Category: Training Session Plans

For the diehard Australian sports fan there is not much to write about but plenty to groan about following one of our worst weekends in our recent sporting history.
Not only did we lose the urn to the Poms, but we lost the rugby to the All Blacks by a solitary point and Collingwood has firmed as equal favourites for this year’s flag.
Not since 1996 Atlanta Olympics when the Australian Olympic team appeared at the opening ceremony in green tunics and cream trousers have we, the sporting public of Australia, been faced with such a national sporting crisis.
But wait, don’t go burning the boxing kangaroo flag yet, there maybe light at the end of the tunnel.
Flicking through Monday’s sport section of the Age, past the cricket, football, soccer, rugby, racing, tennis, golf and badminton, I at last find something to cheer about. GOLD in the discus and pole vault and BRONZE in the 4 x 100 metres relay and long jump at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin….Our new national sport have arrived, when was the last time the Poms won the discus and the pole vault at a world champs….take that England!
This lads (to use an English term) is the type of mind set we need to take into the row on Thursday. The weather man has predicted yet another harsh start to the day with more gale force winds to add to an already impressive number of wind affected days we have experienced in the past few weeks.
Needless to say we will be doing some work on the leg drive, not necessarily by choice but from necessity if we are to get any sort of boat speed into the wind.
No session plans to post other than we are going to need to be patient, focused and working as a group if we are going to extract value out of rows in these types of conditions.
See you all Thursday. Simon

The GPS has been tried and tested and I am pleased to say that the quad of gorgeousness has been tagged the quad of awesomeness as a result of the numbers the GPS spat out for at least 100 metres of Tuesday morning’s session.
We will continue to experiment with the gadget tomorrow during our morning row…should be fun.
Tomorrow we will do two long laps in the eight and two short laps in the smaller boats and Saturday we will add an additional lap for a bit of variation.
This week we will be doing a bit of square blade work in various part crew combinations to emphasise the release, posture, length of the back (from the tap down to the time the knees ‘pop-up’) and hand heights during the recovery sequence.
Essential that we get this part of the stroke right as it provides the platform for the length and steadiness that we require to set the boat up for an accurate catch and ultimately effective leg drive.
We will also throw in some low rating power work to give the new gadget something to do and Elaine some numbers to provide you feedback on.
Have a good day and we will see you bright and early tomorrow….Simon C

Great rowing last week and a bit of a huff and a puff after three laps and some good solid work at the lower ratings.
I am feeling good about how well the boat is travelling at the moment. We still have a few little individual technical issues to work on and I am confident these will disappear as we continue to improve on the general structure of the crew.
This week we will be consolidating our set-up off the back turn into the recovery. Boring as bat poo I know, but this is where we need to get it right if we are going to more the boat more effectively.
Plan of attack this week is 60 minutes on the Thursday and 90 minutes on the Saturday. Again we will be looking for good solid steady state rowing focusing on the leg drive with a bit of higher rate stuff to keep things interesting.
Elaine is back this week and we should have Mike for Thursday so there should be no need for us to be loitering around the girls change room this week trying to woo Jo into coxing for us. Speaking of Jo, she is out this Saturday getting some eye candy so we will need to look for another cox for Saturday unless we do the coxless number again.
I am sure most of you did your ergos last week but have failed to post them onto the spreadsheet as you couldn’t access it. If that is the case, drop me an email and I will fix this up for you as I have done for a couple of you already. For those of you who have had a FTE (Fu#k the Ergo) moment, then come and have a chat to me and we will see what we can do to rectify the situation.
We also have pencilled in the calendar this Sunday @ 10:00am the clubs first round the island time trail. For those who cannot make both Saturday and Sunday let me know as my preference would be for you to row on the Sunday so we can get a score on the board which we will hopefully improve on throughout the series.
The Development Squad (DS) will be putting on lunch after the row and rumour has it there will be some bacon and eggs on show.
Finally…sign up for Bairnsdale Rowing Camp…at this point in time I am coaching a pair. I have planned to have 12 attending from the men’s squad…if you cannot make it let me know…details on the club website www.richmondrowing.com.au/bairnsdale-camp.
Simon

