Let me start by saying that I’m not a great fan of supplements, vitamins, performance-enhancing products or any of that stuff. Why? Simple. They cost money, and they can distract us from the job at hand: good old-fashioned hard work.

That being said, I’m also a fan of these products. Confused? Well, over the years I’ve tried all sorts of things in the hope of finding that little bit extra, only to discover, more often than not, that as an amateur athlete I might be disappearing down a rather expensive rabbit hole. It’s amazing how quickly we can convince ourselves that the next product is going to be the one that makes all the difference.

It’s probably worth pointing out that I’m not particularly interested in getting into arguments about what the science says, or reading another glowing article written by someone who happens to sell the product being promoted. You can generally find an opposing opinion if you look hard enough, and before long you’re left wondering who or what to believe. For me, personal experience and how a product actually makes me feel have always carried considerable weight. Of course, that brings us to the wonderful subject of the placebo effect, which I’ll come back to shortly.

A few products I’ve tried along the way

The idea for this article came from my recent experiment with bicarbonate of soda, but before we get to that, let’s look at a few of the other products I’ve tried over the years.

If I feel a cold coming on, the first thing I tend to reach for is vitamin C. I’m certainly not alone in that, although I generally only bother when I’m training for an event. Otherwise, I’ll let nature take its course and save myself the money. Does it make any difference? Honestly, I don’t think I’ve noticed much, if any, benefit. Yet I’ll probably continue taking it when I feel a cold coming on during a heavy training block, partly because it doesn’t cost a fortune and partly because, well, you never know. Perhaps that’s the placebo effect already at work!

Some years ago, I also tried a product called Modex. Now, there’s an interesting one, because I felt fantastic while using it. As a bonus, it also seemed to settle my IBS issues, which was a rather welcome side effect. I’ll spare you the details, but those who suffer from similar problems will understand why that got my attention!

There were two main drawbacks. The first, and probably the biggest, was the cost. It wasn’t cheap. The second was having to remember to take it religiously every morning, which is another challenge altogether. Would I use it again? Absolutely, if I could get it sponsored and didn’t have to fork out the money myself!

Then there’s magnesium. I suspect plenty of us have tried it at some point, and many swear by it. I found a particular powdered product that seemed to work well for me. After a hard race or a tough training session, I’d take a dose that evening and often feel pretty good the following day, at least as far as muscle soreness was concerned.

Of course, there’s a catch. The different products can be expensive, and not every preparation agrees with everyone. In my case, some of the cheaper supermarket tablets came with a rather unwelcome side effect, often arriving at around three o’clock in the morning. I have a perfectly good prune-dosing technique if that’s the result I’m after, thanks very much! The powdered product also tasted absolutely disgusting, and eventually that became another reason to give it a miss. So, for the moment, I’ll put up with a bit of muscle soreness rather than subject myself to that experience again.

And then we have beetroot. I gave that one a go about twenty years ago, having heard all about its potential benefits for athletic performance. The following day, I had a rather alarming experience in the toilet and became convinced that something had gone horribly wrong. That little episode eventually resulted in a camera being inserted where no camera should ever have to go. The good news was that everything was fine. The bad news? It was the beetroot!

So, as you can see, my history with supplements has been a mixed bag. Some seemed to work, others didn’t, and a few left me wondering why on earth I’d bothered in the first place.

Bicarbonate of soda: the miracle I thought I’d found

This brings me to my latest experiment, bicarbonate of soda.

I’d heard about its use as a performance aid, particularly in high-intensity exercise, and thought it might be worth investigating ahead of this year’s Triathlon World Championships. There was also an interesting historical connection that caught my attention. Percy Cerutty, the famous Australian athletics coach, had his athletes training in sand dunes, drawing on methods associated with the training of racehorses. The soft sand provided a demanding workout, helping to develop strength in the lower legs and place particular demands on the Achilles tendons. It got me thinking about how ideas and practices can cross over between different sports. Bicarbonate of soda has also been used in racehorses for some time, and knowing that gave me another reason to be interested in trying it myself. If it’s been part of the conversation in horse racing for years, I thought it was certainly worth exploring what it might do for me as an athlete.

