Height for Lighweights: new rower seeking advice

[CatR]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the sport of rowing, having just started this fall, but I love it! I want to see how far I can take it and thought I'd come here for advice.

I'm told by the coaches I'm working with that I'm a lightweight. I'm 5'10 with a small frame, and sitting comfortably at 136lbs (I eat healthily, but am by no means super disciplined with diet... I do enjoy the odd cookie and love cheese). I know Canadian National team selection criteria requires women to make 132lbs by certain dates. I've also heard that the maximum in international competitions is 130lbs.

I guess my main question is: I am too tall for a lightweight woman, and is me staying under the maximum body weight a realistic goal?

Thanks!

[luckylindy]

Not a woman here, so take my advice with a grain of salt ...

Why not stay right around where you are now, and if you start rowing times that would qualify you for a top lightweight team, drop a few pounds? At 5'10", you'd probably feel better at 136 than 132. If you're on a college team, let the coach help make the decision.

[heptasyllabic]

I am 5'10 as well, and while I started rowing at 166lbs, since I went from sedentary to rowing, I quickly lost 25lbs and have hovered around 136-140lbs since. Going lwt is something that I have thought about a lot for the past two years, but currently I am not doing it, for a few reasons. 1) I want to get fast first, and then if I am pulling competitive lwt times and it is just a matter of losing 5lbs, I believe I can do that. 2) I just want to train without worrying about weight - I want to do strength training, erging, and biking without worrying whether I will put on muscle and thus weight. So I am just training hard for one full training cycle and seeing what my weight does. If it drops, I will think again about going lwt, if it remains at or above 140 I will stick with hwt.

5'10 is a bit tall though not impossible for a lwt. Just focus on getting fast first, and then work on weight issues, is my advice.