Mom Fit!

It's been a long time since I posted anything about training, because the last year or so has been a bit of a roller coaster (in a good way!) of getting pregnant, being pregnant, having a wonderful baby girl, and getting healthy after giving birth.

Our little dumplin', Ryan Valkyrie!

I've just picked back up into working out daily, and it's humbling - but also feels so good to be back. Unfortunately, the nearest on-the-water rowing is a good 45 minute drive away, so I'm only able to do that some weekends, but the good news is that there are lots of beautiful places to run, hike, and bike nearby.

The first four months of being pregnant, I was trying to manage all-day morning sickness nausea with doing some training. It wasn't easy and I have a lot of respect for women who keep training at a high load while feeling like that! I also had to give up running after just a few months because it got really uncomfortable. Thankfully, rowing and erging still felt pretty okay for most of my pregnancy. I raced the Head of the Charles, in honor of my cousin Byron, with my mom at 7 months pregnant, and we actually went more than 2 minutes faster than our race a couple of years ago! (Shoutout to JL for hooking me up with a maternity unisuit!)

Lofgrens 1, 2, and 3 - just finished racing HOCR, 7 months pregnant!

For the last month or two of my pregnancy, I ran out of exercises to do that weren't really painful or uncomfortable, and ended up doing a lot of walking and light hiking, as well as some squats and stretching. An interesting thing about the last months of pregnancy is that your body produces a hormone called "relaxin" that literally relaxes your joints - for me, that meant I got super flexible even though I wasn't actively trying to get stretchier.

Ryan arrives!

Little Ryan came along at the end of a 24-hour labor, arriving at 3:33am. For those wondering: yes, it is harder than a 2K. I think being a rower helped with overall pain tolerance, but probably the best thing you can do to prepare would be those (awful) workouts where you're going for an unknown number of intervals, and you just have to keep going and not be able to tell that the interval you're on is the last one. I didn't want pain meds during labor or delivery, and thanks to having the support of my husband and a great doula (who's also the #2 Muay Thai fighter in Germany...what?!), was able to do that.

First family walk...

Thankfully, Ryan and I were both doing pretty well after she joined us, and we were able to go for a first family walk just a few days after we got home. I mostly walked for the first month, and tried to get a lot of sleep (not so easy with a newborn, nursing, healing, etc.) The second month postpartum, I started doing a little erging and some core. Our gym was sponsoring a 5K erg contest, so I decided to step up my training - doing 5K steady state pieces, 500m and 1K and 1500m interval sets, and other prep workouts. I ended up with a 19:02 5K, which I was pretty proud of, considering I'd had a baby less than 10 weeks earlier!

Around the time that I went back to work, I decided I wanted to work out every day. I didn't realize it at first, but I got really dehydrated and my milk supply was affected. I didn't know what was going on and got really worried, and backed way off of working out. Thankfully, it resolved quickly, and I've been able to get back to building up into training again.

It's really weird, as an athlete whose life pretty much revolved around being in touch with my body, to go through a year-plus where I was constantly feeling weird or nauseous or uncomfortable or just - not like myself. I love our little girl, and going through this journey has made me respect even more the women in rowing and in other sports that train while pregnant, have their baby, and get back to training and continue to dominate. I am also so grateful to be part of a sport that I've already been able to get back to. I'm also linking up when I can with a running group for new parents here - "Stroller Warriors" - and it's awesome to have a group that is so supportive of each other.

"Stroller Warriors" PT testing day. Pullups!

When you're part of a team, it's so much more enjoyable to push yourself to go faster and try and go just a bit further past what you thought you could do. In some ways, it's humbling to be quite a bit slower than I have been before. In other ways, I'm really proud of how quickly I see myself getting stronger and fitter. I also feel lucky that so many of my U.S. teammates and international competitor-friends are going through similar journeys now/recently/soon - and to see all of us kicking butt, in our own ways!

I'll be working to post more regularly now - it's tricky with a little one! - but I'm hoping to be racing at the Charles again this year, if not sooner, so... playlists at the very least. It feels great to be back at it! Thanks for all the support. Go USA! (And go moms!)

