After demolishing Team INEOS, 7-1 in the Prada Cup Challenger series, Luna Rossa’s James Spithill wasn’t gloating in the victory, he came across humble and focussed.
“No doubt going through real racing, I think we’ve taken a good step forward. But it’s not enough…”
Sharing this short article I came across, to inspire and challenge you with insights from the world’s very best competitors.
Original article published in the New Zealand Herald, 22 February 2021.
America’s Cup 2021: Luna Rossa co-helmsman Jimmy Spithill’s surprising claim ahead of Team New Zealand showdown.
Jimmy Spithill admits Luna Rossa have a lot of work to do before being able to compete with Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup match – a daunting task he equates to facing the All Blacks in a Rugby World Cup final.
The Luna Rossa co-helmsman was relatively understated in his celebrations following the Italian syndicate’s 7-1 demolition of Ineos Team UK last Sunday, perhaps looking ahead to his toughest challenge of his America’s Cup campaign in the shape of the defenders Team NZ.
Spithill was pleased with the progress made by his team – from middling challengers early in the Prada Cup round robins to a near sweep in the final – but says they’re still behind the defenders.
“No doubt going through real racing, I think we’ve taken a good step forward. But it’s not enough,” Spithill told NZME. “We’ve really got to utilise this time now between the match to try and bridge that gap. Because those guys (Team NZ), in my mind, are ahead at the moment.
“I think the whole package is very, very good. I think we’ve got a great package at the bottom end for the wind conditions, but we need to improve in the middle and upper end of the ranges.”
To do that, Spithill says he will be enlisting all the help he can get from his friends among the fallen challengers.
“We spoke to the American guys after racing them in the semifinals. I’ll definitely be touching base with Ben [Ainslie] and Giles [Scott]. We’ve got a lot of friends in Ineos Team UK; a lot of guys who worked with Oracle in the last couple of campaigns. We’ll be looking for knowledge and ways to grow stronger from here from amongst all the challengers.”
When asked how he’s going to wind up New Zealanders – like he did when Oracle came from behind to beat Team NZ in 2013 – Spithill laughed it off and simply spoke about the “privilege” of being able to challenge the Kiwis on home soil.
“I think they seem to do a really good job of that themselves,” he said in jest. “I’m just really honoured to get a shot at the best team in the world. To be able to race Team New Zealand on home waters, it’s a lot like a rugby player getting to go on the rugby field against the All Blacks at Eden Park at a Rugby World Cup final. What an incredible privilege that is.”
Spithill also made sure to pay tribute to his co-helmsman and partner in crime Francesco Bruni, who unlike the Australian, showed significantly more emotion after clinching the Prada Cup.
“I’m so proud of ‘Ceco’. What an incredible journey he’s had. I know that Sicilian blood, that energy has just been bubbling there waiting. Man he’s just done an amazing job. An incredible series he’s raced. I was really pumped that we could get it done.”
The two-time America’s Cup winner also praised the unique culture of the team, something he hopes will help them shock the world against the Kiwis next month.
“The Italian culture is really amazing. It’s a really big family type of culture: very passionate, very emotional, a lot of energy and very hard workers.
“One thing we’ve really worked on a lot is composure – just trying to sort of regulate, whether it’s been a good day or a bad day, we’re just trying to learn as much as we can.
“I’ve been so impressed with the team from where we’ve come from. We’ve developed a fantastic culture in the team. It’s something now we’ve got to put in to play over this next week or two.”
How to START hydrated and why that’s so important.
Sharing original article from Andy Blow, Precision Hydration. Medically reviewed by Dr Tamara Hew-Butler. Precision Hydration support our newsletter subscribers with 10% off all purchases, when you use the discount code; Faster10 at checkout. www.precisionhydration.com
The benefits of starting exercise hydrated
Much of the literature on hydration has focused on what athletes should drink during exercise, but your hydration status before you start exercising can have a huge impact upon your athletic performance…
When people talk about hydration, most of the time it’s about what and how much athletes should drink during exercise.
These are clearly important questions, but your performance is also massively influenced by how hydrated you are when you start exercising in the first place. Drinking a strong electrolyte drink to optimise your hydration status before long, hot or really hard training sessions and events can significantly improve your performance.
We call this “preloading” and the practice has been widely studied in the last 20 years or so, both with astronauts and athletes. Whilst there’s not a completely bullet proof consensus on the subject – there rarely is – there’s strong evidence that taking in additional sodium with fluids before you start sweating is effective in promoting increased acute fluid retention and in improving endurance performance, especially in the heat.
