Weight training for rowing.

[Dutch]

So this has maybe been covered before and there are countless theoretical articles and some actual real world routines done by the top rowers on the net.
I am looking for a weight training programme for rowing, I must admit I have not got a clue how to incorporate weights into rowing and cycling.
I dont want strongman or bodybuilding routines, I am tired of them and dont recover well now either from them. Routines like that just overtrain me very quickly and actully make me depressed.
I want something that goes with rowing first and complements cycling. I would like a light weights routine not some heavy squat programme etc. I not looking for power for sprints.
Any suggestions please would be most helpful.

[Tsnor]

Take a look at this video targeted to cyclists. This guy is fundamentally sound. He's also an elite endurance/gravel cyclist. Skip the first minute, then it gets real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88wwTCs680 Most of what applies to cyclist applies directly to rowers. Except rowers have an upper body.

FWIW I do weights on the same day as hard rowing sessions because I only want to do 2 to 3 hard sessions a week and this time of year I'm rowing OTW 3-4 times a week and always have a hard piece or two OTW. So putting weights on the same day as the OTW sessions lets me keep to 3 or less hard sessions a week. I do weights after rowing so if coach springs something on us I'm fresh. I lift no more than 3 times a week, mostly 2 times with min 1 off day between weight sessions.

I use a cycle of machines in the gym trying to hit every muscle group. My goals is not stronger rowing (e.g. I don't focus on squats and leg presses), instead I'm hoping the weight work will balance some of the rowing specific work and give better overall muscles balance than a pure rowing focus weight program. If I was better at free weights I'd do those instead.

Not sure my training strategy is the best. 3 hard days, 3 long days, 1 rest day. 8-12 hours/week. On the non-hard days I try long, very slow erging (2:30 split) or long really slow cycling (12-14 mph on flat is really slow). I'm still trying this program out.

[kini62]

I want something that goes with rowing first and complements cycling. I would like a light weights routine not some heavy squat programme etc. I not looking for power for sprints.
Any suggestions please would be most helpful.

Pretty much what I need to do as joint problems prevent me from heavy weights. What I've been doing is something like 1K intervals with a particular weight/strength training in between intervals. Like 1K row, 20 pushups or overhead presses with a bar or dumbbells. Ski erg with barbell or dumbbell curls or squats or lunges with light weights. I row/skierg 6 short sessions like above (4-8k each, one morning and one at night if not too tired) then I bike about 1 hour (zwift) 4 days a week. Sometimes some light weights after biking if I didn't overdue it on the bike.

At 58 I just don't recover like I used to.

[max_ratcliffe]

For injury prevention, I suggest Googling "rowing stronger upper body". Will Ruth used to post on this forum under the moniker "strength coach will" and has some excellent stuff.

He recommends various corrective exercises that in general use low weights (you don't do face pulls with 100kg!) so shouldn't cause much if any systemic fatigue.

I've been using kettlebells recently. There are some movements that are quite exhilarating to do (kb snatch being perhaps the best - just remember to take your watch off!). Olympic lifters love to perform their movements, but you don't want to do those without serious coaching. Kb work gives me the chance to perform some explosive movements without being as technically challenging.

To be honest I don't know how much the kb is helping my rowing and skiing yet, but it's fun.

[mromero680]

I'll second the info from Strength Coach Will. I like the practical experience he brings to weights specifically for rowing.

[flatbread]

What I've been doing at home -- I don't like the extra time it takes to drive to a gym.

Upper body:

Push-ups with a weight vest
Serratus push-ups with a weight vest
Pull-ups
Inverted rows

(I have a Perfect Pull-Up brand bar -- it anchors in the doorway and the bar swings down for the inverted rows)

Lower Body:

Dumb bell front squat
Dumb bell single-leg dead lift
Dumb bell single-leg Romanian dead lift

I also do speed skater dryland drills -- dry skate, skate lunges, single leg skater squats, etc.. Hinge your hips back enough to get your quads close to parallel and those start to get pretty hard. I think these are really good for cyclists as they also work balance and they strengthen the medial glutes and the piriformis, which can both get weak and tight from a lot of cycling. You need to work that side-to-side motion.

[Dangerscouse]

There are a lot of benefits from bodyweight exercises too. Single leg exercises can be surprisingly challenging and plank variations, 'threading the needle' etc are excellent core movements.

If you search for Pilates, there's a lot of exercises that will be very useful. I do it twice a week and it's massively helped my lower back

[btlifter]

What is the purpose of wanting to incorporate weights?

If it's general health/injury prevention then bodyweight exercises and some corrective movement (as have been mentioned above) will do the trick quite well.

If the aim is to become stronger for the purpose of producing more power, then (unfortunately) it really comes down to lifting progressively heavier loads. And, once somebody has spent a couple of months builsing their strength Bae with the light weight/high reps you mention, there just won't be much more transferable strength improvements to gain from that approach.

