UK Coaching – the UK’s leading charitable organisation for physical activity and sports coaches – is leading a nationwide recruitment drive to expand the coaching workforce. The initiative will see the organisation engage with several of the nation’s leading sports over the next ten years, to create and advance more coaches and ensure the nation has more opportunities to be active.

The partnership will see UK Coaching joining forces with British Rowing to support them to overcome their specific challenges around coaching recruitment and retention, with a view to significantly increasing the coaching workforce over the next ten years.

The announcement comes at the start of UK Coaching Week – the annual national awareness campaign which empowers athletes, coaches and the public to celebrate great coaching.

Despite individual challenges, common themes have emerged around the need to inspire and create more opportunities for young people into coaching, as well as those from diverse communities. The collaboration will ensure coaching becomes more accessible, inclusive and innovative than ever before.

Coaches encourage people to be more active, more often, and positively influence lives and communities. A total of 6.6 million people (14% of the adult population) gave up their time to support others to be active from November 2020-21. However, this is a fall of more than 3.1 million people compared to the previous year*, and follows a drop in numbers in the years prior to the pandemic.

To support the recruitment drive, UK Coaching has launched ‘#Born2Coach’ – an initiative that aims to significantly boost the coaching workforce by inspiring people to become coaches and empowering current coaches to enhance their skills.

Mark Gannon, UK Coaching CEO said: “As we learn to live with COVID and seek to recover from the challenges of the last couple of years, we want to play our part in supporting more people taking part in physical activity and sport. Coaches will be an important conduit for engaging a broader range of people from more communities in physical activity and sport, which will improve the nation’s health and happiness.

“We are proud to be spearheading this industry-wide partnership to provide deeper insight into the life of a coach, and what great coaching looks and feels like. With the help of our network of physical activity and sports organisations we will empower existing coaches and recruit the next generation of coaches.”

Alastair Marks, British Rowing CEO said: “Coaches are crucial to the success of our sport and are key to introducing rowing to more communities up and down the country. We recognise that our coaches need more support and opportunities to continually evolve and learn, so we are delighted to be supporting UK Coaching as they promote #Born2Coach.”

To find out more about how you can get into coaching, visit UK Coaching .

*Sport England’s Active Lives data for Nov 2019-20 

The post UK Coaching and British Rowing launch nationwide recruitment drive in response to post-pandemic health challenges appeared first on British Rowing.

Steve started out before lottery funding as a volunteer Olympic coach before coming on board full-time. During that time he famously took Greg and Jonny Searle, coxed by Garry Herbert, to gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and delivered a bronze in the four at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. For the past 15 years, Steve has been fundamental in talent ID, leading the highly successful World Class Start programme which has identified many GB athletes including two-time Olympic gold medallist, Helen Glover.

Louise Kingsley, British Rowing Director of Performance added: “Steve has given absolutely sterling service over many years and contributed so much to the GB Rowing Team and British Rowing. I thank him for his contributions and the positive impact he has made not just on the organisation, but to so many athletes who have been fortunate enough to be coached by him. I wish him all the best of luck for the future.”

David Tanner, former British Rowing Performance Director who worked with Steve for much of his career, including his two medal-winning Olympic Games said: “I was privileged to be Team GB’s Rowing Team Leader at both the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympic Games, so saw Steve’s great coaching at first hand. These fantastic results established him as an international coach and after Atlanta he was recruited by Rowing New Zealand to be their Head National Coach.

“Under Steve’s leadership, WCS has been a ‘game changer’ for the GB Rowing Team”

“He returned to GB after a few years to join the GBRT staff as a Men’s Olympic Coach. By then I was British Rowing’s Performance Director and knowing his huge talent for bringing young rowers to the top, I asked him in 2008 to take on the role of World Class Start (WCS) Manager.

“Under Steve’s leadership, WCS has been a ‘game changer’ for the GB Rowing Team – for instance producing GB’s Olympic champions, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning, at London 2012. With Steve at the helm, WCS has blossomed into a world-leading programme, ensuring that GB has a rich stream of talent coming onto the Olympic pathway to underpin our ongoing international success.

“Finding and nurturing new talent is always a tough challenge and Steve has been exceptional in his leadership of the Start Programme. It has been a privilege to work with him for all those years and he’ll leave a very significant legacy for GBRT’s future.”

Reflecting on his GB Rowing Team career, Steve said: “I’ve really enjoyed my time at British Rowing and hope others have too! Now I’m looking forward to just coaching, as well as more time with the family.”