Keeping Your Back Healthy and Injury-Free During Erg Season

Rowers on both coasts are off the water and onto the ergs ahead of 2K season, CRASH-Bs, and the important erg tests that start recruiting processes or slotting rowers into 1V, 2V and 3V. Staying healthy and keeping your body feeling good is critical to getting in the training you need to succeed.

Back Pain in Rowing

I'm not a doctor or a PT, but I can share some of my experiences and my teammates' experiences. Here is why your back may be hurting. The gist is that your back can get tweaked either because you don't have good body position from the get go, or because you lose your good body position as you get tired - from a long session or from taking hard strokes. As you get tired, you stop sitting up well and using your core as much (because you're tired), and start having more flexion through your back. Back fatigue or back pain that you only feel at the end of a training session can be different than back pain that you have all the time on the erg - if it's hurting from the first few strokes, it's a good idea to go see a PT or doctor.

Strong and weak body position at finish. Image via +WorldRowingFISA.

Your coach may have a series of warm up or cool down exercises or stretches that you do as a team. Current thought for rowers and all athletes says that it's important to warm up and strengthen your muscles through their functional range of motion (the movement range you'll be using during rowing). If you're looking to add in bodyweight exercises that activate, warm up and strengthen some of the really important muscles for keeping your core strong and engaged, I've put together some good ones below. Each is linked to a video showing good form.

Warm-Up (2 Sets of 10 each)

Do 10 of each exercise, going through all exercises twice (2 sets of 10 each)
Good Mornings (put your knuckles on your temples if behind your head is uncomfortable)
Back Extensions
Lunge Series (Front and Back, Lateral, Spiderman - do 10 each leg for each direction)
Deep Bodyweight Squat
Pushups

Post-Practice Stretching (2 sets of 45 seconds each)

Do 45 seconds on/15 seconds off for each stretch, going through all stretches twice (2 sets of 45" each)
*Can also use these between erg pieces to help relieve tension in back. Good Mornings, above, also provide a good stretch.
Half Pigeon
Figure 4
1 Leg Across

Bonus: Strengthening Your Functional Range of Motion

These exercises will help you build and strengthen your core. These can be done with bodyweight or using a 10 to 25-pound plate or dumbbell. Do 2 sets of 10 of each exercise.
Back Extensions (if using weight, hold against chest with arms crossed)
Bulgarian Split Squat (hold weight in front of chest, just below chin, and keep chin and chest up)
Deep Bodyweight Squat (hold weight in front of chest, just below chin, and keep chin and chest up)
Reverse Hyperextension (if using weight, works best with a medicine ball held between feet. You can use a bench pull or weight bench to create a platform; the range of motion is similar to a back extension.)

If you have other bodyweight warmup, stretching or strengthening exercises that have made a difference for your back, share them in the comments below!

Stay healthy and happy erging!
Esther

2K Ninja: Breaking Through the No-PR Plateau

Thanksgiving is over and winter training has officially commenced. I sat down to write about strategies for breaking through the no-PR plateau (when you're training and racing and should be getting faster but for some reason your 2K - or 6K - isn't showing it). And then I realized: who better to hear this from than someone who's just done it in a big, game-changing way?

I worked with this athlete - aka 2K Ninja #1 - this summer (along with her counterpart, 2K Ninja #2). After taking big chunks of time off her 2K in her first year of rowing, it had been months and months since she'd PR'd. Unfortunately, her 2K was right in the "maybe" zone - not slow, but not quite recruitable. The Ninjas put in a lot of hard work and in just under 2 months, 2K Ninja #1 was on her way with a 2K PR that got her recruited to - and accepted at - her dream college.

Our training mixed some of the things she was already doing, like steady state and longer hard pieces, with strength training, super-focused steady state, and some really tough 2K prep workouts. But as she puts it, it was something else that made the difference.

Here's our Q & A on how she broke through the plateau.

Esther: Let's talk numbers. What did you start with, and where'd you end up?