This blog aims to give you a more solid understanding of what you can do to arrive at the start of your next event optimally hydrated.
What are the benefits of preloading?
Once you begin sweating you’re generally going to be fighting a losing battle against fluid and electrolyte loss, so starting off properly hydrated can be extremely beneficial. When you’re properly hydrated you have a larger reservoir of fluid to draw from over time than if you’re dehydrated.
Starting well hydrated has other benefits too. Optimal hydration maximises your blood volume and this helps general cardiovascular function and your ability to dissipate the heat produced by your working muscles. This reduces fatigue and enables you to maintain your performance for longer.
Despite the relatively obvious benefits of starting exercise well hydrated, a recent study of over 400 amateur athletes showed that around 31% of them were turning up to training sessions (and, in some cases, competitions) dehydrated!
In amongst the data there were strong indications that this was very likely to be compromising their performance. This will probably seem like common sense, especially if you’ve ever tried exercising when you know you’re a bit ‘dry’. Who in their right mind would want to start exercising hard in a dehydrated state if they’re trying to perform at their best?
The problem with starting exercise dehydrated
This study certainly backs up previous work I’ve read on the subject and the kind of things we’ve seen over many years working with athletes in different scenarios. It’s certainly not uncommon to see people only really thinking about hydration once they turn up to a session rather than preparing in advance.
Often this just happens because those of us who are not full time athletes are running around flat out between workouts and aren’t always able to think about preparing properly for them 100% of the time. That’s just life.
But it can also be a problem for full-time athletes when training two or more times a day, or at times when they’re just under a very high total training load. That’s because uncorrected dehydration from a prior training session can make it’s presence felt when the next session gets underway. This blog addresses how to optimise your recovery by hydrating properly.
Although athletes turning up to training a bit low on fluids is relatively common, it’s generally less of an issue before major competitions. That’s not to say that turning up to an event dehydrated never happens, I’m sure it does.
The dangers of overdrinking and hyponatremia
But, because most athletes care a lot about their performance in big events, there’s a tendency to increase fluid intake before the big day because extra priority is placed on all aspects of last minute preparation.
The irony of this extra emphasis on pre-event hydration is that quite a lot of athletes can go from slightly under-drinking before training to significantly over-drinking pre-competition and this can lead to a different set of problems!
I’ve written about the common tendency to over-drink before races in the past and the bottom line is that it’s a very real problem that can potentially lead to hyponatremia (i.e. low blood sodium levels caused by inadequately replacing the sodium lost when sweating and further dilution by drinking plain water or weak sports drinks), something that can be pretty catastrophic for health and performance if it goes unchecked. A recent study found that 10% of athletes tested at the Ironman European Championships had hyponatremia, which shows you the extent to which hydration issues might be impacting performance.
The idea of carb loading – i.e. maximising the amount of glycogen you have stored in your muscles and liver before a strenuous activity – is one that’s well researched and essentially universally accepted as a performance-enhancing tactic.
OK, so sports scientists love to argue over exactly what and how much you should eat, and when exactly to shove it in your cake hole, but few sane athletes would argue with the principle that consuming additional carbohydrate calories (often combined with a tapering off in training load) in the final days before an event is a good idea.
That’s because you can store up and subsequently use a lot of this energy later on when you need to dig deep and burn through large amounts of fuel during a long or hard effort.
With hydration things are less clear cut than with carbs. As we’ve seen, many athletes do tend to increase fluid intake prior to important events or hard training sessions, with the vague notion that having more in the tank should result in better performance. But many unfortunately over do it in the process and this is harming their performance.
The importance of sodium for hydration
But, can you actually store fluid over and above being normally hydrated and, if so, does it help to do so?
The answer has a lot to do with not just how much water you drink, but with how much sodium you consume with that water as it’s this electrolyte that plays a key role in retention of fluid in the body and in the bloodstream in particular. For more on why sodium is crucial to staying hydrated and maintaining your performance, you may want to read this blog.
In a nutshell though, without the right amount of sodium in your pre-exercise drinks, drinking lots of water will do you a fat lot of good. The importance of sodium to hydration and maintaining your performance was further proven by research conducted at NASA at the end of the 20th century.
