Test Results!

Thursday saw the girls’ teams go through their second battery of testing to see what progress has been made thus far in our winter training season. I will go through the boys this afternoon, but given that I will be headed out on the road straight afterward, I did not want to wait to update you on the exciting progress, which I am confident will also be reflected in the boys’ results.

As you all know, December’s focus has been purely about strength work. Weight lifting and erging at very high resistance levels. We measured strength as a an absolute power output (Watts test) and as a function of 1’ sustained strength test (1’ Test). Picture shot put and 400 yard dash.

The watts test has the rowers simply do a “power 10” and see what the highest output they can achieve on a single pull, measured in watts. I had hoped that the rowers would improve in the 15 – 20 watt range and was thrilled and impressed when they blew that apart with Team Vesper averaging a 30 watt improvement and Team Bayer an outstanding 35 watt average improvement.

The changes in the 1’ test are more subtle, but just as important. A rower’s score is measured as a function of speed… how long it would take to row 500m at the current effort (referred to as their “split”). Each 1 second drop in their average split, theoretically relates to 4 seconds dropped in a 2000m test (though of course stamina and mental toughness play their parts then too). I was hoping for an average drop of 1 second in the girls’ splits and was thrilled when Team Vesper doubled that with an average drop of 2 seconds and team Bayer and astonishing 6 seconds!

It is important to keep the following in consideration:

These strength tests greatly favor the big and the tall.

Don’t read too much into one test, the trend through January and February is more important.

Some rowers were struggling with a cold and as such not able to perform to their best.

It is much easier for rowers with low to average scores to show improvement than those who already had outstanding results, as I discussed with one parent already, once a rower is performing at a high level we look for improvements that are incremental – not monumental, as I expect they will all be from here on in.

It was great to see that both teams made strides in their average body fat%, with Team Vesper dropping an average 2.5% (which is an 11.25% realized improvement!)

These results are extremely encouraging and a testament to a lot of hard work. Just as important as the actual improvements in strength, these results also point to a lot of athletes learning how to push themselves harder – how to dig deep into their inner resolve and to discover just what they are capable of. The latter, perhaps, more important than the former.

Here are the test results, check the bottom tab for your athlete's team.

I hope to update the boys' results on Saturday.

Rowers who were not present for testing were marked as unchanged so as not to skew averages.

It is not helpful to compare or contrast your athlete's results with anyone else's rather than their own. Differences in size, shape, experience, attendance and current health play enormous factors into these figures.