The post Thank you & farewell: World Class Start Lead Steve Gunn leaves British Rowing appeared first on British Rowing.

Re-launched on 12 April, the Rower Development Guide is a detailed framework to help rowers and coaches and is free to British Rowing members.

Rowers can monitor their progress in five key areas or ‘pillars’ while coaches have a useful overview of their rowers’ development and competencies.

The aim is to promote appropriate athletic skills and physical literacy and encourage self-development so that athletes can progress safely and enjoy the sport for longer. It’s also there to help rowers train at the appropriate level for their ability.

Here are five ways that it can help coaches on a day-to-day basis.

1 – Framework for appropriate progression for your rowers

The five main pillars are technical development, fitness, athleticism plus knowledge, understanding and application and ethos and behaviours. There are four levels to progress through within each pillar, starting with level one and up to the fourth level. Read on for more detail.

Pillar 1 –Technical development

Progressive drills to help develop your rowers’ technique and water skills for sweep and sculling within the British Rowing technical model.

Pillar 2 – Fitness

Covering both indoor rowing and on-water, this pillar provides technique videos and suggestions for sessions at each of the four levels, starting at two minutes of continuous rowing and building up gradually to 30 minutes. Level 1 starts with general fitness to check that the rower is able to complete a set of dynamic warm-up exercises at the appropriate level.

Pillar 3 – Athleticism

Exercises to build movement range and control with detailed descriptions of key training exercises together with photos and videos. Level 1 also includes swimming competencies with each level focusing on exercises for different areas – upper body and shoulders, trunk and lower back, lower body and hips and, finally, full body.

Pillar 4 – Knowledge, Understanding and Application

This module is broad and covers topics essential to success, in addition to technique and fitness. Each level is divided into different topics – including rowing terminology, RowSafe, equipment, competition, lifestyle and training, plus adaptive classifications.

Level 1 covers the basics such as the capsize drill, how to do a safety check on your boat and the importance of hydration. Level 2 takes things further and looks at competitions with race plans and the importance of warm-ups and cool downs. Goalsetting and process performance and outcome goals are central to Level 3 while level 4 focuses on time-management and monitoring nutritional intake.

Pillar 5 – Ethos and behaviours

Areas include Clean Sport and British Rowing’s iRowClean Online Modules, through to our code of ethics, environmental sustainability and safeguarding.

2 – Create your rower profiles

The guide makes it easy to customise your own personal development record for your crew and squad. Rowers can create individual rower guides for you to see areas that they may be able to work on and improve. Plus, after the first year, you’ll have a useful comparison guide to see what worked best on the programme and what you may need to adjust.

You can also compare rowers either individually or as groups to have a detailed overview of your squad at your fingertips.

3 – Customise the guide to your club

There’s a feature that will enable you to customise the Rower Development Guide to show your location, waterway, boat type and adaptive classifications.

4 – Resources

The guide also contains useful links to exercises, technical information and videos, making them easy to find as everything is all in one place.

5 – Built for the riverbank

Probably one of the best features of the guide is that you’ll be able to access it wherever you are on your mobile phone, tablet or laptop, providing you have an internet connection, making it simple for rowers to update their progress as soon as the session finishes. You can even install the guide as a web app to launch straight from your home screen.

Coming soon – earn a medal!

We’re working on a system of rewards for rowers so check the Rower Development Guide page again soon. Rowers can work through the different levels in the guide and on completing each level, they can purchase a medal from Row the Distance as a reward!

Plus, coaches will be able to download and print off certificates for rowers.

View the Coach Section of the Guide

For coaches to have access to the “Coach” section on the Rower Development Guide you must be marked as a coach by your ClubHub’s Admin. To do this, ask your club’s ClubHub Admin to go to the “Club Members” tile, find your member profile, and assign you the coach role.

Or to see who is already a coach, from the “Club Members” tile, select ‘Summary by member role’ and click on the ‘Coach’ dial and all the coaches will be listed.

Please note updates may not be instantaneous and may take a few hours to update.

The post Five reasons for coaches to use the Rower Development Guide appeared first on British Rowing.

UK Sport is hoping that by the Paris Games in 2024, a quarter of Team GB’s coaches will be female. As we celebrate International Women’s Day you might ask, “Why not half?”

In fact, the ratio of female to male coaches within Olympic and a Paralympic programme is far less than a quarter at the moment. A new leadership programme aims to double the number of female high-performance coaches over the next three years.