NASA astronauts hydration study
NASA’s astronauts were commonly found to be suffering with low blood pressure because they were losing bodily fluids (and therefore blood volume) during their time in microgravity. One NASA paper I read suggested that astronauts live with as much as a 3-4% deficit in total body fluid levels during a typical mission. It was causing them to feel weak, light headed and even to black out on re-entry or once they landed back on terra firma. That’s not something you want to be dealing with when you’re trying to land a rather expensive space craft!
To combat this, NASA tested lots of drinks containing different carbohydrates and electrolyte mixtures and found that the more sodium you put in a drink, the more effective the drink would be at being retained in the body and bloodstream and correcting dehydration.
On top of the work by NASA, there have been a number of scientific studies conducted into the idea of athletes ‘preloading’ with sodium and fluids prior to exercise in the last few years and the key findings from this work were summarised in a paper back in 2013.
This review article essentially came to the same conclusion as NASA that sodium preloading with a drink strong enough to stimulate fluid retention in the blood stream, but not so strong that it caused other knock on issues, does seem to improve endurance performance.
As I mentioned, a higher blood volume means an easier time for your cardiovascular system when you’re exercising and also a bigger reservoir of fluids available to ‘lose’ through sweating if you need to cool down, as is the case when working your muscles hard and producing lots of metabolic heat.
However, due to the mechanisms that control fluid and electrolyte balance in the body, any attempt to preload with plain water inevitably just leads to more trips to the bathroom as your body tries it’s best to avoid an excessive dilution of your blood sodium levels, which would lead to hyponatremia if unchecked.
How to preload effectively
It’s about striking a balance between being aggressive enough to drive some extra fluid retention in your blood stream without this leading to gastro-intestinal issues or excessive fluid build-up making you feel bloated and sluggish.
Typical sports drinks – which generally contain ~200 to 500mg of sodium per litre – simply don’t cut it when it comes to preloading as they’re just way too dilute to make a meaningful difference to blood volume. The reality is it’s not vastly different from drinking water.
At the other extreme, most of the scientific studies that have been conducted in this area have looked at using extremely strong electrolyte drinks containing ~3,600mg of sodium per litre. That’s like drinking a bag of saline solution that would normally be put into you via an IV! Whilst this has been shown to be highly effective at boosting blood plasma volume, it’s has a tendency to cause upset stomachs, sickness or diarrhoea – something that is obviously very counterproductive when you’re trying to improve your performance!
One study back in 2014 looked at the effectiveness of 4 drink concentrations – Water, 1,380mg/l, 2,750mg/l and 3,680mg/l – to compare the effect they had on blood volume pre-exercise v how much sickness and diarrhoea they caused.
The athletes drank a set amount (17ml per kg of body weight, so about 1.2l for an average sized 70kg athlete) of each of the drinks and the more sodium that was in it, the more blood volume was increased, as you’d expect. But with the strongest drink, 6 of the 8 athletes experienced diarrhoea compared with zero issues with the 1,380mg/l drink and plain water.
That paper was of real interest to me as at Precision Hydration we’d already been experimenting with different concentrations of drink to use for preloading. I’d had lots of GI problems when trying 3,000mg/l+ drinks, so was already using less strong stuff and I was still finding it beneficial, so it was good to get some scientific confirmation that we were on the right track.
In the end we settled on a strength of 1,500mg/l (32oz) for our preloading drinks and these are available in the all-natural PH 1500 drink mix format as well as low-calorie H2Pro Hydrate 1500 effervescent tablets. 1,500mg/l seemed to be the ‘sweet spot’ in that it’s very palatable and easy on the gut (we never get comments about stomach upsets from using it) whilst still being effective at boosting your blood plasma volumes and getting you optimally hydrated before you start sweating.
If you want to test whether preloading improves your performance, follow this protocol before your next long/intense training session or B-race.
Preloading with PH 1500:
Drink 1 x PH 1500 with ~500ml (16oz) of water the evening before your activity.
Drink 1 x PH 1500 with ~500ml (16oz) of water about 90 minutes before you start. Finish your drink at least 45 minutes before you start to give your body time to fully absorb what it needs and pee out any excess.
Drink the PH 1500 in water you’d have drank anyway to ensure you don’t overdo it. The circa symbol (~) before the fluid total is key here as different athletes will drink differing amounts – for example, more petite athletes might typically drink less than larger athletes. One size won’t fit all, so use some trial and error with these guidelines to help work towards what is best for you when preloading.
