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    From Boat to Bike

    Most athletes take the post-Olympic year off from competition to train at a more leisurely pace. Not Hamish Bond. The two-time Olympic champion and member of New Zealand’s vaunted Kiwi Pair is using his time away from the sport to try his hand in road cycling. And if the early results are any indication, the 31-year-old may be just as dominant on land as he is on water. At the Oceania Championships in March in Canberra, Bond finished an impressive third in the 41-kilometer time trial, just one minute behind defending champion and pro rider Sean Lake.

    A Deal Down Under

    What do Rowing Australia and Manchester United have in common? Both have inked sponsorship deals with global risk adviser Aon. Rowing Australia’s four-year partnership, which was announced in late February, sees Aon serving as the exclusive risk and insurance partner of the national governing body and naming rights sponsor for the Sydney International Rowing Regatta. In 2013, the company entered into an eight-year deal with Manchester United that included renaming their training facility as the Aon Training Complex. Aon also sponsors the club’s training uniforms.

    Brambell Tapped for VP

    Rowing Canada has tapped veteran Canadian lightweight Iain Brambell as its new high-performance director. The three-time Olympian and Beijing bronze medalist in the lightweight men’s four succeeds Peter Cookson, who now serves as director of sport and pathway development for the federation. Brambell has worked in sport since retiring in 2008, most recently supporting national sport organizations as a high-performance adviser at Canada’s Own the Podium program. “I am looking forward to working with our athletes, coaches, and staff to continue Canada’s tradition of excellence both on and off the water,” said Brambell.

    Charting a New Course

    For California Rowing Club coach Bernhard Stomporowski, things are looking up. When USRowing recently announced its new selection procedures, it was exactly the change he was looking for. And with the likes of 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Kara Kohler training at the club, there’s more than a little talent in the boat bays at the T. Gary Rogers Rowing Center these days.

    “I was pleased when [USRowing] announced that [trials for all boats except pairs] would be at the same time,” Stomporowski says. “It also forces people to decide which boat class they want to race—in the past, you could go for the single, then the double, and then go for the quad. One person could block out three boat classes. Now people who want to develop have a better chance.”

    It’s a start, but as far as strengthening the nation’s club programs as development centers, this is just the first step, says Stomporowski. “I don’t know what the new direction of the high-performance committee will be, but I hope they strengthen a little bit the club programs’ [role] in doing that.”

    Far from waiting and reacting to whatever may come, however, Stomporowski has begun to take action in hopes of moving pre-elite sculling forward in the U.S. “I’m trying to get something together to avoid the same problems as we had the last four years, so I created something called the ‘Oakland Charta.’ It’s basically a written commitment, a gentlemen’s agreement, for all the clubs to provide their strongest rowers for the purpose of building the strongest [men’s] quad.”

    In short, the idea is to build a way to pool athletes, coaches, and resources among clubs, making sure that the strongest rowers are in contention for the same boat, guided by a democratically-elected head coach drawn from one of the signee clubs. To quote from the document, “This Charta is created to find common ground of the signing head coaches of the participating rowing clubs to support USRowing in the attempt to qualify the men’s quad for the Olympic Games 2020.”

    If it seems like it’s out of the blue, it’s not. For Stomporowski, the Charta is a direct response to the issues that he and his club faced in the last quadrennial, when CRC matched up against Craftsbury at trials—two talented groups facing off on home soil, ultimately putting each other at a disadvantage when the time would come to race internationally, regardless of which crew earned the honor of representing the U.S. (Craftsbury prevailed but failed to qualify for Rio.)

    Also, the way the Charta is written provides the opportunity for any one of the signee clubs to potentially host camps and provide coaches, and offers some of the benefits of centralized training while respecting the athletes’ lives and living situations.

    “Making a Charta, where everyone agrees, allows the rowers to train through the winter at their facilities and just come together for weekends [or training camps], not centralizing already in September. So we don’t have to take them away from their normal work and private life all the time,” he explains. “Of course, as the Olympics come closer, rowers will need to move to a [centralized training center].”

    Stomporowski acknowledges it’s potentially a long shot to get clubs to cooperate this way.

    “What can I do? If people don’t want to work together and the rowers don’t buy into that, then I can say, ‘OK, well, we will try to do this with the clubs who sign, and maybe we’ll even win—but even so, it will still not be strong if most people want to do it alone,’” he says.

