High school girl rower- a question

[DuncanE]

Hi
I am 16 years old and have been rowing for a couple of years. My current erg score is about 830. I am 5’9” and about 137 pounds. The senior girls are so much stronger and faster than me. I train six days a week on the water and five days a week on land during winter time. Am I gonna get any stronger by the time I’m 18?

[Tony Cook]

Yes. You’ll naturally grow stronger over the next two to five years and, with good coaching, specifically so for rowing.

[Dangerscouse]

There is a massive difference between 16yo and 18yo, especially with the right training as Tony mentions.

See it as a challenge to rise up to, and not as demotivating. The seniors were 16 once too, and they made the right decisions

[DuncanE]

Thank you everyone!

[rowingdude]

I see you posted this in May, 2021 (many months ago)

Apart from training and getting more efficient, you need to do a few things you're probably not doing:

First... Decide if you REALLY WANT TO DO THIS. If you're trying to get a college scholarship through rowing. I don't care what you believe in life, but there is no room for second place in rowing. If you want to row the "A" boats, you have to want it, and you have to do what you must to get there.. not everyone "wants it", a lot of people think rowing is fun and it's a good social activity. These are your lower B and upper C boat rowers. There is nothing wrong these rowers, but they just don't have the motivation to "take that extra stroke".

Having dispensed with the disclaimer:

1. Eat more protein. Whatever your diet is now, it's not enough. Don't worry about diets, don't try to go "keto" or "whole 30" or whatever. Make protein a priority.

2. Go harder over the winter. Referring back to my "disclaimer", a lot of people ease off the intensity when it "starts to hurt". You must push through this lactic threshold, it is the only way forward.

3. Ask your coach for feedback. You'd be surprised how few athletes bug their coach about what they're doing right and doing wrong. When I am asked what an athlete can do to get faster, it's a highlight. Beware, if your coach replies with a generic answer like "just pull harder" or whatever, they probably are looking at the boat as a whole and not the individual components of the boat. If you're in a small program, this maybe the case anyways.

4. Eat more protein..

5. Over the winter, mix up your erg with dips in the school pool.. you can even join the swim team for more training if it won't interfere with your rowing team workouts. Swimming uses your lats, shoulders, core, and hips to a crazy degree.. and it's fun.

If you find you have more questions, please come back to us!

Oh, and eat more protein... You're 5'9 and 135. You're tiny! You must eat more to build mass, at least 2000 calories while in season, and probably closer to 2300 (these are guesses based on what you wrote).

[hjs]

Can’t say much, only that some people are sooner fully grown. And, important, sport is very much about talent, no training can compensate talent. 2 people can work just as hard, but get very different results.

[DuncanE]

Hi everyone
I spoke with my coach and she said colleges want to see 10lbs of muscle so I am now lifting with a trainer 3 times a week. I got some feedback on my strength and endurance. I will be doing endurance training later in a about 4 or 5 months after I get a little stronger from lifting. I hope this will help me. My coach said I’m at a ceiling and need to start lifting and different training to get faster.

[rowingdude]

Can’t say much, only that some people are sooner fully grown. And, important, sport is very much about talent, no training can compensate talent. 2 people can work just as hard, but get very different results.

While I do agree with the body composition argument for natural plateaus in sport and fitness, I disagree that two athletes with similar motivations cannot achieve similar outcomes if training can be broken down specific to those athletes.

For instance, if athlete A is composed of more fast-twitch muscle fiber and athlete B is slow twitch, their training programs must not be the same. Athlete B will respond much better to steady state with a faster pace goal for weekly capstones, whereas athlete A will be able to sprint out of the gate, but will struggle with longer sessions.

Olympic athletes are a rare breed. There are 330,000,000 people in the USA. There are probably 2000 total Olympic caliber rowing athletes among those, and only 10% of those are actually chosen to row in the olympics... Many Olympic caliber rowing athletes do not know they have this potential because their natural gifts have already been discovered and have been vectored towards sports with a higher degree of individual achievement and fame.

@DuncanE, please post your erg scores for the past few months (if you have them), or the most recent ones you can think of. Please also indicate what your current diet looks like. I know at 16, 17, you're worried about looking a certain way to conform to societal expectations. If that is more important to you than improving your rowing, that's fine. But we can assist you in gaining speed where it counts.

Since you're an on the water rower, how is your technique? That plays a huge role also. How tall is the next tallest girl in your program? Do you have any boys roughly 5'7-5'10 who are at or below 160lb?? If so, I recommend getting in a pair with them asap, especially if you have only rowed big boats.

[hjs]

Can’t say much, only that some people are sooner fully grown. And, important, sport is very much about talent, no training can compensate talent. 2 people can work just as hard, but get very different results.

While I do agree with the body composition argument for natural plateaus in sport and fitness, I disagree that two athletes with similar motivations cannot achieve similar outcomes if training can be broken down specific to those athletes.

For instance, if athlete A is composed of more fast-twitch muscle fiber and athlete B is slow twitch, their training programs must not be the same. Athlete B will respond much better to steady state with a faster pace goal for weekly capstones, whereas athlete A will be able to sprint out of the gate, but will struggle with longer sessions.

Olympic athletes are a rare breed. There are 330,000,000 people in the USA. There are probably 2000 total Olympic caliber rowing athletes among those, and only 10% of those are actually chosen to row in the olympics... Many Olympic caliber rowing athletes do not know they have this potential because their natural gifts have already been discovered and have been vectored towards sports with a higher degree of individual achievement and fame.

@DuncanE, please post your erg scores for the past few months (if you have them), or the most recent ones you can think of. Please also indicate what your current diet looks like. I know at 16, 17, you're worried about looking a certain way to conform to societal expectations. If that is more important to you than improving your rowing, that's fine. But we can assist you in gaining speed where it counts.

Since you're an on the water rower, how is your technique? That plays a huge role also. How tall is the next tallest girl in your program? Do you have any boys roughly 5'7-5'10 who are at or below 160lb?? If so, I recommend getting in a pair with them asap, especially if you have only rowed big boats.

That was not my point. You can have 2 woman, one 6.30 talent and and other with 8 flat. No training will make that 8 min rower the best.

A good 2k rower will always be more slow twich. Anything above roughly 2 min is mostly aerobic. Very fast rowers are all slow fiber people. Among slower ones you are right. Muscle fiber distribution does matter. But still, aerobic training will always yield the most result.