2K Ninja #1: I came in with a 7:30.3, which was basically where I'd been last winter and spring. Halfway through working with you, I pulled a 7:28.8. Then on the last day of our program I went 7:21.4. So in just under 8 weeks, I took 8.9 seconds off.

E: What was different about the work we did compared to what you were doing before?

2KN: I didn't expect for us to do so much steady state work (I kind of expected the hard stuff!) At first I was skeptical that it would help me, but as I kept working I saw my steady state split drop and drop, and then my 2K split as well!

E: What gain are you most proud of from last summer?

2KN: Probably even more than my 2K score, I'm proud of how I was able to mentally tackle each erg and water workout you gave me. At the beginning of the program, you wrote down these workouts that seemed insurmountable. But we worked on not just the physical aspects of the rowing, but the mental aspects as well. By the end of the program, I was able to mentally tackle any workout you wrote down and take it one stroke at a time, and I was able to translate that into my mental state during my 2K.

E: Sounds like a lot of hard work! If you had it to do over again, would you?

2KN: Yeah, it was, but it was definitely worth it. I not only dropped a significant chunk of time off my 2K, but I became stronger as an all-around rower. You pushed me harder than I'd ever been pushed before, and I learned things I'll take with me for the rest of my rowing career. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

E: Is there any part of rowing you like better now?

2KN: I definitely have a better appreciation for longer steady state pieces and how they help build endurance and speed. I also developed a weird liking towards the erg. At different points in the program we would be doing the same workout each week, and each week you would lower the splits I was supposed to hit. The first week I was all over the place and not even close. But by the last week I was able to hit them right on, even though the splits were significantly faster. Being able to measure that difference on the monitor really helped me see that my hard work was paying off.

E: What did your parents think of how you spent your summer vacation?

2KN: My parents were amazed by both the process and what it accomplished. They'd seen me over and over again only being able to take tenths of seconds off my 2K, and seen my frustration. I don't think they were prepared for such a big PR. I would come home every day pretty worn out, but I don't think they really understood  the work we were doing until they heard my score.

E: What would you tell someone who's thinking about putting in the work you did to get better at rowing and to get a better 2K?

2KN: Go for it! If you're willing to put in the work and you have a good plan, the changes you'll see in your erg score and in your rowing overall will astonish you. Be willing to give everything you have and to push for one split lower. Also, "impossible" workouts are almost never impossible. Take it one stroke at a time and trust that you can accomplish what you set your mind to.

So there you have it! Set your big goal, figure out your plan to get there, commit to the work it'll take and to building the toughness it will definitely take, and then get after it...one stroke at a time!

Happy training,
Esther

Winter Training: Sucking it up now so you can hit the GoFast button later

Last Sunday I went to a great class in Seattle at Flywheel, a cycling studio that my former coxswain and always badass Mary Whipple now teaches at. What’s different about a Flywheel class (versus a standard spin/indoor cycling class) is that competition—if you want it—is there for the taking. You zero in on targeting certain RPMs or power output as you’re cycling along, but a few times throughout the class, everyone’s total work done—listed with a username which can be as anonymous as you want—flashes up on a screen, so you can race others if that’s your thing (yes, that’s my thing.)

The instructor, Aina, a past rower at Trinity College, said a few things during the class that made me think about winter training. Besides “Suck it up!”, which she announced at the start of class was her motto, she also said, “Getting faster is what you do when no one is watching. Getting tougher is what you do when you keep working even when your body says it’s done.” And then: “What is your goal for this practice? For this minute?”

Winter training is about all of those things. There’s a lot more work on land, and maybe only work on land. Land workouts, in general, require a lot more sucking it up. The erg, like the single, is honest and makes you accountable for your speed and power. So does the weight room. That can be harder, but it can also be so much more motivating. Thinking back to high school—sometimes on the water I’d be working on something technical, or pouring everything I had into a piece, and we weren’t clicking as a crew and working together, and there wasn’t any feedback on whether I was getting better or faster. When you're just starting out, that can be pretty frustrating.

