Forecast Calls for Training: Sub-Freezing Temperatures and Icy Waters Have Prevented the Juniors From Practicing in the Elements, but Indoor Rowing Machines Are Keeping Them Fit.
By Chris Silva, Detroit Free Press
Feb. 18–The Detroit River is frozen. And the weather has been bitter, to say the least.
Not exactly ideal conditions for rowing.
But none of that seems to matter when you have an ergometer.
The Detroit Boat Club’s ergometer is an indoor rowing machine, and for the past few months, members of the Juniors girls program — comprised of rowers from Grosse Pointe South, Grosse Pointe North and Sterling Heights — have been training hard for the upcoming spring season.
“It’s been a rough winter season,” South senior Lauren Shook said. “We’re on a training plan. Some days are very long and we’ll be on the erg for an hour and a half. And it can get very boring and tedious, but that’s just getting you in shape. Other days we have a workout that’s more explosive, more intense. It’s very hard. I’m constantly sore.”
The erg is just part of the workout. It’s is a stationary machine with a flywheel mechanism and a computer attachment that measures how fast you’re rowing.
Shook calls the erg her “worst enemy.”
Junior girls coach Hans Doerr constantly reminds rowers to avoid letting the machine play games with their mind. Shook has seen plenty of rowers doubled over in pain, vomiting and passing out from the erg.
It’s an intense way to train.
“I find it harder than a treadmill,” South senior Clare Vandelinder said. “It doesn’t look like it would be hard, but it is.”
The rowers meet with Doerr five to six days a week at the Detroit Boat Club, just across the Bell Isle Bridge.
The team can spend up to two hours a day on the erg. When they’re not pouring out their guts on the machine, they do yoga once a week for balance and flexibility. Other days they use stability balls for core training, and four days a week they’re in the weight room.
The hard work has paid off for some.
Six rowers from South signed letters of intent for college next year. Shook and Caroline Sweeny are headed to the University of Virginia, Vandelinder is going to Michigan State University, Kathryn Switalski will row at the University of Minnesota, Clare Hubbard at Dayton and Taylor Dodson at the University of Michigan. Doerr also expects South senior Laura Kovacek to sign at MSU. Liz Kalina, who attends North, will row at Yale next year.
Doerr said they’re some of the hardest workers in the program.
“They are part of a very large class of seniors that started as freshmen and sort of grew up with the sport and have been a large part of our success,” Doerr said. “And that whole senior class is exceptional. There’s a lot of hard work. It’s a hit-or-miss sport as far as recruiting girls. But we had a great recruiting class.”
Now the girls are simply waiting for the river to thaw and for spring break, when the team will head to Tennessee to train.
“We’re all just excited,” Switalski said. “It’s when everyone gets to bond and it’s probably the most fun thing we do all year. So everyone’s just counting down the days.”
The Juniors program doesn’t compete against local high schools in the spring because they row as a club, not a varsity sport. So that means the Detroit Boat Club sends its programs all over the country to race nearly every weekend.
The teams have raced in Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Grand Rapids, Florida, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Chicago and New York.
“I just like going different places. It’s like a family with all the friends you make,” Vandelinder said. “Everyone gets along and you all hang out. And everyone pushes each other.”
They say it’s cross-country trips like those that make these frigid winters and indoor workouts bearable.
Contact CHRIS SILVA at 586-469-4923 or at csilva@freepress.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Detroit Free Press
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