More on Weigh-Ins
About a month ago there was a bit of a row over a post on weigh-ins. The comments were passionate and well thought out. I made some comments myself, but a theme emerged which I thought valuable to pull out of the comments and onto the main page.
Several readers felt that the USRowing weigh-in protocol (competitors must weigh in not more than two hours before their race) is healthier and more just (is that the right word?) than the collegiate practice of weighing in the day before. I'll quote one of my readers who makes this case:
Collegiate lightweights are pampered in regards to their status as lightweights. They are able to go thru the whole year heavy, and only weigh in the day before the race. They then have 24 hours to binge, and replenish themselves to 5+ pounds above race weight. This makes them totally unprepared and unable to perform well when they race on weigh-in day, since they are not physiologically trained to race at the target weight.
USRowing has its own problems with weight limits (such as allowing athletes to take spring erg tests at 15 pounds over the international weight limit) but I think this reader has a point. If weighing in the day of a race ruins your whole day, you need to either reconsider if you really are a lightweight or else find some healthy eating habits and some discipline and stop yo-yoing your weight. (Some context here - lightweight yo-yoing is more like 5 pound swings, not the larger swings associated with the rest of the heavier world.) As my reader notes, single day diets aren't particularly healthy.
Given the way weigh-ins are conducted (although they may weigh in a lot, rowers infrequently have to actually make weight during the fall and winter) it's interesting to consider how erg score rankings would look if rowers had to make weight, stepping from the scale to the erg, every time they tested. What, after all, is the point of testing athletes at 135 or 132 pounds, when they have to race at 130? Or perhaps that's the point - they don't have to race at 130! Coaches will want to replicate race day conditions and if an athlete races a day after binging, a coach wants to see what they pull on the erg a day after binging.
I'm beginning to believe that collegiate weigh-ins should mirror USRowing weigh-ins. The point isn't to drive down the "effective weight" of a lightweight, it's simply to create a healthy, even playing field for all competitors. (By the way, this notion of "effective weight" is also an interesting topic which I'll take up in a later post.) To be sure, we're talking about pretty small weight changes here, but athletes who are worried about having to weigh in on race day are the same athletes whose performance would suffer as a result.
13 comments:
Some of us are weighed in 3-4 times a week. Some of us are natural because we never exceed 131.
SOME of rowers all, but most aren't. Some lightweights are natural, but a lot aren't.
are*
So what does that mean?
It means that some of us are naturally able to step from the scale to the erg without any trouble.
some of us are naturally a pound or so over and train carefully at 129 (and hope that we don't get our period race day)
Some of us are naturally 135+ and train as low as we can get it and then cut on race day. (or weigh-in day, if they are different)
The question is where the level playing field is. . Lightweight rowing is for those of us who are smaller than heavies to have a chance to show our relative power. If rowers have a chance to train way above weight, cut to make weigh in, then binge to recover and race at 135, it changes the definition of "smaller than heavies" to 135 rather than 130. Where does this put those of us who weigh in naturally at 125 or those of us who watch ourselves carefully to be 129 while we are training? Is this still our sport?
A natural lightweight rows lightweight because rowing is a sport which depends heavily on size, and the lightweight division offers a chance to judge herself against her peers.
What does it mean for a heavy lightweight to do the same thing?
I'm saying that not all lightweights are weighed in 3-4 times a week. I think that's just unneccessary. That's getting on the scale almost every day, and if you truly are a natural lightweight, you shouldn't need to weigh yourself or have your coach weigh you in almost every day. Plus, I don't see a problem with training at 132-133 a month before the race and lose 2 lbs a couple weeks before racing. Some lightweights need that comfort zone of 1-2 pounds... it's called "muscle weight."
It is true that a real lightweight need not weigh themselves on a daily basis, however, it is difficult at times for a coach to decide who is a lightweight and who isn't. One of the only ways for a coach to figure this out is to weigh rowers on a regular basis to see what the trend is in their weight.
If someone knew they were weighing in a certain day every week, they could easily cut weight that day without sacrificing their performane. Weighing in everyday forces a heavy lightweight to either be over the weight limit or perform poorly because they are sucking weight. Although all this weighing does seem unnessacary, it is one of the few ways a coach can get a real feel for who is light and who is not.
If you are going to be weighing-in the day before the race, or in some cases 2-3 days before a final, we may as well call it midweight rowing. The point of lightweight rowing is to have people who are really lightweights (130 lbs or less) race each other. If there are rowers who weigh 135+ for most of the year, they are not lightweights, and it is unsafe for these rowers to attempt to make weight, unless they take a month or more to lose that weight. Havin weigh-ins on race day makes it so that the natural lightweights are the ones who will be safe, healthy and perform better on race day, since they will not be cutting wieght to weigh-in. This should be a sport for people of smaller stature, not a sport for people who need to starve themselves the week before a race to be eligible.
exactly!
This is a real dilemma for our junior rower. She LOVES crew but she fears that there will not be a "place" for her once she leaves high school. She is "naturally" around 135 and she is short. (5'4") When we look at college teams, it looks heavyweight teams are looking for girls who are over 140 and over 5'9". What is a short girl to do? She would never in a million years consider being a coxswain. She falls right in that middle, in between range. But she doesn't want to give up rowing either; she's very, very good at it, and she loves it.
sounds like someone's gonna be a lightweight.... unless she has a killer 2k score.
except she's an openweight.
135 isn't openweight.
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