The Workout: Rowing With Esther Lofgren, Olympian

Members of the U.S. national rowing team follow an intense training regimen that combines rowing, weight lifting and aerobic training for 45 to 60 hours a week. We asked Esther Lofgren, an Olympic gold medalist, to take us through the rower's workout.

Ms. Lofgren, 28, who stands nearly 6 feet 2 inches tall, grew up in Newport Beach, Calif., and later rowed for Harvard University. She is a 10-time national rowing team member and a world record holder. Last year, she won gold at the London Olympics in the event known as the women's "eight."

Ms. Lofgren calls rowing a "strength endurance sport" – the races are a combination of endurance exercise and power lifting. Her training regimen involves building muscle and doing plenty of aerobic training on the water and on a rowing ergometer machine, known as "the erg."

Recently, we caught up with Ms. Lofgren at the U.S. Rowing Training Center in Princeton to talk about the rower's workout, injury prevention and what it's like to eat 7,000 calories a day. Here's an edited version of our conversation.

How did you get into rowing?

My parents were both elite rowers back in the '70s and '80s, which when I reached my teens made me think that rowing was very uncool. I played a lot of other sports, but my best friend rowed and he said, 'If you're looking for another sport to try, they'd love to have you: You're tall and it's a great community.' So I went down, and after the first practice where we got to go on the water, I was hooked.

What are the physical demands of the sport?

In a rowing race, you're sitting in a boat that's stopped in the water, and you have to pick the boat up out of the water from a dead stop until you get up to speed. You're essentially power lifting as fast as you can for 45 seconds until you get the boat up to speed, and then you have another five minutes of racing. Everyone out on the water is in an intense amount of pain, trying to process the lactic acid. If you've ever sprinted up a hill as hard as you can, you know the feeling of hitting a wall. Everyone that you see in a rowing race is hitting that wall about 45 seconds into the race, and then we keep going for another five minutes.

How do you prepare yourself for that psychologically?

I calculated that by the time I got to the starting line at the Olympics, there was a six to seven minute race ahead of us, and I had put in something like 60 hours of training for every second that I was going to be racing. Thinking back on that preparation helps me feel confident at the starting line.

Does rowing require a lot of upper body strength?

I think the ratio is something like 70 percent legs, 20 percent body and 10 percent arms. The biggest thing we're using in the boat is our quads. Our hips are extending, our legs are pushing and driving, and that's where the foundation of everything that we do on the rowing machine and on the water comes from.

How many days a week do you train?

We train six to seven days a week, with two to four practices on each of those days. It's about 45 to 60 hours a week of working out. In a typical day we might row in the morning, lift for the second practice, and then work on the erg in the evening. We do a lot of stretching, yoga, and physical therapy, too.

What is your strategy in the weight room?

Weight lifting is key for successful performance in rowing. You can use it in two ways. One is to build the leg muscles, back muscles, and arm strength, which we can then condition on the water. But we're also using weights to balance out all the rowing stuff that we do, because your quads can only get so big before you need to have hamstrings to balance them out. If we're just doing rowing for a few days, then when we come in the weight room we might do things like bench press, which is the opposite motion. The rowing motion is pulling in, so doing things where you're pushing back and working the opposing muscles can help you perform better and make you less prone to injury.

Are injuries common?

Injuries are a huge thing in our sport. The most common injuries are stress fractures to your ribs. The stronger the legs are, the harder they can drive your butt back, and that can injure your ribs if you don't have a strong core. Lower back injuries are also something people associate with rowing. And that also can come from not having a strong enough core to support the work that your legs are doing.

How do you strengthen and protect those body parts?

We do two to four core training circuits a week. In the weight room we tend to focus on Olympic lifts, but we don't necessarily try to max out. We try to properly execute the lift and do the repetitions in a way that develops your core.

Two of the big Olympic movements that we do are deadlifts and cleans. I think the closest lift to the rowing motion would be a power high pull: Picking the bar up from the ground and bringing it up to your chest. You're doing a driving motion with your legs, extending with your hips, swinging your back open and finishing it with your arms. It's similar to what we do on the water.

How many repetitions are you doing?

At the beginning of the year, our lifting is more oriented toward three to five sets of low repetitions with higher weights. And then we do something called endurance lifting, which was popularized by the East Germans back in the Soviet era. It's very high reps of generally lighter weight. So that might be 20 or 30 or 40 reps at a very light weight, but you're fatiguing your muscles in a much different way

Besides rowing, what kind of cardiovascular training are you doing?

We do a lot of cross training because with rowing, if you do too much of it you're going to get overuse injuries. So running is a big cardio exercise for us. And we do indoor cycling for pretty long distances. We use cross training as a way to get a physical and mental break from rowing.

What's your approach to nutrition?

I tend to stay along the perimeter of the grocery store. I'm a big fan of fruits and vegetables, and we do a lot of whole foods as much as possible. I currently eat mostly paleo, which has been described as a caveman diet. So a lot of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats. I'm also a big fan of smoothies. I'll just take a blender and add as much as I can fit in there – spinach, kale, milk, some Greek yogurt, almond butter, berries, and maybe some protein powder and a banana. It varies by day.

How many calories do you consume?

Depending on the time of year and the particular week, I'd say my range is about 3,500 to 7,000 calories per day, which is nice sometimes. But 7,000 calories of spinach and almond milk is a lot of food, so sometimes ice cream will work its way in there.

What foods do you like to eat before a race?

My college coach had a saying, which was that oats move boats, so I'm a religious oatmeal eater before races.

Your parents were there when you won your medal. What was that like for them?

My mom was actually the last woman cut from the 1984 Olympic team, and then I was born in 1985. My parents have been huge supporters of my rowing career the whole way. When we crossed the finish line at the Olympics, it was a very emotional and exciting experience. You go and get your medals and do interviews before finally you come to the place where your family is. When I saw my mom, I went up to her and I put my medal around her neck. That was one of the most special moments in my life.

Where do you keep your medal?

I actually carry my gold medal around in a beanie and I usually have it with me at most times. It's a good incentive not to lose my purse.

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