From a Rochester NY Newspaper: Women Cancer Survivors Put Their Oars In The Water,

It's almost universally true: People who survive cancer discover there's much more they can do with their lives, if they just push themselves a bit.

"I had never done anything like this," says Deb Gollus of Rochester, who participates in the women's oncology rowing program at Camp Good Days and Special Times.

Gollus, 57, who works for Thompson Health in Canandaigua, says: "I had no idea what these boats even looked like."

"It just infuses energy, and shows us that we can go beyond anything we have done physically before," says Pat Bernhard, 64, of Honeoye Falls.

Bernhard and Gollus are both cancer survivors who say the program has tested them in new ways and built a sense of community with other survivors.

The rowing program is called Naiades, named for mythical fresh water nymphs or goddesses whose existence depended on the water but who were thought by the Greeks to bring to the waters inspirational, medicinal or even prophetic powers.

It seemed like a perfect name for the groups, says Jen Shulman, a former Camp Good Days waterfront director and now a volunteer rowing coach. The women "love being on the water," Shulman says. "Rowing is a respite for these ladies, a vehicle to recovery, and it makes them feel alive."

The Naiades program was inspired by a similar one in Boston, where a group of breast cancer survivors raced in the well-known Head of the Charles Regatta in 2001. It took a few years to move from idea to reality, but Naiades launched three years ago and now includes about 30 women, some of whom are beginners, some of whom are purely recreational rowers, and some of whom now compete.

The latter group rowed last year in the Pittsford Regatta and the October Head of the Genesee Regatta. They hope to compete this October in the Head of the Charles.

The groups practices during the winter at the Pittsford Indoor Rowing Center, and then in the summer on both the canal and river, working from the Genesee Waterways Center near Genesee Valley Park. They purchased a new 60-foot boat this winter in conjunction with the University of Rochester.

"It's a wonderful full-body workout," Bernhard says. "The hardest part is eight old ladies carrying a 60-foot boat that weighs 300 pounds," she jokes. The new boat, by the way, is 100 pounds lighter.

"Fishing and water never really clicked for me," says Lisa Gesinger, 46, of Webster. "I thought I'd do this just to be with other women who've had cancer." But, she says, she quickly fell in love with the workout, the water and the camaraderie.

"This is so much different from anything I've ever done."

"It's a whole team effort," says Terrie Mahoney, 47, of Farmington, Ontario County. "Everybody works like a machine, and if everyone is doing the same thing at the same time, it's a very smooth ride. If not, well... "

Rowing at twilight on the calm waters of the canal or river is itself a very peaceful experience.

Being on the water is part of the joy of rowing, Shulman says. Seeing the canal walls or the riverbank whiz by as the oars slice through the water is very appealing.

"You do have to take your cues from the person in front of you," says Roxanne Zambito, 61, of Hamlin. "The idea is to get your oars in the water at the same time with the same pressure."

"I will give up almost anything to go and row," says Nancy Harter, 51, of Greece. "I just love the feel of it." She loves the team effort, learning to work through some pain, and learning how to support the other women.

"We all have out little quirks or weaknesses because of cancer," she says. "But we help each other, and you can just feel the strength coming back."

LINK: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080413/NEWS0201/804130353/1002/NEWS

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Rowing helps me win Boardercross at USASA National Championships @ Copper Mt, CO

Boardercross USASA Nationals @ Northstar-at-Tahoe 2007 This is where I crash
Boardercross USASA Nationals 2008 @ Copper Mountain, CO
This is where i stay ahead
and this is where i end up


Last year i had a good run for it, but mistake in a semi-final took me out of the race. This year i was more focused and experienced to make it all the way.

Rowing has been a big part of my training, as I am at Iron Oarsman 10-15 hours a week. Boardercross is quite unpredictable because anything can happen in a race. You don't know what will happen untill its all over. The key for me was having a quick start out of the gates, staying low and ahead of everyone else.

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

What to do if you have an achilies tendon that does not want to cooperate when you run...

Here is a question I got no too long ago.

"Hi!

I am fairly new to rowing on the C-2. My question is: do you think it is ok for a runner with left achilles tendinitis (mild) to continue rowing while rehabbing? I do about 20 to 30 minutes rowing 5 days a week.

Thanks!"


