============================================================ INDOOR ROWING NEWSLETTER # 24 ======================= 03-November-2000 ===================== _________________________________________________ C O N T E N T S 1. British Indoor Rowing Championship 2. Club Moativation Mencap Competition 3. Tel's Tales #1 4. Ultra-FIT 5. Irish Indoor Rowing Championship 6. Tel's Tales #2 7. Forthcoming Events 8. Steve Redgrave _________________________________________________________________ ========================================================= British Indoor Rowing Championship ========================================================= Like a big fat man with the sun behind him, the British Indoor Rowing Championship is casting it's shadow over everything at the moment. Taking place on November 26th in Reading, it is by far the biggest event in the indoor rowing sporting calendar and entries are significantly up on this time last year. Our super-sexy new championship web site is now up and running at http://www.concept2.co.uk/birc/index.html. Not only is this updated as often as possible with all the latest stories and gossip from the championship, but the Events page now lets you look at all the entrants in each race so far (well, as fast as we can type 'em up anyway). Night of a Thousand Stars ++++++++++++++++++++ One thing that marks out this year's championship is that it promises to have a more glittering array of stars than the average Channel 5 chat show. From the rowing world, there's going to be at least two British Olympic gold medallists. James Cracknell, the bowman in Steve Redgrave's coxless four and last spotted appearing in a Jordan game show, will be competing against Kieran West, the 6 man in the Eight. Both will be determined to kick off their seasons in style by winning the Men's Open, so expect the sparks to fly. Also on hand will be the stroke of the Eight, Steve Trapmore, who will be presenting some of the medals on the day. From the file marked "Other" comes Angus Fraser, the Middlesex fast bowler and captain, who will be competing in the 30-39 Hwt Men. Capped forty-six times for England, Angus will be hoping he doesn't get caught on a sticky wicket; still with his swarthy good looks he seems likely to bowl many a maiden over. Sweet Moses, sorry. Also competing will be Andrew Halsey, a name familiar to long-time readers as the man who last year made a nine month abortive attempt to row the Pacific single-handed. Bearing in mind Andrew's last rowing experience left him drinking his own urine and eating fish eyes, the other competitors in the 40-44 Hwt section better hope he remembers to pack his sandwiches. Slide Racing ++++++++++ A new spectacle at this year's championship will be the world's first Slide competition. The competition will be an exhibition event involving Westminster School, Windsor Boy's School, Winchester College and Pangbourne College. Racing as teams of four over 1000 metres, the event will be a dry run for next year when we hope to have a fully-fledged team racing competition in place. The Millennium Cup +++++++++++++++ "Like any new sport indoor rowing is lacking in trophies. People like to have medals." For the first time this year the British Indoor Rowing Championship will see the presentation of the Millennium Cup. The brain-child of Noel Frost, world record holder and current world champion for 60-69 Hwt Men, the Cup will be given to the veteran rower (i.e. anyone over the age of 50, male or female) whose time is the best when compared to the current World Championship Record for that event. The veterans events are always amongst the most strongly contested and the numbers are growing faster than any other area of the championship as more and more people turn to indoor rowing in order to protect their joints and prolong their sporting career. One person, however, who won't be competing for the Millennium Cup is Noel himself. Shortly after his thrilling victory at last year's world championship, where he came from behind to win in the last couple of hundred metres, he decided there and then to retire at the top, a promise he's stayed faithful to. "I'm not a natural athlete, and so I've got to train really hard for everything. I'd spent the last five years spending 4-5 hours a day on the Indoor Rower and I felt the time had come when I'd had enough." John Hodgson +++++++++++ The oldest competitor to enter so far is 90 year old Leeds man John Hodgson. Although John only took up rowing just over a year ago, he's already a veteran of both the British and the World Indoor Rowing Championships, picking up a silver at the former and a bronze at the latter. With Charles Cush's 90-99 world record of 11:52.1 in his sights (John did 9:22.0 at last February's World Championship), he looks all set to become Britain's twelfth world record holder and must be a hot favourite for the inaugural Millennium Cup. Boat Race ++++++++ The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race is the world's greatest showcase for rowing, attracting global attention and viewing figures far in advance of anything else for