Good morning all  

I thought would do my best to touch base with someone on the international level for a special Speed 5.  One of our avid users put me in touch with Bo Vestergaard.

 

  

Bo is head of training for the Danish Center of Rowing, providing workouts to the Danish rowing elite. - Bo’s work includes: developing targeted seasonal time- and training plans, tailored to the practitioner’s age and level, and developing detailed objectives, action plans and evaluations for / with individuals and teams Bo also teaches the understanding and use of sport psychology tools

  Simply put Bo trains that really fast dude Henrik Stephansen, you know the guy who broke 6:00 min as a lightweight!!!  You want to know what this guy is on he is on

http://www.rojabo.com/   Check it out and learn how to train like the Danes !!!  

   

I would like to thank Jakob Øjvind Nielsen for hooking us up. 

  Folks we can’t do this with out you.  So please feel free log on to the front/home www.rowingillustrated.com <http://www.rowingillustrated.com/> page and scroll to the “donate” button and just click to send your donation via PayPal.
If you wish to mail a donation please feel free to mail it to
Rowing Illustrated
Sean Wolf
16 Jay Street
Somerville MA 02144 Cheers Sean Wolf www.rowingillustrated.comWhere real rowers talk real rowing.    

Wolf  ”What workouts do you feel are the most essential for any training program, 
what are his favorites/most productive for the athletes power?”

  

BO- It is important that the athletes know the purpose of his training program – what he wants to achieve - because no training program is inherently good for everybody. A good training program is one that mixes large amounts of low training and a relatively small amount of high intensity - that’s how you get the different energy systems in the body to supplement each other. But exactly how you should mix intensities is entirely dependent on the goals of each individual athlete and on his or her fitness level. In Rojabo, we’ve developed a method for testing that level and planning your training program accordingly. You can read more about it at Rojabo.com.

  

Wolf- ”Rumor has it that the Danish lwts do higher intensity and power training 
more than the avg team, or more consistently throughout the year. Is this 
the case?”

  

BO-Yes. In Denmark all athletes even at the highest levels either study or work, so even though people try to adapt their work-hours to their training schedule, there is a culture of training shorter at higher intensity – especially in the winter - to make it all fit together. 

  

Wolf- ”What is Rojabo? And who are they, how did they get started w/ Danish 
Rowing, & what is their role now?”

BO- Rojabo is an online training scheduler for serious rowers founded last year by me, Bo Vestergaard, and my partner, Jakob Øjvind Nielsen.

  

Starting with the ‘who’ - I myself won seven WC medals, two of which were gold, and later on – as a coach – I’ve had different teams win both WC and Olympic medals. In the last eight years I’ve been developing and supplying training programs for the Danish National Team. Jakob Øjvind is also a former elite rower, who won a WC bronze medal under my training. Equally important, he is also a brilliant IT-developer.

  

The ‘what’ of Rojabo is a concept for developing individualized training programs using a set of testing procedures and a whole lot of math. This is the concept I’ve been developing and using in my work with the National Team, and it is the same concept which our customers can take advantage of. We currently support 25 Danish elite rowers with individual training programs. The goal, of course, is to create more WC and Olympic wins.

  

Wolf- ”There are a lot of very strong lwts in Denmark despite the country’s size. 
What contributes to the success of lwt rowing in Denmark more: The training 
program and coaches, or because rowing is viewed as a high profile sport 
and the best athletes want to row?”

  

BO- Good question! We’ve often asked ourselves what exactly is the key to the successes of Danish lwts. I like to think that the training makes a difference, of course. But there are also other important factors to be considered.

  

Denmark is a small country – really small – and Copenhagen is the only major city. Because of that, all national level athletes are easily persuaded to move to Copenhagen where not only the National Team but also most of the major educational institutions and many major employers are located. That way all members of the National Team can easily train together on a daily basis and it is easy for the trainers to follow their development closely, which really gives their development curve a boost.

  

Rowing is certainly not a very popular sport here – especially not in the open classes where recruitment is a real problem. But it is a respected sport in the sense that those that practice it take it very seriously and are admired for it.

 

WOLF- ”Do you feel Henrik Stephansen will break the 5:55 time in the next year ?”

  

BO-Henrik Stephansen has the potential to row 2000m at 5.55 – definitely. He is only 20, and if he remains uninjured and continues training optimally, it is not unlikely that he might break the time next winter.

  

Wolf- ”How many gold medals do you see the Danish team obtaining in the next 
Olympics and in what events?”

  

BO- Denmark’s focus is on getting an LM4-, an LM2x, and an LW2x to the 2012 Olympics. The target is two gold medals in the LM4 and LM2x as well as a medal in the LW2x.

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.