<p>To accommodate all the teams, some schools have some teams practice in the morning and other teams in the afternoon (before and after classes). But there is training year-round including winter intersession during which some teams (from the Northeast) travel to warmer climes for a week or so of outdoor practices. In addition to being on the water, there is cardiovascular and weight training. It's a tough sport but a gratifying one when everyone is in sync and the boat seems to fly.</p>
<p>An added bonus is that the crew teams tend to have very high gpa's and take academics seriously. I think it must be catching.</p>
<p>Ditto the posts that you need to be tall with long powerful legs. You need to be able to rise at 5 am throughout the whole year for a two to three hour workout on the water, the often quite chilly water. You need to be able to do very strenuous workouts--a high lung/oxygen capacity helps. You also must be willing to give up many vacations. </p>
<p>If you think it is a fit, buy yourself a Concept II indoor rowing machine--or find one at a gym. <a href="http://www.concept2.com%5B/url%5D">www.concept2.com</a> It has a computer readout that will give you an idea of your ERG capacity.</p>
<p>That is what I recall......rowing like a fiend on the Erg and then hang over the fence during training.....if that is for you then you are a crew man.</p>
<p>DH also rowed at MIT for a while w/no previous experience.</p>
<p>How does women's crew compare to all this? I'd be interested in participating in college, but Texas isn't exactly the rowing capital of America.</p>
<p>Edited to say: TX is where I live currently, not where I plan to go to school.</p>
<p>ampersand</p>
<p>You'd be surprised to know how strong the rowing programs in Texas are and how much the sport is growing in Texas. The Heart of Texas regatta in Austin each spring draws the top in state high school programs and has been adding out of state programs as well. It is a two day event that features high school rowers one day and many college teams from around the country the second day. Austin has two of the premier "public" (non school afilliated) programs in the state (Austin Rowing Club and Row Dock) and many of the private schools have long rowing traditions with other schools quickly adding programs.</p>
<p>There are two types of rowing. The first is "sculling" in which the rower has two oars and competes in either single sculls, doubles or quads. The other type is "sweeps" in which each rower has only one oar and rows in tandem with seven others in an 8 man scull, each person rowing on only one side of the scull. Texas junior level rowing (high school) is only sculling. Many colleges like this because sweeps rowing builds up muscles on one side of the body and a right side rower always is a right side rower, left side is a left side for the most part. With someone coming from a sculling program they can go either way and also seem to be less prone to back problems.</p>
<p>Where do you live? In addition to the Austin clubs there is a club in the Woodlands as well as the Dallas Rowing Club which are open clubs for non school affiliated rowers. </p>
<p>My son's school in the past few years has sent five rowers to Penn, one to Princeton,Yale, Harvard and Cornell. Had my son acccepted his admission to Yale he probably would have rowed there as well. Several other local schools have had great success as well placing both men and women in college rowing programs.</p>
<p>Do a google search for Heart of Texas Regatta and you can probaly find more information about the various clubs in Texas.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, eadad! I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and am googling the resources you mentioned right now.</p>
<p>Private school programs in the area include St. Mark's, Hockaday, Ursuline, Jesuit. Episcopal School of Dallas, and Greenhill. St. Mark's has in the past sponsored a trip to the US Rowing Center in Augusta Georgia in the summer and over spring break though I don't they did so last year. The Dallas Rowing Club rows at White Rock Lake and its website is:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dallasrowingclub.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.dallasrowingclub.org/</a></p>
<p>If you have any other questions you can PM me. We've been involved with crew in Dallas for the past 4 or 5 years.</p>
<p>Chun rich - there are crew clubs all over Maryland - one of our S rows and he got his start at the Navy summer camps....you may want to call up the Naval Academy and see if there is any rowing near your neck of the woods - usually, rowing season begins in the early spring and most clubs are very open to newcomers...do some homework and sleuthing, you might be surprised at what you find nearby.</p>
<p>Just to clear up a few slight inaccuracies. MIT crew is likely to be much less competitive than the Ivies and if the website suggests that no experience is necessary then believe them. Men's crew is a NCAA sport although the number of D1 programs for men is far less than D1 women's programs. Getting on an erg, or even worse buying an erg, before trying actual on the water rowing will be pointless and may be harmful. While "erging" is a great way to get a workout, using it as an initial measure of your fitness for rowing doesn't make sense. Just like any athletic pursuit, practice and repetition influence performance on the water and on the erg. Starting out on the erg without good instruction can lead to poor rowing technique which may be hard to undo later. Many rowers hate the erg so it is not always a good introduction to the sport. Craftsbury in Vermont is a great place to go to learn sculling (two oars), but in college most rowers row sweep (one oar). There are rowing clubs throughout the country and you can learn to row at many of them. While height certainly helps, you can row competitively at many schools if you are average height and if you have good physical endurance, strength and a committment to the sport.</p>