DON’T just drink lots of water in the build-up to a race. You can end up diluting your body’s sodium levels before you start, increasing the risk of hyponatremia.
Why you should preload
Boosting your blood plasma volume before intense exercise is a proven way to enhance your performance, especially in hot conditions.
Having more blood makes it easier for your cardiovascular system to meet the competing demands of cooling you down and delivering oxygen to your muscles.
PH 1500 is very effective at increasing your plasma volume as it contains 3x more sodium than a typical sports drink. That extra sodium helps to pull water into your bloodstream and keep it there. This may allow you to get away with drinking considerably less in shorter/harder events where previously they would have had to try to consume more on the move (not easy when you’re flat out!). It can also help reduce the amount of times you need to pee before you start.
Preloading with PH 1500 can also help you avoid/alleviate muscle cramps, especially if you’re prone to suffering from them late on in events and especially when it’s hot. 89% of athletes with cramp who try preloading PH 1500say that it solves their problems.
You can’t preload anywhere near as effectively with weaker sports drinks as you’ll lose a large proportion of the fluid as urine. Or it’ll slosh around in your stomach without being properly absorbed.
Precision Hydration support our newsletter subscribers with 10% off all purchases, when you use the discount code; Faster10 at checkout. www.precisionhydration.com
If you’re looking for a way to optimise your performance then testing sodium preloading is definitely worth a try. If you have any questions about how to preload effectively or need help optimising your approach, drop us an email.
Many of us are lucky enough to be able to train on the ergo during lockdown, yet often training indoors can be a hot and sweaty event. It’s especially important to make sure your hydrated appropriately. The following article from Abby Coleman, explains more about the importance of sodium in your hydration strategy.
I personally use Precision Hydration (PH) products, and PH are proud support Masters Rowers around the world, with their hydration needs. Use the code FASTER10 at checkout, to receive 10% off your purchase.
How are sodium and water balanced in the body?
By Abby Coleman Medically reviewed by Dr Raj Jutley. Original article can be found on the Precision Hydration website.
Our bodies enjoy balance and will strive for equilibrium to help ensure that our sodium and water levels remain at a constant level. Why link sodium and water together?
Well, the two are a double act (a bit like Ross and Rachel, Ant and Dec, the Chuckle Brothers, and any other legendary double-acts you can think of) in that water acts to hold the sodium ion in the body, so we must look at the two together when it comes to achieving the correct balance.
But how does the body go about finding that all-important balance? We take a look…
The balance happens in the kidneys with sensors from various parts of the body providing feedback with the end goal being preserving the plasma osmolality (saltiness) tightly between 275-300 mOsm/kg and sodium levels between 135-145 mEq/L. Osmolality, by the way, is how much of one substance is dissolved in another substance, and in humans the most important substance contributing to osmolality happens to be sodium.
When plasma volume or sodium concentration gets too high (osmolality increases)So, volume sensors in the heart, blood vessels, and kidneys detect when the body’s sodium or water levels get too high, and set in motion processes which lead to their greater excretion through the kidneys.
In contrast, when blood plasma volume or sodium concentration becomes too low (osmolality decreases), the sensors trigger processes which increase their reabsorption through the kidneys.
Both functions are actioned and regulated by the body’s endocrine system – a complex chemical messaging system made up of feedback loops of hormones.
Because osmolality is exquisitely sensitive to the volume changes, any alterations in water has important effects. Which brings us to water balance…
I personally use the Precision Hydration 1500 mix before and during training.
Water balance in the body
Humans are a soggy bunch and water makes up ~50 to 70% of our body mass, depending on our age, gender and body composition.
Water is obtained mostly through consumption but also via our internal metabolism (e.g. the breakdown of glycogen), and it’s lost in urine, the gastrointestinal tract, sweat, and through the respiratory tract during breathing.
Put simply, water balance is achieved by ensuring that the water we consume in food and drink is equal to that of excretion.
But what happens when we take on too little or too much water?
Too little water in the body
A decrease in total body water, perhaps due to not drinking enough, excessive urination, sweat production, blood loss, diarrhea or vomiting, pushes the body to find ways of conserving fluids.
Depending on the cause of water loss the body may need to conserve sodium as well.
For instance, blood loss from a trauma will see sodium (in blood) and water (in blood) lost in equal proportion, and the body must try to retain both. Whereas in dehydration you lose proportionately more water than sodium, so the osmolality of your plasma increases and the body must conserve water, but not sodium.
