This Page About All About the Sport of Rowing

All About the Sport of Rowing

This section of my website is dedicated to the sport of rowing, which at the start of my college career last fall of 2004 became a significant part of my life. Also known as "crew," rowing has not only been around for thousands of years, it is the oldest competitive intercollegiate sport. This is ironic seeing as how the sport itself still remains obscure and relatively unknown, though it has been gaining quite a bit more recognition and prestige in the past few decades or so.

So alot of people ask me: "you get up at 5am to row boats around?" Believe me, "rowing boats" is quite an understatement. Rowing has been medically proven to be the single most aerobically challenging activity known to man. It beats running, cycling, and even swimming (a close second). Most people wonder how can this be, all rowers use are their arms. Wrong. This is probably the biggest misconception about the sport - rowing is a full body workout that requires the utilization of basically every major muscle group in the body, including the legs. So its like running, but with your entire body, not just the lower half. So if your looking to get cut up, this sport will do it. I burn about twice as many calories on the ergometer as I do when I run, despite doing both for the same amount of time at the same intensity with the same heart rate. Best work out ever?

A standard race is 2000 meters, though there are some off season races that are around 6000 meters. The 2000 meter race, also called the 2k (two kilometers), lasts about seven minutes (maybe closer to six if your boat, meaning the rowers in it, are fast). To give you an idea of the level of exertion required to complete a race, row2k.com claims that a single 2k race rowed in under ten minutes is the equivalent to playing two full length back to back basketball games. The reason a race requires so much exertion is because athletes must cross what is called their aerobic threshhold (AT). One's max AT is the maximum level at which he or she can exert himself while only utilizing the oxygen taken by the lungs. Once this barier is crossed, the body begins to require anaerobic respiration as well in order to process enough energy to function. Anaerobic respiration is not as efficient, however, and yields nasty side effects such as lactic acid. It also taps into the store of oxygen your body keeps inside itself which is kind of like a reserve fuel like your car saves when it is almost out of gas. To say the least, once you've crossed this barier, you're pretty much dead tired, then your muscles start to burn and ache as they hunger for any oxygen they can get.

This is where the essence of rowing comes in to play: How much pain can you take? This is pretty much the question a so called race asks you. Are you going to quit when you start breathing hard, how about when you breathe hard enough to make your lungs burn? When your muscles start to tingle? burn? catch on fire? Will you quit when you feel like your heart will explode? How about when you are so tired you start to get dizzy? seeing spots? will you quit if you throw up you're pushing yourself so hard? Or, will you fight the pain like a champ and come out of a race victorious? I have personally crossed everyone of these bariers ( yes, I have indeed puked all over myself at the end of a race), and to do so requires extreme mental discipline. Training for competitive racing not only improves your physical condition, but your mental toughness and pain threshold as well. Don't worry though, you wont hurt yourself in any unhealthy way - all teams require a physical and permission from a doctor to participate. As long as you don't have any serious medical problems there is nothing stopping you from becoming a basdass, ripped to shreds rower. Even if you do have a limiting condition, you can still train at moderate intensity and get into much better shape. A word to the wise - rowing is a zero impact sport, and the motion is comprised of very natural, intuitive movements. You don't need to be a superstar to get good at it, anyone who has a good attitude and is willing to work hard and put in the time can make serious changes. good changes of course. Oh, by the way, make sure you can swim somewhat well just incase....

That does it for my long winded introduction. Now you can see below for more specific subsections related to the sport.

Types of rowing

There are two types of rowing. Sweep rowing (which is what I do), and sculling. Sweep rowers hold one big oar, while scullers hold two smaller oars, one in each hand. A typical collegiate sweep rowing boat, or shell, is about 60 feet long and only 3 feet wide at the middle. It contains eight seats, in which eight rowers sit in single file up and down the boat. A ninth body, the coxwain (cock-sin), sits in the stern facing fowards and opposite of the rowers. He or she is responsible for steering the boat and making calls to the rower. The coxwain in my opinion is certainly a unique athletic position. Any serious rower knows their importance, and does not think the coxwains are any less of athletes than the rowers themselves. They also have 4 man boats, and pair boats as well. For sculling, they have one man boats; or singles, two man boats, or doubles; and 4 man boats, or quads. As boats get smaller they tend to not have coxwains. Some four's don't use a coxwain, and no pairs or single do either. Ill put pictures of all these different types boats up soon. In the mean time, visit my pics page to see me and my novice rowing an eight.

Collegiate Rowing - The Break Down

Here I'll talk about what rowing in a college program is all about as well as intercollegiate rowing in general. Though rowing has gained alot of recognition recently, it has still a ways to go, especially on the west coast. Most west coast teams are club teams, with the exceptions being a few schools like Cal, Stanford, U of Washington, and a few others as well. don't get the misconception that the word "club" implies less competitive or less serious. All it really means is that the program doesn't get funding from the school, which unfortunately means the athletes have to fund the program themselves. This is one of the downsides of rowing: it is an expensive sport. Boats are worth many thousands of dollars, and on top of all the other equipment required to row, things get expensive. The UCSB crew team annual dues are around 1000 dollars per athlete. Anyways, rowing is more presitigious on the east coast, which is where most NCAA teams exist. Don't be fooled though, club teams often beat NCAA teams, which is a testament to the greatness of the sport: Athletes who come to college rowing with little or no experience can beat experienced rowers if they work hard enough. Though a good club team requires a bit of luck, being as they tend not to recruit much at all. However, the nature of this set up, especially on the west coast, is what makes rowing so special. It is one of the very few competitive intercollegiate sports that ANYONE can do if they want to. There are not enough high school programs to fill the needed spots on college crew teams. So, if you did sports in high school and want to continue competing, but are not good enough for more conventional college sports, rowing is right up your alley. Even if you never did a sport, but want to start, its never too late to row.

What it means to be a collegiate rower - The lifestyle

When you sign up to row in college, you must realize that you are not choosing a hobby, you are choosing a lifestyle. With that said, I will also say that this sport is not for everyone. I know I've been ranting and raving about how great rowing is, but I wont lie about how large of a commitment it is. My practices start at 5am usually, somtimes 6 if we are only working out rather than actually rowing. This is usually the first major deterrent that weeds people out of the mix. On top of that, rowers are responsible for outside of practice workouts like lifting as well. With everything put together, many hours of the day must be dedicated to crew related activities, which will most likely put a serious time constraint into the already hectic college lifestyle. Most people think that my social life was ruined this year because of this sport, but I don't think so. Rowing will certainly require one to compromise his or her social life: You can't go out drinking if you have practice the next morning, for example (well you can, and I have, but be prepared to feel like shit during the work out). BUT, rowing doesn't diminish the social life. Let me explain: Though I may have had to sacrifice going to parties and hanging out with my friends, I made other close friends from getting to know people on the team. I became very close to the 9 other guys on the novice squad this year, as well as the varsity guys ( and girls) too. when you do something that requires such a commitment as crew, the people you do it with are bound to get close to you, which to me is invaluable. Don't get me wrong, we partied. Oh boy did we party sometimes. But we also took care of business. Most people get drunk and wake up fat and squishy. We, on the other hand, get up and pratice to make ourselves better. College is all about finding meaning in your life, because you are on your own for the first time. Alot of people define their college experience by getting drunk and hooking up repeatedly, which is fine. But alot of people require something more real and meaningful to define their college experience by. I don't remember my first college party all that well (for various reasons mind you). But I remember every second of my first crew race, and I know that when I look back on everything in the far future, the sport of crew will remind me of what college was all about for me. That as well is invaluable.

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