Concept2 Forum

Hi I have recently joined the sport of rowing, and have only 2 months of on water experience from this novice season.

I recently pulled my RADAR tests and came back with what I am told are great times for a lightweight male (155lb). I am very interested in going varsity next year and wanted to ask the veteran rowers on this site, what are the chances of me replicating or beating my 6:34min 2k on the water after 4 solid months of summer rowing? Is 4 months enough time?

Also how would I increase my hip flexibility so I don't hunch at the catch?

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Depends what boat. Singles pairs and doubles are slower than erg times, quads and 8s faster. The erg math is based on 4- times. All if you have good enough technique and crew.

If you really want to row, try a single, but not necessarily a racing shell.

You won't be able to hunch afloat, the rails don't go that far astern.

Hi, Five suggestions....

1. Go join the Rowing Illustrated forum. Lot's of very experienced rowers on that board and you'll get plenty of advice
2. follow decent rowing on twitter. They post technique videos almost every day that are short and helpful. Here is one specifically about pelvis rock over which addresses your hunching question. https://video.buffer.com/v/56451a48e398cad334ec612a
3. Figure out how to get as much time in a boat as you can. Join a club or go to a camp.
4. Try to get access to a dynamic erg, or an erg on slides. You'll be less likely to develop bad habits that screw you up in the boat.
5. Use the force curve screen on the to try to get the right drive technique. This video by the inventor of the erg might help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiQ0Mql ... DTmQCdTIZz

Breaking 7mins on the water for a 2k is a huge achievement that will land you in the lap of your Olympic team, so don't find that discouraging. You might be pulling 8+ min 2ks in your first time trials, but that could still be way faster than anyone in your squad. Just to put it into perspective: Mahe Drysdale won gold at the 2012 Olympics with a time of 6:57.82 and 6th place Marcel Hacker got 7:10.21.

More perspective: the mens LWT double sculls Danish gold medalist score got 6:37.17 in 2012, so you could have beaten an olympic double on your ergo.

Conditions of the water lay so much into your water time, coaches realise that erg scores don't translate to water scores.

Some people pull amazing ergs and are utter rubbish in boats, some people can't perform on the erg but have such great technique they make their boat fly. If you're aiming for varsity then you're likely to be going into sweep boats, which you'll have to seat race for. Your coach won't use erg times alone, they'll use improvement, potential and physiology to decide top boats and every coaches brain works different so it's better to ask them what you can do to improve. Maybe if you have spare time in ask for one-on-one sessions on the water in a single - sculling helps flexibility and core stability which translates well to a sweep boat, and your coach might give you brownie points for being a little keen-bean.

According to Valery Kleshnev, a 70kg international rower's erg time will be 91% of his on the water time, so your 6:34 erg is potentially 7:13 OTW.
But four months is nowhere enough time to become that skilled, so your erg time is much more likely to be 80% of your OTW time, i. e., 8:12 -- just as PolkadotNat wrote above.