How to start rowing as an adult and become competitive - the 5 stage plan

[@gregorymuller763]

I started rowing at 31 in a community based club devoted entirely to sweep rowing; sculling had no place in the program. I was, and am, a heart transplant recipient. As a heart transplant recipient, I knew that I would never be a competitive rower and that was not my goal. I simply wanted to be a competent rower in the 1X and use the sport for exercise and growth. I bought a boat and went to various sculling camps to learn the basics. With time I became proficient because I listed to people like you who generously offers training tips to both experts and beginners. I am grateful that I found Aram Training. It has been essential to my development as a rower. Thank you.

[@paulgross395]

My wife didn't start sculling until she was 58, and is still competing at the Head of the Charles at age 83!

[@beautyandthebody]

She's a legend!

[@Cardopaap]

Greetings from Estonia! It was very nice to hear that you praised our local athlete! I am a follower of your channel and have received a lot of good advice. I wish you success and all the best!

[@AramTraining]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@ranjmohd4256]

Aram, thank you so much for all those wonderful educational and inspiring videos!

[@AramTraining]

So nice of you

[@vmendoza7]

I needed this! Been struggling getting my life back from the job! My goal is to get back this video was inspiring

[@AramTraining]

I did this exactly for people like you! Thank you for your feedback!

[@jasonharryphotog]

I row more consciously now in my early 50’s look after your body, flexibility , train with weights smarter, now including more lower intensity training , now after one year I’m getting closer to my 30 year old PB’s , not in a rush at all but train with targets in mind , one minute currently at 355meters

[@GaryBoal]

Brilliant video.

[@nancykleck1221]

68 year old in month 2, love erging! Hope to compete in my age group in Feb of '25!

[@catherinerobbins35]

Best Video… EVER!!

[@GiselleNoAge]

I started rowing at age 55 as lightweight. One year later I won 30min int. German Masters Ergocup (still holding German record in agegroup lgw 55-59). Since then I won multiple times at World Masters and Euro Masters in 1x and 2x. Before I was a four time winner Mountainbike Marathon Euro Masters but started also late in this sport at age 45. Before this I was fencing for over twenty years and won Regional Masters in Bavaria, Germany - also starting late with age 22. I Wonder what would have happened If I hadn't been a late starter in all sports ... 🤣

[@MGROWING]

Another golden one 👍

[@AramTraining]

Thank you!

[@catherinerobbins35]

Aram, ty again for this video… my limitations on overhead deep squats seem to be shoulder immobility. I substituted regular squats… how can I increase shoulder mobility to get the overheads right?

[@AramTraining]

Catherine: have you tried strengthening the rotator cuffs?

[@Tsnor150]

Hi Subbed and like your focused content. My coaches and I have used your video analysis (thank you!) to help my sweeps rowing. For me this was a difficult video to watch even though I really wanted the content. 4 mins in we were still talking about why I should be interested. Trust me, if you clicked into this video you want the content. Even at 2x speed the first 4 mins were hard. Skip them. Then we talked about types of rowers. It was unclear whether this was the meat of the video or just more setup. Each section applied to only 1/4 of rowers, so most was not relevant to me and I had to jump around to find what I needed. If you had built 4 videos, each one targeting one of your 4 groups of people becoming competitive rowers, titled the videos correctly and spent 7 mins on each video without any intro it would have been much better for me. Same content, almost same script, but much more bite sized and consumable. ( example video title "How to start rowing as an adult athlete conditioned for another sport" or "How to start rowing as an average adult without rowing background", "How to start rowing again after 20 years" etc.). If you look at youtube's analytics you'll likely see people jumping around, skipping and replaying sections. Aside, as a rower, I like Dylan Johnson's endurance training cycling content a lot, but on his older videos you rapidly learn to jump 90 seconds into the video because the first part is just boilerplate about what he's going to cover then his race and coaching career. Once he actually starts its generally hard science with supporting studies (excellent and applies to rowing, running, ... ) and some humor (wish he'd skip this, but everyone is different). Eventually he got over the intros and his newer videos start right in with content. I don't know how much audience he lost in the early videos with people leaving less than 90 seconds into the video.

[@AramTraining]

Thank you for taking the time to write me this. I will take this seriously

[@jaap_vanekris]

Aram, practical point: it should be "life" instead in "live" in your thumbnail. Not the biggest error, but lets keep striving for perfection! Keep up the good work!

[@AramTraining]

Uhh. Bad typo. Thank you!