I am not an AI expert, computer scientist or software engineer. I would describe myself as an AI hobbyist. I have been using AI for quite some time now, and I use it for all sorts of things in everyday life. Recipes are probably one of the most common. If I am cooking for a large group, I will use AI to help with quantities, shopping lists, and preparation schedules. If I am struggling with some piece of technology, I will ask AI to help me work it out. I have linked Apple Music and use AI to create playlists for all sorts of purposes – a 30-minute run, an erg session, a particular mood, or simply a particular genre of music.

So, for me, AI isn’t something that has suddenly appeared in the last few months. It has gradually become another tool that I use in everyday life, and I suspect that is probably the way many of us will eventually use it. We won’t necessarily think of ourselves as “using AI”; it will simply become another tool we turn to when we need some help.

Over time, though, I have become increasingly interested in what AI can do for training. That interest has gone well beyond simply asking it to write me a training program, and the more I have experimented with it, the more I have come to realise that the quality of what you get out of AI has an enormous amount to do with what you put into it.

I have been using AI for training for a while

Back in 2023, I used AI to help build my triathlon training program for the World Triathlon Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. At the time, things were much more basic than they are now. I would give AI a prompt, get an answer, work through that part of the program, and then move on to the next question. It was useful, but it was still very much a conversation between an AI model and me.

Fast forward a few years and things have changed dramatically. I have now built numerous AI-powered tools and agents specifically to assist with rowing and training programs. Some of the systems I have built are relatively simple, while others are considerably more sophisticated, using large prompts, multiple variables and extensive background information to produce a particular outcome.

That experience has completely changed the way I think about AI and training, because the biggest misconception I see is that AI simply does all the work for you. It doesn’t, at least not if you want to get something genuinely useful from it.

The quality of the answer depends on what you give it

One of the things I have learned is that AI is incredibly good at producing an answer. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is producing the right answer.

Ask an AI model to give you a rowing workout for a 50-year-old, and it will happily give you one. It might even be a very good workout. But it doesn’t know your training history, your current fitness, what you have done for the last four weeks, whether you are recovering from a hard session, what your goals are, how much time you have available, or what limitations you might have. The AI can only work with the information you provide.

And this is where I think there is a huge misunderstanding about using AI for training. If your interaction with AI consists of typing one, two or three sentences and accepting whatever comes back, you are only scratching the surface of what the technology can do. You might get a perfectly reasonable answer, but you aren’t really taking advantage of the ability to give the AI the context it needs to make a genuinely personalised decision. In many cases, you may as well have Googled the question.

The real power comes when you start giving the AI context, rules, variables, knowledge and a clear objective. The more information you can give it about the athlete and the problem you are trying to solve, the more useful the resulting answer can potentially become.

There is another important part of this that is often overlooked, though. You have to tell it the truth.

Be brutally honest with the AI

This sounds obvious, but it is probably one of the most important points I can make about using AI for training. The information you put into the system has to be accurate.

I have known athletes who have over-embellished their level of training, their fitness, their abilities, or what they believe they are capable of. Fitness is probably the biggest one. Someone might describe themselves as an advanced athlete because they have been training for several years, even though their current training volume and performance would suggest otherwise.

And, if I’m being completely honest, I have done it myself.

Sometimes we don’t even realise we are doing it. We tell ourselves what we want to be capable of rather than what we are actually capable of. We remember the good sessions and conveniently forget the bad ones, or perhaps we judge our current fitness on what we could do six months ago.

But AI doesn’t know the difference.

If you tell an AI system that you are an experienced rower who regularly rows 10 kilometres at a certain pace, it will build its response around that information. It has no way of knowing that the last time you actually rowed 10 kilometres was three years ago. The same applies to fitness. If you tell the AI that you can comfortably run 10 kilometres when your current comfortable distance is actually 5 kilometres, don’t be surprised when it gives you a 10-kilometre training session.

The AI hasn’t necessarily made a mistake. We gave it the wrong information.

This is why I believe you have to be brutally honest when giving AI information about your training. You have to be honest with the AI, but perhaps more importantly, you have to be honest with yourself. If the information going in is wrong, the sophistication of the AI doesn’t matter.

Garbage in, garbage out still applies.

AI doesn’t magically know how to coach

When I build one of my training tools, I don’t simply tell an AI model, “You are a rowing coach. Write a training session.” The prompts behind some of my training tools are now six to ten pages long. They contain dozens of variables and a considerable amount of information about how the system should approach training.