I decided to give bicarbonate of soda a go. I understood that there could be some unpleasant physical side effects, but I thought that, with a sensible approach and some testing well before race day, it might be worth a try.

My first trial involved a relatively small dose of seven grams, which I considered a cautious starting point for someone of my size. I started with a spin-bike session, and, well, I’ll be damned! The difference seemed remarkable. My power output was noticeably higher, and the whole session felt easier. I thought I might have stumbled across a miracle.

Next came a swim session. Again, I thought I could see a difference, with my 100-metre splits improving by between three and six seconds. At this point, I was becoming rather excited. Had I finally found something that would give me that little extra edge?

There was, however, a small problem. My stomach wasn’t entirely happy. I say small, but that’s a relative term when you already have a history of stomach issues. What might be a minor inconvenience for someone else can be a rather different proposition for me.

The big question was whether I could run comfortably with my stomach feeling like that. The last thing I wanted was to discover halfway through a race that my gut had other plans. We’ve all seen how quickly gastrointestinal issues can ruin an otherwise good performance, and I certainly didn’t want to risk that at a major event.

So, after further testing on the bike and in the pool, it was time to try running.

My first run went well. Very well, in fact, even with a slightly unsettled stomach. I was encouraged and thought I might be onto something after all. Unfortunately, that was where the story began to change. On subsequent attempts, the benefits I’d thought I was experiencing disappeared. My stomach felt worse, I felt sluggish, and my second run was noticeably slower.

That was enough for me. Bicarbonate of soda will not be making its way into my race-day routine.

What did I actually learn?

Here’s the interesting part, and perhaps the most important lesson of this whole exercise.

Something rather obvious finally dawned on me. In fact, it was so obvious that I’m still wondering how I managed to miss it in the first place.

In the lead-up to a major race, I follow a fairly strict training program. I plan months ahead, work through the sessions, build my fitness and try to get myself into the best possible shape for race day. Every session has a purpose, and the improvements come from putting in the work over time.

Yet here I was, after months of consistent training, attributing some impressive performances to a dose of bicarbonate of soda.

Think about that for a moment. I’d spent months working hard to improve my fitness, and when I started producing better numbers and faster times, I was ready to credit a product I had only just introduced into my routine. Of course my power output and swimming times were improving. That was precisely what all those months of training were supposed to achieve!

I’m not saying bicarbonate of soda can’t help some athletes. It may well have a legitimate role in certain types of high-intensity exercise, and individual responses will differ. But in my case, how much of the improvement was actually due to the product, how much was the result of my training, and how much was simply expectation? I honestly don’t know.

And that’s the problem. When we introduce a new product at the same time as we’re getting fitter, it becomes very easy to confuse the two. We want to believe we’ve found an advantage, particularly when we’ve invested money and effort into trying it. Suddenly, every good session becomes evidence that the product works, while the bad sessions are conveniently explained away.

Perhaps I was so keen to find that extra edge that I wasn’t looking closely enough at what was actually happening.

My favourite supplement: the placebo effect

Which brings me to my favourite supplement of all: the placebo effect.

We know that our expectations can influence how we feel and perform. If we believe something is going to help us, that belief can affect our confidence, our perception of effort and the way we approach a session. That doesn’t mean every perceived improvement is imaginary, nor does it mean every supplement is useless. It simply means that what we believe and what actually causes an improvement aren’t always the same thing.

I suspect some athletes are more susceptible to this than others. Give one person a new product and they’ll swear it’s transformed their performance. Give the same product to someone else and they won’t notice a thing. Human nature is a funny business, particularly when we’re all looking for that little extra advantage over the competition.

And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to find something that makes training easier or helps us go faster? We spend hours training, we put ourselves through some pretty uncomfortable sessions, and we’re always looking for ways to improve. The idea that a simple product might give us an extra few per cent is certainly appealing.