The hormone responsible for regulating the body’s retention of water is the antidiuretic hormone(ADH), also known as vasopressin.
ADH is secreted by the hypothalamus, a kind of regulator in the brain for many bodily systems in response to an increase in plasma osmolality, decreased blood volume, decreased blood pressure and/or stress. The hormone acts on the nephrons of the kidneys (which basically produce urine, and remove waste and excess substances from the blood) and facilitates greater reabsorption of water by dramatically increasing the water permeability of the cell walls (i.e. how much water those cell walls let through).
As a result, the passive movement (no energy required) of water out of the kidney back into the bloodstream is increased, and the urine produced is small in volume and concentrated.
What about thirst?
Whilst the kidneys can conserve water, they can’t do anything about producing more, so for that reason we must drink. Water intake is regulated by thirst; the stimulus for which, like ADH, is an increase in plasma osmolality (as little as 2-3% gives a strong desire to drink) or a decrease in blood volume.
The combined effect of water retention (thanks to our good friend ADH) AND increased water consumption leads to an increase in blood volume and subsequent restoration of fluid balance in the body.
By increasing blood volume, ADH also plays a role in reducing plasma osmolality (and therefore sodium concentration).
Too much water in the body
In a scenario where there is an increase in our total body water, plasma osmolality falls due to the relative decrease in sodium concentration.
So, under these conditions, water moves out of the extracellular fluid into the body cells to try and maintain balance, which causes them to expand.
Receptors within the cells respond to this swelling by signalling to the hypothalamus to slow down the secretion of ADH (‘stop conserving water, we have enough!’).
Less circulating ADH means less aquaporin-2 channels get inserted into the kidneys’ walls and there’s a reduction in the amount of water reabsorbed into the blood. With fewer channels available for removal, a greater volume of water moves undeterred through the kidneys and is subsequently excreted in the urine.
The outcome? A reduced blood plasma volume, an increase in plasma osmolality, and urine which is diluted and large in volume (aaah, sweet, sweet relief as fluid balance is restored again).
WAY too much water in the body
An excessive overconsumption of water can be hugely counterproductive and produce the potentially fatal medical complication of hyponatremia (low sodium concentration of the blood).
There are a few different causes of hyponatremia, but the one which affects athletes most frequently is the dilution of sodium levels driven by drinking TOO MUCH or ‘water intoxication’.
In an attempt to restore water balance, the body goes into overdrive pulling water out of the bloodstream and into the body cells, causing them to swell irrationally and damage or destroy cellular structure, thus disrupting normal cellular function. When this occurs in the brain cells the condition can escalate from confusion to seizures, coma or even death.
The risk of hyponatremia is in part why drinking to thirst is pretty sound advice during everyday life and shorter, less intense activities where you’re not sweating much – and also why listening to your body’s signals is important.
Sodium balance in the body
Sodium is the main substance dissolved in the body, so it mostly determines the osmolality of plasma.
Sodium plays a key role in every cell in the body, particularly nerve and muscle function where deficiencies or excesses become noticeable first, There are no body stores for so what you lose through the gut, sweat and urine, you must ingest – as simple as that.
Just like water, sodium balance is maintained very cleverly by the kidneys adjusting the amount of sodium it filters, reabsorbs and excretes depending on whether the body is in deficit or excess.
Too little sodium in the body
A depletion of sodium, such as through extreme sweating (particularly if a person’s sweat sodium concentration is high) and/or a chronically low sodium diet, gives rise to low plasma volume, which in turn leads to low blood pressures.
These low blood pressures throughout the cardiovascular system are recognised via baroreceptors (pressure sensors in the blood vessels which detect the pressure changes via changes in tension of the walls).
These cause a decrease in the fancily named ‘glomerular filtration rate’ (the volume of fluid filtered through the kidneys), which is key because the less fluid which passes through the kidneys means less opportunity for sodium to be lost through urinary excretion.
In addition, the fluid which is filtered by the kidney undergoes greater sodium reabsorption. The hormone responsible for regulating this sodium reabsorption is aldosterone, a steroid hormone secreted by the adrenal glands. The reabsorbed sodium is followed back into the blood by water and, as a result, blood volume, salt levels and blood pressure all rise.
It’s important to note that aldosterone’s release is regulated by the renin-angiotensin hormonal system (RAS) which is responsible for managing blood pressure, fluid and electrolyte balance, as well as vascular resistance.