Depending on the particular tool, those variables can include age, experience, fitness level, training phase, training objective, session duration, intensity and a whole range of other factors. There are rules about how those variables should interact, how a session should be structured, how progression should work and how the resulting session should be presented to the athlete.

Those prompts have not appeared overnight. They have taken months of testing, changing, refining and fine-tuning. They contain a combination of my own knowledge and experience of rowing and training, together with the ability of an AI model to process that information and apply it consistently.

That distinction is important. The AI isn’t replacing the coaching knowledge. I am putting the coaching knowledge into the system and then asking the AI to use it.

Think of it as a very clever coaching assistant

This is probably the way I would describe AI when it comes to training: a very clever assistant. It can process an enormous amount of information very quickly and take a set of instructions and variables and turn them into a training session. It can modify that session if circumstances change, explain why the session has been constructed in a particular way, or create another version for a different athlete. It can do many of the things that take a coach considerable time, particularly when that coach is working with a number of athletes.

And this is where I think coaches should be paying attention.

I don’t see AI replacing the coach. Quite the opposite. I think the coaches who are prepared to embrace this technology could potentially become better coaches because of it.

There is a perception that the main job of a coach is to write training programs. It isn’t. Writing a training program is important, but let’s be honest, it isn’t particularly difficult. There are books, websites, apps, and now AI systems that can all produce a training program. Given enough information, almost anyone can put together a series of sessions.

The real skill of coaching is what happens around the program.

Coaching is as much psychology as it is science. It is understanding the athlete in front of you. It is knowing when to push and when to back off, understanding why someone isn’t performing even when the numbers suggest they should be, and recognising when an athlete needs a challenge, when they need reassurance, and sometimes when they simply need someone to listen.

It is building trust and understanding the person, not just the athlete. No AI can replace that relationship.

What AI can do, however, is potentially give that coach more time to do it. Imagine a coach who spends hours every week writing individual sessions, modifying programs, answering the same basic questions, and producing training notes. If AI can take some of that workload away, those hours don’t have to disappear. They can be put back into coaching.

That could mean more time talking to athletes, more time watching them train, more time understanding what is happening in their lives and more time analysing the things that really matter. That is where I think AI could be a genuine game changer for coaching. It isn’t about replacing the coach; it is about giving the coach more time to actually coach.

What’s the difference between an AI bot and an AI agent?

Most people have now interacted with an AI chatbot. You type something into a box, it answers, you ask another question and it answers again. That is the basic model most people are familiar with.

But there is a difference between a simple AI bot and what is increasingly being called an AI agent. The terminology can get a little confusing, and there isn’t always a universally agreed definition, but essentially an agent can be given a much more defined role. It can be provided with extensive background knowledge, specific instructions, access to other information, and, depending on how it has been built, the ability to use other tools or perform tasks.

This is something I have been experimenting with extensively.

For The Coxswain’s Journey, I have built AI agents that are designed specifically to help with rowing and training questions. The interesting part isn’t simply that the agent can answer a question. It is what information it has been given before it answers.

My agent has access to my podcasts and articles. It knows about my rowing experience and my training philosophies. It has been given the full transcript of my book, Beyond The Call: The Art of Being A Rowing Coxswain: The Complete Guide. It has also been given specific instructions about how it should use that information and how it should respond.

So, if someone asks a question about rowing, it isn’t simply searching the internet and giving the first plausible answer it finds. It has a foundation of knowledge and a particular coaching philosophy to work from. Where appropriate, it can also access current information from the internet.

That is a very different proposition from simply asking a general-purpose chatbot, “What’s a good rowing workout?”

So where do LLMs fit into all this?

This is where some of the terminology can become confusing. You will often hear people talk about LLMs, or Large Language Models. In simple terms, an LLM is the underlying AI model that processes language and generates responses.

ChatGPT uses LLMs. Claude uses LLMs. There are a number of other companies producing their own models as well. I tend to think of the LLM as the engine. What you build around that engine – the instructions, knowledge, variables, tools and systems – determines what you can actually do with it.

This is why I can use different AI models for different jobs. For some of my training programs, I use Anthropic’s Claude. For some of my AI agents, I use ChatGPT. I can also choose different levels of models depending on what I need from them.

Sometimes speed is important. Sometimes I need a deeper level of reasoning. Sometimes a simpler model is perfectly adequate. And, of course, cost also plays a part. There is no point using the most powerful and expensive model available to perform a simple task that a faster, cheaper model can handle perfectly well.

That is another part of building AI systems that most people never see.

The prompt is much more than a question

There is a tendency to think of a prompt as simply asking a question: “Write me a training program.”

