Fly #4: One percent to go for rower Kim Crow

I caught up with Olympic rower Kim Crow to discover a typical training week, and her most valued training in the lead up to the Olympics. Kim Crow, Beijing 2008 Olympian and World Championship medalist will represent Australia for the double scull in London this year. In the final stage of a four-year preparation program, she will typically complete 18 sessions a week that include rows of various intensities, ergos, weight lifting and Pilates.

“I’m naturally quite good with endurance work, but not overly strong”, she says. “I have made the biggest performance gains from heavy lifting in the gym”. While rowing places high demand on fitness, strength and stroke technique, athletes will also look to yoga, stretching and even dietary supplements like creatine as “one percenters” to improve performance. Depending on the boat class, a one percent speed increase can take three to five seconds off the two-kilometre race, the distance of all Olympic events. This is a sizable difference, given that most elite-level races will only be won by one or two seconds. 

One percenters are significant, but not at the expense of bulk training, explains Kim. “There’s no point being awesome at yoga and meticulous at stretching if you sacrifice bringing complete intent to the most important sessions. It’s very important to look at a week’s training and identify what the crucial sessions are, and ensure these are absolute quality.” While it often seems that athletes are driven solely to go fast and win medals, Kim points out that it’s not all about winning, “I love testing my boundaries, the feel of the boat that is running well, and the camaraderie of rowing. All these things motivate me to train better, and harder.” 

And a final word of advice for aspiring rowers?

“Intent in every stroke to improve. Concentrate. And sleep. Lots.”