A Cheaters Guide To Making A Boat Go Fast

This is the second part of the series A Hunt For Speed

Let me tell you about a conversation I had last month with a fellow Coach. I’ll call him Rob, because, well . . . because his name is Rob.

I was making a presentation and Rob wandered up after the talk and asked me about boat speed. Point blank he asked,

“Like . . . I know a lot of stuff about rowing but what I don’t know is how to put it altogether to make a boat go fast. Can you tell me?”

It was apparent that this was something that really bothered him so I started to tell him about coaches and their speed systems.

. . . let’s pick up the conversation there.

“ . . . So, Rob, what became apparent when I was talking to these Coaches was that each Coach had a system, but it was not the same system. Yeah, there were a few common threads but there were many more differences between them than things that were the same.

“And the crazy part about that was all the coaches I talked to are/were very successful. I mean they knew how to make fast boats go really, really fast. But many of them were doing different things.

“And I noticed two things. First is that their system worked for them. And I felt pretty sure that if it didn’t work they would jettison it right quick. Second, I think that they got much more out of their speed system than just boat speed. I mean, I think it helped them survive the grind of coaching.”

At this point Rob looked at me and said, “But that sounds like cheating.”

“Cheating? Huh? Cheating?”

“Cheating,” he repeated. “It sounds too easy. It is cheating.”

And then he ran off, mumbling something about an H1N1 shot waiting for him.

And I stood there with my mouth wide open.

A system to find speed can be a great tool—heck a fantastic tool. But it certainly is not cheating. Let me take a moment and tell you just how great of a tool a good speed system can be.

Benefits of a Speed System

As I touched on in the section above (before Rob ducked out) there are several benefits of having a speed system. One of the cool parts is that it really reduces stress. I know that when I coach and I don’t use a system I am always worried about races, and practices, and testing. (And worried is just putting it mildly.) What to do, how to do it, and when it should be done. It drives me nuts.

When I’m using a system (and several Coaches I interviewed mentioned this) the plan and methodology help me keep things in perspective. The planning gets done way before the results need to be in.

Another benefit is actually being able to find speed. I mean, why else would you have a speed system if it wasn’t actually going to help you get faster? Hmm . . . well, that makes sense when asked out loud but so often we use things in our lives that were made/built for one thing but we don’t use it for that.

For instance I’ve got an iPod on my desk that I only really use as a clock (even though it is in good working order) and I cannot accurately recall how many of my friends have paid to join gyms or online-membership sites only to quickly never use them.

A third benefit of a speed system is that it helps prepare for next year. By being methodical and recording information (detailed info) you get to see what works, and what doesn’t for this year, and then this gives you a great place to start for next year.

Where Do Speed Systems Come From?

By now a question you’re probably itching to ask is: “How did these coaches make their speed system. How did they learn what to do, how to organize it, what is important and what is not?”

Exactly what I wanted to know, so I asked them the same thing. To a one they all answered,

• Got the system from another Coach.
• My mentor gave it to me
• I go up at races and ask the winning Coaches

I like to put it this way (and so did Isaac Newton) they stand on the shoulders of a giant. Some Coach before them had developed something that worked well and so these Coaches borrowed it, and made it better.

To me this is the defining point about a speed system (and a critical part of any sort of continued speed system relationship from here on end with me and you). Successful Coaches take a system and adapt and change it to meet their own needs and circumstances, and discarded the rest. This is what sets apart many fast coaches from non-fast ones.

It is so easy—so tempting—to take what a fast coach is doing and try to apply it directly to your own rowing or team—without adapting it to your own situation. Just lay it out there, tell them to do it, and sit back and watch the splits drop.

I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work that way.

One summer I visited an elite team training camp in upstate New York to watch practice. I took notes and came away with several drills. One drill was a simple one, where an eight rows all eight and then six drop out and the remaining pair then rows hard—trying to keep up with the speed of the boat. Seemed like a good drill to take home and use.

But it wasn’t, mostly because I didn’t have elite level rowers, and even more so because my rowers were not in any sort of condition to carry that load. At the end of practice there were a bunch of fire-eyed rowers with darn sore backs.

If It Hurts When You Do That—Don’t Do That

Another step that these successful Coaches did was to use trial and error—a lot of trial and error.

I noticed that although they had a system they had enough flexibility and courage that they were not locked into just one method of finding speed. More than once a Coach said that she tried something, it didn’t work, so she then tried something else.

But they, and this is critical, gave their trials time to work. Today our society is very quick minded and short of patience. In the educational settings we will try a fancy solution to, say, retention, for one year, and then off to something else if the results are not stellar. Patience is a virtue in a speed system.

But so is knowing when to quit, and when to try something else. I will put a plug in here for probably the best resource I’ve found (and as someone who teaches courses on failure I’m always looking for resources) about quitting. That resource is Seth Godin’s book The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

Okay, so now I hope you are convinced a system can help you. So let’s discuss one really important detail of any successful system, and a detail that if you don’t use it you are never going to find the speed you really want/need.

It is time to discuss being fierce.

See you in three days.

Post #1: A Hunt For Speed