But when you start building proper AI tools, the prompt becomes much more than that. It becomes the instruction manual. It tells the AI what role it has, what information to consider, what rules to follow, what not to do, how to interpret the variables, how different pieces of information should interact, and how the final result should be presented.

It can also tell the AI when it should not provide a particular recommendation.

That is why my training prompts have become so long. The length itself isn’t the objective. There is no magic number of pages that suddenly makes an AI prompt good. The objective is to give the AI enough information and enough structure to produce a useful and appropriate result.

A three-sentence prompt can be perfectly adequate for some tasks. If I want to know how many potatoes I need for dinner, I don’t need to write six pages of instructions to an AI. But if I am trying to build a genuinely personalised training system, three sentences aren’t going to contain everything the system needs to know.

The biggest problem with AI?

There is one thing about AI that still concerns me: it is very good at sounding confident.

That can be dangerous, particularly when we are talking about training. AI can give you a beautifully written training program that looks incredibly professional. It can explain exactly why you should do it and give you physiological reasons for doing it, and it can still be wrong.

That is why I don’t think athletes should blindly follow AI-generated training any more than they should blindly follow a training program they found on the internet. The athlete still needs some knowledge. They need to understand what they are doing and, importantly, they need to recognise when something doesn’t look right.

This brings us back to one of the most important points in this whole discussion: AI is only as good as the information and instructions it is working with.

If you tell it the wrong thing, it will quite happily build the wrong thing, and it probably won’t apologise until you point it out.

So, is AI a new way to train?

I think it is, although perhaps not quite in the way some people imagine.

I don’t see athletes handing over complete responsibility for their training to a chatbot, and I certainly don’t see AI replacing good coaches. What I do see is the possibility of creating a much more personalised and responsive training environment.

An athlete could have access to a training assistant that understands their goals, their history, their training structure and their individual circumstances. A coach could have an assistant that helps build sessions, analyse information, adapt programs and answer routine questions. A rowing club could potentially give its members access to a knowledge base containing the club’s own coaching information and resources.

For coaches in particular, I think this is an opportunity rather than a threat. The coaches who embrace the technology won’t necessarily be replaced by it. They may simply find that they can spend less time doing the repetitive parts of their job and more time doing the things that make them a good coach in the first place.

If AI can write the first draft of a training session in seconds, why would a coach spend an hour doing it? The coach can review it, change it, improve it and, most importantly, decide whether it is actually right for the athlete.

The same applies to communication. If an AI system can answer routine questions about training zones, session structures or terminology, that doesn’t mean the coach becomes less important. It means the coach has more time available when an athlete comes to them with the question that really needs a coach.

And those are often the questions that have nothing to do with training zones.

But there is a catch

The better the result you want from AI, the more thought you need to put into what you are asking it to do. That means giving it good information, being honest about your fitness and abilities, providing enough context, understanding the principles behind the training you are asking it to create, and checking the result rather than simply accepting it because it happens to look professional.

The AI provides the processing power, but the human still provides the knowledge, experience, judgement and direction. Give AI a vague question, and you will probably get a generic training program. Give it detailed information, properly constructed instructions, relevant variables, good training principles and a clear objective, and you can get something remarkably sophisticated.

But there is one final ingredient that no amount of AI can provide.

You still have to do the training.

AI can design the erg session, explain why you are doing it, adjust it when you only have 30 minutes, and, if you really want it to, create the playlist to go with it. But it can’t sit on the erg for you. It can’t make you get on the machine when you don’t feel like training, hold your technique together when you are exhausted, or make the last 500 metres hurt any less.

Unfortunately, I’ve tried that bit, and AI hasn’t figured it out yet.

AI isn’t the coach. But it could be a very good training partner.

I have become a firm believer in the potential of AI for training. Not because I think it is perfect, and certainly not because I think it will replace coaches. I believe in it because I have spent a considerable amount of time actually building and using these systems. I’ve tested them, broken them, changed them, asked them the wrong questions, given them too much information, not enough information, and generally experimented until I got a better understanding of what they can and can’t do.

And the more I work with AI, the more convinced I become that the real opportunity isn’t asking AI to do the thinking for us. It is using AI to help us think better.

For athletes, that could mean having a training partner available whenever they need one. For coaches, it could mean having an assistant that takes care of some of the time-consuming work that gets in the way of actually coaching.

But there is a learning curve. If you want to get the best out of AI, you need to learn how to use it. You need to understand what information to give it, how to structure your instructions, how to provide context and, perhaps most importantly, how to question the answers it gives you.

