Question

River Rosewell is a professional rower who has just been accepted into the USA athlete in residence program at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. He has been team rowing since the age of 11. He attended Harvard University on a rowing scholarship is now 21 years old. He has spent the last year after graduation (graduated with a BS degree in Business) pursuing his dream of making it on to the USA rowing team for the single skulls event (heavyweight).
The typical length of a single skulls race is 2 kilometers. He rowed a practice event at the same course he is going to open the season at and had an average (average of two race runs) of 7.01 minutes. This placed him 12th out a field of 30 international qualifiers. This was good enough to qualify him for the actual rowing event event held 12 weeks later.
Assume that the “actual” race will be carried out under very similar weather conditions.
He has worked with a personal trainer for the last year, working on improving his basic strength, strength endurance, power and mobility, and is ready for more “sport specific training” as he approaches skulling circuit.   
Listed below are some of his current anthropometric and performance based characteristics

Physical Characteristics
Height 6”2
Weight 195lb
% Body Fat 11%
1RM Back Squat 330lb
1RM Power clean 260lb
1RM Bench press 280lb
Deadlift 450lb
CMVJ height (hands on hips) 27.0 inches
Can perform 20 bodyweight pull ups
Rowing ergometer, based incremental Vo2max 59ml.kg.min

Question: Design a battery of tests that will test Rivers strength, strength endurance, power, power endurance, anaerobic and aerobic capacity and sport specific preparedness for the upcoming rowing event. Please justify why such tests were selected and were they will be placed in relation to the training program.

Answer 1

Endurance training generally refers to training the aerobic system as opposed to the anaerobic system. The need for endurance in sports is often predicted as the need of cardiovascular and simple muscular endurance,but the issue of endurance is far more complex. Endurance can be divided into two categories including : general endurance and specific endurance. It can be shown that endurance in sport is closely tied to the execution of skill and technique. A well conditioned athlete can be defined as the athelete who executes his or her technique consistently and effectively with the least effort.

Endurance training is essential fro a variety of endurance sports. A notable example is distance running events with the required degree od endurance training increasing with race distance. Two other popular examples are cycling and competitive swimming. These three endurance sports are combined in triathon. Other sports fro which extensive amounts of endurance training arerequired include rowing and cross country skiing. Atheletes can also undergo endurance training when their sport may not necessarily be an endurance sport in the whole sense but may still demand some endurance. For instance aerobic endurance is necessary in racket sports,footwall,rgby,martial arts, basket ball and cricket. endurance excersice tends to be popular with non atheletes for the purpose of increasing genersl fitness or burning more calories to increase weight loss potential.

Long term endurance training induces many physiology adaptations both centrally and periphereally mediated. Central cardiovascular adaptations include decreased heart rate, increased stroke volume of the heart, increased blood plasma,without any major changes in red blood cell count which reduces blood viscocity and increased cardiac output as well as total mitochondrial volume in the muscle fibres used in the training. Mitochondria increase in both number and size and there are similar increases in myoglobin and oxidative enzymes. Adoptations of the peripherel include capillarization,that is an increase in the surface area that both the venous and arterial capilleries supply.This also increased heat dissipation during sternous excersice.The potential for negative health effects from long term, high volume endurance training have begun to emerge in the scentific literature in recent years. The known risks are primarily associated with training fro and participation in extreme endurance events, and effect the cardiovascular system through adverse structral remodelling of the heart and the associated arteries, with heart rhythm abnormilities perhaps being the most common resulting symptom. Endurance excersice can also reduce testosteone levels.