Having said that, you can absolutely adjust the volume/frequency, and to a lesser extent maximal intensity, to suit your own ability and interest. . . So that you don't burn yourself out.

[hjs]

So this has maybe been covered before and there are countless theoretical articles and some actual real world routines done by the top rowers on the net.
I am looking for a weight training programme for rowing, I must admit I have not got a clue how to incorporate weights into rowing and cycling.
I dont want strongman or bodybuilding routines, I am tired of them and dont recover well now either from them. Routines like that just overtrain me very quickly and actully make me depressed.
I want something that goes with rowing first and complements cycling. I would like a light weights routine not some heavy squat programme etc. I not looking for power for sprints.
Any suggestions please would be most helpful.

For rowing that should be squats, deadlift and rows. Those are the movements that mimic rowing. Bodybuilding or strongman has little to with rowing.
That said, for 2k and above, strenght is seldom the limiting factor and if so, low rate training could help here. Low 5.40 times are set with zero weightswork.

For cycling, weights are only needed for sprinters, roadracers will seldom do much, if any. The less weight the better.

[flatbread]

A weight program for rowers would carry over well to the kind of cycling that anyone other than an elite amateur or pro road racer would do.

I got reasonably far along in the amateur ranks -- enough to get my tail kicked by Henry's folks one summer -- and did some 4000m pursuit on the track. Elite pursuiters do some heavy weight work -- it's a middle distance event (4-5 minutes, depending on your level), so the primary driver is aerobic metabolism, but you need the strength component to turn a big gear at a high rpm. Endurance trackies will do heavier lifts (4-6 reps to failure) a couple of times a week during the winter, and some keep that that up through the season. Not the lifting that a kilo or 200m sprinter would do, but heavier than a roadie.

For roadies, even pros now do some regular gym work, at least in the off-season, but it's lighter weight, working more on mobility and function rather than hypertrophy (which is the enemy of the road cyclist). But, you're also talking about riders doing 1000 hours a year -- 20 hour+ training weeks and weight lifting don't go together, and for pros, you're not going to be going to the gym during a stage race.

But, since your average amateur duffer racing for fun isn't doing that kind of km/mi, weights come back into the picture -- especially for those over 30.

Look into Bent Ronnestadt's work with strength training and cyclists.

But really, a rowing program will work for both -- most of the weight-training emphasis for non-elites in cycling focuses on hip-hinging movements, strengthening the posterior chain, and core mobility, and core stability. A lot of the same ground gets covered.

[Dutch]

Found something along the lines of what I am looking for. An article in the GQ magazine covering ther Cambridge rowing team training.
Second part down, strength and the 1300 rep workout. Exactly along the lines of what I was looking for.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/r ... ne-workout

I think from the responses I have had here, core work is very important and bodyweight exercises will factor as well for me. High rep leg work as well. Alot of what I want is now health maintainence and fitness driven more than power and size training.

[Tsnor]

Found something along the lines of what I am looking for. An article in the GQ magazine covering ther Cambridge rowing team training.
Second part down, strength and the 1300 rep workout. Exactly along the lines of what I was looking for.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/r ... ne-workout

I think from the responses I have had here, core work is very important and bodyweight exercises will factor as well for me. High rep leg work as well. Alot of what I want is now health maintainence and fitness driven more than power and size training.

Nice. Just don't follow the author's advice for the catch "Relax the spine to increase flexibility in the core and reach as far forward as possible. " is bad.

Back angle should get set at the beginning of the recovery and should not change at the catch. You also want your lats activated at the catch to create tension in your upper body get a strong connection between legs and handle at the catch. Think the workout is correct, but the author mangled what the rowers said for technique.

[max_ratcliffe]

I wonder if this is a conspiracy by Cambridge to kill Oxford rowers! 200 squats reps at 50% of 3rm?!? I know that varsity rowers are great athletes but really?

[Dutch]

I did wonder at this, but if 3 proper from reps at back squat was say 140kgs and I am talking good reps down to just below parrallel or lower. Not the half and quarter reps of micro movements one often sees in a gym. Then half that would be only 70kgs and done over 8 sets of 25 reps. That is certainly going to get the legs pumped full of blood.
This is not to build lots of muscle or rakes of brute strength, this is to train for endurance, a totally different thing. The muscle fibers are trained in a totally different way than traditionally accepted weight training.

[max_ratcliffe]

Okay, I think I read it too literally, as in 150 reps of bench pull followed by 100 seated row etc.

Breaking it into circuits makes it a lot more plausible. There are 12 stations, so you could have 12 athletes circling round from exercise to exercise in an order that allows muscle groups to recover.

It's still a huge amount of work, and doesn't align with what SCW says about using weights for strength and rowing for your rowing endurance. But I guess it's like what I'm trying to achieve with my kettlebell work, although that amounts to about 250-300 reps in total. 1300 looks like work for its own sake. Paraphrasing Mike Israetel: training causes an adaptation and it causes fatigue. You want to minimise fatigue so you can recover.