You also need to be honest. Really honest. Because if you tell the AI that you’re fitter, stronger, faster or more experienced than you really are, it will happily believe you. And then it will build your training around the athlete you told it about, rather than the athlete you actually are.

Used badly, AI will give you another generic training program. Used properly, with the right knowledge behind it and the right information going into it, I think it could become one of the most powerful training tools available to us.

And perhaps that is the real opportunity. Not replacing the coach, not replacing the athlete, and certainly not replacing the hard work. Just using a very clever piece of technology to help both coach and athlete spend more time concentrating on the things that really matter.

So, is AI a new way to train?

I think it is.

But the technology isn’t the clever bit. Knowing how to use it is.

If you have any questions or comments about AI training, I’d love you to reach out. guy@thecoxswainsjourney.com

And finally, why not check out some of my training tools:

The Erg Session Builder

Rowing Trainng Session Builder

Rowing Program Training Builder

The post AI – A New Way to Train, or Not? first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

I was inspired to write this article following many conversations over the years in boat parks and around the rowing community, and more recently in particular, which prompted me to put pen to paper on what may be considered a sensitive topic.

In rowing, success is not a single definition, and that is one of the sport’s strengths. For some athletes, it is measured in medals and podium finishes. For others, it is far simpler: getting to the start line after a full training block, returning to racing after injury, or making the transition from sculling to sweep (or vice versa). For many, especially as age and experience accumulate, success becomes less about outcomes and more about continuity—staying fit, staying involved, and still being able to line up against other crews.

In practice, success is also shaped by role and involvement. In my case as a coxswain, I tend to place more value on results when there has been genuine contribution to the crew’s development over time. When there has been training input, preparation, and a shared progression toward a goal, a result feels earned in a broader sense than race day alone. Without that context, a result can still be a win, but it doesn’t always sit in the same category of meaningful success.

For many athletes, times are also used as a measure of performance, but rowing complicates that idea in a way few other sports do. Race times are heavily influenced by conditions that sit outside athlete control: wind, current, temperature, water temperature, lane allocation, water movement, and race dynamics (an often underappreciated factor). Because of this variability, rowing does not recognise official world records, instead using “world best times” as a more honest reflection of performance across conditions. It is an implicit acknowledgement that direct comparison between races is inherently limited, and that time alone is an imperfect measure of success.

Against that backdrop, the concept of “winning” becomes less straightforward than it first appears. In the current Victoria’s masters scene, fleet sizes are often small, with many races featuring only three or four entries, and sometimes fewer. On a three-lane course, that can mean a statistical one-in-three (or even one-in-two) chance of a medal simply by completing the race. At larger regattas, events are frequently split into divisions, which helps manage numbers and racing quality, but also increases the total number of medal opportunities across the day.

The recent 2026 Victorian Masters Rowing Championships illustrate this clearly. There were 369 athletes entered, yet 733 medals were awarded. Of those athletes, 266 left the regatta with at least one medal. None of this diminishes the effort required to compete—rowing remains physically and mentally demanding regardless of field size. Crews still train, prepare, and execute under pressure, and that reality should not be understated.

At last year’s Australian Masters Rowing Championships, there were 964 athletes, 2,132 medals awarded, and 593 athletes who won at least one medal.

Even at the 2026 Australian Rowing Championships, where competition depth is significantly higher, there were 2,077 athletes entered and 1,483 medals awarded, with 693 athletes collecting at least one medal. While this is a very different level of competition, it still highlights how frequently podium outcomes occur within structured regatta environments across the sport.

But it does raise an unavoidable question about what is actually being measured when we talk about success in this environment. When medal opportunities are frequent and fleet sizes are limited, winning inevitably becomes a softer indicator than it is in most other sports. It still matters, but its exclusivity—and therefore its weight—changes.

This is where the tension sits in masters rowing in particular. The sport still presents itself through the language of competition, yet the structure of that competition often produces outcomes where medals are more accessible than decisive. That does not invalidate them, but it does shift their meaning as a primary measure of achievement.

Perhaps the more accurate view is that rowing operates on two parallel definitions of success. One is competitive and results-based. The other is persistent and participation-based. Most athletes, whether they articulate it or not, end up navigating both.

Winning will always have its place. But in this context, it is only one part of a broader and more complex picture—one where simply continuing to turn up, train, and race may be the more telling indicator of success over time.

The post Medals and Meaning – Rethinking Success in Masters Rowing first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

I remember a quote from Greg Welch, Ironman World Champion in 1994: “If you want to win, you’ve got to be willing to take risks.” That resonated with me big time. Conservatism doesn’t bring glory.