Nicola Benavente represents rowing in a group of 27 coaches from 15 sports taking part and says of the programme’s aim: “To me it’s a big statement, a big change.”

“It’s not just to get women in [to Olympic teams] to tick a box, it’s to be successful.

“We could have done this ages ago, if it was just about getting women in, but how do we make it so women can come in and perform to their abilities and stay there?”

Benavente, who has worked for British Rowing’s World Class Start programme since 2014, is being mentored by Paula Dunn, a former Olympic sprinter on the track who has been head coach of the British Para-athletics programme for a decade.

“How can we, as a cohort of female coaches, break into the top layer of coaching?” asks Benavente. “I always find it really interesting talking to coaches from other sports as there is a lot to be learnt from other people’s experiences.

“So far on the programme we have had a few in-depth discussions, which has definitely got me thinking. I catch up with Paula every week to reflect and focus the discussion on my development specifically and where I can improve.”

“I work at 100mph – if I can fill every minute of the day with something, I will. I don’t sit down and think about why something has or hasn’t gone well. The first thing I need to do is give myself time to look back on what I’ve done and ask why I think certain things.”

Benavente, who comes from Bexley in Kent, doesn’t have a huge pedigree as a rower. Having taken up the sport at Brunel University she realised quite quickly that coaching was the best use of her skills and spent time in a role with the Henley Stewards Charitable Trust before joining the Start programme in Nottingham.

There, she works with a group currently nine-strong, with the sole aim of producing athletes who might win Olympic medals.

At one extreme of the squad is Matthew Haywood, twice a world champion at under-23 level, who hopes to qualify in the single scull for the Olympics this summer. At the other, there are 14 and 15-years-olds who may not even have sat in a boat yet.

“We recruit people into the programme who wouldn’t necessarily have come to rowing via another route, or people who are in rowing, but might not have had the best opportunity,” Benavente explains.

Ten Start coaches around the country act as project managers for their athletes: coaching on the water, setting strength and conditioning programmes, helping with access to physiotherapy and contributing an element of life coaching too.

“You’re pulled from high performance to setting the best foundations you can, so that in six to eight years’ time someone else could be in the same position.”

“We don’t work in big groups, so that we have the time for individuals, to try and guide them to be the best they can be. Every now and again one or two of them will come out on top.”

“She’s very good at knowing how to coach different people. There is not one black-and-white way”

Haywood, from nearby Burton-on-Trent, moved from his local club Burton Leander to train at the National Water Sports Centre in 2016, when he was aged 17. With Benavente as coach he won a silver medal in the double scull at the Coupe de la Jeunesse that summer.

“All you can see at the time [as an athlete] is the short term,” he says of that year. “At the time it was massive for me to make Junior Worlds or Coupe and if I hadn’t have made it, I would have failed. But Start and Nicola were looking two, three, four years down the line.

“Nicola’s a very good coach, we get on well and we work well together. She’s very good at knowing how to coach different people. There is not one black-and-white way; there are many different ways to the same outcome.”

Benavente is most proud of the way the duo worked together in 2019, when Haywood overcame a back problem and returned to action in time for the World Rowing Under-23 Championships in Florida, where he won his second successive gold in the quad.

Coaching two female single scullers in Sarasota – including gold medallist lightweight Susannah Duncan – Benavente was one of three female coaches, from 11 coaches in total, in the GB Rowing Team.

Now, while dealing with the structures of the COVID-19 pandemic, she and Haywood have their eyes on Tokyo.

“Things can always change, but the main focus for me is trying to go for the final Olympic qualifying regatta,” says Haywood. “Nicola and I have sat down – we’ve got a plan and we’re confident in how we will go about it.”

“It sort of annoys me that everything has to be aimed at women; I always wonder why we don’t educate men”

So, why aren’t there more female coaches?

“It sort-of annoys me that everything has to be aimed at women. I always wonder why we don’t educate men,” says Benavente. “If you want to make a change, you can’t just do it at one end.

“There is a lot of bias in the set-up of sport, even how job adverts are written. This doesn’t affect me, but being a parent is very different between males and females. If a woman chooses to have a family and pursue a career coaching, she can still be successful, the two are not mutually exclusive. It doesn’t make her any less of a good coach and nor does it mean the system should exploit that as her being less capable.

“It can be hard walking into a meeting, especially as a young woman, when the room is full of men. For new coaches coming in this can be daunting, but as a woman you stand out as there are very few others. This is exaggerated more so when you look at certain disciplines. Most females will coach female athletes, there are very few who solely coach males, yet it is completely normal the other way around.”