In the event of sodium depletion, the kidneys produce renin, a peptide hormone that initiates a hormonal cascade that ultimately produces angiotensin II. It is angiotensin II which, once in the blood, stimulates:
thirst
the peripheral arteries to tighten and increase cardiac output, resulting in an increase in blood pressure
a decrease in glomerular filtration rate, resulting in water retention
the adrenal cortex to produce aldosterone.
Renin-Angiotensin System
Increased renin secretion (from kidneys)
Increased plasma renin concentration
Increased plasma angiotensin I concentration (from angiotensinogen)
With the Western diet, it’s not difficult to consume a little too much sodium these days. For centuries man was deficient hence he traded in salt but now the pendulum has swung the other way with hidden sodium in our diets. An excess of sodium in the body isn’t recognised by alterations in sodium concentration as you might think, but rather by the increase in plasma volume as a result of the increased sodium (remember where sodium goes water goes too).
The elevation in blood volume causes an increase in the tension in the receiving chambers of the heart (atria), which in turn initiates the release of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP); a hormone which is both produced and stored in the cells of the heart.
Once in circulation, ANP affects the kidney by increasing the glomerular filtration rate (the rate at which blood passes through the glomeruli in the kidneys) which induces profound natriuresis (increased sodium excretion) and diuresis (increased water excretion).
It also induces the dilation of the blood vessels to limit the rise in blood pressure and inhibits the secretion of aldosterone, by reducing renin production, thus actively preventing sodium reabsorption from occurring.
This is quite a meaty and complex topic area (congratulations if you made it this far in the blog), but what hopefully comes through loud and clear is that:
Sodium and water travel together and their ‘saltiness’ must be tightly regulated.
Their balance is ultimately in the kidney.
Feedback to the kidney is from ‘pressure and saltiness’ receptors in the heart, blood vessels, kidneys and brain.
Regulation is a finely balanced and complex interplay between several hormones depending on whether water or sodium is less or more.
Ultimately, the kidneys and the hormonal system play a vital role in helping the body to find equilibrium when it comes to sodium and fluid balance.
Helping these systems out by tailoring what you consume – in terms of sodium and fluid in relation to your individual losses – should therefore start to make a bit more sense from now on.
Peter (Pete) Hardcastle, is well known in Australian and World Rowing. Pete represented Australia at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympic Games in different boat classes. After the olympics, Pete moved to the UK in 2008. where he coached at Dulwich College, Emanuel School and London Rowing Club, and coached the men’s four at the Coupe de la Jeunesse in 2014. In 2017, Pete joined Imperial College as the Head of Rowing and in his first season at Imperial, he coached the crew that won the Prince Albert Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta.
Pete is an amazing athlete, and still continues to amaze mere mortals, with his Ironman Triathlon exploits, and marathon running. In this episode, Pete and I explore what got him into rowing, and how he progressed to the U23 World Championships and then the Elite team under 4-years. We talk about personal motivation, and challenging others to explore what is possible. We review what is really going on with some of the rapid crews we are watching today, and he shares his tips on how to get yourself ready to race as well as preparing your race mindset.
This podcast is supported by, Precision Hydration, Bont Rowing, Filippi Boats and Citius Remex seat pads. For more information about our supporters, and to gain access to exclusive bonus offers, ensure you subscribe to my newsletter.
As all around the world, lives are turned upside down by Corona Virus, and as families around the world are hunkering down to stand-firm in the face of the second wave, I was reminded of the mindset, and approach of Admiral Stockdale. Brilliantly codified and shared by Jim Collins in his best seller, From Good to Great.
Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest-ranking military officer in the Hanoi Hilton. He was there for, I think, seven years, from 1968 to 1974. He was tortured over twenty times. And by his own account, Stockdale came out of the prison camp even stronger than he went in.
In preparation for a day I got to spend with Jim Stockdale, I read his book In Love and War. As I read this book, I found myself getting depressed because it seemed like his systemic constraints were so severe, and there was never going to be any end to it. His captors could come in any day and torture him. He had no sense of whether, or if, he would ever get out of the prison camp. Absolutely depressing situation. It’s like we can all survive anything as long as we know it will come to an end, we know when, and we have a sense of control. He had none of that.
Then all of a sudden it dawned on me, “Wait a minute, I’m getting depressed reading this book, and I know the end of the story. I know he gets out. I know he reunites with his family. I know he becomes a national hero. And I even know that we’re going to have lunch on the beautiful Stanford campus on Monday. How did he not let those oppressive circumstances beat him down? How did he not get depressed?” And I asked him.