Caution: Do not over compress at the catch, which would stretch the tendon too far... Use a bungee cord and strap it around the track. This way you will not roll too far into the catch thus avoiding any over stretching of the tendon.

XENO

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

This is a workout and story from my good friend Charles Pollak

Hello fellow rowers and friends. My name is Charles Pollak, and I am a close friend of Xeno’s and another rower as well. I graduated from Brown University in 2003, where I was captain of the crew team, and went to United States Olympic trails in the straight pair in 2004. Over the past few years I have cut back considerably on my training from being an elite oarsman in training, to that of a food connoisseur and over-worker in the office without any real sense of physical or mental balance in my life. Well that is about to change.

Over the next few months I look forward to having fun with rowing training again, by focusing on rowing, diet and cross training as well. I want to become an athlete again. Thereby, I will be posting thoughts on this monthly training letter about my goal of getting back into great rowing shape for competition and for everyday life. This will be done by sharing different workouts and training tips that I am putting together with Xeno: to help all of us all reach our training goals together, no matter how big or small they are.

Some of you are probably training to become internationally competitive athletes, while others are training just to have fun, or even to lose a lot of weight. No matter what you want to accomplish by working with Xeno’s iron oarsman training plan, we can all work together as a team to exceed our goals, and all have fun together in the process. Here is an erg workout that I did yesterday at the iron oarsman erg gym. It takes just over an hour to finish. I hope that you enjoy and please let us know any thoughts or questions that you have.



Warm-up: 15 minutes

Light rowing on erg 10 minutes
Stretching upper and lower body 5 minutes
*Drink water as necessary, always remember to stay hydrated.


Drilling and Breathing: 20 minutes

This helps to burn the proper rowing technique into the muscle memory. Also helps to continue with the warm-up so that we are thoroughly prepared for the workout ahead of us.

-start with arms only 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-add the back swing 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-move into quarter slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-half slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-3/4 slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-full strokes 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder

(If on sliders) move into one legged rowing building the stroke from legs only, to legs and back, into full strokes. Then switch legs. Do some harder strokes during each stage as well for 10-20 strokes at a time. Feel the blood begin to flow and continue breathing. 2 minutes for each stage of stroke per leg

Steady state 10 minutes
*Drink water as necessary, always remember to stay hydrated.



Workout: 25 minutes

This workout is a power workout for torque
Have fun with it and watch your splits drop throughout the three sets.
You can row at a controlled rating and use the power strokes like weights to build strength and gain muscle coordination

(40 seconds on / 20 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

(30 seconds on / 30 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

(20 seconds on / 40 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

*Drink water as necessary between pieces



Warm-down: 15 minutes

Do triceps and bicep curls with the erg handle for the ever important beach muscles. Summer time for Europeans in pink speedos is coming up! Do these while sitting with straight legs and tall lower back. 2 minutes

Do abdominal work for injury prevention. Do this on erg seat while sitting on front of the seat with a flat back and only going down as low as you feel comfortable. Do not over extend sit ups going down and risk tweaking a muscle or your back. Try different arm positions during sit-ups as you feel comfortable. 1 minute

Light row to warm down 5 minutes

Stretch to finish warm down and help muscles maximize gain from workout 5-10 minutes

*Drink water as necessary
*Always eat healthy some solid food within 30 minutes of completing workout to replace carbs and protein, etc. burned off from workout. Feel free to do this even if you are training to loose body weight, as this is really good for you. Enjoy!
*If training to be an elite athlete, feel free to finish workout with post sets on the weights and some more solid steady state on the ergometer. Have fun!

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Important change in CPR read on!!!!

This comes straight from CNN website and VERY IMPORTANT!!!

(CNN) -- Mike Mertz was dead.

With no pulse, no heartbeat and no vital signs, he lay slumped in the front seat of his Saturn, foot wedged against the accelerator with the car stuck between a tree and a stucco wall in Mertz's townhome complex in Glendale, Arizona.

He never saw his life flash before his eyes. In fact, he doesn't remember a thing -- only what people told him later. A UPS driver, Corey Ash, was making deliveries that Wednesday afternoon, when he heard the engine noise.

Sprinting across the street, Ash reached across Mertz's slumped body, turned off the car and pulled the 59-year-old from his vehicle. He hit 911 on his cell phone and started CPR, the way he had learned it in a National Guard training exercise two months earlier.