Benavente realises she needs to be more reflective, but her self-awareness is clear when she admits being an Olympic coach may not be for her in the long term. There is only one way to find out.

“I find it really hard to say I want to be an Olympic coach when I’ve never worked at that level,” she says. “I’m keen to try, to see where I can go with it. If I enjoy the lifestyle, working to that level and with those athletes then I’d be up for it.

“But I’m also aware I really enjoy working with the athletes on the development side. I’m sure at the top level that coaches do have some input to athletes as people, but that’s a big part of my job which I really enjoy.

“I’m definitely interested and I will push that but I wouldn’t say that’s the be-all and end-all for me.

“If I can be the best development coach I can be, I see that as being just as successful, as being in an Olympic team. Development coaches play a huge part in Olympic athletes’ journeys.”

Don’t miss our bonus content for International Women’s Day on British Rowing Plus, our exclusive platform for British Rowing members . There you’ll find a special interview with IOC Vice-President Anita DeFrantz as well as a feature with Dr Emma Ross on sport science and female athletes.��

If you’re not yet a member of British Rowing, you can use our #InternationalWomensDay discount code IWD2021 to get 10% off – today only! 

The post ‘If a woman chooses to have a family and pursue a career coaching, she can still be successful’ appeared first on British Rowing.

Written by Performance Consultant Alex Wolf, also former Head of Strength and Conditioning at the English Institute of Sport, Strength and Conditioning for Rowing is an indispensable guide for all coaches.

The first chapters of this well written and easily read book explore the fundamentals of coaching and look at how strength and conditioning (S&C) can support performance rather than being an end in itself.

The chapter on the Fundamentals of Coaching alone, is worth having the book on your shelf for

Dave Collins, Performance Director of UK Athletics in 2007, says in the book: “Stop making strength and conditioning look good, make performance look good.”

The book explores the art of coaching itself, the wider practice of being a coach, the importance of not neglecting the human side of S&C, of understanding the needs of the athlete as a person and the importance of empathy with the athlete. The chapter on the Fundamentals of Coaching alone, is worth having the book on your shelf for.

Many coaches will, I suspect, pass over the first chapters in their hurry to simply get to the later chapters which apply the strength and conditioning principles to the rowing population, exercise selection, assessment for training specific areas and programming; however they will be doing themselves a disservice if they do so, and would, benefit hugely from reading this book from cover to cover first, rather than diving in randomly.

Wolf explores the question of what the intended adaptive response is, thus challenging S&C coaches to consider the intention of the overall training programme, usually set by other coaches in the team.

As S&C coaches, their purpose is to train to the outcome of the performance programme and not the exercise or the methodology.

Wolf provides this key advice: ‘Train the adaptation not the exercise. Identify what the desired adaptive response is and then identify the most effective method to achieve the adaptive response. Don’t be limited by traditional or historical exercise selection.’

The performance backwards approach to planning helps to ensure that the outcome is the focus

He writes: ‘Function is a product of outcome and not method. Functional training is often described as observable functional similarities between sports task and exercise task (i.e. the exercise and sport task look the same). However, functional exercises should be viewed as those that attempt to meet the intended outcome, regardless of how close it looks like the sports task.’

The S&C coach’s model of performance taken together with the athletes’ shared and agreed performance goals, is just one part of the overall planning by the whole performance team.�� S&C coaches need to remember that the S&C is not the event itself.

As Wolf writes at the beginning of this book the performance backwards approach to planning helps to ensure that the outcome is the focus and not the methods used to achieve it. He explains: ‘The book was written with the intent to help those working in rowing to have a simple framework to plan S&C aligned to rowing performance, regardless of level.’

While much of the latter chapters can be found elsewhere, linking this to the earlier themes around a performance backwards mindset, an awareness of philosophical models of performance, an adaptation-led approach and athlete focus is the key to effectively applying the content in the real world.

There are chapters written by other professionals and also sections from athletes, all of which pull together the concepts of planning backwards from the performance model, identifying the physical skills needed and the critical components of that performance.

Later chapters in the book explore the application of S&C practice in the rowing world, transferring the training to rowing performance, exercise selection, common injuries, exercise technique, specific trunk training, assessment, and programming.

There is also a chapter by Tom Rusga from the English Institute of Sport on the S&C requirements for Paralympic rowing. He discusses understanding the impairment for each athlete and looks at the mechanical demands for each of the classification categories and injury risks for each classification category.

