendency to focus my attention on
athletes who show up regularly
athletes who demonstrate an interest, ask questions
athlete who are keen to learn
Frankly there’s nothing more frustrating as a coach when you work on someone who then doesn’t turn up regularly enough to make the improvements you see that they have the potential to make. I invest in the coalition of the willing, regardless of age or athletic potential.
My reason is I find that the people who give back to the club by volunteering, joining the committee/board, or fund-raising are frequently not the most athletically endowed. They are the people who loved getting into rowing, love the coaching attention, love the sport. Clubs need folks like this and if I can get a couple more to participate in developing the club, that’s a win.
This month – try to work out which of your athletes respond most positively to your coaching. How can you invest most in them?
Rebecca
P.S. There’s a coupon for you below for the upcoming conference. It expires on 26th October.
Join the next coaching group zoom
On the next Coach Mastermind zoom call we will be discussing Implications of rising insurance costs on rowing programs and teaching sweep rowers the art of sculling.
Stephen Deans photo of the masters coxswain, Loch Ness, Scotland.
The Art of Adaptation: Coaching Masters Rowers with Unique Needs
One of the core differences between youth and adult rowing is physical. Adults rarely have robust, flexible and strong bodies. We’ve been through a lot of “life” and that means that we may be carrying old injuries, we’re likely doing seated jobs and so our flexibility is compromised and it may have been many years since we were last physically fit and strong.
This does not matter one jot, except that you need your athletes to be able to get into the correct physical positions for the rowing and sculling stroke.
All coaches know that getting a crew aligned with parallel blades and bodies moving together is a huge achievement and a thing of beauty to watch. So how do you do this when masters aren’t physically capable?
Physical compromises
It’s best to start out testing and checking whether your athletes are capable of sitting still in the catch and finish positions in the rowing boat. You may also want to do a bit of testing so you know what mobility and flexibility they have got. And of course, many will be carrying a bit of extra belly fat ….. [click button to read more].
A quick reminder that the Older Athlete and Aging conference includes a coaching-oriented keynote from John Leekley – head masters coach at Vesper Rowing Club.
Get yourself a 20% discount using coupon 20OAA2024 before 26th October [that’s a zero followed by a capital letter O in the code].
A four, a quad, three doubles, and a single all walk into practice on a Tuesday morning….. how do I as a coach try to manage all these different speeds?
Coaching athletes of different skill and different boat speeds at the same time.
How athletes can get the most out of their limited time with a coach.
Watch John’s quick summary of his keynote presentation.
I really hope you can join us live – and a reminder, that if you organize a watch party – you only need ONE ticket for all your coaching colleagues to attend.
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