Need help programming SS into a rowing program

[BobEwell]

Rip,

Please forgive me if I missed the answer somewhere but I couldn't find an answer in the forum.

I am coaching a startup college rowing team and I am trying to implement SS into our training.

The problem I am encountering is the best way to do this and maintain the endurance requirements needed as well.

I have seen some discussions on soccer, football, etc, but they are not same the same as rowing
where the effort is continual for 6-8 minutes.

My Assumptions:

1) SS is best done with no work on the off days, even LSS. Strength gains do not drop like a rock and the
loss can be minimized by moderate training once a week if SS is part of a periodized program.

2) The base endurance capacity of an athlete is built by LSS. This is a slow process(why most Olympic rowers are
in late 20's or older). An athletes "base" does not drop that quickly when training is stopped, but it takes a long to
to build it and stopping training prevents this.

3) Conditioning takes 8-12 weeks. possibly less to reach a maximum for an athlete and this is on top of their base so
the higher their "base" the higher their conditioning can go. This drops very quickly and rapidly. If you take two weeks
off it might take two weeks to get back to where you were.

It appears I have two choices:

1) Combine the various training with the recognition that nothing will then be done optimally. I don't like this approach
becasue I really want our rowers to be strong(my definition 2x bodyweight sqt, 1.5 bodywgt bench, 2-2.5 bw deadlift)
as we did a block of SS during the winter and even with gains well below the targets we saw improvements)

2) Go to a periodized program to do each approach optimally, but at the expense of only building base, strength, or
conditioning at a time and try to program this to maximum benefit.

I realize this is a strength forum and I may be beyond(even well beyond) it's scope, but I saw you made a donation to
a rowing club and thought I would see if you had any suggestions, or if not recomendations who to talk to as to the best
way to approach this(The SS program and approach is the only one I fully trust and so would like to start the process here).

Thank you.

Bob

[Mark Le Comte]

When is your main regatta, and how advanced is your crew e.g .2k erg score and fastest raceses?

[BobEwell]

The main Regatta is mid/late May each year.

We are a startup so most are novices.

We have one advanced rower who is low to mid 6:20 erg (male) and a female around 7-7:10.

We exclusively scull in small boats.

We are in Idaho and usually can't get on the water until a week or two before the race. As a
result in the fall our primary focus is getting as much time on the water to work on technique
and then building the "engine" the rest of the year.

Thank you.

Bob

[Johnsonville]

I have a hard time keeping my strength up and weight on when I do my sport at the same time, I think the response you’ll get from any coach here is to get them as strong as possible then go into rowing training, but i could be wrong.

I did a periodiization program for a few months and noticed two things: I made almost no progress, and going to the gym sucked because I never knew where I stood in relation to prior really. It’s hard to gauge your strengths is on it, and in my case I never saw any worth a shit.

Maybe once the season gets going or you guys need to work on conditioning switch to a hlm routine, or there’s a four day split in practical programming that mentions is good for athletes in a sport because it is less demanding on both time and the body.

[Mark Le Comte]

Hi, you have a real problem with only getting into the boats so close to your regatta. Your whole season is almost the 'wrong way around' compared to what I am used to in the southern hemisphere.

Think of your training as three parts -not two. 1 Strength, 2 Aerobic, 3 Skill. The goal of 2x bodyweight squat and 2.5x bodyweight deadlift would be better than a lot of olympic rowers achieve e.g. Eric Murray of the NZ pair that kicked ass for years had a lifetime max deadlift of 210kg ish (which had decreased a lot since as they followed a no weights ultra high mileage approach) at a bodyweight of 90-95kg. The idea is to get strong in the off season then maintain that strength by using lower volume but high intensity during the season.

Novices in small boats will likely need some on-land work as their technique probably limits the level they can work in the boat. I would try to get the real novices into quads if you can and do a lot of work with 3 seats only rowing so they can be in balance and get maybe 2-3 minutes rest each between rowing for 6-9 minutes.

I would do something like

Winter Dec to Feb
Run SS as best you can plus add in 2 days of 30 min steady state (erg, cycle or run) and 1 day of 3x10 min tempo work
If progress on SS stalls, go to lower reps to run it out of HLM.

Spring Mar to May (peak)
Go to weights 2 days per week. A: Leg Press, Bench, Deadlift, chin B: Squat, press, powerclean, bench pull
Over this time you are aiming to hold the same weight (if you can) while decreasing sets/reps e.g. 3X5 -> 3x3 -> 5x1 for each month
Get as much time in the boats as you can, and make sure they do plenty of technique work including fast rating work.
I would keep 1 day with a 30 min piece, 2 days with some variant of tempo work 3x10 or pyramid etc, 2 days race pace work e.g. 6x500m, one day with high speed work e.g. 30 sec max rate x 6 with 1 min rest.

Summer June to Aug
Rowing, increase volume on water
Weights As per Spring but with 10-20% deload weight

Fall Sep to Nov
Rowing, run a peaking programme anyway.
Weights as per summer

[Bruce Ware]

Last summer, I joined a local crew club doing sweep 8's as a novice. Practices for the club were Tue, Thu, Sat, and Sun - about 1.5 hours each session. At the time, I was a brand-new Starting Strength novice, too, doing my 3-per on Mon - Wed - Fri. There was a good deal of concern that one might interfere with the other - I'm 60+, and I know the "coin" of recovery is very expensive in that age-range. Throughout the whole summer, I did not observe any degradation of my novice lifting progression as a result of too much training brought on by rowing on "rest-days".

In August, we rowed our club-sponsored half-marathon; our head races were in early September - 2k's for the most part. At no time, did I sense that my output in the shell was adversely impacted by being too tired from lifting, and, since I occupied the stroke seat on many occasions, it was kind of critical for me to perform well.

Some of my compadre novices decided to join me in Starting Strength - I took on the challenge of coaching them as an entry into preparing to actually go for an SSC cert. In the off-season, I have been focusing on just the basic lifts, and then using the post-lift window to do 500 meter and 1k erg sprints performed as intervals, and aiming for 4 to 6 intervals per training day. My objective is to have my "students" able to generate 1.4 watts for every pound of body-weight over a 1k session. Rest days are still rest days.

With the lock-down and house-arrest situation, we are wondering whether we actually get on the water this spring, so for now, it's still strength-first and conditioning afterwards, and trying to keep conditioning the 20 minutes or so.

I hope this helps. I'm going to try for intermediate racing, and I'd love to be stroke again, but we'll have to see how it all works out.