Every so often, it is inevitable you will have a training session where it seems as though nothing can go right. The weather conditions are decidedly unpleasant, you’re in a crew with people you haven’t rowed with much before, the rhythm just isn’t clicking and your footplate is in the wrong place because you haven’t had time to adjust it.
The temptation in these situations is always to become frustrated or even irate. If only you were in your usual crew or if we were able to be in the nicer boat then this wouldn’t have been a wasted session you tell yourself. No doubt we have all experienced this and not even 10 minutes into a session we have written it off and our full focus has turned to just grinding our way through till we can get off the water and forget the whole thing.
In the sport of rowing though, water time is a precious commodity and wasted sessions can quickly add up across a season. Therefore, being able to make the most out of even the direst of training sessions can have a significant impact on your personal as well as a club’s performance at the sharp end of the racing season. I thought I would therefore share some of my thoughts on how to make even the worst sessions at least somewhat productive.
Find a Focus
When the session isn’t going well it can be easy to allow ourselves to become passive to the situation. While it is easy to just phone it in, just waiting for the session to be over, by putting just a little collective effort in together can help find a focus for the session and rescue it from the brink. Whether it be focusing in on a particular technical point or breaking the session down into smaller chunks to allow both yourself as an individual but also as a whole crew to re-set by finding a focus for the session can help some progress be made even when it feels like everything is working against you.
Be That Crewmate
When frustrated it can be tempting to show it and take it out on those around you. When having a bad session there are those that you can count on to provide a glimmer of hope in a session and those who can make a difficult situation even more difficult. We can all try to be the former rather than the latter. This doesn’t necessarily mean trying to always be flowers and rainbows, indeed if there’s one thing that can be irritating it is when you’re having a bad session and people around you are trying to act like the session is going perfectly well. In every club there are those athletes that on the hardest, toughest days you want in your boat and everyone I believe should aspire to be one of those athletes.
Don’t be Afraid to Readjust the Plan
If it’s all falling apart then sometimes you have to completely re-evaluate what the intent of the session is. If the plan for instance was to go out and do a 20k UT2 but the stream is really strong and the boats really not going well then perhaps the original plan needs to be revised. This might mean cutting it down from 20k to 15k but including more technical drills or increasing the intensity of the paddle. If you only have an hour and half on the water, that needs to be as high-quality time spent as possible for 15K higher quality will invariably be more useful then 20k of wasted water.
Learn How to Perform When Uncomfortable
Even at the sharp end of the season it is not a given that come race day everything will be perfect for you. Particularly here in the UK where the weather often finds it funny to add an extra challenge on race day. Even at the height of summer its frustratingly common to line up on the start line in driving rain with a solid cross head whipping up the water. Being able to row well in the worst conditions is as great a skill as being able to produce that perfect rhythm on the glassy lake. If the conditions are poor, don’t despair but embrace the opportunity to hone that skill of performing at your best no matter what is thrown at you.
Have an Honest Debrief
After a bad session it is vital to speak about it and acknowledge what went wrong. To be able to be open about where and how the session was derailed is vital in learning from the experience and ensuring that future training is more productive and enjoyable. This is not to say that there must be a 4-hour long interrogation but equally running for the changing rooms as fast as possible will do little to prevent similar difficult sessions reoccurring in the future. We all feel different things in the boat and what one athlete might have noticed might not have been observed by another. Having that short but necessary discussion after a poor session will not only allow you and the crew to know how to improve into future training but also then allow the session to be put behind you and not dwelled upon.
While I can’t promise that in following these points from now on, you’ll never have one of those training sessions that make you question why you chose rowing of all the possible sports, I can say that trying to follow them will unlikely make the situation any worse. If there was a final point it would simply be to enjoy rowing. Sometimes when training intensively it can be easy to become wrapped up in small areas of frustration and forget the bigger picture of the gift that is being able to train and race with friends. There will always be another session and another opportunity to have one of those magical days on the water.
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