Again, a reminder that each athlete is an individual and should be treated as such.

Strength and Conditioning for Rowing by Alex Wolf is available as a paperback or e-book from , priced at £15.99 or £16 respectively.

Dr Persephone Wynn is a L2 Strength and Conditioning and L3 Senior Club Coach and is also Programme Manager at British Rowing.��  

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Congratulations to Bill Parker and Bryan Steel who share the 2020 Beryl Crockford Award for their outstanding contribution to junior rowing over many years.

The award was set up by Duncan Crockford in memory of his late wife Beryl, who passed away in 2016 following a tragic bike accident in Australia. Beryl represented GB at three Olympic Games and was a trailblazer for women’s rowing.

Awarded annually, the winners are decided by members of the British Rowing Junior Committee. Read on to find out how this year’s winners have contributed to junior rowing over their careers.

Bryan Steel, Aberdeen Schools Rowing Association

Bryan and his long serving commitment to supporting junior rowing and Aberdeen Schools Rowing Club.

He started in 1961 at Hillhead High School in Glasgow and was asked to help out with the school’s rowing club. Eight years later he moved on to Aberdeen for a promotion at Aberdeen Academy where he continued his involvement with rowing.

He met up with Robert Newton, then of Aberdeen Grammar School, and in 1973 they decided to pool their resources and athletes to form in order to try and beat the strong central belt opposition.

Bryan retired from full time teaching in 1997 giving him more time to coach the ever-expanding Aberdeen Schools Rowing Association (ASRA). It had grown from the two original schools to include any pupil from any school in Aberdeen City or Aberdeenshire.

He inspired former ASRA members to turn into coaches and help him manage the expanding club as it started to achieve greater and greater success.

A common theme that helped Bryan recruit pupils to try rowing was to do a deal with some of the more troublesome pupils and withhold disciplining them if they went to the river and gave rowing a try. This seemed to prove a very successful recruitment option.

Then in 2001, ASRA had their own boathouse which was opened by Sir Steve Redgrave. This helped to grow numbers again and resulted in more success further afield in England and at the International Regatta in Gent, Belgium. ASRA has continued to develop with the addition of an extension to the boathouse and the purchase of equipment to meet its ever-demanding needs for racing at the top end of British Rowing regattas.

All this from the humble beginnings of a Rowing Master bitten by the rowing bug in Glasgow and taking it beyond what even he could have imagined.

Bill Parker, St Leonard’s School BC/Durham ARC

To introduce rowing to one school with no previous involvement in the activity shows a high degree of dedication to the sport. To do so in a second school and inspire pupils to succeed at regional, national and international levels indicates a deep commitment to rowing and to the development of young people.

After starting his career coaching rowing at Consett Grammar School, Bill moved to – one mile from the River Wear – and it was almost inevitable that the School would, in a short period, find that it had a boat club of its own in 1971.

The School had no previous involvement in rowing; it had no boat house, oars or boats. But Bill possesses a great ability to persuade people and involve them in supporting young people. No obstacle was allowed to stop young people from rowing.

Dedication to fundraising was exceeded by the commitment to training on and off the water. Success followed. The British Rowing Almanacs give the facts.

There were national medals in the late 1970s and the first international success in 1982. In the 1980s Bill was joined by Malcolm Proud and they made a formidable and winning partnership. The Club regularly achieved 100 wins each season. These included wins at Women’s Henley, topping the medals table at the 2004 National Schools Regatta, a Junior World Championship and representation in the England and GB squads.

Bill also took on significant regional roles and continued his involvement with Durham ARC. Indeed, when he officially retired from St Leonard’s Boat Club, he coached juniors at to further national success.

Throughout his coaching Bill has been supported by his wife May and his family. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude and our heartfelt thanks.

Bill has shared his passion for rowing with generations of juniors for over 50 years. He has inspired juniors to remarkable success and sustained involvement in rowing as adults drawing on the ethos of excellence and commitment that Bill established as a coach.

Thanks to the Junior Rowing Committee for their time selecting the award winners this year.

We are celebrating the winners of the British Rowing Awards 2020 all the way up until 31 December so please keep and eye out for other winners #BRAwards2020

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Nominations for our overall Coach of the Year award were of an extremely high quality making the National Coaching Committee’s decision a tough one, with the winners in each category below:

• Florence Griffiths – Club Performance
• Pete Forrest – Club Development
• Hugh Mackworth-Praed – Education Performance
• Nigel Weare – Education Development
• Novice Coaching Team at University of Leeds BC – Coaching Team

After great consideration, the Panel has awarded the Coach of the Year to Florence Griffiths from .

