Optimizing my BW training for Crew performance

[sin_goodfellow]

Scrapper & Robert, Knuckledraggers,


I need to train my body to a higher Crew standard. Reading over the article in the current issue of CSTmag about training Egan, it occured to me that Crew follows a somewhat similar profile of burst-recover-burst.

In a perfect world, a rower would use no energy in the recover slide, just letting his legs rise up like they were being lifted by air... Then at the moment of the catch, when his oar hits the water, the rower explodes backward, using his legs to generate the vast majority of the force.

The upper-body is equally important for control and adding in that extra little bit of power.

I am lucky to have a coach who is flexible in how his athletes train. He wants results and healthy athletes. This is definitely the place for both :D Here's the current BW exercise recommendation of my coach for the next few weeks:


Burpies 3x25
Super Abs:
Knee Hugs x15
Crunches x20
Leg Raise x15
Jack Knife x10
Crunches x10
Twist Crunch x10
Crunches x20
Jack Knife x10
Sit-Ups x20
Crunches x10
Twist Crunch x15
Crunches x10
Jack Knife x10
Straddle Sit-Ups x15
Jack Knife x10
Crunches x20
Leg Raise x20
Jack Knife x10
Hold Crunch x10
Crunches x20
Leg Raise x15
Bench Dips 3x20
Wall Sits 2x3.5min
Stretching

I have a stadium, weight room and 24hr Erg access available to me. I cannot afford to purchase any new exercise equipment right now, but I can put my will and body to the grindstone. I have trouble completing the above and feel that there may be a few too many ab exercises. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jesse Wells

[Coach Jones]

Jesse,

In my opinion (and keep in mind that I know nothing about crew) This workout seems odd for someone involved in your sport. In fact it seems like GPP for GPP.
If what little i've seen of crew (on tv) is accurate there is a lot of "pulling" involoved yet with this workout there isn't one exercise which would involve the pulling muscles (lats, biceps, etc.).
I would be hesitant to prescibe any specific exercises since, as I said, I am pretty ignorant about your specific sport and it's demands. Hopefuly someone else will chime in that has some knowledge of crew.

Good luck,
Brandon Jones, CST

[sin_goodfellow]

Brandon,

I had the same thought. I also have a daily Erg workout that I am supposed to follow, i've only recently begun working on it over the last while due to my knee(which appears to be nearly healed thankfully!)

Complete Twice (sr equals stroke rate)
2x18 min pyramids (3 min @ 16sr / 3 min @ 28sr / 2.5 min @ 30sr / 1 min @ 32 / 2.5 min @ 30 / 3 min @ 28 / 3 min @ 16) 99/100ths pressure, make sure your rest is no shorter than 7 min.

The above workout is quite difficult, but our coach designed it to be. :twisted:

I went through the whole thing over one workout period and my knees DID start to bother me. What is funny is that my knees did not bother me at all during this morning's 6k. I would imagine it has to do with the stretching/icing/rest I did thursday evening.

Jesse Wells

[Robert V]

That seems like a lot of GPP, just as Brandon said.

Side note: Man, I've looked up to you guys every since I was a little kid watching "Wide World of Sports".

OK, back to the matter...

I don't know if that is your entire workout or not, so excuse me if I may be a little off.
I didn't see a lot of movements for quad muscle-endurance, hamsting and Quad ROM, back muscle-endurance, and back ROM. Your "core" conditioning seems to be OK.

If someone told me that I had two months to prepare my body to be a member of your crew, I would:

create kinetic chains that would give me more quad muscle-endurance, such as quad squats, squat creeps, ball squats and I would be concerned about the tightning of my hamstrings. Therefore, I would inspect the "fear reactivity" in the area with hurdler squats, leg swoop, elevated Scorpions and spinal rock variations. I'd use shin box variations, swing splits and flat-footed squats to keep my hips open.

The Quad switch would be the nucleus of my chains.

I'd also be concerned by my shoulder rotation. I would include movements that would take my shoulders outside their "expected" range of motion(arm screw, shoulder waves and circles.

Also for my back, I'd do a movement that was inspired by something I saw Scott do at the Seminar. I call it the "Twisting Camel": You begin in a camel pose variation from yoga, only one arm is behind and between your feet, creating a tripod. You alternate arms as you twist from side to side, keeping your hips up.

"Multi-planar Back arches" would be essential to my program.

Of course, pull-up variations would be a must!

And the clubbells would be a whole other story.

I would be of the knowledge that the less tension and broader range of motion I have, would give me more energy in my performance.

Also, I'd acknowledge the importance of proper "core" activation.

[Doug Szolek]

To add my two Cents...

I'd be doing some extremely high rep Swings.
Clubbells would be best because of their similarity to the Oar handle.
But Kettlebells or Dumbbells would also have great effect.

Your knee soreness may be due to too much 'knee' in your stroke and not enough hip. Swings are all about hip snap and that seems like it'd be important to distribute the majority of the work to the largest muscles, glutes, quads, hams.

[sin_goodfellow]

Robert V,

I was always impressed by Crew when I was a kid as well. I have not ceased to be amazed at how tough and skill heavy it is now that i'm in it!

The above is the individual stuff we are supposed to do outside of our normal M/W/F 2xDay practice which generally involves lots of cal drills/wall sits/stairs/running.

I would agree that it does not emphasize the areas you have stated, though the Erg'ing definitely tires them out to a degree. The KC's you have recommended sound bomb, thank you! I will work on them and report back. I love Body-Flow and am so glad I was able to purchase it!

I'm working on getting to that first pull-up, but I'm only about halfway there right now :(

I'll get there with time though. Clubbells are a luxury I hope to attain someday.

Scrapper, any recommendations for specific BW exercises?

[SCRAPPER]

Sin,

The workout your coach prescribed seems to have quite a bit of abdominal exercises but not very much in the way of pulling or in any other kind of back work..... :?

I'm glad you like the article I wrote for this month's CST magazine and I've gotten quite a bit of email regarding how to apply this type of circuit to different kinds of sports. From what I've seen in crew (on TV, movies, etc) you guys need (obviously) plenty of pulling power, hamstring development, and serious lower back strength.

A while back I had an ocean kayaker email me about my Swings and Sprints workout on my website. By focusing on the hip snap during the dumbbell swing, maintaining perfect form on his pullups, and alternating lunges for every other set of recovery runs, he was able to handle himself much better in the water.

Check out the workout here:

http://www.trainforstrength.com/workout4.shtml

Read the whole page and if there's anything you don't understand, let me know and I'll help you out as best I can.

Train hard,

SCRAPPER

[sin_goodfellow]

Thank you for all the swift and awesome replies everyone! Coach Szolek it seems that swings are definitely the way to go. Scrapper, the swing and sprints workout looks hardcore :twisted: I will post what I can grasp from your suggestions in the training design area so I can make sure I have it right and then hit the work hard.

Jesse