He said, “Well, you have to understand, it was never depressing. Because despite all those circumstances, I never ever wavered in my absolute faith that not only would I prevail—get out of this—but I would also prevail by turning it into the defining event of my life that would make me a stronger and better person. Not only that, Jim, you realize I’m the lucky one.”
I said, “No, I don’t.”
He said, “Yes, because I know the answer to how I would do, and you never will.”
A little later in the conversation, after I’d absorbed that and said nothing for about five minutes because I was just stunned, I asked him who didn’t make it out of those systemic circumstances as well as he had.
He said, “Oh, it’s easy. I can tell you who didn’t make it out. It was the optimists.”
And I said, “I’m really confused, Admiral Stockdale.”
He said, “The optimists. Yes. They were the ones who always said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ Christmas would come and it would go. And there would be another Christmas. And they died of a broken heart.” Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and he said, “This is what I learned from those years in the prison camp, where all those constraints just were oppressive. You must never ever ever confuse, on the one hand, the need for absolute, unwavering faith that you can prevail despite those constraints with, on the other hand, the need for the discipline to begin by confronting the brutal facts, whatever they are. We’re not getting out of here by Christmas.”
Remembering another great leader and the inspiration he gave to the world in a time of great darkness. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. Winston Churchill (1942)
Anne-Marie Howald is well know in the rowing world, having represented Switzerland at the 1987 & 88 World Championships as a lightweight, and now as the Head Coach of the U23 and Junior Squad.
In 2018, Anne-Marie was awarded the “Swiss Olympic Coach Award” for the impressive achievements of the junior national team at the European Championships in Krefeld and the World Championships in Trakai.
Anne-Marie leads the talent identification of young rowers in Switzerland, with the ‘Future Rowers’ programme that takes promising young athletes through to the Elite level. In this episode, Anne-Marie covered how she first started in rowing and how that love for rowing, and high performance, has taken her on her own journey to coaching and inspiring others. Plenty of inspiration for the listener, some ideas and tips on how to move the boat faster, along with some nice insights into her time training with the legendary coach, Harry Mahon.
This podcast is supported by, Precision Hydration, Bont Rowing, Filippi Boats and Citius Remex seat pads. For more information about our supporters, please ensure you subscribe to my newsletter to gain access to exclusive bonus offers.
The best way to create a personal training plan, is to do it.
A training plan that changes performance, is easier to create once you understand the mechanics of a great training plan. The How To Create Your Annual Training Plan combines audio and video lessons from Bill (with help from experts), along with frameworks and tools designed to guide your thinking and practice. By using these tools (and doing this practice) you’ll get direct feedback and customised insights on your current physical status and future planning. Our Faster Alumni Group on Facebook will be buzzing, filled with your peers engaging on topics that matter to you.
The typical participant in our course gives and receives more feedback over the course of the three weeks. It’s true: the more you put in, the more you get back. The discussion component on the Live Zoom Calls is key, because that’s where you take concepts and translate them into strategies for your own plan. And it works.
We’re charging more than other online courses for a simple reason: We want committed students. No one in the course or attending the Alumni Zoom calls is browsing around or hoping for a quick hit. You’ll be surrounded by other people willing to do the work and contribute along the way. ($287.00)
Some people, those who know how much a college course costs, have asked us why the Course doesn’t cost much more. After all, the typical college course costs at least 10+ times as much (and delivers far less value). We believe that anyone should be able to learn How to Create Your Annual Training Plan at a reasonable cost, and we believe that a product should deliver more value than its sticker price.
Is there a money-back guarantee?
Show Your Work Money Back Guarantee: Our courses and Online Workshops are incredibly effective. Check out what one of our alumni had to say.
“I completed the course earlier this year, and what I learnt has opened my eyes to what I was truly capable of, and transformed the way I train and prepare. I used to always train hard, yet never knew if I was really training the right way. Since I have done the course, I now KNOW what I need to do to reach my potential. I don’t train any more than I used to, yet I am going faster on the ergo and on the water. I can better plan my training to achieve balance with my family and the business that I own and operate.
I highly recommend this course to anyone that wants to train smart vs. just training harder all the time.”