The erg, as much sucking it up as it requires sometimes, is by and large a what-you-put-into-it-is-what-you-get-out-of-it tool. You can either look at December, January, and February as three hellish months, and spend each practice feeling sorry for yourself that your team isn’t on the water—or you can show up to each practice, each day with a goal in mind. What goal? Well, that’s up to you. Going faster or being more consistent than the last time you did that workout is a start. Test your limits on what you think your 5K/6K, 2K, and max paces are. Chase down the teammate whose seat you’re after. If you’re the fastest one already, see how much you can widen the gap. Each day you set, pursue with your best effort, and accomplish these little goals, you get closer to your big ones—making the boat you want to make, helping your team build the fitness, strength and mental toughness you’ll need to win together, and getting faster than you ever thought you could be.

Michelle Guerette, one of my first erg inspirations, in our college erg room. Photo: NYTimes.

In a race, you have to be confident in the work you’ve put in, sitting on that starting line. You have to trust your teammates because you’ve seen them push themselves beyond their limits. And you have to trust yourself that you aren’t going to let up for even one stroke, no matter how much your legs or lungs are burning, because you know that you’ve pushed yourself so many times through workouts that hurt even more than this race is going to. In a race, you don’t get to see your teammates pushing themselves, and they can’t see you. You can only feel each other committing and trust that you will go to the absolute bottom of the well for each other to get across that line first.

What motivates me on these dark, freezing mornings or pitch-black evenings when I’m heading down to the boathouse or erg room or the little alcove in the basement where the old rattle-y erg lives is knowing, like the instructor said Sunday, that getting faster and getting tougher is about being your own competitor. It’s knowing that I am working alongside my teammates, even from far away, because we know how hard we are working towards our goals each practice, each day. And it’s about loving to win and to put in the work it takes to do that.

Happy Winter Training,
Esther

Athletes Without Limits

Athletes Without Limits from Damone Brown Images.

Since moving to DC last fall, I've had the opportunity to get involved with an incredible club and organization: Athletes Without Limits. For rowing, AWL supports both athletes with intellectual disabilities and veterans who are a part of the U.S. Paralympic Military Rowing Program, rowing out of the Anacostia Community Boathouse and training at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the Capitol Hill Martial Arts and Fitness Academy.

Our recent Military Adaptive Sports Program Rowing Clinic at Walter Reed!

Did you know that there were 42 medals awarded in sports specifically for athletes with intellectual disabilities at the London 2012 Paralympic Games? The U.S. sent only one ID competitor. The 2012 Paralympics consisted of 503 events, and while the U.S. won an impressive 98 medals--including the AWL-supported Rob Jones and Oksana Masters trunk and arms mixed double sculls crew that took bronze--we lagged far behind China's 231. Much more important than comparing numbers, though, is our country giving intellectually disabled and physically disabled athletes opportunities to train and compete. Athletes Without Limits does just that, and it has been an amazing experience this year to work with the athletes training towards the 2016 Rio Paralympics and for the World Championships and domestic competitions in the meantime.

Training with some of our ID guys before Erg Sprints this year!

Besides indoor and on-the water training, AWL also partners with the rehabilitation and gym facilities at Walter Reed National Rehabilitation Hospital in Bethesda, MD to bring rowing to veterans as part of their physical rehabilitation program. It's made me appreciate rowing in an entirely different light--getting to see an athlete become passionate about rowing as it gives them the physical activity, the limit-pushing, and the personal confidence that they weren't sure they'd find in another sport after injury. This article gives a great veteran's perspective on the rowing and other sports programs at Walter Reed.

Coxing as Justin brings the BOOM! to the MidAtlantic Erg Sprints.

To learn more about how you can get involved with intellectually- and physically disabled-focused rowing programs, visit USRowing and Athletes Without Limits. We're all one team. Go USA!

It's 2K time again!

This weekend, Henrik Stephansen officially kicked off the indoor rowing season by breaking his own world record for indoor lightweight rowing (video of beastmode in action courtesy row2k.) 

How do you PR? That’s always the question. Whether you’re an experienced rower, or this season will be your first rodeo, you’ll be doing at least one test that will give you a chance to see how your training and fitness have been progressing.

