Why Rowing Should Be Part of Your Workout

Get rowing! It’s an incredible exercise but, in my opinion, hugely underappreciated. Whenever I’m in the gym, if there’s ever anyone actually using the rowing machine (or the erg) it’s usually one of three types of people: 1) older gentlemen who know how to use it (you can tell by the sound as well as the body movement), were rowers in the past, and/or understand its low-impact benefits; 2) folks who use it pretty decently for a warm-up or gentle cool-down; and 3) folks who use it as a workout but clearly have no idea how to use it. The latter is by far the majority group.

Yes, truly, most people have no idea how to use the erg properly or to their best advantage. It seems like it would be a no-brainer, but there’s actually quite a bit of technique to it. But first, let’s talk about why we should even care about it in the first place.

Why the Rowing Erg is Powerful

• It works the entire body
• It provides low-impact exercise and varied resistance levels
• It’s a phenomenal warm-up tool that will fully prime you for the workout ahead
• It’s versatile as heck — use it for recovery cardio, for HIIT, for interval training, whatever. Basically, whatever’s trending, the erg can deliver.
• It’s a great workout finisher. Use it to cool down, or use it to boost your workout and THEN cool down.

Whatever your sport (and mine happen to be dragon boat and outrigger canoe racing) the erg can be a powerful cross-training tool. Any exercise, if done ad nauseum, will result in imbalance, overuse, possibly injury, and most definitely boredom.

How to Harness the Rowing Erg’s Power

Personally, I’m partial to the Concept2 line of rowers, but there are a number of others that perform comparably. Whatever machine you use though, proper technique is essential. I highly recommend watching Concept2’s technique videos to learn proper form, as well as their tips on common errors to avoid.

In a nutshell, there are 4 elements to the stroke: Catch, Drive, Finish, and Recovery.


Sit tall with level shoulders (no hunching), arms straight and shoulders relaxed and neutral. Lean your body forward (hinge at the hips) and keep shoulders in front of hips. You’ll be close to the flywheel—your shins should be at or close to vertical, and your heels slightly lifted.


Engage your core, press into the balls of your feet, and push back with your legs. Rise up with your torso (chest up) and then add the arm pull last. Your shoulders should stay relaxed (not shrugged up to your ears) and your hands aligned with the flywheel (no up and down movement).


Lean your upper body back slightly: your legs should be extended and your core still fully engaged. Arms straight, wrists solid and flat (rather than bent up or down) and the erg handle just below your chest. Squeeze your shoulder blades together to prevent rounding and hunching your back and give a last little tug at the end. And be careful not to grip the handle too hard—your grip should be relaxed.


At this point your arms will be bent and your elbows behind you. Keep squeezing your shoulder blades together, and straighten your arms. Then bend forward toward the flywheel (keeping arms and legs extended/straight). Finally, when your hands have cleared your knees, bend your legs and glide forward toward the flywheel. Why this arms-back-knees sequence? You want to maintain a straight line with your arms and hands, rather than bobbing them up and over your knees. That’s what most people do, and it’s inefficient as heck.

Now you’ll be back at the catch position, ready to take the next stroke. Keep your core engaged, your shoulders relaxed, your chest up and open, breathe deeply, and exhale on the push.

Have fun with it! And seriously, watch the videos!

5 Reasons to Take Your Team to Training Camp

Team embarking on first session of camp.
Enjoying the warm waters of SC while VT gets a blanket of snow.

Spring training isn’t just for baseball. If you have a sports team with a summer season, you might want to consider going away to camp before the action begins. Although this post is written with dragon boat in mind, you could apply the following principles to practically any team sport. Flip it around a little, and you even have an argument to organize a corporate retreat!

1. It bonds people together.

Sleep-away camps are just as good for grownups as they are for kids, maybe better! When you put people together in close quarters, where they can really get to know one another day in, day out, amazing things happen. Empathy occurs. Trust grows. Respect builds. Accountability increases. The team becomes a cohesive unit, rather than a collection of disparate individuals. Yes, there will always be cliques; people naturally gravitate to (or away from) certain others. Personalities, individual convictions, interests, ages, chemistry… all this plays an undisputed part in that. But overall, time together inspires a greater connection and commitment to the goal of the whole.

2. It gets you ahead of the competition.

If you generally hold practice twice a week, six days of camp (two sessions per day) translates to at least six weeks of training.  Consider this too—when practices are several days apart, you may spend part of each session recapping what you focused on in the last one. In that case, having multiple and concurrent daily sessions quickly equates to seven or eight weeks’ worth of training; that’s half a season or more for some! Think of the technical improvement your team can make in that time—and how much more prepared everyone will be for their first competition.

3. It helps strengthen natural leaders and identify mentors.

You may have people on the team that everyone looks up to or admires. But the opportunity to spend an entire week interacting with, watching, and learning from them, can really bring out new skills and confidence in others. Not just in the sport itself, but perhaps in work ethic, diet and nutrition, post-practice habits, new ways to stretch, etc. It can also help identify strengths and weaknesses in the team that may not have previously been evident. Each individual brings a unique perspective and benefit to the team; sleep-away camps can magnify that tenfold!

