As tri-athletes, why bother cross training when the sport already includes three different disciplines?
I have competed at three Olympics. I won gold and silver in the men's single scull. Both medals were won with the same coach, Marty Aitken from Australia, a former semi pro cyclist from Melbourne. When Marty and I started working together he understood my training environment. As a Swiss Olympic team rower, I lived in Southern California, far away from any of my team mates. I trained by myself, not because I was an introvert, but because I wanted good weather to be able to train through the winter on the water. Training by yourself can become quite monotonous and we needed to avoid mental burn out at all cost. Since Marty took care of the Swiss team in Europe, I would only be visited ever five weeks for 10 days. To avoid mental burn out from spending too much time on the water and potentially getting some sort of chronicle booboo in the wrists or fingers from all the high torque strokes I took during my 120 minute sessions, Marty recommended that I get myself a road bike! This meant that I would spend close to half of my time riding for two hours, next to on the water rowing and circuit weigh lifting....
As a tri-athlete you may now say, "Xeno.... we use bikes, that is nothing new"! That is my point exactly. In my case rowing alone did not complete me. Cycling helped in more ways than one. For one, the constant movement of the legs spinning between 70-80 rpms at roughly 20 miles per hour, was a totally different conditioning to how the legs are used in rowing. In addition, seeing where you going had a therapeutic effect; in rowing one looks over the stern of the boat, rowing "backwards". The scenery change was also a wonderful escape from the endless figure eights around Balboa Island and Lido Island. Cycling also burned calories off of me in areas that rowing did not. Rowing, cycling, and circuit training, was a gold medal winning combination.
Here is why Tri-Athletes need rowing to last longer and go faster:
What you don't get from swimming, running, and cycling, is the rowing specific resistance-endurance. As one pushes the boat past the oars, to make it glide on the surface of the water as if it were a skate on an ice rink, almost 90% of the body's muscles are used. When on a rowing machine, the sense of acceleration is equal to the increasing sound of the fly or water wheel. Thus, rowing is a complete body workout, which makes building aerobic capacity extremely efficient, especially because the stroke rate at below the aerobic threshold varies between 18-22 per minute. This means that it takes up to 3 seconds of recovery time versus 1 second of acceleration for each stroke cycle. You build torque and get to take deep breaths throughout your workout. Muscularly, the legs enjoy a complete range of the knee, from compression to full extension. As the rower hinges at the hip joint to send the boat, the hamstrings, and glut muscles are highly utilized. The draw of the arms, comes from the contraction of the latessimus, which helps support the back.
Rowing helps building endurance in your secondary tri-muscles and that is key to competitive triathlon success. As we push our bodies hard in races we increase lactic acid in our blood. The higher the lactic acid the less we last. This is why a complete aerobically fit muscular system is key for a tri-athletes racing potential. As we push our body, we create endurance by burning oxygen which requires BURNING LACTIC ACID. The greater aerobic capacity and thus count of mitochondria in the muscle cells the more lactic acid is needed to burn oxygen and the longer we last by keeping the lactate concentration in our body low.
Rowing is great for Tri-joints:
Rowing is a zero impact exercise and is kind to the joints. Rowing is ideal to give tri- ankles, knees, hips and back a break from the pavement. It is also ideal to strengthen the leg in ways that cycling can't. Rowing helps strengthen rotator cuffs and upper body. Rowing can be practiced indoors during the winter and outdoors in different types of recreational and competitive shells.
For rowing beginners I provide online workouts that can be downloaded to different electronic devices. For tri-athletes who want to be ranked nationally and internationally in indoor rowing I provide a competitive training program and frame by frame video coaching.
www.row2go.comXeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