Anyone who has been in boats I’ve coxed will know I like taking risks. I don’t like the “vanilla” approach to race plans, and I like backing the abilities of the athletes I’m coxing. That said, I need to sign a bit of a disclaimer here — I don’t always know every crew perfectly, so sometimes judgement has to be adjusted on the fly.

Until recently, I didn’t realise there was actually a name for something that sits right in this space: the “Explore vs Exploit Dilemma”. I came across it in an article a few days ago and went down the rabbit hole.

The idea is simple, even if it sounds academic. Exploring means trying something new to find a better way of doing things. Exploiting means sticking with what already works and getting the most out of it.

Every crew, whether they realise it or not, is constantly moving between these two modes — assuming the coaching team (and coxswain) are across planning properly. The challenge is that most crews don’t get the balance right. Not because they don’t understand rowing, but because training and racing pressure naturally pushes them toward one side.

In rowing, exploiting is where consistency lives. It’s locking in a race plan you trust, reinforcing technical patterns that already move the boat well, and repeating training sessions that you know deliver results — or worse, assume deliver results.

It’s also about making decisions that favour reliability over potential. When a crew is in a good place, this is where you want to spend most of your time. It’s also, generally speaking, the easier option physically and mentally.

The problem is that if you only ever exploit, you eventually plateau. You get very good at what you already are, but you stop discovering what you could be. Growth slows, and for older rowers especially, it can stop altogether. That’s where exploration has to come in.

Exploration is uncomfortable by nature. It might be a different boat setup, a change in rhythm or structure during training pieces, or moving athletes around in the boat to see what happens — which, of course, can bring ego into play very quickly.

In short, it’s deliberately testing different technical or training approaches. Most of the time it won’t feel better straight away. In fact, it often feels worse. That’s why crews abandon it too early and don’t give it enough time to see real outcomes.

But the point of exploration isn’t immediate performance. It’s information. You’re trying to find out whether something has a higher ceiling than what you’re currently doing.

Where crews tend to get this wrong is timing.

Early in a season, there should be a strong exploration phase. This is when you can afford to test, adjust, and get things wrong. But many crews settle into “status quo” early just to get the season underway, and because most seasons start with head racing, it’s easy to become conservative without noticing.

As you move closer to competition, the balance should steadily shift toward exploitation — making the most of what you’ve already discovered. By the time you’re racing, you should be almost entirely in “make it work” mode rather than “try something new” mode.

What often happens instead is the opposite. Crews stay too conservative for too long, then panic and start changing things late when there’s no time left to properly evaluate anything. That’s not exploration — that’s disruption.

The same dilemma shows up in racing, especially for coxswains. Once you’re in a race, you’re constantly deciding whether to stick to the plan or respond to what’s unfolding around you.

Personally, I don’t love rigid plans. I prefer racing — working with the crew to respond in real time as the race develops. But even that still sits inside this framework: sticking to the plan is exploitation, reacting is exploration.

Good crews don’t randomly switch between the two. They operate with pre-agreed triggers so any deviation is controlled and intentional, not emotional.

Without that structure, races fall apart quickly. Crews chase moves too early, abandon rhythm too easily, or overreact to small shifts in speed. The better crews stay anchored, but flexible enough to respond when it actually matters — and that comes down to the coxswain having real race feel and being able to read the field.

There are a few common patterns that show up repeatedly. Some crews over-exploit mediocrity — they find something that is “good enough” and stop challenging it. Others over-explore, constantly tweaking without allowing anything to settle. Both limit performance, just in different ways.

The most effective programs are deliberate about this. They define what is fixed and what is open to change. They explore early and aggressively, then narrow focus as racing approaches. And importantly, they measure whether changes actually improve boat speed, not just whether they feel better.

At its core, this isn’t really a theory problem. It’s a discipline problem.

The best crews aren’t the ones who avoid change or chase it constantly. They’re the ones who know when to stop searching and when to start locking in.

And in rowing, that timing is often the difference between being competitive and being genuinely fast.

I challenge you to explore this concept.

The post The Explore vs Exploit Dilemma in Rowing first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

What often separates them has very little to do with the physical abilities of the athletes involved.

We obsess over the measurable things in rowing. Technique, split times, fitness, stroke rate. All of it matters. But group psychology research consistently finds that something else matters just as much as physical ability, and almost nobody talks about it. Something that does not show up on the erg printout or the cox box.

It is what happens inside the crew.

Cohesion is everything. But not in the way you think.

Researchers who study group performance define cohesion as the degree to which members engage positively with each other and stay committed to the group. Research has found that cohesive groups often function better. Cohesion matters. The evidence for this is strong. But the relationship is not linear and not guaranteed.

