Strength Training for Competitive Rowers

Video Transcript

" Hi! I'm Anna Marie and I am a Canadian Olympic rower and I am here on behalf of expertvillage.com. I am going to talk a little bit about strength training. I don't actually even think that there is any evidence out there to say that strength training actually helps with the rowing but there is also nothing saying that it doesn't help. So a lot of people ought to do the strength training. It can be a really good way to improve your overall strength and your power. Both are very important in rowing. When you are going to be strength training, you want to make sure that you are looking at the muscles that you will be using in rowing but also complimenting it with muscles that you don't use so much in rowing. Some of the most popular exercises are the bench pole which simulates the rowing stroke quite nicely, lying on a bench like this pulling the bar straight up to your chest and then back down again. Very obviously using the same muscles you use in rowing for the rowing stroke. Another exercise is the basic squat so placing the bar either on your shoulders or on front of you for a front squat and squatting down either way. A third exercise that tends to be really popular with competitive rowers is the kleen. Having weight on the end of the bar is more of an explosive motion where you come up like that. It really works on the power in your rowing stroke. Those are some of the popular exercises competitive rowers might use to increase their strength for rowing. If you are going to be strength training, I would also recommend working on muscles that you don't use in the rowing stroke like your chest muscles. So doing something like the bench press or triceps press downs for your triceps muscles. Other muscles to make sure everything is nice and balanced. The most important part of a strength training program would be the core. Looking after your core abdominal back muscles can really help prevent injuries. I'll talk a little bit more about that later. "