the sport. The British Indoor Rowing Championship holds a special place in the calendar for both these teams. With the recent cancellation of the Four's Head, it provides the only chance for the squads to clash head-to-head before the day of the big race itself. The greatest struggle, though, will be within the teams themselves. Strength, power and an ability to rise to the occasion are qualities needed in both on-water and indoor rowing, and the coaches of both squads will be looking for these qualities in their own athletes at Reading. The championship is a chance therefore for squad members to stake a claim to that Holy Grail of university rowing, a place in the Blue Boat and, as such, much of the tension will be derived from the rowers looking over their shoulder, not at the athletes from the other university, but instead at their own squad mates. Expect them all to shine as they are not far away from peak fitness. Last year, second and third places in the Men's Open were taken by Toby Ayer and Eirik Lilleoahl of Oxford while Cambridge's Lightweights bossed the Under 23 event, taking all of the top 5 places. As BIRC provides an opportunity for the press to run their eyes over the squads, expect to see commentary in all the broadsheets on Boat Race prospects in their reviews of the national championship. ========================================================= Club Moativation Mencap Competition ========================================================= Over the last couple of weeks, Julian Mills of Club Moativation has been practicing his impersonation of the Littlest Hobo. Rather than walking from town to town with just a knotted handkerchief to his name, however, he's been criss-crossing the country with a pair of DYNOs and a pair of rowing machines. The format of the Club Moativation Mencap Competition was somewhat complex. Each round took place over an hour with two teams of eight (six men, two women) competing against each other in that time. The competition was in two parts which took place simultaneously, one using the Indoor Rower and the other using the DYNO. For the first part, the team had to row as far as they could in the hour. Each team member had to row at some point, but the interval strategy was for each team to decide. At the same time as this was going on, each member had also to complete 40 repetitions of each of the three main exercises on the DYNO - the leg press, the bench press and the bench pull, with the aim being to complete the highest average work over the sets. The overall score for each team was found by adding all 24 individual scores for the DYNO to the total number of metres rowed. Obviously this sounds slightly more complex than the General Theory of Relativity but apparently it all worked out well enough in practice. The overall winner was Club Moativation Cheltenham with a score of 22,615, with Cardiff and Cambridgeshire making the top three a clean sweep for the C's with 22,509 and 22,085 respectively. The full results along with the rules can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/local.htm ========================================================= Tel's Tales #1 ========================================================= As we approach the final couple of weeks before the zenith of sporting events, the British Indoor Rowing Championship, here are some essential do's and don'ts. The first thing at this stage is: don't suddenly increase your training volume as it's too late. When you prepare for a competition there are three things that are inter-related, training, fatigue and performance. When you start training your fatigue level increases and your performance decreases. After a period of time your body adapts to the training loads, fatigue stabilises and performance starts to increase. This process lasts for three to four weeks and a sudden increase in the training programme has the same effect as starting training from scratch. With a week to ten days to go you need to back your training right off. The reason for this is we can reverse the training and fatigue performance relationship. When you cut back on your training, your fatigue level drops and your performance increases and at BIRC you are looking for your best performance so don't leave it on the training room floor. Although you cut back on your training volume, you should still keep to the same training routine. If you train four times a week you should still train four times a week but the sessions should be short and not draining. If you train twice a day you should continue to train twice a day but again the sessions should be short and contain some short sharp bursts of high quality. Between now and the 26th of November you should be developing your race strategy. You need to establish your target time and your split times. It is difficult to focus when you are in the main hall with so many other rowers racing away. But remember, once you have started there is no-one in the world who can help you, there are only things that can distract you and throw you off your race plan. Don't get carried away by the occasion and go off