The Squat is one of the most important Functional Movements. Practicing squats daily, even if they’re just air squats with no weight, can prolong our ability to be independent beings as we grow old. Everyone wants to be able to sit down and stand up whether it’s to the couch or the porcelain throne.
Functional movements are movements that mimic motor recruitment patterns found in everyday life. They tend to be compound movements involving multiple joints. For regular people, that means sitting and standing or picking something up off the ground. Movements also known as squatting or deadlifting. At Renegade Rowing we learn, train, and continually develop functional movements because they develop the strength and power needed in the sport of rowing and life, but also because it would be impossible to live and row without them.
Daily Challenge 5/7:
Perform 10 Air Squats every two hours throughout the day.
Sit Ups are bad for your back? What? Yes, think of your back, especially your lumbar spine (low back), as a credit card. You can only bend that credit card forward and backward so many times before eventually it snaps. Sit Ups put excessive compressive loading on your spinal discs and can easily lead to disc bulge and disc herniation.
Rowers with no posture or core support end up bending from their lower back rather than pivoting from the hips, which leads to all the horror stories of slipped discs in rowing. Different coaches may or may not have you reach from the thoracic spine, but a common theme that any coach will agree with is keeping the lumbar region stiff, supported, and protected. Rowing is all about the legs after all!
That being said, without core stability it is impossible to transfer the force from your legs to the oar and move the boat at any type of speed. This idea of core stability and the ability to connect your feet to your hands through the core is a skill needed in life and fitness as well. There is no way to do an Olympic Lift like the Clean without having a solid core to work from.
From a leader in backs and biomechanics…
Daily Challenges for the Weekend!
5/4 – Complete 10 McGill Curl Ups.
Make sure to take at least three regular breaths on each curl up so that you’re not relying on your diaphragm and the inter-abdominal pressure created when you hold your breath. We want to work and strengthen our core stability. Share what you felt and think about the curl up!
5/5 – Complete 10 Bird Dogs.
Make sure to keep a neutral spine and continuously breathe. Imagine your back is a dinner table while you move through the bird dog. Don’t spill that home cooked meal on the floor! If it’s to easy try to draw squares with your hand and foot.
5/6 – Complete 10 Side Bridges (Hold for 10 seconds each side)
Ensure you keep the hip up and inline with your head and feet. Also, don’t break at the hip, you won’t be working those core muscles if you do. Instead think about gently pushing the hips forward and squeezing the glutes.
Be sure to share your experience with each of these in the comments section!
A firsthand athlete has the competence and confidence to rely on personal experiences to prepare for, execute, and learn from a performance both as an individual and as part of a team. Rowing is a unique sport in that there is no coach calling plays, talking you through the pre-race warm-up, or cueing you on that one technical or tactical fix during a race. The same goes for fitness, when an athlete is away on vacation there is no coach to walk them through a workout. When a rower shoves off the dock on race day or goes home for vacation it’s up to them to know what to do, what to think about, what to fix, and what to focus on. The firsthand athlete actively communicates with their body, teammates, and coaches to continually learn and work towards their goals.
Daily Challenge 5/1:
Perform a Cook’s Squat for 5 minutes.
Infants do cook's squats all the time!
This challenge is to give you a chance to experience what parts of your body might be tight, limited in range of motion, and need some extra focus in the coming weeks. To perform a cook’s squat imagine you are out in the woods camping. There is nothing to sit on but wet, muddy ground. To rest your body while cooking over a small fire the easiest thing to do is drop into a deep squat and try to relax all the muscles in your legs and back. Notice where you start to feel a stretch, an impingement, or pain. That might be an area to work on. If you can’t hold the Cook’s Squat for 5 minutes just hold it as long as you can and then come out of it.
Share your Firsthand Experience and let us know how it went!
Renegade Rowing is designed for athletes of all levels and backgrounds. Whether you are a junior girl training for the varsity crew team or an elite level triathlete, Renegade Rowing can be scaled accordingly to push your boundaries, intensity level, and capacity to do work. We focus on learning to move well first and then challenge each other through competition to reach our true potential. Here’s a great example of how Renegade Rowing can be scaled for any athlete willing to push themselves harder while having fun!
Today Renegade Rowing teamed up with CrossFit Boston to give the CrossFit Rowing community an idea of what the Rowing WOD for 3/28 looks like. Coach Pat held Monica and Alex to a 20 minute time cap instead of the prescribed 30 minute cap, but they still ended up crushing the first two levels of the Shuttle Run Pyramid. At the end of the workout they were certain they would have finished under 30 minutes had there been time.
Alex and Monica both shared some great feedback as to why they’ve decided to work on rowing. Post your reason for rowing and your time or levels attained to the comments and let us know if you have what it takes to conquer the pyramid in 30 minutes!
Renegade Rowing 