4. It enables immediate, relevant, and personal feedback.

During a single weekly practice session of say an hour or so, there are limits to how much individualized attention a coach can provide. 60 minutes for 20 people—do the math: 3 minutes per person. Even if you have two sessions each week, that’s still only 6 minutes given to each person.

Now, let’s say you have two 90-minute sessions per day, over six days. That’s now a minimum of 54 minutes per person. And because you’re away from your home environment, there are additional opportunities for interaction and feedback. You can take video and schedule review sessions between practices. Work with individual athletes one-on-one. Whatever your team needs, you now have more time to get to.

5. It makes room for epiphanies—for coaches and athletes alike!

Team paddling in from a final, successful, session.
Hallelujah! We did it!

Coaches often struggle to communicate specific concepts. Sometimes, just rephrasing something or finding a new analogy can spark a whole new level of understanding. Life, however, offers us so many distractions. At home, in between practices, we have infinite other responsibilities clamoring for attention: work, family, bills to pay, chores to catch up with. Away, all that ‘real-life’ stuff takes a back seat so you can focus on the purpose of camp. For five or six days, you live and breathe your sport. Even if you engage in an alternate activity (say, mini-golf or outlet shopping) your aching muscles will remind you of what the week is really about. Knowing that there will be another session in just a few hours forces you to reflect on the previous one, and consider what you might work on in the next.

As a coach watching your crew over and over, shuffling the team into different positions, trying new drill after new drill, burns new images and understanding into your mind. New patterns may become evident. Camp allows for experimentation: try a new drill; stop and go back to an earlier lesson; jump ahead to a more advanced concept.

Team posing for a photo inside a giant, fake shark's mouth
Team photo and a little touristy levity!

For athletes, camp allows similar experimentation. Focus on one thing, then another, then another. Build competency incrementally. See how one small change can affect the entire chain. What effect does it have if I deliberately engage one muscle ahead of another? How is my speed altered if I do X rather than Y? What happens if I engage, or relax, my core at any given moment? Or how I position my feet?

Camp gives your team a huge gift. The change of scenery alone works wonders. If you’ve never taken your team away to camp, now might be the perfect time to do it!

How you structure your camp is up to you: attend an existing program, or design your own. We’ll explore options in an upcoming post.


Customizable HIIT Workout that Will Kick Your Butt

This week at circuit the team got to choose their torture. I asked for 6 pairs of exercises: the first had to be high energy, the second should focus on core. They pitched skater hops and sit-ups, axe chops and leg raises, boxing jabs and supermans. (Notice nobody suggested burpees, slackers!)

And here’s what we did with that.

Set timer for 12′

Alternate between two exercises in a pyramid — starting at 10 reps and working down to 1 rep. So if you’re doing skater hops and supermans, you’ll do 10 of each, then 9, then 8, and so on. When you get to 1, start over. Do as many rounds as you can in the allotted 12′.

Rest 5′ then move on to the second pair. If you’re crunched for time, do just one pair and save the others for later.

Big stretch needed after this one.
Totally spent, but feeling so accomplished!

Change it up with your favorite exercises! Just be sure to pair a high-energy movement with something quieter. For example:

box jumps with pushups
180 squats with plank leg lifts
front kicks with oblique crunches

…and of course, let’s not forget burpees…! Perhaps with up-and-down planks 🙂

What combinations can you come up with? Let us know in the comments!

Finding Your Why

But seriously, why do we do this thing called dragon boat?

We are surrounded by beauty. The lake, our practice site, is ever-changing, the light-ever different. We never tire of it (sometimes it even distracts us).

Training is never boring. Sometimes it’s really, really hard. It leaves us wheezing, sweating buckets, ready to puke. Sometimes it’s fast. Sometimes it’s slow. And in between there’s plenty of swimming, laughter, and general foolishness.

We have purpose. Going to the gym every day is so much easier if you have a higher goal. If you know that there are 19 other people counting on you to do your part. If you want to be sure you’ll be pulling your own weight.

Coming first across the finish line is awesome. Yes, winning is a big deal. It validates our training, our focus, our commitment. Not winning is also a big deal. It keeps us hungry, curious, motivated to be better individually for the benefit of the whole. How we deal with losing is critical. Learn, adapt, improve. Always.

We can travel to some pretty spectacular places. World championships are held in almost every nation, on every continent. We’ve been to Hong Kong, Italy, Hungary, Canada., Puerto Rico….

It’s a huge sport, and a tiny community. Dragon boaters are family. Whenever you land in a new place, and there’s a local dragon boat team… you’ll be welcomed. Not only will you get to see this new place from a really special perspective, but you’ll probably make friends for life.

Speaking of friends, dragon boat is a great way to meet people. To unplug and connect with other humans.

It’s a phenomenal stress reliever. When you’re trying to keep pace with 19 other people, and propel the boat forward as smoothly as possible, there’s really no room in your brain for anything else. Work/life stresses disappear, happy hormones flood your brain. The physical effort also gives you perspective. Life is too short to be miserable. Dragon boat helps.

Find your why on one of our crews. We’d love to have you on board!