RowingChat welcomes Graham Benton – the self-confessed “Erg Daddy”. Graham came to rowing via being a champion on the Concept2 and has multiple UK and World medals and world best times to his credit.
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Listen to RowingChat with Graham Benton on SoundCloud
Timestamps to the show
01:00 Introduction and background in rowing
03:00 Fastest erg time 5:42.5 nearly beating Matthew Pinsent
04:00 Getting recruited to Tideway Scullers under Bill Barry as a coach
10:00 World Class Start talent ID programme under Peter Shakespeare
15:00 Henley final losing by 3 feet. Graham has been in 3 HRR finals losing by a total of 10 feet.
18:00 I love rowing and winning. When you’re good at something it’s hard to walk away. A poison chalice.
19:00 Eddie Fletcher is my indoor rowing scientist coach. He makes me confident in what I do. It’s about layering speed on speed. Giving me the proof points that I can do it.
21:00 Training as an older athlete – less is more. In a race, the cox can talk over the demons in your head.
28:00 I’m working on now is using the rate more. My big scores were high 20s / low 30s. Now for 10k I work on 34-36 stroke rate.
31:00 The display I choose is the average meters to first / second place in a race [C2 race format]. I row a flat race profile, as simple as possible
34:00 My sprint technique on the C2
39:00 You may be surprised but I stop during a lot of training sessions, never in a race. I try to assess the value of what I’ve done.
44:00 Rowing with Bradley Wiggins
50:00 How to improve your erg score.
Watch RowingChat with Graham Benton on YouTube