too fast. For every second you are ahead of your schedule at 500m you will pay back two seconds in the last 500m. On the other hand don't be frightened. If your training has gone according to plan you have prepared yourself for this day so go for it and enjoy it. The BIRC is a festival of sport where the family of indoor rowers meet with a mutual admiration regardless of what time you do because you all know how much it is going to hurt. It is not a whipping post where people are humiliated, no-one can do badly they can only do their best. ========================================================= Ultra-FIT ========================================================= Whenever we're paid a compliment we tend to blush like a teenage wallflower asked out on her first date. So it was that we slowly turned redder than a baboon's bottom when we saw this month's copy of Ultra-FIT magazine. The Ultra-FIT 2000 Fitness Equipment Awards saw the Indoor Rower do a Ben Hur (i.e. sweep the awards, not race chariots at breakneck speeds). Not only did the Concept 2 win the 'Best Rower' category with a voting share of nearly 90% but it also won 'Best Overall Home Product' with more votes than all the other nominees added together. The cherry on the cake, however, came when the Indoor Rower also won the Club CV category, making it best for both the home and the commercial market. ========================================================= Irish Indoor Rowing Championship ========================================================= Saturday the 18th of November sees the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships take place in Dublin. Donal Hanrahan of http://www.IrishRowing.com takes over: "As the entries close the final number looks likely to reach 200 as the Irish take to the ergs with a vengeance. With several of Ireland's top rowers taking part, including Albert Maher, Sean Jacobs (both Open Heavyweight) and Richard Archibald (Bronze Medal winner at the Nations Cup 00, lightweight 4-), the timing of the event could result in some early season scalps being taken. Rowers are just getting back into their full winter training while the dedicated ergo enthusiast knows no such thing - perhaps the rowers will meet their match from the ranks of sailors, rugby players and gym members who make up over a third of the entry. Included amongst the challengers in the various categories are Martin Kelly IRL (All-Ireland coastal rowing champion '93, '95, '98), Paul Flack - USA (World Championship bronze medallist for the 2 man slalom canoe), Ray McGowan - Scotland (Bronze Medal BIRC '99. Ranked No.1 for the 10,000m and No.2 for the 5,000m.) "There is a large entry from the UK - a combination of the British Indoor Rowing Championship taking place the following week making Dublin a perfect warm up for the serious competitor plus the strength of Sterling against the Euro ensuring that a pint of Guinness remains a bargain for those with more than ergos on their agenda. TG4 - an Irish television station will be covering the event which looks set to become a regular fixture on the indoor rowing calendar." ========================================================= Tel's Tales #2 ========================================================= Why doesn't "phonetically" begin with an "f"? Why is there only one Monopoly and Mergers Commission? If Santa knows where all the bad girls live, why does he only visit them once a year? If you ask him any of these questions three times Olympic rowing coach, and commentator at this year' British Indoor Rowing Championship, Terry O'Neill would look at you like a dog shown a card trick. Send a query about training or fitness to webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk, however, and he's in hog heaven. Katherine Croft: What would be the perfect body for rowing, what would the proportion of the lengths of the legs and the arms be and which would be the strongest muscles? What compensations would be necessary if the person was a paraplegic? Do you know if adaptive rowing can be used by paraplegics? Is there an indoor version of adaptive rowing? Terry O'Neill: For the perfect body, look no further. Seriously this is quite a difficult question to answer. Taller people have an advantage because for a given stroke length they can operate over the most efficient range of muscular contraction. Competitive rowing is about power and so they would need to be strong as well as having endurance. Why I said it is a difficult question is that indoor rowing has several distances from 2,000m to the marathon and in the long distance events the more slightly built person comes into their own. The legs provide 60-70% of the power in a normal rowing stroke and over 50% of the stroke length, with the upper body supplying the remainder. The machine can be adapted for paraplegics. It requires a seat with a back similar to that of a recumbent cycle and a strap so that the rower doesn't fall to the side. They are then able to row from a fixed seat using their arms and shoulders. As far as compensating this would be a matter of trial and error as I don't