Her citation summarises…. a credit to her club, Florence took over as the lead coach of the Kingston junior squad in 2017 and runs a team of five professional and volunteer coaches. All the professional coaches probably put in twice the hours that they are paid for the love of the sport.

She has achieved outstanding results and is always cheerful and helpful to the club’s other squads.

Managing a large junior squad with associated safeguarding and safety procedures is challenging and Florence does this with great skill.

This year Kingston won over 50 titles locally and nationally and competed internationally. These athletes bring massive accolade to the borough and are often seen in their iconic bright red and white stripes.

Highlights included second place on the overall National Championships medal table, while two athletes represented the GB Rowing Team at the Junior Worlds in Tokyo.

Our four other category winners have also all made exceptional contributions to coaching at their clubs. Here are their citations…

Peter Forrest (Club Development, Peterborough City RC)

Since joining in 2007, Peter Forrest has advanced from doing a learn to row course to being a Level 3 Coach and Coach Educator.

Chair of Rowing, Peter oversees all aspects of rowing and equipment with every sector of the membership from juniors, seniors, masters and U3A.

Peter encouraged the involvement of U3A within the club and they have become stalwart members contributing significantly to Peterborough City.

Always trying to develop the sport for the community, last year he taught Kate Lindgren to scull. Kate is blind and Peter has pioneered systems enabling him to talk directly to Kate through an earpiece.

Peter has contributed significantly at all levels within the sport and is not just coach of the year but coach of many years!

Hugh Mackworth-Praed (Education Performance)

Hugh has been an exceptional schoolboy coach for the past 15 years starting out at , then spending the last 11 years teaching maths and coaching at Shiplake College.

In recent years Hugh has had outstanding success coaching the Shiplake College first eight, his notable successes are winning the Child Beale trophy in 2015 for the first time in Shiplake College’s history.

A full-time teacher, in charge of the school timetabling and an academic form tutor, Hugh still finds time to train most days and regularly races his single scull. Rowing is very much in his DNA and it is his passion rather than a job to him.

Nigel Weare (Education Development)

Pupils at (TLA), a state-school in Slough, wished to nominate Nigel for this award. Each individual told me why he deserves it, so I’ve written this nomination with all of their thoughts.

“Nigel Weare has been nothing but an inspiration to me, not only as a rower but as a human.”

Nigel offers both indoor and outdoor rowing at school, and Dorney Lake. Eighteen students recently went to the South of England Indoors, where 15 pupils won a medal, and 14 achieved a personal best.

He gives the students opportunities they would never experience without rowing, through socialising, competition and bonding as a team.

Nigel has not only been a rowing coach, but an inspiration.

“He never gives up on me.”

It is clear Nigel has great impact on so many children’s lives, allowing them to strive to reach their potential.

Novice Coaching Team at University of Leeds BC (Coaching Team)

The Coaching Team is the true heart of the boat club, specifically for the novice squad.

Their willingness to help, support, and teach everyone at the club is remarkable. Head Coach Dan Grant is at the centre – from fixing boats, 6am training sessions, individual athlete performance meetings and coxing steering basics, he also provides guidance to the Coaching Scholars through mentoring sessions, further supporting the novice squad.

The Coaching Scholars run weekly running, erg, circuits and water sessions for novice athletes. Senior Performance athletes also volunteer alongside their 10 training sessions a week.

Supported by coaching coordinator Natasha, coaches feel confident and are well prepared for every session.

The Coaching Team’s devotion enables more individuals to join and experience rowing.

Thanks to the National Coaching Committee for their time selecting all our coaching award category winners – and congratulations to everyone.

We are celebrating the winners of the British Rowing Awards 2020 all the way up until 31 December so please keep and eye out for other winners #BRAwards2020

The post British Rowing Awards: Coach of the Year winner appeared first on British Rowing.

As gets underway from 14-20 September, the focus is on celebrating the amazing work that coaches do within the community.

Sport and physical activity has been, and will continue to be, integral to the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by having a positive impact on people’s mental and physical well-being, and the coaching workforce has been instrumental in supporting communities across the UK to stay active over the last four months of lockdown restrictions.

UK Coaching has found that both before and during the outbreak of the virus, coaches could have been better supported.

