In a sport where doing more is commonplace, and you are only a click away from mega rowalongs like this… (I need to practice more if I’m going to be keeping up Shane!!)
It’s easy to make a few mistakes and get caught in the trap of pushing harder than you need.
Here are the top 6 mistakes we ALL make and how to best avoid them long term.
There’s a fine line between “smashing it” and putting yourself in the overtraining camp, and if you’re not sure, make sure you check out this blog that gives you all the tell tail signs
Getting carried away is a super common training mistake. It usually happens as a beginner or someone starting a training plan when you are fresh, keen and ready to go.
You often get going, smash it day in and day out, and what’s more, is you feel GREAT doing it; however, that fatigue takes a while to build up.
So whilst you may feel great, but under the hood, your body is building up for a massive rebellion.
This usually comes in the form of tiredness, which will set you back over the long term.
Training should always be done in manageable, bite-sized chunks with adequate rest in between (usually recommended at least a 2:1 work-rest ratio, so 2 hard days followed by a rest day to recover).
Another easy mistake many people make is not fuelling up properly for your row.
If you are looking to maintain a healthy body weight while rowing, this can be an easy one to fall into.
What happens when you don’t fuel up properly for your training is that it is much quicker for your body to really build up those fatigue levels because you don’t have instant energy available.
Yes, you may have some stored energy in the muscles of the body or some extra in your body’s stored cells, but this takes a lot of energy internally to break down to be able to use for training purposes, hence why you need that fuel ready to go from the blood.
Start a training food diary and log the food that makes you feel good when you row, and once you know what’s working, then, you can start to play with the amounts.
Not understanding your current performance or fitness level can be detrimental to your training. This is especially key if you work with big goals, such as increasing your distance/time on the machine or working towards a new training goal.
Completing a baseline test will always be the key to helping you understand your current fitness level.
Why?
Well, from that point on, you know the intensity you can push yourself with during training sessions, and you leave the guesswork out of the equation.
No more “junk metres” or paddling along in Z2 when you should be upping the intensity, working at a higher pace, and knowing when to back off the intensity and bring that training level down into a more manageable range.
Yes, I know “test” is not the word we love to hear; however, it’s about doing your best, finding out where that fitness lies and then going forward.
Above all else, rowing is a sport/activity you have to listen to your body.
Your body is great at giving you lots of little signals for when its time to back off the training, things like:
Not an exhaustive list, but all tell tail signs that you are more than likely overtraining, and if you ignore them, you can expect time off the rower.
Take the time each session to evaluate where you are mentally and physically, and like with point two, use a diary to track this over time and look for little changes that you can address sooner rather than later.
Setting yourself a goal is a good way to keep yourself on track and accountable for your rowing progress.
Having a really ambitious goal, on the other hand, is an easy way to demotivate yourself.
This is where having a BIG goal is great, but smaller goals you can tick off along the way are going to be a lot easier and will stop you from wanting to kick your rower over and light it on fire at the end of a workout (yes I’ve done this, lol).
Top tip: Set fun goals!
It’s only training, and that’s why we are doing it, so find a fun way of breaking it up and enjoy the process.
Taking on any training is an investment in your time, and if you are like me, you will want to be as efficient as possible with any time you devote to your training.
If you are short on time, then a good way of finding balance throughout the week is to pick shorter sessions on weekdays like this:
And then top up those longer sessions at the weekends.
Just sitting on the rower, trying to log hour after hour, meter after meter, is probably not going to be the best use of your time, especially if you don’t have that much of it, and in all honesty, it’s not the most sustainable thing in the long term.
Adopting a more streamlined approach to your training will surprise you with the gains you can make by cutting out the wastage.
There you have it!
We’d love to hear your biggest training mistakes, so join us in The Crew https://darkhorseacademy.teachable.com/p/the-crew, and let’s chat all things training and how to get better at it!
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