    It might sound strange, but some level of radical thinking is necessary to fix a system that hasn’t produced strong results at the international level in the men’s quad in recent years, and given the other changes taking place, now seems like a good time to experiment.

    “We failed as clubs to work together [in the last quadrennial]. With this Charta I’m trying to bring some of the benefits of a camp, but with a little more freedom than what a funded boat has.”

    This, combined with visits to college and university programs recruiting for an under-23 men’s quad program this year, has kept Stomporowski very busy this season.

    “Of course, I’m competing with the under-23 sweep camp a little bit, but I think there are so many rowers out there who are [eligible] that for sculling, there should be no problem. I know that the best rowers will probably first go to the sweep camp, but there will be some who want to scull, and our hope is to get them into the program and produce a good result.”

    Again, Stomporowski is thinking about development—not just of the athletes, but also the club system here in the U.S., which often gets overlooked when it comes to preparing athletes for the highest level.

    “This is an issue for me. USRowing will put ‘Hans Struzyna, Washington.’ And I understand that, but the college, what do they get out of that really? They already have funding.”

    Looking at press releases and media surrounding rowing in the United States, Stomporowski’s observation rings true. While many people know that Moe Sbihi of the British men’s eight rows out of Molesey Boat Club, seemingly very few people are aware of club affiliations among U.S. national team rowers.

    While love for our alma mater may be uniquely powerful here in the United States, for rowing clubs that devote time and resources to developing athletes for the elite level, it may be time to give further credit where credit is due.

    Mealtime 101

    Meals and snacking patterns have changed over the past 40 years. Many of us are eating fewer calories from meals and more calories from snacks. As a result, I get questions from both athletes and non-athletes alike about how and when to best fuel their bodies. Food consumption affects the central clock in your brain. This clock controls circadian rhythms and impacts all aspects of metabolism, including how your organs function. Erratic meal timing can thus impact the development of cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and obesity. If you define breakfast as eating 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories within two hours of waking, about one-fourth of U.S. adults do not eat breakfast. This drop in breakfast consumption over the past 40 years parallels the increase in obesity. Breakfast skippers tend to snack impulsively and end up with poorer quality diets and increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity.   

    Most active women and men can and should enjoy about 500 to 700 calories four times a day: breakfast, early lunch, second lunch, and dinner. To overcome the fear that this much food will make you fat, reframe your thoughts. You are simply moving calories in your pre- and/or post-dinner snacks into a substantial and wholesome second lunch. The purpose of this second lunch is to curb your evening appetite, refuel your muscles from your workout earlier in the day, and align your food intake to your circadian rhythms.

    Day One SIRA Photo Gallery

    Here are a few of our favorite photos from the first day of racing at the 2017 SIRA Championship.

    Washington Holds Top Position in Third USRowing/CRCA Poll

    PRINCETON, N.J. — University of Washington had a strong weekend of racing and was the consensus pick as the top Division I program in the third USRowing/Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Division I, II and III Collegiate Rowing Polls, presented by Pocock Racing Shells.
    Washington won all seven of its races against UCLA, University of Oregon and Washington State University Saturday morning on Dexter Lake, Ore. to earn all 25 first-place votes.
    The University of California, Berkeley ranked second after winning 13 of 13 races at the Lake Natoma Invitational. Following last week’s rankings, University of Michigan was third, the Ohio State University fourth and University of Texas fifth.
    In the DII poll, Western Washington reclaimed sole possession of its number one ranking and earned three first-place votes. The Vikings are looking to take home another win Saturday, April 15 at the Covered Bridge Regatta.
    Ranked second in the DII poll was Florida Institute of Technology who’s winning finish in the club eight at the Knecht Cup on Mercer Lake, N.J. earned them two first-place votes. University of Central Oklahoma and Humboldt State University maintained their places at third and fourth respectively. Barry University rounded out the top five, moving up one place from last week’s poll.
    Division III Bates College took six first-place votes, leading the pack after its top two eights swept a four-team field on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. Bates beat Wellesley College, Worcester Polytechnic, and Trinity College.
    Wesleyan University ranks second with three first-place votes and Williams College finished third. Wellesley College and Ithaca College (one first-place vote) completed the top five.