I started training at CrossFit Old Town in Alexandria, VA this fall, and my Foundations instructor, along with a few other athletes there, are participating in their first Mid-Atlantic Erg Sprints. Brandon asked me for advice on boosting 2K performance. To help him and the other athletes at CFOT be better prepared on race day, I pulled together a little cheat-sheet tweaking race plan details.

First of all, there are three basic plans of attack for your 2K test: the even split, the fly and die, and the negative split. (Side note: one of the most important reasons to keep a training journal, at least of your erg tests, is so that you can see which one has given you your best performance. On test day, set your 2K splits for either 250m or 500m, and write down your data afterwards.) If you’re training as part of a team, your coach has probably developed a focus on one particular plan, but whether you’re training in a group or solo, it’s helpful to look at these plans and develop strategies and insights that can help you reach your peak performance.

Here are examples of each of the three plans. Click the image to view a larger version.

The even split plan means you choose your goal time for the test (say, 7:15 or 6:30), figure out the average split for that time (1:48.7 or 1:37.5), and then attempt to hold that split for the entire test. There are a few important things to remember if you decide to even split your test. First, be sure to choose a goal time that is reasonable for you, based on how you’ve done in your preparation workouts and compared to your previous best times. If your PR from last year is 6:50, you will likely not be successful trying to break 6:00. Also, the beginning of your test may feel tough, like you are working from the first stroke. The focus should be holding your goal split with minimal effort and maximal relaxation. As the test goes on, it will be increasingly difficult to hold that split, so relax, breathe, and stay consistent.

The fly and die plan utilizes your goal split as well, but in a very different way. Physiologically, rowers train to pick the boat up out of the water, accelerate it to faster-than-race-pace speed, and then hold onto that speed for as long as possible. Flying and dying is focused on doing the same thing on the erg: going harder than your target split for as long as possible until your body forces you to shift to a slower split. Many times, rowers get excited during erg tests and regardless of the plan they went into a test with, there is a fly-and-die element from race-day adrenaline. It’s important to realize that on-the-water races usually have a race profile like this, and if you find yourself struggling in the middle thousand meters of your test, dialing in to your race focuses—whether it’s a power 10 at the 1000m mark or a 15 to sit up at 500m to go—will help you pull out a good score no matter how much your legs and lungs are hurting.

The negative split plan, in my opinion, sets rowers up best for a good test. This is especially true if you suspect you’ll be faster on race day than your previous test, but you’re not sure by how much. To set up your plan, calculate the split of that previous test (e.g., 7:20 is a 1:50 split, 6:20 is a 1:35 split), or make your best guess at what you think you can do on this test. During your test, focus on holding a split close to that personal best for roughly the first 1000m, and then get progressively faster through the second 1000m. An important thing to remember is that the beginning of the test will probably feel very easy. If it feels good to go harder in the first 20 strokes than your goal split, that’s okay, but the most important focus is locking onto the “easy” split with a good rhythm, good breathing, and minimal effort. You will be able to find more speed later in the test by increasing the stroke rating, sitting up, and starting to push. I usually break the last 500m into 10-stroke increments, trying to increase my stroke rating and get faster with each one.

Whatever you decide is the most effective 2K plan for you on race day, remember that if you do it right, you’re going to leave absolutely everything out there. Something will probably go worse, and also something go better, than you’d envisioned—and it definitely helps to do a walk-through visualization on the erg in the day or two before. And as my high school coach told us, you can do anything for a minute, so when the final meters show up on your monitor, buckle your seatbelt and go for broke. Good luck and go fast!

**New for Winter 2015: Esther Lofgren 2K Clinics! Check them out here...**

Happy November Playlist!

   

Downtown Princeton, about an hour into the storm.  Photo: Liv Coffey

So the fall head racing season is fully underway, with the Charles over, the Schuylkill and Princeton Chase just finished this past weekend--as well as my little brother's first head race, with Newport Aquatic Center at the Head of the American! Only a few more races to go before we head indoors (on this coast, anyway). We had a big ol' snowstorm Saturday--trees down, power out, and lots of good reasons to be training indoors (or be cuddled up in a blanket in front of the fireplace and/or space heater!) So...since erg season's just around the corner, here's a playlist that will help ease the transition from long, beautiful swing rows to sweaty five-minute pieces in the hurt locker.

