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Finally we draw to a close with the final two chapters on Running the Course and After the Event is over, an after word and a list of skills drills and exercises.

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We get to the end of chapter 3 with sections on Publicity and promotion, the training plan for the course and foul-weather alternative training plans.

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Mark Earnshaw coach to the GB mens 4x and 2x Bronze medallists from the last Olympiad has been picked by UK Sport for an accelerated learning programme for 'domestic coaching excellence'.

The ARA announced it this week.

The two year accelerated Apprenticeship Programme will build on the knowledge and experience gained to create a bespoke development pathway towards coaching excellence for each participant, based on the needs of each coach and their sport.

Tim Foster and Nick Strange were in the first intake of the earlier Elite Coach programme - Nick still coached U23s in the GB System but Tim is head coach of Switzerland - and so lost to the UK, hopefully temporarily.

The 12 Apprentices will benefit from ‘on the job’ training by working alongside a ‘Master Coach’ from within their sport while also having access to a Mentor.  This will be complimented by a workshop programme, delivered by experts in coaching, non-technical coaching skills, sport science and sports medicine.

Rowperfect salutes the addition of mentoring to the programme, because that can be a great way to help put theory into practical training.  You might want to consider adding this to your club coaching programme.

But the mentor must be a fabulous teacher in their own right and with the right balance of vision and humility such that they can step back and let the trainee make mistakes and deliver programmes in their own manner.  The trust of the senior coach to let the trainee into their personal knowledge-store of experience is vital.  Feeling unthreatened by the advances of a younger coach is also important otherwise the senior coach will stop or slow their participation and gift of knowledge.

Mark Earnshaw's Master Coach Mentor, Jurgen Grobler, is yet to be confirmed in this role.

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The Dreher Aero sculls are proving their worth with a couple of new developments

Veteran athletes racing in the Head of the Plym at the weekend in a double scull were the third fastest overall time of the whole event beating larger boats.  The increase in speed was put down to the Aero sculls that the crew has been testing.

Further, we have had news from Durham Boat who make Dreher sculls. This was written to Paul Thompson, Ade Roberts and Rosie Mayglothling of the British Rowing team who are also testing the Dreher Aeros for their athletes

We have done quite a lot of [Aero scull] testing with US and German National Team athletes.

The test was an efficiency test and we rowed 200m meters on wind protected water, only 30m wide and 500m long stretch. All tests were done in single sculls at a speed of 3.5m/s and at Stroke Rate of 36. Speed was recorded with both, GPS and SpeedCoach and the boat was up to full speed once at the 0m start line.

We measured the power that needed to be applied to the oarlock to maintain the speed using an oarlock mounted force measurement system.

So far we have done 237 test rows and we do see a clear tendency of the Aero scull to being more efficient, using about 1.5 to 2.5% less power for the same boat speed of 3.5m/s.

We are trying to collect more data.  Of course there were some athletes whose data stood out.  For example Manuela Lutze, German sculler, four time Olympian. Her rows showed improvements in speed of up to 4%, consistently in all 10 pieces she did after having just one 6k practice to get used to the sculls.

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This part deals with the sections on Different ways to teach beginners, Other facilities you'll need, People you'll need, Safety and Child protection.

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Ian Bernstein did some research into an Ergonomic Comparison of Rowing Machine Designs and possible implications for safety.

This has been published on the BJSM site.  You may have to register to read the article, but it's free to register.

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Congratulations to the five coaches selected by the UK rowing magazine to feature in the new "Ask the Coach " section of the British Rowing magazine.

Andrew Cawood of York City , Val Edwards of Runcorn RC , Oliver Laplanche, Ian Shore of Wales Rowing and Kerry Wardell are on hand to answer questions.  The ask you to email questions into magazine@britishrowing.org to take part and receive advice in an upcoming edition of Rowing & Regatta.

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More bits for the juicily large third chapter follow including Charging attendees, How to get the money in and Facilities.

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There's an interesting dicusssion on RSR about how to prevent your back opening up too early w hen training on a rowing machine.  Here is a great answer from A3aan

On a static erg there is slack at the catch; after sliding forward the handle moves a significant distance before you feel resistance. This encourages opening the back too soon. To avoid this, try using a Concept II with slides, or even better a RowPerfect erg.  On a static erg I try to solve this by reaching out as much as possible with hands an shoulders and not kicking too hard at the catch.

Furthermore I believe maintaining good back posture during the first phase of the stroke is not only technically hard, but very hard work as well. To be able to do it, and keep doing it right for a longer piece of rowing, you need strength and endurance in your corset musculature. Therefore I train my high/low/side abdominal muscles and back muscles after each erg workout. Also I throw in some stability exercises like pushups and sidehangs (hard to describe).

Caroline Tu replies with a nice practical exercise

one thing you could think about is that perhaps you are lifting your shoulders at the catch.  This in turn could be caused by dropping your hands as you come forward.  You probably don't do it in the boat, as you would see your blades "skying".

An exercise you could try is to work up the slide from frontstops - quarter slide, half slide, three quarter slide, full slide, using legs only and concentrating on keeping the hands level. Aim at a suitable point on the ergo - e.g. the top of the slot that the chain comes  through.   If you can do it with a mirror, so much the better. 

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Chapter 3, Planning and Preparation is the longest part of the book.  It is all about how to plan and prepare for running a learn to scull course.  And so I'll publish it in sections over the next few days.  I figure little-and-often will be easier on the brain.It has sections today on Dates, Formats and Budgeting your costs.

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