Fall vs Spring

[rambler1]

A US high school coach here. Sitting down to review last years training and begin to plan the up coming Fall and Spring season training. My rowers have been using the Wolverine Plan over the summer, but I am unsure of how effective it is at preparing rowers for both the Fall and the Spring, given the very different distances and intensities of the two seasons.

If your competitive season is the Spring with 2K racing, but you also race nearly all weekends in the fall with 4-6K distances, how do you appropriately adjust your training volume and intensity to reflect the varied physiological needs of the different races? Should you train all year on a 2k plan and assume that rowers will be able to adjust to the demands of 4-6K racing? Or do you essentially make two different plans? One beginning in the summer with a 6K focus and one beginning in the winter with a 2K focus?

[sheehc]

You train all year with a plan meant to maximize 2k speed at Youth's. If you pick up a few medals in the fall, all the better, but not really important.

[tewbz]

You train all year with a plan meant to maximize 2k speed at Youth's. If you pick up a few medals in the fall, all the better, but not really important.

this sounds like what are team does. the fall is mostly steady state with almost no speed work, the intervals we do when we do them are usualy at/endurance intervals and we do about 20k a day on avg, then early winter is steady state mid winter we add in intervals again with a 2k test halfway through then towards spring we start to add more and more speed work well still keeping up with the steady state until after regionals then we taper for nationals, just curious but to the original poster what team do you coach?

[Bob S.]

Should you train all year on a 2k plan and assume that rowers will be able to adjust to the demands of 4-6K racing? Or do you essentially make two different plans? One beginning in the summer with a 6K focus and one beginning in the winter with a 2K focus?

My old coach, Ky Ebright, was regarded as one of the top U.S. college coaches from 1925 to 1955. His philosophy was, "Train for the longer races and the short ones will take care of themselves." Of course, in those days, most intercollegiate races (all in eights) were 2-4 miles. However, 3 of his teams got Olympic gold at 2km (1928, 1932, and 1948) and about a half dozen of them were IRA Poughkeepsie varsity winners - several at 4 miles (before WWII) and one (after WWII) at 3 miles.

With today's much more heavy emphasis on the 2km, it might be an out-dated philosophy, but the emphasis on building long term endurance first is still valid.

Bob S.