Training During the Holidays
This time of year is a transition period in our annual training periodization, and while it’s important to get some rest and take your mind off the rigors of regular training, you also should use this time to renew your physical and mental health.
This is true for young and developing athletes as well as seasoned masters. On the physical side, the focus must be on healing persistent injuries while maintaining your hard-earned fitness. The strength and endurance you built up during the previous training and competition period will deteriorate if you don’t perform maintenance exercises.
Training during the transition phase is not aimed at improving fitness but preserving as much conditioning as possible through exercise that’s primarily fun. Training load and duration can be reduced but not eliminated completely.
From a psychological perspective, now is the time to reduce the stress associated with demanding formal training and the challenges of racing while also engendering the motivation to begin again in a few months with renewed enthusiasm. Take time for visualization, mindfulness, and relaxation techniques.
In this regard, there’s much to learn from international teams that have been performing at the highest level for many years. A good example: the famous Kiwi pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, who won their first world championship in the straight four in 2007 before switching to the pair, where they were undefeated in national and international races from 2009 to 2016. Since New Zealand was known for rowing enormous distances, the two changed their training regimen routinely to maintain motivation, especially during transition phases.
After every successful world championship or Olympic Games, Bond and Murray went their separate ways, cycling a lot and rowing in single sculls or with friends from their home club in all kinds of boats. They varied their strength-training routines and participated in other sports.
Another example: Frans Goebel, the Dutch lightweight single sculler. I met him in 1988 after he finished second at the world championships in Milan and watched him load his single scull onto his motor home. Next, he unpacked his bicycle and got it ready to go.
When I asked what he was doing, he said he was starting his next season and planned to cycle back to The Netherlands from Milan, while his wife followed in the motor home. That’s a journey of 750 miles and includes crossing the Alps, which, because of the mountainous terrain, would probably take 10 days. For Goebel obviously, winning a silver medal was not enough, and he needed to do something completely different—some would say crazy. The many days on his bike certainly gave him plenty of time to think, and it paid off. The following two years, he won the world championships in lightweight single sculls.
Some suggestions for using your transition phase constructively: learn to row in a single scull; try a different sport; strength-train in a different way; go for a long hike; practice yoga, learn to surf; learn to meditate; learn a musical instrument, learn a new language; read entertaining or educational books.
This is the time to do something you’ve always wanted to do and to challenge yourself in exciting ways. The most important thing is not to do nothing!
It will take some time before you feel the benefits of your holiday training, so be patient and enjoy the process. Pay attention to how your body reacts to different movements and new experiences. All of this will help when you return to your college or club and begin training in earnest for the next rowing cycle.
Volker Nolte, an internationally recognized expert on the biomechanics of rowing, is the author of Rowing Science, Rowing Faster, and Masters Rowing. He’s a retired professor of biomechanics at the University of Western Ontario, where he coached the men’s rowing team to three Canadian national titles.
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