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

5 Tips for Successful Winter Break Training (*And no, it’s not too late!)

It's that time of year again: it's cold and dark out, you're on a break from school or work, and you are perhaps feeling like sleeping in every morning, eating Christmas cookies whenever you want, and maybe-just maybe-putting off today's workout(s) til tomorrow. (Or maybe that's just me...) Regardless, here are five tips to help you make the most of the rest of your winter break training!

1.   Set yourself up for success.

When you’re at school, work or not on vacation, you know what time you’re heading to the boathouse or gym, and (usually) have a general idea of what you’re going to do when you get there. You know where your running shoes, workout clothes, water bottle and iPod are. Look ahead at your schedule between now and the end of your break and see where those good time slots are – and then mentally and physically (use your phone alarm and calendar) to schedule them in. If you’re dressed for a workout and your alarm is going off, it’s easier to get out the door and get moving – even to the workout equipment in the unheated garage – than if you’re lounging in your new Snuggie on the couch and thinking about whether today should just be your rest day.

2.   Find a buddy for the hard stuff (and the easy stuff).

If you have a recommended workout plan for the break, chances are you looked at it and thought the cross-training/steady state workouts seemed do-able, but groaned when you saw the hard erg workouts. FYI: it’s much better to do these with a teammate/workout buddy if you can. When I’m home, I wake up before 5am and drive to my nearest teammate, 30 minutes away, so that I can get in at least the challenging part of the day’s workouts with a buddy. No, I don’t always want to get up early, but guess what? That’s what naps are for, and you get to take them, because you’re on break!

For cross-training off the erg, check out November Project – chances are there’s one near you that you can join for one to three weekly workouts while you’re home.

3.   Be realistic.

Individual training during winter break is not usually when you are going to PR on workouts. (Although if you do PR – awesomeness! Enjoy it!) Be realistic about what you are shooting for in each workout, whether it’s heart rate, split, dumbbell weight, speed, or attention to technique. You are far more likely to continue to move towards your training and racing goals by training consistently – being able to check off every workout – than by cramming many workouts together to try to make up for lost time, or by blowing it out on the workouts you do so that you’re forced to rest due to injury or fatigue.

Consistency isn't sexy, but it's what produces results. Set realistic goals for each workout and if you are feeling like you have more in the tank, get faster as you go.

4.   Don’t throw nutrition out the window.

It’s a time-honored tradition that the holidays are meant for indulging – big meals, lots of drinking, whipped cream as a part of the food pyramid, etc. If that’s part of what makes the holidays great for you – don’t give it up! But you will enjoy those indulgences more if you plan them, but stick to good nutrition the rest of the time. If you’re going to have several drinks on New Year’s, get your Dec. 31 workout(s) in early and eat right that day before going out. Plan your schedule so that Jan. 1 can either be a rest day where you eat right, or an eat-right day with an easier workout in the late afternoon. The huge holiday breakfast at your relatives’ house will be that much more enjoyable if you haven’t also stuffed your face every other morning that week!

5.   Get some good tunes!

Training mostly by yourself over the holidays can mean that you get sick of your music really fast – but you keep listening to it because you can’t stand the terrible tunes that are being blasted by the gym/the high school rowers at your hometown club/your parents.

To that effect, here are three new playlists to help you stay motivated through the rest of your break!

For logging miles:
See Ya Next Year Playlist

Everybody needs a little electro/house:
Ecstasy Erg Playlist

And now for a little throwback:
Music Make You Lose Control Playlist

And you can find more playlists here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. :)

Happy Training!

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...**

A new year...and answers to your questions!

   There were a bunch of great questions from readers on my last blog post...I was able to put together answers to a few. The first few days of camp here in San Diego have been great! After a hard training push right up to the holidays, I headed home to Newport Beach and got in a lot of great training while having a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year with my family and friends. The Newport Aquatic Center, which has been my home base since I started rowing, continues to be tremendously supportive of my training and my racing goals for this summer, and I am so deeply grateful to Billy and the crew there! Thanks, guys!

Billy Whitford, NAC leader extraordinaire!