The American Heart Association says that sudden cardiac arrest kills more than 400,000 people in the United States every year.

This is the worst-case scenario. If a person's heart stops pumping blood through the body, and they aren't in a hospital, they have only about a 2 percent chance of surviving without serious disability. But Arizona cities including Glendale are starting to find that a few simple steps can radically improve the odds.

Less than a minute after his 911 call, Ash could hear the ambulance siren racing from Fire Station 154, barely a mile from the complex. When the truck arrived, a burly medic firefighter named Ruben Florez thumped an urgent rhythm on Mertz's chest, 200 times in the next two minutes, before another medic stepped in and delivered an electric shock from the paddles of a defibrillator. After 600 chest compressions and three electric shocks, a weak pulse returned.
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Until three years ago, Arizona's success rate in cases like this was no better than most of the country. This past month, however, physicians in the state reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a new regimen by paramedics has tripled the success rate, to more than 5 percent. Among patients whose collapse from cardiac arrest was observed, long-term survival went from 4.7 percent to 17.6 percent.

In a bold departure from standard practice, paramedics in most Arizona cities do not follow the guidance of the American Heart Association. Instead, they follow a protocol that was developed at the University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center, largely by Dr. Gordon Ewy.

Even after cardiac arrest, Ewy said, there's enough oxygen in the body to feed the brain and keep a person alive for several minutes. But that air helps only if someone compresses the heart to circulate blood. In traditional CPR, rescuers alternate 30 chest compressions with two long "rescue breaths." Paramedics are trained to start by checking the airway, and insert a breathing tube at the start of resuscitation. These extra steps, said Ewy, waste precious time.

In Arizona, paramedics skip the breathing step. They simply alternate two minutes of pumping on the chest -- 200 compressions -- with a single shock from a defibrillator.
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* MayoClinic.com: CPR

Epinephrine, a powerful stimulant that jump-starts the body's vital systems, is given as soon as possible. Ewy said the Arizona study, along with studies on bystander interventions in Japan and his own animal research, show that resuscitation without additional breathing is superior.

"In my mind, the evidence is overwhelming right now," he said.

On Monday, just weeks after the Arizona study was published, the AHA revised its official guidelines to promote breathless resuscitation as the preferred method for bystanders without CPR training -- even as it continues to recommend medical professionals such as EMTs continue to incorporate artificial breaths.

Dr. Vinay Nadkarni, past chairman of the American Heart Association's Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, said it is too soon to say whether Arizona's EMT method is better than the AHA guidelines. He noted that while Arizona paramedics don't stop to give breaths, they do insert a device to keep the airway open. He said the AHA agrees that forceful, "minimally interrupted compressions" are the most important factor in resuscitation.

But Nadkarni said the AHA is committed to what works. "If there is a way to save lives, and a system can find a way to save a life, the Heart Association is for it."

Crystal Sorenson, a Glendale firefighter and medic for more than 20 years, experienced a vivid example last summer with the case of 48-year-old Daniel Lane. As she pounded his chest, Lane kept grabbing her wrist, struggling to look up. Each time she paused to deliver a defibrillator shock, "he'd let go and drop down, passing out."

A similar story inspired Ewy, who told CNN about a recording of a 911 call he heard several years ago, on which dispatchers guided a woman through CPR on her husband while she waited for paramedics to arrive.

"After a while, she came back to the phone and said, 'Why is it every time I press on his chest, he opens his eyes, and every time I stop and breathe for him, he goes back to sleep?' " Ewy paused and gave a rueful laugh. "This woman in 10 minutes learned more about cerebral perfusion [getting blood flow to the brain] than we had in 15 or 20 years of CPR research."

All that research, Ewy said, pointed to one thing: "You don't stop pressing on the chest for anything."

In Glendale, paramedics are convinced they have a good thing going. "I hate to say it, but before, you went in [to a cardiac arrest scene], almost expecting that it wouldn't work," paramedic Matt Juscius said. "Now... it's almost commonplace to have these guys come down to the station."
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Mike Mertz had a big grin on his face last week, walking in to shake hands with Florez and the rest of the crew at station 154. Outside, he shook his head at what might have been.

"I was completely out. Gone." Now, aside from still-sore ribs and a new implanted defibrillator, he's fine. "If that UPS guy didn't come around the corner, I wouldn't be here today. It was that close."

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.