Strength training for rowers
I've found a few threads about rowing and SS through the search function, but none of them seem to address this particular issue.
I have been involved in rowing as an athlete and a coach for a number of years. For a very long time there has been some vague recognition amongst amateur athletes and coaches that strength training is important, but somehow not as important as spending an hour each day doing low-intensity work on the rowing machine. Most serious rowing programmes involve some kind of strength training, but no one thinks very hard about why it's included, and exercise selection is generally misguided to say the least. As in many sports there is an obsession with 'functional training' and with 'the core.' It was common at my university boat club to refer to anything which doesn't closely resemble the rowing stroke as 'beach weights' - a useless pursuit of vanity which doesn't make the boat go faster, and may in fact make it go slower if you start adding muscle mass in the wrong places. Likewise, variations of planks, Russian twists, bench rows, sit-ups, and bosu ball exercises were common, as a strong core was considered vital for the ability to balance the boat.
Having now returned to my former university club as a sort of volunteer coach, I'm now in the position where I may be able to influence the strength training regimen followed by around 30-40 people. I would like to have them all start a novice linear progression at the beginning of the coming academic year, but I am anticipating some resistance particularly from the senior members of the club who have a more entrenched 'functional/beach weights' mindset. It doesn't help that the current programme was devised by a local professional strength & conditioning who was paid to do so, meaning there is an undeserved but unquestioned aura of authority around the programme which may be hard to disrupt. Apart from this more general problem, I have a specific issue which I've come here to ask for help with:
SS includes the press and the bench press as key components of the programme. Unlike squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, and power cleans, neither the press nor the bench press resemble the rowing stroke and neither look very much to a layman like they would make the boat go faster. Given the hostility I am anticipating to changing the strength programme, I am concerned that advocating the training of the press and bench press may result in a total rejection of the method in favour of the current and very suboptimal regimen. I do not have the authority to impose a new programme on the club against its will, so I am going to have to persuade them that SS or something like it is the right thing to do. I see two options in front of me, each of which presents questions I can't answer:
- Introduce SS exactly as it is laid out in the books, including the press and bench press. I will need to be able to persuade the club that the press and bench press are in fact useful for rowing and that they should do the programme as written. In this case I'd need to know: are they actually useful (or useful enough)? And if so, what can I say to attest to their usefulness?
- Modify SS to make it more 'palatable' for rowers by removing at least the bench press or both the bench press and the press (I feel I may be able make an argument from 'core strength' in favour of retaining the press due to the kinetic chain involved), and substituting pulling exercises (pull-ups? barbell rows? snatches?). In this case I'd need to know: what would be the best way to modify the programme?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.