Each year I look forward to this time. The stillness of the water and the slight warmth of the early morning sun. It is the start of rowing season. Rowing is a good workout for your arms, legs and core, and can lead to a good cardio workout too!
The key to enjoying a good rowing season is pre-season strength and conditioning. Without this, you can be prone to certain injuries due to the flexibility and strength required during the rowing stroke. Several of these injuries can take a long time to heal, and therefore, greatly impact the amount of rowing and other activities that you can do. So it is important to be strong for rowing before you start.
The most common injuries encountered in rowing include:
Rib Stress Fractures: This occurs when excessive movement or force is put through a rib, causing it to weaken and eventually crack. It is proposed that this may be due to strong force put through the muscles of the thoracic spine during the stroke, and the overuse of the serratus anterior and the external oblique muscles due to repetitive bending. To reduce the risk of muscle overuse, you can decrease the layback at the end of the stroke. Also you may be able to change the boat set-up to reduce the length of the lever arm.
Shoulder Pain: This can be due to the stress placed on the tendons while your arms are straight out in front of you at the catch. If the muscles that control your shoulder blade are weak, this can put the shoulder in a bad position and cause pinching on the tendons and bursa around your shoulder. When you pull back through the stroke it is mostly the force of the scapula retractors around the shoulder blade that bring your arm back.
If these are weak it places a traction force on the shoulder joint, forcing the ligaments and joint capsule to stretch, and therefore be more prone to damage.
Low Back Injuries and Sacroiliac Joint Pain: These injuries often occur with the flexion and twisting motion that is required by the technique of rowing. Sculling is slightly better as there is no twisting involved.
Repetitive flexion of the spine can stretch the facet joints at the sides of the vertebrae, and puts pressure on the posterior portion of the intervertebral disc. It can also be due to weakness and fatigue of the erector spinae muscles. Factors that increase the chance of these injuries include rowing before age 16 and ergometer training longer than 30 minutes.
Patellofemoral Pain: Can be due to maltracking of the patella with knee flexion and extension, and tightness of the iliotibial band. With weakness of your gluteals, the iliotibial band can try to compensate and become tight, therefore pulling your patella towards the outside of your knee.
Prevention of this includes making sure toes are lined up with knees during the rowing stroke.
Overall prevention of these injuries includes having a biomechanical assessment completed by a physiotherapist, and commencement of a general conditioning program prior to rowing season. You should be strengthening your upper back and scapula region, your lower back and core, gluteals and quads. It is also important to stretch your lower back, quads and shoulders. Happy rowing, everyone, and have a good summer.
Kimberley Read is a physiotherapist at Spine and Sports North End in Vernon.