But perhaps we sometimes spend too much time looking for that advantage in a tub, a tablet or a powder, when the real gains are coming from the training itself.

So, are supplements a waste of time and money?

My main takeaway from all of this is fairly simple. Don’t let the search for a shortcut distract you from the things that really matter. Consistent training, sensible programming, adequate recovery and getting yourself to the start line healthy are all fundamental to performance. No supplement can replace those things.

That doesn’t mean everything sold as a supplement is a waste of money, and it certainly doesn’t mean that no legal performance-enhancing products work. Some products have good evidence behind them for particular purposes, and some athletes may benefit from using them. The trick is understanding what you’re taking, whether it’s appropriate for you, and whether the benefits are worth the cost and potential side effects.

For amateur athletes like me, there’s another question worth asking: even if a product works, is the improvement meaningful enough to justify the expense and inconvenience? If you’re spending a small fortune chasing marginal gains, perhaps that money would be better spent elsewhere.

And before anyone thinks I’ve suddenly become a model of restraint, let me make one final confession.

I’ll probably keep experimenting with these products. Yes, I know, that makes me a bit of a hypocrite! But I’m curious; I enjoy trying to improve, and if I can find something that genuinely helps without causing other problems, I’m happy to give it a go. If a product also gives me the confidence to believe I can perform better, then perhaps there’s something to be said for that too.

I’ll just try to remember that the product isn’t doing the months of training for me.

As always, these are my personal experiences and opinions, not medical advice. I’m not a medical expert, and what works for me may not work for you. If you’re considering supplements or performance-enhancing products, do your research and speak to a qualified health professional where appropriate. Make sure anything you use is safe for you, permitted under the rules of your sport, and tested well before race day.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some training to do. That, at least, I know I can’t buy in a tub!

The post Supplements and Performance-Enhancing (Legal) Products: A Waste of Time and Money, or…? first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.

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.

Let’s be honest. If you asked most rowers whether they’d rather spend an hour on the water or thirty minutes on an erg, they’d choose the water every single time. That’s why we fell in love with rowing in the first place. There is something special about watching the sun rise, or the sun set, over a quiet river, feeling the boat run beneath you and hearing eight athletes moving together in perfect rhythm. Nothing will ever replace that feeling, and nor should it.

But if I asked you a different question — not about what you enjoy most, but about what will make you a better athlete — your answer might be different.

If your main training goal was to become fitter, stronger and ultimately make your crew faster, where would you get the biggest return on your training investment?

For many athletes, the answer isn’t on the water at all.

It’s sitting quietly in the corner of the shed, the back of your garage at home, or a crowded gym.

The erg has never had the romance, and definitely not the fun of rowing. No one puts a photo of themselves smiling on an erg on social media. It’s hard, repetitive, and, if we’re being honest, it can be mentally draining and stressful. Yet I would argue that few pieces of equipment have done more to improve rowing performance than the “terrifying” rowing machine.

Think about an average water session. You drive to the club, get changed, carry boats, wait for people to arrive, rig equipment, launch, stop to regroup, row, return to the shed, wash the boats and pack everything away. Before you know it, two or three hours have disappeared, including a lot of wasted time; well with the exception of maybe the post-row beer, of course (that’s a shout-out to my rowing mate, John Perry).

Now compare that with a quality erg session.

Within a few minutes you’re warming up. Thirty or forty minutes later you’ve completed a workout that has challenged your heart, lungs, brain and muscles from the first stroke to the last. Every minute has been productive. There has been no waiting, no interruptions and no wasted time. From a purely physiological point of view, it’s hard to think of another training session that offers such a high return on investment.

That’s not to say the erg replaces rowing. It never will. Rowing is a technical sport, and nothing develops boat feel, timing and crew rhythm like time on the water. But fitness and technique are two different things. Make no mistake, the fitter you become, the more effectively you can apply your technique, and that’s where the erg really comes into its own.