Here is the part that surprised me. Too much cohesion can actually hurt performance.

When a group becomes so focused on harmony that it stops thinking critically, members start withholding concerns, agreeing too easily, and stop challenging each other. Studies suggest the solution is to build cohesion around a shared commitment to the goal rather than personal relationships alone. A crew that likes each other can underperform. A crew committed to a common goal, even one with some friction in it, tends to make better decisions when it counts.

There are two types of conflict, and only one is a problem.

Research identifies two fundamentally different types of conflict in groups. Disagreements about ideas, strategy, and method can actually strengthen a group, but only when they are handled well. Personal tension between individuals is a different matter entirely. That needs to be dealt with quickly, quietly, and directly.

The fastest crews I have sat in were not conflict-free. They were just having the right kind of conflict.

As a coxswain, when a rower challenges your race plan or questions a call, your response matters more than you might think. If they are right and you shut it down, you have made the boat slower and told everyone else that speaking up is not worth the effort.

Can your crew actually speak up?

Group psychology researchers call it psychological safety: the shared belief that members can raise concerns and flag problems without fear of being dismissed or embarrassed. When it exists, you get honest, constructive challenge. When it is absent, people go quiet.

And quiet is not the same as agreement.

The coxswain is the primary architect of this environment. The way you respond when someone raises a concern, whether you make it safe to be honest or whether you make people feel foolish for trying, all of it either builds psychological safety or erodes it. I have coxed crews where rowers would rather struggle through a problem than tell me about it. That is on the coxswain, not the rower.

Shared mission is the most powerful tool you have.

Research consistently finds that when a team maintains a clear, mutually understood goal that everyone is genuinely committed to, internal differences matter less. Shared purpose suppresses friction. When everyone knows exactly what they are trying to achieve together, they stop looking at each other and start looking at the goal.

This is why your race plan is more than a tactical document. A crew that knows exactly what they are trying to execute together is a crew that stays together under pressure. The plan gives everyone the same north star. And you are the one holding it.

A final thought.

The fastest crew is not always the most talented. It is often the most cohesive, the most psychologically safe, the most committed to a common goal. These things are not accidents. They are built, session by session, through the environment the coxswain (and coaches) creates.

That is a significant responsibility. It is also a significant opportunity.

Most of your competitors are thinking about their technique and their fitness. Very few of them are thinking about this.

I cover this topic in depth in Volume 2 of The Coxswain’s Journey, alongside a range of other conversations about the psychology, technique, and hard realities of competitive rowing. You can find the book on Amazon. If you prefer to listen, we discuss topics like this regularly on The Coxswain’s Journey podcast, available on Spotify.

The post What Makes a Crew Fast? It’s Not What You Think. first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

In this episode, I’m joined again by Alan Crute from ⁠Rowing Regatta Form Guides and Chat⁠, along with expert rowing parent Kat Dunel, to preview the upcoming 2026 Victorian Head of the Schoolgirls’ Regatta taking place this weekend.

Around 2100 athletes will take to the Barwon River in Geelong for the biggest event on the Australian schoolgirl rowing calendar. We run through the Seniors, Inters and Juniors, breaking down the key crews and storylines to keep an eye out for.

Alan also gives us his tips for who might take home the wins. Over the past few seasons, he’s had a very high success rate picking the winners — although this year he might have a tougher job ahead of him with several divisions looking extremely tight.

If you’re heading down for the regatta, be sure to have a listen on the drive down the highway to Geelong this week and get across the crews to watch before racing begins.

The post 2026 Head of the Schoolgirls – Regatta Preview episode first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

Episode 5: Beyond the Finish — Celebrating, Learning & Recovering

Crossing the finish line isn’t the end of the Head of the Yarra — it’s the start of reflection, recovery, and celebration. In this final episode of Inside the Coxswain’s Mind, we look at what happens after the race and how to carry those lessons forward.

We cover:

• What to do immediately after the finish line
• How to debrief results constructively — win or lose
• Making notes and insights for next year’s race
• Recovery tips for both rowers and coxswains
• The social side of HOY — community, stories, and shared memories

A thoughtful wrap-up to the series, this episode celebrates the endurance, teamwork, and camaraderie that make Head of the Yarra one of rowing’s most memorable events.

The post Head of the Yarra: Inside the Coxswain’s Mind! – EP 5 first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

Episode 4: Regatta Day — Strategy, Timing, and Crew Mindset

Race day — the moment everything comes together. In this episode, we talk about how to manage the pressure, logistics, and mindset of Head of the Yarra day so your crew can perform at their best.

