RowingRelated

It's a game of inches We know that the most talented teams or athletes don't always win. It's part of what makes watching and competing in competitive athletics so much fun. It's when the details are handled better that a team with a little less talent can prevail. We've all heard the phrase "don't sweat the small stuff" when it comes to managing our jobs, relationships, hobbies, etc. We tend to like this advice, because it allows us to focus on the big picture while letting the details fade off to the side. The idea is to prevent yourself from getting bogged down in the minutiae of a particular problem or pursuit, when the larger scale issues have yet to be resolved, or are the issues of real importance.  While this may be valuable advice in many areas of our lives, I believe it can prove very detrimental when it comes to competitive athletics. This is true both for athletes and coaches, but especially for coaches, as they are the individuals respon...

How do you learn where the line is? In all sports, and especially in endurance sports, it is important for coaches and athletes alike to be able to differentiate, as much as possible, between pain and injury.  The higher the level of training and the heavier the training load, the more difficult it becomes to walk this fine line. In rowing, as in other endurance sports, success is largely determined by mental and physical toughness, in both training and racing.  No matter how healthy or injury-free you may be as an athlete, achieving to your maximum capability on race day comes down to the ability to push through pain and discomfort. Rowing, like any racing sport, requires pushing up against one’s physical and mental limits (for a related article from The New York Times , click  here ). But, in addition pushing through manageable barriers, there are often instances in which the athlete, doctor/trainer, and coach must determine whether it is 'normal' pain or an actual in...

How can we reframe burnout as merely temporary exhaustion? Avoiding burnout in rowing is pretty simple—don't expect to get burnt-out and you might find that you'll do just fine.  Like lots of things in life, the more people talk about a concept or phenomenon, the more likely it is that it will come to fruition. I think 'burnout' is a prime example of the power of suggestion at work. Look at some of the all-time greats in rowing, like Steve Redgrave , Elisabeta Lipa, and Drew Ginn .  Ginn, for example, has gone through about as much as anyone can go through in terms of adversity, battling serious, career-threatening injuries again and again, and yet he continues to not only row at a high level but also produce podium results (as has his Beijing pair partner, Duncan Free ).  We can also look to other sports, such as running, which is much more intense in terms of the toll it takes on the body over the long-term (given the impact to the lower limbs). One of the world...

Don't rock the boat? It's common wisdom among top coaches in major professional and collegiate sports (often echoed by athletes) that it's best to avoid letting the highs get too high and the lows get too low in reference to the emotions that accompany successes and failures.  While there can certainly be value in not always succumbing to one's emotions, and reacting impulsively and irrationally in the wake of what appears to be an especially good or poor performance, I disagree with the oft stated cliché—honestly, I think there is value for coaches and athletes in both celebrating the successes and taking time wallow in the sorrow and disappointment of the failures. Rowing, as with all sports, is a competitive endeavor. The very word 'athlete' comes from the Greek verb athlein  (to compete for a prize), derived from athlos  (contest) and athlon  (prize). Athletes, then, are those who compete for a trophy. It takes a lot of effort, talent, and hard work to s...