One of the biggest reasons is its ability to improve your aerobic capacity. If I had to choose one type of training that delivers the greatest improvement in fitness for most rowers, it would be structured erg intervals. They are demanding, uncomfortable, and certainly not everyone’s favourite session, but they work. Interval training allows you to spend time working close to your maximum aerobic capacity, challenging your cardiovascular system in a way that steady rowing just can’t. Over time your VO₂ max improves, your recovery becomes quicker and your ability to sustain power increases. Quite simply, you build a bigger, stronger engine.

And in rowing, bigger engines win races. Technique wins admiration. Fitness wins races. The best crews have both, but without a big engine it’s incredibly difficult to apply great technique when the pressure comes on.

What I also love about erg training is its honesty.

Out on the water there are countless variables. Wind, current, temperature, the crew you’re rowing with, the boat, the quality of the steering, and even the mood of the crew can influence how fast you go. Sometimes everything comes together, and the boat feels incredible. Other days it feels like you’re rowing through glue.

The erg removes almost all of those excuses.

The monitor doesn’t care if it’s raining outside. It doesn’t care whether you’ve had a stressful day at work or whether you only slept for five hours last night. It simply measures what you produce. Your split, your watts (which, in my opinion, remain one of the most undervalued statistics in rowing), your stroke rate, your heart rate and your distance are all there in black and white. Week after week, those numbers tell a story. If your average split is improving across a training block, you’re getting fitter. If you’re producing more power at the same heart rate, you’re becoming more efficient. The numbers don’t lie, and that’s one of the greatest strengths of erg training. Progress becomes measurable rather than something you simply hope is happening.

Another reason I love the erg is that it removes excuses. The river might be flooded. It might be blowing 40 km/h. It might be dark before you finish work. Your crew might have cancelled training. None of that matters. If you’ve got an erg, you can train. Consistency is one of the biggest predictors of improvement, and the erg makes consistency possible all year round.

There is another side to the erg that often gets overlooked, and that’s the mental side.

An erg session has no scenery to distract you. There is no boat running beneath you and no crew to carry you through a difficult patch. It’s just you, the flywheel and a monitor counting down every painful metre. There comes a point in every hard interval where your body starts negotiating with your mind. Slow down. Ease off. Skip the last repetition. Finish a minute early. We’ve all had those conversations with ourselves.

The athletes who continue pulling are developing something that extends well beyond fitness.

They’re developing resilience and mental toughness.

Every difficult interval becomes practice for race day. Every time you choose to keep going when everything hurts, you’re teaching yourself that discomfort doesn’t have to mean stopping. That’s a lesson you’ll use every time your crew reaches the final stages of a race, and everyone is searching for one more effort.

Perhaps the biggest thing rowers forget is that they’re never training just for themselves.

Every session you complete makes your crew stronger.

Every interval you finish gives your teammates another athlete they can trust and rely on.

When everyone in a crew commits to doing the hard work away from the river, something special starts to happen. Standards rise. Expectations rise. You don’t need to tell people you’ve been training because they can see it. They notice you’re still producing power when others are fading. They notice you’re recovering more quickly between pieces. They notice that you never seem to give up in the closing stages of a race.

Nothing earns respect within a crew quite like quietly doing the work when nobody else is watching.

I often think of erg training as making deposits into a bank account. Some deposits are small. Others are enormous. Some sessions feel fantastic, and others leave you questioning why you ever started rowing in the first place. But every quality session adds something to the account. You may not notice it tomorrow or even next week, but over the course of a season those deposits accumulate into a level of fitness, confidence and resilience that you simply can’t fake.

Come race day, you’re not hoping you’ll be fit enough.

You’re simply making a withdrawal.

So the next time you’re staring at an erg and wondering whether today’s session is really worth it, remember what you’re investing in. You’re investing in a bigger engine, a stronger mind, measurable improvement and, most importantly, a faster crew.

The erg may never become your favourite place to train, but if your goal is to become the best rower you can be, it just might be the smartest investment you’ll ever make.