We cover:

• Arrival timing, rigging, and warm-up routines

• The coxswain’s role in setting the tone — calm leadership vs. fired-up motivation
• Managing the marshalling zone and maintaining composure
• Race tactics

This episode is packed with practical insights for both rowers and coxswains to stay composed, confident, and connected when it matters most.

The post Head of the Yarra: Inside the Coxswain’s Mind! – Ep 4 first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

Episode 2: Reading the River — The Course, Conditions & Steering

The Head of the Yarra course is unlike any other in Australia — 8 kilometres of winding bends, bridges, and heavy river traffic. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the course itself and what it takes to steer it well.

Again, join me and Jennifer Pollock from ⁠⁠Toowong Rowing Club⁠⁠, where in this episode we cover:

• The major bends and landmarks — and where races are often won or lost
• Steering strategies: training line vs. race line, and overtaking etiquette
• Environmental factors such as wind, current, and narrow sections
• Practical tips for crews who can’t train on the Yarra beforehand

Whether you’re racing HotY for the first time or returning to it again, this episode will help you visualise the course and prepare for the unique challenges of Melbourne’s iconic river race.

Also be sure to check out my Podcast episode: Head of the Yarra – The Coxswains Race.

The post Head of the Yarra: Inside the Coxswain’s Mind! – Ep 2 first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

Episode 1: Training for the Challenge — Building Your Crew for HotY

The Head of the Yarra isn’t just another regatta — it’s 8 kilometres of rhythm, teamwork, and endurance. In this episode, we break down how to prepare your crew for the challenge of Australia’s biggest head race.

Join me and Jennifer Pollock from Toowong Rowing Club, where we cover:

• Why HOTY demands a different training approach
• Crew selection and the importance of technical compatibility over raw power
• Key training sessions: steady-state, rate control, and long race pieces
• The coxswain’s role in building rhythm, trust, and confidence
• Balancing different experience levels within a crew

Whether you’re a rower, coach, or coxswain, this episode will give you practical strategies to get the most out of your HOY preparation.

Like my Podcast? Maybe buy me a coffee?

The post Head of the Yarra: Inside the Coxswain’s Mind! – Ep 1 first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

A recent study, “What do elite rowing coxswains say during races?” (link here), sheds some light on this. With the help of AI, I’ve summarised the key findings below.*

A few important caveats before diving in:

• The study looked specifically at elite-level coxswains, competing at the very top of the sport.
• The vast majority of us aren’t racing at that level; we’re club and masters rowers. That’s important context when thinking about how these findings might (or might not) apply.
• Also, when the article talks about “technical calls,” it doesn’t mean in-race coaching or correction. These are cues that keep athletes moving well and staying focused, not trying to fix faults mid-race — which can backfire if rowers start overthinking.

It’s also worth remembering that elite crews follow race plans down to the letter, which means there’s limited space for a cox to sprinkle in their own “magic.” But sometimes, great coxing demands breaking the script. As one Henley commentator brilliantly put it the other night:

“It’s time for the coxswain to ditch the race plan and find something else.”

That’s where the true artistry — and risk — lies. Just like the best “off-script” actors (think Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Marlon Brando), coxes sometimes have to improvise. When it works, it’s unforgettable.

Take Jasper Parish’s legendary move in the Boat Race a few years ago: he steered Cambridge into dead water to escape chop and wind — an audacious, off-plan gamble that not only gave his crew smoother water, but forced Oxford to respond. The result? They went from a third of a length down to a full length up, winning outright because of that single, fearless decision. Had it failed, he’d have been under serious scrutiny. But that’s the price of magic.

It’s a reminder that those truly special moments happen in the tactical calls — the gutsy, in-the-moment decisions that turn a race on its head. And for us in club or masters racing, it starts with knowing why you’re there. Are you racing to truly compete for the win? Then you have to learn how to race, and that only comes with — you guessed it — racing.

*Summary: Thematic Analysis of Elite Coxswain Race Communication

Researchers analysed eight elite coxswain race recordings from major international rowing events (2011–2022), all featuring coxed eights. The recordings averaged 6:11 minutes in length and included coxes from the UK, Australia, Canada, and the USA (5 male, 3 female). Of the 16 recordings initially found, eight were excluded due to duplication, poor audio, or incompleteness.

Types of Calls

Coxswains made an average of 32 calls per minute, with 94% directed at the entire crew, though some were targeted at individuals or sections of the boat.

