Learning from Olympic gold and silver medalists, directly to your computer.

This is a digital compilation of my Olympic training and technical understanding of how to make the boat move as fast as possible with the smallest amount of wasted energy. Rowers who seek more speed on and off the water will benefit from this information. No matter whether it is sweep rowing or just sculling. The technical method has been proven successful at the Olympics in eights and in the single scull. My technical form keeps the Olympic record in the single scull alive to this day. So enjoy following the training program in the digital download as well as my life commentary as I scull my single in the Newport Harbor, my Olympic training site, under the sunny sky of Southern California.

Olympic high performance sculling package, with Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist

Xeno Muller

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

Rowing it off... Normal for rowers new for tennis players.

I am watching hard fought matches on TV and it occurred to me that a bunch of these athletes have little time to recover for their next round; especially the players who play doubles and singles during the same tournament. I know of a gentle way to quicken recovery. But first let's take a quick look at what is commonly done.

Depending on age and fitness level the time needed to regenerate after a hard match can vary quite a bit between individuals.  In order to "help recovery" most players will spend some time standing under a hot shower, which in physiological terms is described as passive recovery.  Very few will take an ice bath which draws the blood to the body's skin thus removing lactic acid out of the muscle tissue. Some will make time for a valuable massage session, which is described as a semi-passive recovery method.  Maybe a few will use a stationary bike to spin off the lactate in their hard worked legs. I have no doubt that a percentage of top players use some of these methods to get a leg up on recovery.  Yet one of the most time efficient, active recovery method, has stayed undiscovered in the tennis world, until now. 

Time to introduce the 20 minute "regenerating-row-off." Why would a tennis player want to use rowing for faster recovery.  For starters, rowing is a full-body-zero-impact-weight-supported motion which is extremely gentle on the joints and thus makes it easy to attain full range of motion with knees, hips, and ankles.  The upper body hinges at the hip joint with loose shoulders while the lower back is supported allowing the hamstrings to gently stretch and contract, while the back is evenly engaged during the entire stroke cycle.  Rowing's gentle and gradual resistance is excellent therapy for sore muscles.  Rowing is an ACTIVE process for regenerating the body.
 

There are other important regenerating benefits that rowing provides such as the deep breathing rhythm used to relax the body on the recovery and how the acceleration starting from the leg drive is applied by suspending the upper body from its the skeleton strength.  Easy rowing is also gentle on the heart due to the parallel position of the track to the ground and thus reducing by half the power needed for the cardiac system to pump the blood through the body.

Rowing is also an excellent cross training exercise.  Workouts vary in intensity and duration.  The sport is known to produce some of the most aerobically fit and mentally tough athletes.  Adding rowing to the weekly workout routine brings variety to training that otherwise is heavily focused on being upright and putting further pressure on joints that are already heavily taxed through tennis workouts and matches.

It would be awesome for me to help tennis players use rowing to improve their recovery and winning record! Consider our 10 Week Beginner package, which is excellent to gently learn to row, perfect for tennis cool downs and cross training.

Xeno
www.row2go.com for online rowing workouts.
www.xenorowingcoach.com for DVDs and private coaching.

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

Rowing on Lake Union a beautiful 7 minute piece of history

I am so happy that I came across this beautiful piece about rowing. The filming is great and the voice of the coach extremely nice to listen too. Great job and I am excited about sharing it!
Xeno Muller

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

Rowing the Xeno Signature Waterrower | Xeno Rowing Coach

Xeno,
Love my Waterrower because I can get an erg in anytime at home, it feels like rowing (no

flywheel chain pulling me to the catch and it feels like water against the blades on the drive) and it is quiet and peaceful and not consigned to the garage or basement. The signature series changes are great additions as well especially the wide handle.

Rowin happy,

Rich

Hello Rich, 

I am so happy that you love your Signature Waterrower.  

I fell in love with the "machine" when I lead classes at my indoor rowing studio.  The quiet swishing of the water in the paddle drum created a stress free sound.

The seat and the handle were also extremely comfortable to use.  I put in a special request to Waterrower to lengthen the handle for added mobility for larger people.  I also made a change to the foot board height which is lower than on standard Waterrowers.  By having the feet lower, people with slightly less flexibility were able to find more leg compression and therefore develop more power during the push.

The first time I rowed a Waterrower I had an epiphany so to speak.  I noticed that the water drum was heavy enough to use the Waterrower for different STANDING exercises.  This was a total out of the box thought.  We started doing standing "reverse" pullovers and one arm triceps exercises to name a couple.

It become obvious that with the changes the owner of Waterrower thought we should create the Xeno Müller Signature Waterrower.  So everyone who gets a Xeno Rower is rewarded with my digitized rowing workouts, a total of over 80.  The workouts are a complimentary gift in form of a 6 months membership to www.row2go.com.

Enjoy rowing and you and I will live to be 300 years old!  All the best from Southern California!

Xeno!

Find the Signature Waterrower here.

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

Costa Mesa, CA 92627 © October 2012

Mental preparation for rowing, and where to find great examples for pushing through pain.

Alas, our rowing stories are not as well publicized as other athletes' stories of other sports.  We could claim that our rowing market is smaller and there is not as big of a financial gain to be made or public interest in publishing autobiographies of rowers.  Maybe it is partly because the rowing archetype tends to not brag publicly about personal rowing achievements.  Whatever the reason, we as coaches need to come up with stories that illustrate what it takes to win no matter what.  In my case I can whip out personal stories to tell to the rowers I coach; I have a few, but telling the same story over and over would get old for me as well as to my audience, that is why I enjoy reading about other athletes' feats.

Here are three autobiographies that I highly recommend.  The beauty about the three books is that every epic battle can be found on Youtube by typing in the names of the athletes and the name of the event.  I enjoyed devouring, Andre Agassi's, Pete Sampras', and Rafael Nadal's, autobiographies.  Holy cow, it is amazing, what epic battles these guys endured in order to be victors in their own sports.

Pete Sampra's account of his 5 set match where he vomits and still wins here is the link: http://youtu.be/gIvxjjfCGvA  EPIC to read and EPIC to watch.

Andre Agassi finally winning the French open, an elusive feat for hard court players.  http://youtu.be/gIvxjjfCGvA
Hilarious is also how Andre found Brad Gilbert when he was looking for a new coach.

Rafael Nadal losing Wimbeldon http://youtu.be/4JwT5I2yt5A and then winning the next year.

These three books are entertaining to read and arm coaches with a delightful amount of anecdotes that can be used when rowers come to their weekly realization that the sport they chose is one of the toughest known to man :-).

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