J Van Vulpen, The Netherlands
Still, just in case you’re hesitating, consider our 100% guarantee for this course: If you find that it hasn’t met your expectations, simply drop us a note after you’ve participated through all the lessons and attended the online Zoom calls, and we’ll refund your entire tuition. We’ve found that when our students contribute to the course, they get back far more than they put into it. Sometimes life gets in the way. If you need to withdraw from the workshop before you complete it, we’re happy to defer you to a future session at no cost. Just ask. To be fair to all, we don’t offer refunds for non-participation.
Contact me directly for the subscribers discount code.
When does the course start?
Registration opens: November 6th, 2020
Registration closes: November 15th, 2020
Access to the course opens November 14th. If you’re interested in joining, be sure to sign up. We’ll send you an email to let you know when the next interactive session is about to begin.
When are the interactive sessions?
Kick off online workshop: November 20, 2020 at 12:00 CET
Second online workshop: November 27, 2020 at 12:00 CET
Third online workshop: December 4, 2020 at 12:00 CET
All the online classes are held on Zoom, and Live on the Faster Alumni Group on Facebook. The classes are recorded for access later on.
What do we cover in the interactive sessions?
Bill will be there on each of the Live Zoom Class calls, to help guide you and help ensure that the course flows smoothly, sharing insights from other alumni, his own personal experience, and occasionally comment with just the right question at just the right time. The class will also be streamed Live to the Faster Alumni Group on Facebook.
Are there exams?
We’re delighted to say NO. And no grades, either. We feel really strongly that a test-and-measure culture will not help you to learn here. Better to learn by taking action.
Is the workshop accredited?
Proudly, no. Accreditation makes sense for a certain kind of institutions delivering a certain kind of education. But we’re not willing to build a test-and-measure culture, not willing to embrace an ancient-yet-standard curriculum, and mostly, we’re not willing to distrust our students. We’ll be delighted to offer you a certificate of completion when the course is successfully completed, and even better, we encourage you to find someone at your rowing club, cross fit centre or gym, who will personally vouch for your actions and progress.
Can I get a certificate at the end?
Every student receives a certificate as a PDF, suitable for printing and framing.
How long does the material stay active?
The course content is available until 6-months after the course closes. After that, enrolled students are invited to join our alumni group, on Facebook and participate in future courses with new students as alumni. This way you get access to new materials and can contribute to your own and others learning for the life of the course.
Can I post confidential materials in the Facebook group?
The rules of our discussion group are:
Contribute more than you ask for.
Be kind.
What is said here, stays here.
With that said, please use your best judgment. If it’s not something you can happily post online, best to disguise the details before you post it here.
Will Bill answer ALL of my questions?
Definitely not. And the good news is that you don’t need him to. The course is designed to give you a compass and a template, not a map. The map, the details of your particular situation… that’s all up to you. We hope the Annual Training Course will help empower your decisions along the way.
Is there an affiliate program?
Yes there is for past students. We’re hoping that if you find the course useful, you’ll happily spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Those interested in becoming an affiliate, contact Bill directly via email.
Should I consider Bill’s other courses on Teachable?
Bill has four top-rated courses on the Teachable platform. Each of which has been taken by hundreds of Masters rowers, just like you. There are reasonably priced courses on;
How to Train With Heart Rate For Rowing
The Ultimate Race Week Plan
How to set your boat up to go Fast (December 2020 launch)
We know that the peer to peer interactive engagement and live online approach we take in our premier course, is the most effective way to learn, but you might find that the low cost of entry to the online only courses, makes them worth an hour or two of your time.
The key difference is the other Faster courses, don’t offer the peer to peer discussion groups or live interactive Zoom calls. And, that’s the magic of what Annual Training Plan offers.
In my first conversation with John, he left us on a ‘cliffhanger’ with what rowing needs to do to stay relevant. In this follow up conversation, John shares his thoughts on what rowing needs to do to stay relevant and thrive, vs. survive.
John Boultbee AM, is well known in Australian as a lawyer and leading Australian sport administrator, particularly in relation to rowing and football. In 1990, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to rowing as an administrator. Between 1989 and 1995, John was Secretary General of the International Rowing Federation (FISA). John was a board member of the International Rowing Federation, Rowing Australia and Steward of the Henley Royal Regatta.
What John would do now to ensure rowing stays relevant
How the exclusion of lightweight rowing is hurting the sport
Why changing the format is not the answer to attract more people to rowing
What rowing can learn from other sports
What led to the Australian Olympic team’s success in 2000