• Technical Calls (40.4%)
  These focused mainly on internal body movements (e.g., “legs down”, “hands up”), with some holistic cues (e.g., “stay loose”, “rhythm”) and limited external focus cues (e.g., “blades in”). Most calls centred on the drive and catch phases of the stroke.
• Motivational Calls (38.6%)
  Included praise (e.g., “good rhythm”) and encouragement (e.g., “we’re walking”), often intensifying in the final minute. Some invoked shared history or emotional appeals (“last race”, “every erg for this moment”).
• Tactical Calls (21%)
  Used to initiate crew changes (“in two, in one… go”) and update on race position and boat metrics (e.g., “on 1:18”, “500m to go”, “still sitting on that bow ball”).

Delivery Style

Coxes delivered calls in sync with rowing stroke phases (catch, drive, finish, recovery). They often used:

• Tone variation (quiet to loud, increasing pitch),
• Repetition and elongation for emphasis,
• Dynamic phrasing to motivate or coordinate timing (e.g., “legs… loose”).

While most communication was positive, some coxes also chided rowers for technical corrections or motivational jolts.

Discussion Summary: Communication Patterns of Elite Coxswains

This exploratory study analysed what elite coxswains say during rowing races and how their communication aligns with existing research. The study identified three key content themes—technical, motivational, and tactical calls—and four delivery themes—direction, timing, tone, and chiding.

High Rate of Communication

Coxes made about 32 calls per minute, far exceeding the commentary rates seen in other sports like boxing or basketball. The constant stream of communication is likely due to rowing-specific factors such as long race duration, rowers facing away from the finish line, and the need to maintain rhythm and coordination.

Use of Technical Calls and Focus of Attention

• Most technical calls used internal focus (IF) cues (e.g., “legs down”), despite research suggesting external focus (EF) cues (e.g., “blades in”) generally lead to better performance, efficiency, and automaticity.
• However, rowing is a cyclic endurance sport, unlike many EF-based research contexts, which often study short, acyclic movements (e.g., golf, jumping).
• Holistic focus (HF) cues (e.g., “stay loose”) were also common and may help reduce conscious control, improving coordination under pressure.
• Calls mainly focused on the drive and catch phases, where most power is generated, though one cox emphasised the often-overlooked finish and recovery phases.

Motivational and Tactical Communication

• Motivational calls were frequent and vital, given rowers cannot see the course and rely on coxes for psychological and directional input.
• Tactical calls were used to prepare the crew for changes (e.g., “in two, in one… go”) and communicate race position or metrics, ensuring precise timing and synchronisation to avoid disruption to boat speed.

Delivery Techniques

• Coxes used timing-aligned cues, tailoring calls to specific phases of the stroke.
• Repetition of key words (e.g., “legs, legs, legs”) was common and supported by brain research as a learning aid.
• Tone modulation (quiet, loud, increasing, or elongated) served multiple purposes:
  • Quiet tones conveyed strategic info without alerting competitors.
  • Loud tones cut through noise and emphasised effort or changes.
  • Elongated or rising tones were used to increase stroke length or power.

This style of delivery has parallels with performance arts; the authors suggest drawing on dramatic training (e.g., pace, pitch control) in cox education, citing a case where a coach used techniques from RADA to enhance athlete communication.

Limitations and Future Directions

• The sample was limited to publicly available YouTube videos, potentially skewed towards winning races and high-quality performances.
• All races were from the coxed eight class, which may limit generalisability.
• Future research should examine:
  • Communication variations over race segments (e.g., 500m splits)
  • Differences between elite and novice coxes
  • Cox behaviour during training and pre/post-race scenarios
  • How cox and coach roles overlap or differ
  • Rowers’ perspectives on effective cox communication
• Retrospective interviews with coxes could also clarify the meaning of abbreviated or coded language used mid-race.

Conclusion Summary

This exploratory study offers valuable insight into the in-race communication of elite rowing coxswains. It found that elite coxes consistently deliver technical, motivational, and tactical calls, using deliberate direction, timing, tone, and occasionally chiding to influence crew performance. The research serves as a foundational step toward better understanding coxing communication and encourages reflection among coaches and coxswains. The findings also provide a useful basis for cox education programs and future research into this specialised and under-explored role in rowing.

So, what really makes a coxswain special? It’s not just the steady stream of technical cues or the well-timed words of encouragement. It’s the ability to read the race, trust their gut, and make bold, calculated calls when it matters most — even if that means tearing up the race plan. Because at the end of the day, anyone can steer a boat down the course, but it takes something more — instinct, courage, a spark of genius — to turn a good crew into a winning one. That’s the magic.

The post What does it take to be a truly special coxswain? first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.