    Women’s NCAA Division I Team Rankings

    Rank  Team Total Votes Prior Ranking
    1 University of Washington (25) 490 1
    2 University of California, Berkeley 463 2
    3 University of Michigan 436 3
    4 Ohio State University 378 4
    5 University of Texas 375 5
    6 Princeton University 352 8
    7 Stanford University 346 6
    8 Yale University 333 7
    9 Brown University 314 9
    10 University of Virginia 291 10
    11 University of Wisconsin 259 11
    12 University of Iowa 244 13
    13 University of Southern California 184 12
    14 Washington State University 150 15
    15 Harvard University 143 14
    16 Michigan State University 97 16
    17 Syracuse University 89 17
    18 University of Louisville 64 19
    19 Indiana University 62 18
    20 Duke University 44 20
    Others Receiving Votes in Alphabetical Order: Gonzaga University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Tennessee

    Women’s NCAA Division II Team Rankings

    Rank  Team Total Votes Prior Ranking
    1 Western Washington University (3) 180 1t
    2 Florida Institute of Technology (2) 167 1t
    3 University of Central Oklahoma 162 3
    4 Humboldt State University 122 4
    5 Barry University 72 6
    6 Mercyhurst University 60 8
    7 University of California, San Diego 50 7
    8 Nova Southeastern University 45 5
    Others Receiving Votes: Philadelphia University (42)

    Women’s NCAA Division III Team Rankings

    Rank  Team Total Votes Prior Ranking
    1 Bates (6) 146 1t
    2 Wesleyan University (3) 134 1t
    3 Williams College 132 3
    4 Wellesley College 119 4
    5 Ithaca College (1) 114 5
    6 Tufts University 94 6
    7 Pacific Lutheran University 83 7
    8 Hamilton College 73 11
    9 WPI 66 9t
    10 Rochester institute of Technology 57 8
    11 Washington College 47 12
    12 William Smith College 44 9t
    13 Colby College 34 14
    14 Lewis and Clark College 17 15
    15 Franklin & Marshall College 11 NR
    Other Receiving Votes: University of Puget Sound (9), Smith College (9), Trinity College (7), Mount Holyoke College (4)

     
    Click here for past poll results.

    Get a Leg Up

    Social media makes it easy for people to ask me for training tips, workouts, or videos. Recently I received this message from a woman just getting started with indoor rowing. “I am an avid runner and purchased your WaterRowerGx rowing machine so I could have more of an upper-body/total-body workout. Here is the problem. I keep reading about how the power in rowing comes from the legs, but I don’t feel like I am giving my legs a workout. I have the order correct, pushing with my legs first and then using the core and arms, but I don’t feel any power from the legs. Any tips on what I might be doing wrong?”
    The leg drive—leg connection and leg power—is indeed the power player in rowing. Whether you are starting cross-training on an indoor rower or fine-tuning your boat speed, without leg engagement, you’re not going to get anywhere. Try these simple tips and workout to begin leveraging this most powerful muscle group.
    1. As you initiate the stroke with the legs, make sure your handle and seat simultaneously move backwards. If the seat moves by itself, independently of the handle, you are pushing with the legs first, but you don’t have the resistance or “grip on the water.”
    2. As you begin to push with the legs, pay attention to the tugging feeling on your fingers from the handle as the energy from your legs travels up through the core, out to the arms, to the fingers, and finally to the flywheel.
    3. Still not feeling it? Push harder and quicker with the legs right from the catch. On each drive, think like you are trying to jump off the back of the machine as far as you can.
    Warm-up: 5-10 minutes of easy rowing focusing on pushing with the legs first, then opening with the core/torso, and finally drawing the arms to the chest. On the return just reverse it and take twice as long coming forward as you do going backwards.
    Austin Meyer racing in the lightweight men’s single at last year’s World Rowing Cup in Lucerne.
    The Workout:
    6 minutes with 1 minute easy at a 20; 1 minute medium at a 20; 1 minute hard at a 20; 1 minute easy at a 22; 1 minute medium at a 22; and 1 minute hard at a 22. Rest for 90 seconds.
    Repeat the same sequence, upping the stroke rate to 24 and 26 strokes per minute respectively. Rest for 2-3 minutes.
    Repeat the 6-minute sequence, going back to a 20 and 22 respectively. Break 90 seconds.
    Repeat the sequence one last time, with stroke rate changes of 22 and 28 strokes per minute respectively. Maintain the leg connection at the higher rate.