   And now for the questions and answers! You asked:
How do you keep motivated during long, boring, painful winter training?
   Well...a lot of it is pretty tedious. At some point, erging just becomes erging, no matter how creative you are at breaking up the pieces or changing the stroke rating. I like to set goals for myself for the winter as a whole and also for each workout. It's extremely helpful to keep a notebook with your splits and heartrates for workouts that you do again and again. When it comes to steady state, your notebook can motivate you because you see how your heartrate gets a little better (over time) as you hold the same splits. And for pieces, you can ballpark how much faster would be moderate improvement, and how much faster would be an awesome piece!

Photo: stronglifts.com

   I also try to get fresh music on my iPod as often as I can. Our team often rotates whose mp3 player is blasting for our workouts--even if it's not your favorite music, sometimes anything besides your one go-to playlist is what you need. (Side note...January playlist coming soon!)

   The other thing it's helpful to realize is that you can--and should!--work on technique on the erg. Erging in front of a mirror will allow you to check if you have a horizontal drive with a good sequence from catch to finish, and you can check if you're sitting up throughout the stroke and not picking up the work by opening your body. Nobody wants to be this guy!



    Another great question:
   Which is more effective in training...explosive/speed pieces or long ss [steady state] pieces? Also what is your diet? Do you take supplements?
    Both of those types of training belong in everyone's workout regimen, regardless of your training volume and training goals. What you are trying to train for should determine the specifics of those workouts--for example, if your major training goal is winning the Head of the Charles, it would be less important to focus on 2K-specific speed workouts than on longer, 5K-specific workouts. Since physiologically a 2K is akin to doing as many power high pulls as you can, at the highest weight you can manage, in 5 to 8 minutes, training should help you build rowing-related muscle strength and then aerobically and anaerobically condition that muscle strength.

   Most people will see benefits across the board from doing more steady state work. Aerobic fitness helps you build the system that delivers oxygen to your muscles, and is a big part of the middle 1500 meters of a 2K race. But anaerobic work--including longer, hard pieces and interval training--is needed so that you can push your body to its limit, break it down, and allow it to build back stronger and fitter than it was before. Every team I've ever been on does 2-3 "hard" practices each week, with the rest of the training time spent on steady state, cross-training, and lifting--a ratio that seems to work well. I have definitely benefited from both types!

    My diet isn't anything too special. About 95% of the time, I treat food like fuel. If it isn't going to help me perform better on the water or the erg, it's not worth eating. There's always room for fruits and vegetables, nuts, Greek yogurt, muesli, whole-grain pasta and quinoa, and lean meats--and a LOT of water, milk, and other hydration sources. I also use hydration and recovery drinks from Shaklee and nuun. The other 5%...well, we train a lot, and one of the luxuries of that is getting to have things like an ice cream or a beer once in a while. But staying on top of what you're using to fuel your body is a huge performance enhancer.

Photo: sportsmd.com.

    Taking supplements is very risky, because there are so many ones on the market that are unregulated and could contain things entirely different than what the label reads (and for our team and NCAA athletes, banned substances). I do take a few supplements--a multivitamin, fish oil, iron--very basic things. I only use companies that are specifically focused on quality (all of these companies market their products to athletes who are drug tested) and that have extreme quality control on their products. Right now, I rely on Shaklee products, which are extremely high in quality, developed with athletes in mind, and cover a range of needs from multivitamin to sports recovery to highly-specialized supplementation.

Photo: solgar.com

    A lot of the questions readers posted were training-specific, and while I'm not going to post my training journal on here, there are a lot of really good resources online that can help answer your questions! I would suggest always talking with your coach about what you want to work on, because your coach will likely have additional workouts (or stretches, or rest!) that they would prefer you do.

High Performance Rowing - well-researched journal/performance articles relevant to rowers.
Eat to Win and Paleo Diet for Athletes - these two books are helpful for understanding how to treat food as fuel. Just be sure to take both "plans" with a grain of salt, and be sure to meet with a nutritionist before starting any major shift in your diet.
Role Model Rowing and Drew Ginn's Youtube- Besides looking on YouTube, Carlos Dinares has a great collection of "good rowing" videos, both sweep and sculling, on his website. I also like to check out Drew Ginn's YouTube channel for videos of good sweep rowing.

Hopefully this provides some helpful answers--I'll try to respond to more of the questions next week! And, as always, feel free to leave comments or more questions here! Thanks and GO USA! -Esther