Charlie Simpson and Jim Flood have authored a new book called Advanced Rowing – it shows in detail the techniques and training programmes of top international and club coaches. Setting out to “demystify” the secrets of top rowing coaches, the authors succeed in explaining the difference between good and excellent coaches.
Advanced Rowing book
In the discussion we cover how key skills like varying training by athlete, listening skills and skill understanding your athletes’ capabilities can be acquired. Is coaching an art or a science?
Listen to RowingChat with Advanced Rowing authors on SoundCloud
Timestamps to the interview
01:00 Introduction and background in rowing
04:00 Why we wrote the Advanced Rowing book
06:00 The process of coaching – it makes us curious
08:00 Dissatisfaction with coaching structures – symptoms are athletes unsure what to do, drop outs, no clear objectives.
11:00 Dave O’Neill head coach at University of Texas – talking vs listening
13:00 The structure of the book, international / clubs and universities / 8 themes to each chapter
16:00 Norway and Denmark excel on a shoestring budget
19:00 Efficiency of funds and ti use. Clubs can learn. What you don’t have is not an excuse not to do well.
23.00 Coaching as a process of experiments. It’s full of ideas nad resources. Spot the difference between club and international squads.
26:00 Cross training to avoid boredom and injury.
30:00 The benefits of tracking total training load. Trusting athlete choices. Bond and Murray training data is on PubMed
34:00 Variations of coaching style and athlete preferences
40:00 How to interview rowing coaches
44:00 Can we learn the skill of asking questions? Why it does not exist now
46:00 Rowing as art and science – selection is predicting the future. Science informs process but doesn’t dictate outcomes.
51:00 Data in rowing – make sure it’s valid first. Collect systematically and accurately. Get good kit.
54:00 Immersive training environments
57:00 Predictive times for races. Prognostic Times for Rowing ebook.