As always, be one of the first 25 to comment on the playlist post, share on Facebook, or retweet to win a copy of the November Playlist! AND...one lucky reader will WIN A POWER AND GRACE CALENDAR SIGNED BY THE ENTIRE WOMEN'S TEAM! These awesome calendars are going fast, so share to get yours before we sell out! (And if you just want to order calendars, go to the Power and Grace website or email me at esther.lofgren@ gmail.com to order a signed one!) Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

The Happy November/Grady Loves Dubstep Playlist
All links are to previews or YouTube clips. All previewed tracks are available on iTunes.

1. Shake It Out (Benny Benassi Remix) - Florence + The Machine
2. This Ain't Water (Thirsty Pt. 2) - Starting Six ft. Mann
3. I'm A Goner - Matt & Kim ft. Soulja Boy and ANDREW W.K.
4. Pumped Up Kicks (feat. Dr. Pack) - DJ Shocker
5. Good Feeling - Flo Rida
6. Lights (Bassnectar Remix) - Ellie Goulding
7. Mr. Saxobeat (Radio Edit) - Alexandra Stan
8. Danza Kuduro - Don Omar & Lucenzo
9. We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris) - Rihanna
10. Crave You (Graz Remix) - Flight Facilities
11. After Midnight - Blink 182
12. Dignity - New Politics
13. Better With the Lights Off (feat. Chris Brown) - New Boyz
14. Rabbit Heart (SLOF MAN Remix) - Florence + The Machine
15. Turn Me On (feat. Nicki Minaj) - David Guetta & Nicki Minaj
16. The War Inside - Switchfoot
17. Countdown - Beyoncé
18. Without You (feat. Usher) - David Guetta & Usher
19. We Are Young (feat. Janelle Monáe) - Fun.
20. Feel So Close - Calvin Harris
21. Gold Guns Girls - Metric
22. Cinema (Skrillrex Radio Edit) [feat. Gary Go] - Benny Benassi
23. Faster Than My Angels Can Fly - Eric Church
24. Barefoot Blue Jean Night - Jake Owen
25. Sail - AWOLNATION
26. Stay Don't Go - Spoon
27. A Real Hero - College feat. Electric Youth
28. Dystopia (The Earth Is On Fire) - YACHT
29. Paradise (Fedde le Grande Remix) - Coldplay
30. Pass At Me (feat. Pitbull) - Timbaland
31. Da Mystery of Chessboxin (TF2 Remix) - Wu-Tang Clan

Kicking off the New Year!

So 2011's been around for a week and a half now, and it's been a pretty good start.

We're back in Princeton, slogging through snow everywhere, but getting some good training in and getting back in rowing and racing shape after the funny schedule of Worlds this year.

A November bike mishap led to training for a month on an elbow that I didn't know was fractured (oops)...I've been logging some miles on the (stationary!) bike while I waited for it to heal, but have started back up on the ergometer after getting an all-clear last week. It's frustrating to feel like I wasn't able to start the winter season exactly how I'd envisioned doing so, but I've definitely improved my fitness, and I'm eager to get back into the team's workouts so that I can show that.

Two big things: first, my friend Jen Whiting wrote a really neat piece about our 8+ from this summer and the experience of training with the group here in Princeton. We sat down for dinner a couple of times this past summer and fall, and I think she did a really great job on the article. It's the feature story in the latest Rowing News Magazine, which you can check out in a boathouse near you or order online here.

Second (for all you ergers out there!) I will finally be putting out my January playlist this week! So get excited. Props to Adam Barhamand (you can find his music-focused blog here) for once again putting together an exceptional genre-spanning collection that pointed me in some good directions for the playlist. I'm planning on putting together at least one playlist per month for this year...so if you have any suggestions for songs, artists, good music blogs, or anything else, feel free to leave them via comment or email!

Happy training,
Esther