“The river teaches technique. The erg builds the engine.”

If this article has convinced you that erg training deserves a bigger place in your program, I’ve created a free online Erg Coach that generates structured training sessions based on your experience, fitness, and goals. Whether you’re training for your first 1 or 2 km test or preparing for your next regatta, it’ll help you make every session count. Give it a try – CLICK HERE— it’s completely free.

The post Why Every Stroke on the Erg is an Investment in Your Crew 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 casual convo, I sit down with Mario Laing from Lake Eildon Rowing Club to have a chat about his commitment to 100 consecutive days of rowing training. We talk through why he started, what he’s learned along the way, and how the reality didn’t always match the expectations—especially on the tougher days.

A key theme that comes through is discipline. Not motivation, but the ability to keep turning up when the body is flat, the metrics aren’t improving, and the excitement has worn off. Mario shares what’s shifted for him physically and mentally, and how this block of consistent training is shaping his longer-term goals.

There’s plenty here for anyone thinking about consistency, building habits, or just getting through the days where training feels like a grind rather than a win.

For those of you who know me, I bang on about discipline constantly, and it’s only with discipline and motivation that you can achieve success, not with motivation alone.

The post 100 Days Straight – Discipline Over Motivation with Mario Laing 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 3: Fueling for Endurance — Diet & Hydration Before HotY

The Head of the Yarra is a long, demanding race — and how you fuel your body can make all the difference. In this episode, Jen, from ⁠Toowong Rowing Club⁠ , and I explore what to eat and drink in the lead-up to the 8km race so you can perform at your best on the day.

We cover:

• What your body needs for sustained endurance
• How to approach carb loading and maintain gut comfort in the lead up
• Fuelling strategies on race morning
• Smart hydration before and after racing
• Post-race recovery tips

Whether you’re racing HotY for the first time or fine-tuning your routine, this episode offers practical, tried-and-true advice to help you stay fuelled, focused, and ready for the river.

In addition, please take a moment to look over the following articles regarding heat stress and glycogen metabolism.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1440244007002095

https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/76/4/243/4851715

Key Safety Points for Masters Rowers – Best Practice

• Age and Heat Tolerance
  • Masters athletes typically have reduced sweat rates and slower circulatory responses, making them more vulnerable to heat strain than younger rowers.
  • Hydration and pacing become increasingly critical, especially in warm or humid conditions.
• Sources of Heat Stress
  • Two main drivers:
    1. Metabolic heat from muscle activity (especially during race starts and sustained efforts).
    2. Environmental heat (air temperature, sun, humidity, and radiation from water surface).
  • These act independently but combine to increase total strain.
• Core vs Skin Temperature
  • Core temperature rises mainly with exercise intensity (metabolic heat).
  • Skin temperature rises due to the environment (sun, humidity, low airflow).
  • Together they determine sweat rate and heat dissipation capacity.
• Sweat and Evaporation Limits
  • Effective cooling depends on both sweat production and the environment’s ability to evaporate it.
  • In humid or still conditions (e.g., windless regattas), sweat doesn’t evaporate efficiently—core temperature rises faster.
• Behavioural Regulation
  • In the real world (unlike lab studies), rowers can self-regulate by adjusting intensity, clothing, and hydration..
• Practical Implications for Masters Rowers
  • Pre-hydrate and cool before racing (cold drinks, shade, cooling towels if needed).
  • Avoid prolonged warm-ups in full sun.
  • Monitor sweat loss and body weight to gauge hydration needs.
  • Adjust stroke rate or intensity when heat load is high—performance drops rapidly once overheating begins, so needs to be considered.
  • Post-session cooling (hydrate and shade) aids recovery and reduces cumulative heat strain.

NOTE: This is not medical advice, our views are based on years of personal experience, we are not medical practitioners. If anyone has any concerns or require more in-depth information please consult a medical professional.

The post Head of the Yarra: Inside the Coxswain’s Mind! – Ep 3 first appeared on The Coxswains Journey.