I passed the captain's test...now what?!?

Summer 2020 programming is underway, and some of our learn to row participants have taken their captain's tests! As our new members set out on their own, we wanted to provide a resource for everyone to keep their workouts interesting and challenging. 

Some general reminders since we're still in a pandemic:
- Wear a face covering and maintain 6 feet of distance at the boathouse!
- Leave your personal items other than a key and towel in your car. They're safer there, and it minimizes the odds that other people will have to touch your belongings. If you must bring them, for instance because you bike to the boathouse, store them out of the way while you row. 
- Log your row in the Club logbook (bring your own pen or disinfect the one that's there)
- Reserve the boat you'd like row here no more than 24 hours before rowing
- Disinfect oar handles with bleach solution before and after your row
- Check your equipment before going out - are all the fasteners tight? Do you have a seat? Do you have shoes? Are heel ties fastened? 
- Lock the boathouse while you're out and bring your key in the boat with you (a lanyard tied around your rigger would serve you well)
- Respect the traffic pattern - starboard side is closer to shore
- Practice defensive driving! Not everyone is good at the traffic pattern and the only way to ensure the safety of yourself, the equipment, and other inlet users is to look behind you frequently.  
- Be vigilant going down the lower inlet and don't do drills or other slow moving work in the lower inlet unless you're sure nobody else is around. 
- Wash your boat after you row, paying special attention to high touch points like oarlocks, seats, and gunwhales

Now to fun things like workout ideas:
The following workouts assume no timekeeping gadgets other than a watch.* Any time based workouts can be modified for stroke-counting. 

• Pyramid Workouts
  • Do 10 strokes as hard as you can, followed by 10 easy, then 20 hard, 10 easy, 30 hard, 10 easy, 40 hard, 20 easy, 50 hard, 20 easy, 40 hard, 20 easy, 30 hard, 10 easy, 20 hard, 10 easy, 10 hard. You could also make all the easy intervals the same number as the hard intervals for easier memorizing.
  • 20 strokes easy, 20 strokes hard effort, stroke rate as low as you can, 10 strokes hard effort, high stroke rate, increasing the stroke rate each stroke over the 10 strokes. Repeat for a minimum of 15 times.
  • 10 min of earnest steady state effort (you're trying but could hold a conversation), then 7 min of 80% effort, then 3 min sprint. Rest for 5 min, do again. 
• Time-based workouts
  • If you have a watch, fasten it on your rigger or oar shaft so you can see it (but of course, don't focus so hard on your watch that you forget to look behind you!). Otherwise, count strokes.
  • 30 sec on, 30 sec off until failure (probably 15-16 strokes on if you're working hard)
  • Row 45 sec as hard as you can, 15 sec rest, ten times (23 strokes hard, 7 strokes easy). Paddle for a few minutes so you can catch your breath, then do another set of ten. 
  • 5 min (or 100 strokes) of low rate, high power rowing. Keep the recovery as slow as possible. Take 2 min rest in between, and do as many 5 min intervals as you can. 
•  Distance intervals
  • Pages 10-11 of the CBC safety packet include a map with distances between landmarks. Use these to map out lengths for your pieces. And remember pieces don't need to be exact, even if one piece is 1400 m and the next is 1600 m, you'll still get a great workout in!
  • The lower inlet (past the Rt 79 bridge) is about 1500 meters long. The half way point is the big apartment building. The lower buoy to the brown house is about 500 meters. The Rt 79 bridge to the end of the first row of houses on Floral Ave is about 500 meters. Row hard from the Rt 79 bridge to the end of the houses, easy until the brown house, then hard to the bottom buoy. Turn around and do the same thing in reverse, and repeat as many times as you like! 
  • The bottom of the inlet to Lookout Point (Boatyard Grill) is about 2000 meters.  Start at the bottom of the inlet and row steady state pace to the apartment building, then 75% to the first bridge, 90% to the second bridge, and all out to Lookout point. You can then spin, paddle to the bottom and do it again. Play with the distances, and levels of effort and see what works for you. 
• Drills
  • Try to do 30 strokes on the square, followed by 30 strokes hard (normal with feather). If you're not quite ready for 30, do 10, or 5, or 1! 
  • Take three strokes and pause at hands away (10x), then three strokes and pause at body over (10x), three strokes and pause at quarter slide (10x), three strokes and pause at half slide (10x), three strokes and pause at 3/4 slide (10x). When you're finished the pauses, do a few power 10s and see if you feel a difference in how the boat moves. 
  • Everybody's favorite: pic drill! 10 strokes arms only, 10 arms and body, 10 1/4 slide, 10 1/2 slide, 10 3/4 slide, 10 full slide. You can also do reverse pic drill where you start with legs only, do legs and back, then legs back and arms. 
  • Row2k publishes "Technique Features" which are short articles that contain great information on different technical aspects of rowing. They typically include helpful pictures, drills, and explanations for both coaches and rowers. 
• Silliness
  • Try a racing start sequence! Sit at the catch at 3/4 slide with your blades buried. Then, as fast as you can get the oars moving, do one 3/4 slide stroke, one half slide stroke, one 3/4 slide stroke, one "lengthen" stroke between 3/4 and full slide, and then a full stroke. Continue as fast as you can for ten strokes. 
  • Leap frog: Row with a friend. One of you will row at normal steady state, adding a pause if necessary to keep things even, and the other will pass while sprinting. Once the "passer" has finished passing, alert the other person who then becomes the "passer." 

*Competitive rowers, by and large, use NK speedcoaches to tell how fast they're going. It's basically like an erg monitor but for your boat. They're expensive, and worth it, in the writer's opinion, if you want to race seriously. There is a speedcoach app available for iPhone and Andriod, and some people have had good luck using that app on their phone (with their phone in a dry bag, tied to a rigger).  Smart watches may have apps as well, however these generally do not take into account surges in boat speed within each stroke and do not provide reliable, detailed splits or stroke rates. 

Got any other great workouts? Share them with us below!