Ryan Demaine

RowingChat this week is with one of the most successful high school rowing coaches in the UK, Ryan Demaine of Headington School.  Ryan’s

open and frank generosity sharing his ideas about how to run a successful school rowing programme and how to teach rowing give huge insight.  Plus scroll down for his free giveaways.

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Timestamps to the show

01:00 Introduction and background in rowing

02:00 The state of school rowing in the UK.

04:00 The structure of our school rowing programme by age – 140+ girls in the club

08:00 Number of sessions per week for different age groups.

13:00 No injuries in the group by starting slowly with weight lifting.  The speed of the bar is important.

14:00 Prioritise participation over performance  Many schools don’t create an athlete-oriented environment.

21:00 The athlete scholar – coined by Christine Wilson.  You must be on top of your work or rowing suffers.

24:00 Drop off between school and university

27:00 Physiology Testing – Charlie Simpson uses 5 or 6 ergs lasting 10 minutes with 10 minutes rest between.  30 minutes is when the aerobic zone is for blood lactate and watts is the training band.

31:00 Take watts from the gym into the boat – rate of perceived exertion on 1-10 scale plus Heart Rate plus lactate or watts.

35:00 My coaching philosophy of how to move a boat.  Relaxation, Rhythm, Efficiency

42:00 Quad – confidence on how the boat feels

48:00 Match racing skills.  I care about the performance more than the boat speed.

50:00 We should move the school exams to December and finish the rowing year in October.

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