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How to get a body like an Olympic rower

Build the muscular legs, toned core and upper-body brawn of an Olympic rower with thehelp of Alex Wolf, head of strength and conditioning at GB Rowing

Alex Gregory, Pete Reed, Tom James and Andrew Triggs Hodge during the London 2012 coxless fourscomeptition Photo: AFP

By Mark Bailey

11:24AM BST 13 Oct 2014

The most authentic way to sculpt the Herculean physique of an Olympic rowing champion is tohaul your body out of bed at 6.30am seven days a week and complete 200-250km of rowing everyweek. Thats the punishing schedule adopted by British rowers Alex Gregory, Tom James, PeteReed and Andy Triggs-Hodge before winning gold in the coxless fours at London 2012. But ifprolonged exposure to soggy, early-morning misery sounds too traumatic, try copying the GBRowing teams indoor gym routine instead.

Britains Olympic rowers supplement their time in the boat with regular full-body workouts,incorporating weights, medicine balls and circuit training. Their focus is to pack on muscle in orderto turbo-charge their speed in the boat, and to strengthen their core muscles so they can transfer

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power more effectively during each stroke. The end result is world-class rowing times - and the sortof sculpted physique that makes girls giggle and blush.

Youre probably more interested in the latter, so here Alex Wolf, head of strength and conditioningat GB Rowing and the English Institute of Sport, reveals the exercises used by British rowers to getin shape and how you can train for the same results.

LESSON 1: BEFORE YOU GET BIG, GET ANGRY

When possible we like to optimise an athletes testosterone response and body temperature so theyget maximum results from their training in the gym. The body responds best to weight-trainingwhen your testosterone levels and body temperature are high. For some athletes that might be in theevening, but often they will have to start training at 7-7.30am so we try to manipulate those twofactors ourselves by using exercise primers before any gym session.

Before the athletes do any lifts we get them to do something aggressive like sprinting whiledragging a sled or slamming medicine balls into a wall. This helps to elevate aggression andhormone response. We also pay close attention to the temperature in the gym, which stays around22 degrees so it is never cold. The athletes might also wear leggings to keep their muscles warmbecause we know that as muscle temperature increases the power produced increases too.

For those athletes who struggle to make strength gains we might manipulate their training by doingworkouts at the end of the day, after the rowing training. This gives an athlete the longest possiblerecovery time before the next session so their body has more time to grow and adapt.

LESSON 2: POWER UP YOUR LEGS WITH SQUATS AND DEADLIFTS

There is a large body of research within the rowing community and from scientific articles whichdemonstrates that the legs are the primary component of the rowing stroke. One of the paperssuggested 46pc of the total contribution of the stroke comes through the legs, with 31pc from thearms and 23pc through the trunk. So we pay a lot of attention to increasing muscle mass andstrength in the legs.

We primarily work with squats and deadlifts as these are the two most effective exercises forstrength development. We supplement those with leg presses as well as dynamic jumps and heavysled work.

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LESSON 3: UPGRADE YOUR BENCH PRESS TO TONE UP YOUR CHEST

Upper body strength is very important in rowing. The athletes focus primarily on bench pulls,chin-ups, seated rows and bench presses. When doing bench presses some athletes will use aneoprene sleeve around each arm, called a Slingshot, which stretches and takes the load off the barthen recoils it back when you press the bar up again. This can also be achieved by doubling up 40-inch resistance bands around the elbows. It allows the athletes to handle bigger loads and teachesthem to go deeper during the exercise.

"For athletes who are looking to develop their upper-body strength further we might isolate theupper arms with bicep curls and triceps extensions.

LESSON 4: WRESTLE YOUR WAY TO ROCK-HARD ABS

The trunk area is so important for rowers because it helps to transfer force from the feet to thehands and into the oar. Training the trunk is the single biggest exposure prescribed by the strengthand conditioning team in terms of number of sessions per week because of its high importance. Themain thing during training is to protect the spine from injury so we like to keep the back very staticduring the exercises. That means we focus on planks, side planks or barbell roll-outs.

However, we like to add external pressure, for example by getting a partner to wrestle with themwhile they are holding a plank position, which disturbs their balance and makes for a moreeffective trunk exercise. Weve brought in wrestling coaches before and got the guys doing thatwhich went down very well. We have a former gymnast in the strength and conditioning team sowe like to introduce gymnastic elements too, such as flagpole exercises in which you hang off theside of a squat cage with your legs perpendicular to the floor.

LESSON 5: ALWAYS ADAPT YOUR TRAINING

A big thing for the rowers and other people in the gym is to ensure good variation. Manyathletes fall into a trap and find their training stagnates, especially in the winter when they could bein the gym 4-5 times a week, or lifting weights twice a day. At one training camp we did 20weights sessions in 17 days so variety is very important here.

"Its also important to adapt your training according to your schedule. For example, over winter the

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athletes will perform higher reps with lighter weights about 3-5 sets of 10-15 reps - in order tobuild up their training tolerance for later in the season. Closer to competition we will change this to4-8 sets of 3-6 reps instead so they can focus on quality training and lifting as heavy as they canwithout losing form.

LESSON 6: TAKE ON THE CIRCUIT OF DEATH

The routine that the mens teams dread the most is called The Circuit of Death. Basically itinvolves completing 15 different exercises, such as squats, jump squats, bench presses, bench pullsor any other compound exercises, in a circuit. For each exercise they do 10-15 reps using a loadthat is 50-60pc of the weight they would normally be able to lift for 5-6 reps. They repeat thatcircuit three times and perform that whole sequence three times, so there are nine circuits in total. Itcan take up to 1 hour and 15-20 minutes to do it and it is very hard.

"We do it at the beginning of the season and the guys dread it. For the next few days they walkaround like they have planks in their trousers because they cant move their legs.

Alex Wolf is the head of strength and conditioning at GB Rowing and theEnglish Institute of Sport.

For more information follow @AlexPWolf, @eis2win and @GBRowingTeam

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