The Teenage Rower – Injury Prevention Tips for Coaches & Athletes
There are many different formulas that we can use when it comes to training load and injury prevention. Commonly it has been advised to never increase your training load by more than 10% each week, and for any decrease in load to be followed be a gradual period of rebuilding. For school ages rowers, a busy term four followed by holidays, rowing camp and then a short term 1 can be a time for injuries to appear. The interruption of continued and gradual training, combined with varying holiday exercise programs and varying compliance by teenage athletes can be a recipe for disaster!
Monitoring training load and improving technique are two important elements that will help reduce injuries.
Risk Factors:
Changing sides, changing boats, changing crews
Change in training load - sharp increase without gradual build up
New rowers, insufficient fitness and strength
Growth spurts
Things to be careful of:
LIFTING: Putting the boat on/off the water – especially in junior rowers, where our weakest kids have the heaviest boats.
LEGS: Are they using their legs or straining their back during the drive phase? Compensating with the back and arms is a sure way to injury. Do they have a strong enough core to transfer weight between their arms and legs?
LENGTHY ROWS: Long steady state rowing, or rowing in boat or on ergo that is over geared or high load/low rate
It is well accepted these days that chronological age and biological development are two separate things. If we lined up 100 14-year-old rowers, we would have large variances in physical development. Crew training needs to be adapted to the level of the most physically immature rowers, whereas land training may be individualised. Many governing bodies recommend scull rowing until the age of 15 or 16, when reasonable physical maturity has been achieved. Weight training before this stage is also of little benefit for muscle mass, but rather may be used at low levels to educate on skill and technique.
Athlete Reminders:
If you have a summer holiday training program from your coach, do it! Rest is important but if you can stay as fit and strong as possible, rowing camp won’t be quite so painful.
If you’re in pain in the boat, get it checked out. Rowing is a painful sport but learning to differentiate between different types of pain is important as a teenage athlete. Take note of where and when you feel the pain - is it more at the catch or the finish? Does it ease off when you rest? These are the questions that your clinician will ask
If you need to book in with one of our clinicians to address any pain or injury, click here.