<p>I should second mol10e's warning about learning technique before erging. I've coxed reunion boats that had guys who had erged but had never rowed. Trying to explain the physics of pushing laterally to keep the oar's collar against the oarlock while pulling and pushing to work the oar throughout the stroke is a tough concept to learn. Plus, you can hurt your back if you haven't learned how to use your legs correctly during the drive (pulling the oar through the water).</p>
<p>Mol and Little Mom - you both sound like you know alot about the sport so perhaps you can suggest to me othe great summer crew programs for high schoolers.</p>
<p>Many of the summer programs are for experienced rowers to refine their skills. If you are just starting out these camps are not for you. Rowing correctly takes some time and the instruction you get at almost any rowing club in your area will be just fine for a novice rower. Learning sculling at a place like Craftsbury rowing center in Vermont will get you experience on the water that will help you decide whether you want to pursue the sport further. If you are thinking crew in college, especially at a competitive D1 program (i.e. Ivies), you really have to be committed to the sport. There is an old saying that in college you have academics, a social life and a sport like crew. You can do two of the three but not all three.</p>
<p>In the Greater Boston area, Community Rowing, Inc. (CRI) <a href="http://www.communityrowing.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.communityrowing.org/</a> offers programs for both adults and youths. Some college and universities, such as BU, also offer programs to folks from outside the school <a href="http://www.bu.edu/fitrec/programs/outdoor/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bu.edu/fitrec/programs/outdoor/index.html</a>.</p>
<p>"Men's crew is a NCAA sport although the number of D1 programs for men is far less than D1 women's programs."</p>
<p>Nope. Go to <a href="http://ncaasports.com%5B/url%5D">http://ncaasports.com</a> and click on the Sports Index tabs for Men's Sports and Women's Sports to see where rowing is listed (and not listed).</p>
<p>Colleges are using women's rowing in part to balance out scholarships given in the men's sports to help meet Title IX requirements. So scholarship chances for women rowers are much better than for men.</p>
<p>Good points about form versus erg training. However, I thought back to walk-on tryouts I'd heard about. Form was WAY down the list as the coaches weeded several hundred potentials. </p>
<p>As I remember, the first thing they did was run/sprint 10 miles. Then the coaches had them jump on erg machines. The fittest were invited to continue. The others went home. Some balked as soon as they heard about the year round 5 am practice.</p>
<p>I do know one Stanford rower who was a walk on.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how many extra bodies there are these days for tryouts where coaches can afford to exclude large numbers of rowers. IN some schools they have trouble filling all the seats in the men's boats. I agree with the sense that coaches look for fitness, height and strength before form, but from the rowers perspective learning how to row before being forced to row can save a lot of wear and tear on the body.</p>
<p>To clear up a few things mol10e said about crew,</p>
<p>MIT is actually one of the few universities that is on par or nearly so with the ivies. It is not "much less competitive than the ivies". All college crew programs, including the ivies and including MIT, will take walk-ons and this is a common occurence. Some of the best collegiate rowers never rowed before college. </p>
<p>Men's crew is NOT an NCAA sport. Women's crew is, however.</p>
<p>I agree with the point that you should not erg without knowing the proper rowing technique, which can be hard to learn and is extremely difficult to master. However, i would definitely recommend erging after picking up the basic technique, maybe from a rowing club in your area. Most college coaches will look extremely favorably on those who pull hard on the erg--teaching the intricacies of the technique can come after. They view most potential rowers as, if they can go fast on the erg, they can teach them to go fast on the water.</p>
<p>And i would say that i would probably not recommend craftsbury sculling camps as an introduction to rowing. In my experience, rowers learn to row sweep first before learning the more complicated technique involved in sculling. I've heard good things about the camp though, seems like a great place.</p>
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In my experience, rowers learn to row sweep first before learning the more complicated technique involved in sculling.
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<p>I'm not so sure about that. I scull and have no experience at all sweeping, yet I am being recruited to sweep in college. The coaches that are recruiting me are all saying the same thing: that they are actively looking for scullers and that they like to recruit scullers because scullers have better balance and technique and they can teach a sculler to sweep where they can't always teach a sweeper to scull.</p>