“Coaches have been absolute heroes keeping us active, connected and motivated”

In the organisation’s ‘Coaching in the UK 2019’ research – carried out by YouGov – nearly a quarter of all coaches said a major barrier to them coaching was a lack of support from employers, clubs or national governing bodies of sport, and over 40% said they do not have access to someone who can support them in their coaching role, ie a mentor or coach developer. Additionally, a Twitter poll, conducted by UK Coaching at the height of the lockdown, showed that over 30% of coaches felt they received ‘no support’ during the coronavirus outbreak.

UK Coaching’s Director of Coaching, Emma Atkins, said: “Coaches have been absolute heroes keeping us active, connected and motivated both before the pandemic and during the period of isolation and disruption caused by the lockdown.

“As restrictions are eased and more of us return to play, we will turn to coaches and expect them to integrate new controls to keep us all safe, so let’s ensure that we recognise and support our coaches across the UK for the vital work that they do.”

Mark Gannon, CEO at UK Coaching, said: “It’s fantastic to see our national campaign come back just as the new school year starts – a pivotal time for coaches. But with news of job losses and real concerns around a reduction of volunteers for the sector, this uncertain world is financially and professionally affecting our coaching family. We are all understandably concerned about the impact this will have on community sport and physical activity provision at the local level.

“We’re calling on the entire sports sector and the nation to collaborate with us and help us celebrate and support coaches”

“We are committed to doing everything we can to support the nation’s coaches so they can provide person-centred, great coaching experiences, which is why last month we released our Duty to Care Toolkit and Digital Badge that helps coaches stay current with their learning and development and confident as they return to coaching.

“Great coaching was here before the coronavirus crisis, has been here through it and will be here as we recover. We’re calling on the entire sports sector and the nation to collaborate with us and help us celebrate and support coaches.”

Vicky Parry, Chair of the British Rowing National Coaching Committee said: “Coaches are often our unsung heroes, so this week we acknowledge and celebrate what they do.

“Coaching is the lifeblood of our sport so please take the opportunity in coaching week to say thank you to your coach just for being there in these tough times.”

Enjoy our British Rowing Plus coaching articles 

To celebrate UK Coaching Week, we’ll be running a series of articles with coaches throughout the week on British Rowing Plus – and making these available to everyone for this week only, whether or not you are a British Rowing member.

Look out for more details on our Facebook and Twitter feeds!

For more information about coaching, check out our webinar series here!

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This week, UK Coaching is launching a new toolkit that will ensure the nation’s coaches are equipped with the knowledge and skills to provide great coaching experiences to others, and support them as coaches to better look after themselves as they return to coaching after COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed.

The Duty to Care Toolkit, which will be available on has come to fruition after extensive consultative support from a range of partners and coaches across the UK.

Set across five areas, known as pillars – diversity, inclusion, mental health, safeguarding and well-being – the toolkit will challenge coaches to demonstrate their knowledge of the principles of Duty to Care and will sign-post them to coach learning resources that can help them to adapt sessions safely; creating diverse and inclusive environments that help to increase the mental health and well-being of both them and their participants.

Coaches have a big part to play in their communities, boosting the physical, social, emotional and mental health of the nation

Coaches who complete the free Duty to Care Knowledge Check in each pillar will earn themselves a nationally recognised Duty to Care ‘Digital Badge’, which they can display with pride to show their commitment to great coaching.

The findings of Baroness Grey-Thompson’s Duty of Care in Sport review coincided with UK Coaching’s plan to devise a product that ensures coaches are sufficiently equipped to deliver great coaching – and thereby, inspire their participants to develop lifelong active lifestyles and ensure athletes’ welfare is at the top of their priority list.

UK Coaching’s Director of Coaching Emma Atkins, said: “In the coronavirus era, coaches have a big part to play in their communities, lifting the mood and boosting the physical, social, emotional and mental health of the nation.

“More than ever before, we need to look after our participants regardless of where they are on their sport and physical activity journey. The last few months have put an unimaginable strain on people’s physical and mental well-being, and thus, we are seeing a society desperate to return to sport and exercise. We know that many coaches are wanting to return to coaching too, but they want the reassurance that they can do this safely and confidently.

“At UK Coaching, we pride ourselves in supporting coaches who transform the lives of individuals and communities to help create a happier and healthier society. This extensive toolkit will help all coaches thrive in their role, which is essential if we are to navigate this uncertain time together and get the nation back on its feet.”

Sarah Harris, Head of Education & Training at British Rowing, said: “British Rowing is committed to developing and supporting our coaches, so they have the tools to deliver a great experience for those taking part in our sport, while being able to look after their own well-being too.