Big week last week – Two solid sessions in the eight with both outings producing good form for this time of the year.
There is still a bit of work to do on the leg drive as the horsepower is not quiet converting into boat speed but looking at the progression we have made in the past three weeks, it is only a matter of time (and plenty more km’s) before we get there.
This week is more of the same except we will look at varying the exercises to improve the timing through the leg drive. Expect a few more legs only exercises, which Tom Appleby eloquently refers to as ‘stuff the duck’ and more of the good old power strokes or ‘stuff the legs’.
Thursday we will be looking for the full hour on the water as we want to get in a few tech pieces and some quality steady state work with a few jumps in rating thrown in for good measure. Saturday will be similar to Thursday but we will aim for 1 ½ hours on the water to get a few more km’s in the legs.
I will also plan to do another 15 min chat prior to the row on Saturday to give you a bit of background to the session and an update on the forthcoming Bairnsdale camp. If we could aim to be upstairs for 1400hrs I would appreciate it.
In other news, the ‘Frequent Sleeper’ program gained its first points towards the Bairnsdale camp rehydration experience with Martin and Kevin making their first contributions for the year. The blog has been updated with a new ‘Frequent Sleeper’ page so we can keep an eye on the tab leading up to Bairnsdale.
Finally, for those who missed out on the AGM, we have some new faces on the RRC committee with Derek Begg (CM) and Troy Durham (CM) joining Emma (President), Martin (HOCD), Lucy (Treasurer), Anthea (Secretary), Nicole (HOR) and Annalise (VP) on the 2009/10 committee.
If you want to let loose with a few ideas for the direction of the club, including where the darts board should be placed in the new extension, then start campaigning through any of the above people.
See you Thursday.

Great turn out on Saturday for the eight and four. According to my calculations we should have a full quota for two eights on Thursday and Saturday…..albeit with a cranky cox on the Saturday as she will be struggling with a slight hangover.
The major change this week is that training on Saturday is scheduled for 8:00am to coincide with the Annual General Meeting which starts at 10:30am.
We will need to be prompt for 8:00am as there are a couple of committee members in the squad who will need to be off the water for 10:00am at the latest.
I encourage you all to attend the meeting as the club has enjoyed a lot of success this past season and have plenty to look forward to next year including the renovation of the boathouse. There will also be a club photo taken at the conclusion of the meeting so make sure you turn up in something other than your zoot suit.
Training this week will focus on the use of power strokes. Power strokes for those not familiar with them are maximum effort through the leg drive with controlled low rate recovery (18-20 spm).
We will be looking to focus on controlled movement up the slide and a skilful placement at the catch to maximise the connection with the water. From the catch the crew will be focusing on maximising the hang off the oar emphasising the stretch through the lats making sure the seat is moving at the same speed as the handle during the leg drive.
This is a great exercise if done properly, and we will have plenty of time to practise, as we will be doing three pyramids (10, 20, 30, 40, 30, 20, 10 strokes) with 5 minutes off in between the sets.
Given the above, we will need to budget the full 60 minutes on Thursday (so we must be on the water for 0630 and no later) and 90 minutes on Saturday as the power strokes will take up to 45 minutes of the session. We will use the additional time on Saturday to do some tech work.
Thursday is a beer penalty day, so those not on time will get their first ‘frequent sleeper points’ in the IOTC (I Owe The Crew) ledger which will be redeemed at the Bairnsdale camp later in the year.

The plan for this week will be to get down on the knees and pray for some good weather for Thursday and Saturday.
We will be looking to splash out in two eights on both days, and judging from the turn out on Saturday we should have the numbers to do so.
Martin is applying the pressure on our good mates at Jeff Sykes to make sure the IT finds its way back to the shed in the next week or so. In the mean time, the plan will be to take the Jennifer Campbell and fill her up with some of the lighter blokes and the larger blokes will need to head next door between Merc’s and Melbourne RC for the ‘loner eight’.
This Thursday’s row will be an hour in duration. It will be mostly be steady state (20spm @ 75% max) with two 5 minute pushes at 24 spm. We will include some pauses on the recovery to work on timing and control off the back turn – all pretty simple stuff.
Saturday we will start with a 15-20 minute theory session so I can talk you through some jargon that I use when I coach so we all know where I am coming from.
Saturday’s row will be similar to Thursday’s with the exception that we will have the river to ourselves so we will use it to our advantage and do a bit of work down the river.
A follow up on last week – Need to think about a beneficial easy to manage penalty system for fixing up late comers. If you have any ideas no matter how good, bad or indifferent, post them in a comment and we will select the best on Saturday after the row.
See you Thursday…Simon