Don’t Neglect Your Neurons

Ask a thousand rowers and a hundred coaches “what are you actually training when you’re rowing those endless miles” and the vast, overwhelming majority will stick to the consensus: that ours is a fitness-based sport, so we’re training muscles, heart, lungs etc. From people who have been in the sport longer, you may get more sophisticated terminology: cardiovascular, cardiorespiratory, anaerobic threshold, VO2 max, and so on. Talk to a sports physiologist and you’ll likely get a tour of the cellular level - mitochondria, hematocrit, phosphagen system, lactates, ATP, but it’s all increasingly sophisticated ways to get a more and more granular view of the “muscles, heart, and lungs” that our fitness-based consensus started with. The point that is perennially missed is this: the people at the pinnacle of our sport (or any other, for that matter) aren’t at the pinnacle of our sport only because they are incredibly fit. They also separate themselves from the rest of us by how finely tuned their nervous systems are for the activity at hand, and that did not happen by accident, either, any more than their high VO2 max, anaerobic threshold, or lactate tolerance did.

This, then, is what consensus coaching is sorely lacking and what is desperately needed to improve training and coaching methods. How do we go about deliberate neurological training? How do we overcome ignorant statements like “rhythm cannot be taught” or “grace cannot be learned” or “that guy’s never going to learn how to relax”? To start with, you stop ignoring its importance and you recognize that the Mirka Knapkovas and the Andrew Campbells of the world have something different going on in their nervous systems than the average sculler does. Next, you set about to figure out what that is and how to cultivate it in yourself, or in others as well if you’re a coach. Third, you place a high enough priority on it to devote direct attention to it in every outing, whether that is by setting aside time to work directly on managing the boat, oars, and yourself with greater precision and ease, by adapting what you are already doing to include a focus on these things, or by some other means. Whatever the systematic approach is, it must be mindful and deliberate. As Moshe Feldenkrais said, “that which we attend to improves. That which we perform mindlessly merely repeats.” Neurological training is the too-often overlooked frontier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXWo_PdwYg