“The UK Coaching Duty of Care Toolkit helps to enrich this commitment to great coaching and we welcome its launch.”

Find out more about British Rowing’s coaching pathway here.��

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When building a house, you need firm foundations before starting on the walls, let alone the roof. The windows, fixtures and fittings come much later.

The Rower Development Guide, published last year by British Rowing, aims to apply the same degree of rigour to learning the sport.

Its objectives include ensuring that athletic skills are developed early on, and encouraging the long-term process of development, rather than just thinking about winning races in the short term.

With four levels starting with beginners and progressing to those competing at major national regattas or aiming for GB representation, every rower should start at Level 1, and be competent at this level before progressing further.

Level 1 athletes should be taking part in a maximum of three rowing-specific sessions per week, and those sessions should be focused on skill development.

Early lessons might include getting afloat, grip and posture, confidence and balance skills or manoeuvrability and stopping skills, before moving on to sequencing, and work on the catch and connection.

Rigger dips may look daft, but they show just how far you can tip without falling in

Coaches may fear people will get bored by doing exercises – but you can make skills fun and competitive, and then apply it to what you’re trying to do technically.

Dan Harris does just that as a British Rowing Start coach based in Bath. His junior athletes generally begin the programme when aged 14-16 years, but many begin as students in their 20s.

The amount of training – in particular, cross training – will vary according to an athlete’s life situation and experience, but rowing sessions are all skill-specific.

“From the first session on the water they will learn what a boat is and how to get in,” says Harris. “Quite quickly, we will introduce confidence drills such as rigger dips. The aim is to help an athlete feel happy and relaxed in a boat.

“Rigger dips may look daft, but they show just how far you can tip without falling in.”

Harris continues: “Towards the end of a session we will move on to more technique-based work. We might do arms, body, slide with the blades on the water, to provide a stable platform to learn the sequence. We do tap-down and feather off back stops to arms away, specifically focused on wrists and holding the blade correctly.

“Or we might do ‘hands off at the catch’, an exercise sitting at front stops with the blades either on, or in, the water, where you take one hand off the handle. If you control your body weight, the boat stays still – it makes sure you’re not using your blades as stabilisers.”

The focus is sharp, but that doesn’t mean the process cannot be enjoyable too.

“When I was a kid we went kayaking and had real fun, rafting up and running along the ends,” Harris says.��“But rowing – traditionally – is a water sport in which people try to stay dry.

“We have a lot of fun with it. We’ll stand up in boats and do the ‘YMCA’ or a 360° turn.”

Harris regularly looks to use athletes with slightly more experience to lead by example, doing exercises in singles alongside the newer athletes, or sitting with them in bigger boats, either to help provide a stable platform or to demonstrate the movement and ‘feel’ of an exercise.

“People sometimes lack confidence and don’t want to try things; they’re not willing to get out of their comfort zone,” he says. “It helps having others do it alongside them. It only takes one person to fall in and that relaxes everyone.”

Amelia Hempleman-Adams, 24, who is part of the Start squad at Bath, says: “Technical sessions with roll-ups really helped with paddling. Through them you can really feel what you’re meant to be doing.

“It just progresses naturally,” she says. “The distances we are doing have got longer but I almost haven’t noticed the increase.

The Rower Development Guide emphasises the importance of more than simply learning the skills of rowing, however. Knowledge and understanding, ethos and behaviours are just as important, forming two of the five pillars running through the guide.

Technical sessions with roll-ups really helped with paddling

For Harris, teaching the right attitude starts immediately. He says: “We have an approach that, right from the first session, this is what we do.

“Punctuality is important, not just because it helps a session run more easily, but because it has a performance impact – if you’re late for a race, you will miss the start.

“Independence is key: we get our own equipment out, carry our own singles (if strong enough) and get in by ourselves. And we are responsible for the equipment and clean the boat after each session.

Joe Russell feels the skills-based foundation has set him up well for the harder work to follow on the Start programme, which he joined after six months of rowing at university.

“The first time I took more than two strokes in a single was really cool,” he says, “It’s like when you first ride a bike: it’s wobbly, but if you keep going it’s okay.

“Early on, we did an exercise where I would come forward to the catch and really push to get to the point I should be getting to. I’d get to the front and fall straight in. I did it 10 or 15 times in a row.

“But those drills are really important; they made me much more confident. And it was summer, so I didn’t mind!”

This article was originally in Rowing & Regatta magazine – find out more here.��

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