Why strength work earns its place in a gig rower's week

A Cornish pilot gig is a heavy boat — around 32 feet of timber, six rowers, a coxswain, and a stroke that asks you to shift all that mass from a near standstill every couple of seconds. Add sea state, wind and a race that can last anywhere from eight minutes to well over an hour, and you have a sport that rewards raw force production as much as it rewards technique and endurance.

Strength training is not about building bulk. It is about teaching your legs, trunk and back to produce more force, more reliably, so that the same effort moves the boat further. You do not need a gym membership or hours of spare time. Two focused sessions a week, slotted around your club outings, will make a genuine difference across a season.

Legs: the engine room of the stroke

The drive begins with the legs. Rowers who fade in the second half of a race are often not short of fitness — they are short of leg strength. These exercises build the pushing power you need to move a heavy boat off the catch.

• Back squat or front squat: Three to four sets of five to eight reps. Keep the chest tall and the heels down. Front squats encourage a more upright torso, which transfers neatly into the gig.
• Bulgarian split squat: Three sets of eight to ten reps per leg. Single-leg work exposes and corrects the side-to-side differences that nearly every rower develops.
• Romanian deadlift: Three sets of eight to ten reps. This loads the hamstrings and glutes through a hip hinge — exactly the pattern you use in the second half of the drive.
• Step-ups: Three sets of ten per leg onto a box around knee height. Add a dumbbell in each hand once bodyweight feels comfortable.

Keep rest generous, around 90 seconds to two minutes, so each set is about quality rather than grinding yourself into the ground.

Core: transferring power without leaking it

The core does not create the stroke — it connects it. If your trunk collapses at the finish, the force your legs generated never reaches the handle. Anti-rotation and anti-extension work is far more useful to a rower than endless sit-ups.

• Front plank: Three sets of 30 to 45 seconds. Squeeze the glutes, keep the ribs down, and end the set the moment your lower back starts to sag.
• Side plank: Three sets of 25 to 40 seconds each side. Directly relevant to the asymmetric load a single oar places on you.
• Dead bug: Three sets of eight to ten reps per side, moved slowly. Excellent for teaching the trunk to stay still while the limbs work.
• Suitcase carry: Three carries of 20 to 30 metres per side with a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell. Superb for the obliques and grip.

Back and pulling muscles: the finish and beyond

The finish is a blend of back, shoulders and arms. Training these muscles helps you hold a long, powerful stroke when conditions are lumpy and your legs are tiring.

• Bent-over row: Three sets of eight to ten reps. Keep the spine neutral and pull the elbows towards the hips rather than the shoulders.
• Pull-up or assisted pull-up: Three sets of four to eight reps. Nothing else trains the lats and upper back quite so directly.
• Seated cable row: Three sets of ten to twelve reps, pausing briefly with the handle at your chest.
• Face pull or band pull-apart: Two to three sets of twelve to fifteen reps. These keep the shoulders healthy against all the forward-drawn work you do on the water.

If you are new to lifting, start with bodyweight versions and add load only when the movement feels controlled from start to finish.

Fitting it around club training

Timing matters more than intensity. Heavy lower-body work leaves you sore and sluggish, so strength sessions are best placed after a water session or on a day with no rowing at all. Doing squats an hour before an outing will wreck your technique and teach you bad habits under fatigue.

A sensible week might look like this: a technical or steady outing on the water, a strength session the following day, a rest or mobility day, then another outing. Keep hard strength work at least 48 hours away from a race, and avoid heavy legs in the two days before a long coastal row.

In the winter, when the racing calendar is quiet, you can push the weights a little heavier and the reps a little lower. Through the season, maintain the same exercises but reduce the volume, aiming to stay strong rather than to keep climbing. Progress by adding a small amount of weight or an extra rep each week, and back off when you feel run down.

Staying mobile and recovering well

Rowing already loads the hips into deep flexion and rounds the thoracic spine, so your strength programme should open you up as much as it builds you up. Squat to full depth, hinge fully at the hips, and use a full range of motion on every press and pull — range of movement is maintained by training it, not only by stretching afterwards.

A ten-minute routine two or three times a week is plenty: hip flexor stretches, hamstring lengthening, thoracic rotations over a foam roller, and banded shoulder dislocates. Do it after training, when the tissues are warm.

Finally, respect recovery. Protein with each meal, decent sleep, and a clear gap between your hardest water sessions and your heaviest lifting will do more for your rowing than any single exercise. Build gradually, stay consistent, and the difference will show up where it counts — in the boat.