THE SPORT OF ROWING “So those guys were physically gifted! They targeted the right people, tall, strong, huge capacity . . . plus . . . they gave them a little assistance. It helped them recover and do a little more work. “They probably would have won without it. Whether it made a massive difference, we’ll never know.”5549 In 2000, Jürgen Grobler was presented an honorary Order of the British Empire for his contributions to British sport, all done without Stasi surveillance and without drugs. Training In the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, the greatest influence worldwide on the training of rowers had been Karl Adam.5550 He introduced weight training, centering on the Olympic lifts: squats, cleans and snatches, often done in sets of five repetitions at very heavy weights, and interval training on the water, with a favorite workout being six flat-out 560- meter bursts with three minutes or so rest in between. The GDR approach was the polar opposite to the Karl Adam approach. According to Canadian coach Fred Loek: “They didn’t invent anything new; they went back to the basics, and they understood that mileage makes champions.5551”5552 As an example, here is the typical training day for the British team under Jürgen Grobler in the run-up to the 2000 Olympics: Ross: “Beginning at 8 a.m., the crew rowed 20 kilometres. “The next stop would be the Leander gym. Each day, the squad would do circuits 5549 McLaren, personal conversation, 2008 5550 See Chapter 92. 5551 a Fairbairn expression. See Chapter 14. 5552 Qtd. by Macia, op. cit., p. 51 of seventeen different exercises. The exercises were: Bench pulls, 55 kilograms, 50 repetitions, to take no more than two minutes Sit-ups on incline, 10 kilograms, 20 repetitions Press-ups, 20 repetitions Knives (throwing feet and arms upwards), 20 repetitions Rowing on a box, 10 kilograms in each hand, 30 repetitions Dorsal rises, 15 kilograms, 15 repetitions Bench pulls, 45 kilograms, 30 repetitions, to take no more than one minute Angels (lie face down, lift arm and opposite leg) 5 kilograms, 20 repetitions Angels (lie face down, lift other arm and leg) 5 kilograms, 20 repetitions Squat jumps, 30 repetitions Lateral pulls, 50 kilograms, 20 repetitions Leg curls, 30 kilograms, 20 repetitions Side bends, 45 kilograms, 20 repetitions Side bends, 45 kilograms, 20 repetitions, other side Step-ups, 50 kilograms, 10 repetitions Step-ups, 50 kilograms, 10 repetitions, other leg Expander,5553 30 quick strokes “The crew would do this fifteen-minute circuit four times. After the weights, the squad rowed 16 or 20 kilometres on the ergometer machines or another 16 kilometres on the water. “The day’s training was designed to get you to a point of extreme tiredness and keep you there for as long as possible. With a break for breakfast, the day’s training could take six hours. It was time on the treadmill: seven days a week, forty-nine weeks a year. That was all there was to it.”5554 5553 The ‘expander’ was a converted chest expander. One end was attached to a wall, a rowing handle attached to the other. The action – drawing the handle towards the body – was supposed to represent the finish of the rowing stroke. 5554 Ross, pp. 47-9 1526