know of anyone who has researched this. +++++++++++++++ James Reid: According to the Indoor Rowing Training Guide, when it comes to the high aerobic/anaerobic intensity workouts it states that the rest/recovery phase should last no longer than the work phase, i.e. one unit of anaerobic work then no longer than one unit rest. Yet the exercise physiology texts state one unit work followed by three units rest. This ensures maximum performances each time and to promote the desired physiological adaptations. Terry O'Neill: It depends on what stage of development you are at in the programme and what training effect you are looking for. Close to competition where you are looking for absolute quality then the work to rest ratio for intensive intervals would be 3:1. At the early stage of the intensive interval phase where you are looking to improve the lactate shunt system and also mental toughness, then the work rest ratio could be 1:1. +++++++++++++++ Tina Terry: How do I stop the foot straps from working loose when using the Indoor Rower at my local gym. Terry O'Neill: The locking system on the foot strap is pretty good; I have just gone around some of the machines here, including some that have been used extensively, and they don't move easily. So does anyone else have trouble with the straps? If so, then ask the centre manager to change them as they may be badly worn. Alternatively it may be your technique or where the placement of the strap is on the foot. If the strap is to high up on the foot (further away from the toes), then as you rise up onto the ball of the foot you are putting too much pressure on the strap. By dropping the foot height, so less holes are showing at the top, until the strap comes across the crease in your trainers, then as the foot rises it will not pull on the straps. ========================================================= Forthcoming Events ========================================================= This Sunday sees the fifth annual BluRed Indoor Rowing Championship take place at Edgehill College, Bideford, North Devon. Always a good day out, even if you're not competing it's definitely worth a trip. Of course, if you've really and truly got the indoor rowing bit between your teeth, you don't have to stop at races in Britain. As well as a list of all the British events, the Concept 2 web-site contains a list of all the major races taking place throughout Europe (http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/calendar.htm). December sees the Scandinavian Open in Copenhagen on the third and the French Indoor Rowing Championship in Paris on the tenth. If you take part in Reading and think that the only thing that could make it better would be to snack on either a croissant or a Danish pastry (called just pastries in Copenhagen), then make sure you check 'em out. ========================================================= Steve Redgrave ========================================================= "I have now spent 25 years in the sport. Now I want more freedom in my life, more time to spend with my family. I don't want the hardship of training day in, day out for the next four years. I don't want to be going out on the river seven days a week, 49 weeks a year. I have had a great time in this sport, I wouldn't change a thing about my career. Now it's time to call it a day." With those words, the man who's seen his claim to be Britain's greatest ever Olympian cemented firmly into place after the results of this year's games, finally announced his retirement from the sport which he's given so much. After the theatrics of Atlanta and his gasping proclamation after the race that "I hereby give permission to anybody who catches me in a boat again to shoot me", he chose the much more low key surroundings of a press conference in central London to make it for real this time. Rather than a flashy exit in front of the TV cameras after the race, he did all he could to ensure his departure didn't overshadow the other members of the rowing squad that had it's most successful international regatta ever. What lies in store for Steve is not what you might expect. Rather than a life of pro-celebrity golf and watching The Weakest Link on afternoon TV, he'll be back down the gym under the watchful eyes of his coach Jurgen Grobler. As a diabetic endurance athlete approaching middle age, he has little choice but to keep fit. "Exercise helps control the diabetes," he explained. "When you've trained as much as me and you have such a strong heart, there is a danger the heart muscle can turn to fat and become weak." Steve should send out a very strong message to all athletes," Grobler said. "Golf is very nice but not what a retiring endurance athlete needs to maintain health. I feel responsible as his coach so I want to organise him, to help him find a good routine." With that in mind, one of Redgrave's potential goals is to run the London Marathon in April. ____________________________________________F E E D B A C K Like what you read? Dislike what you read? Ideas for future newsletters? 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