Mechanisms of Injury in Rowing

In the sport of rowing injury rates are staggering. I've read figures that range from 30%-70%. This means that at least one in every three rowers will find themselves without a seat. Yet the biggest issue is that these rates are accepted as normal in our sport. Every season athletes fall to injuries and the cycle repeats itself year after year. The simple truth that is commonly overlooked is that keeping our athletes healthy is the easiest way to improve performance. If our athletes are healthy then they have more time to train and thus more time to respond to training adaptations. More importantly, we then allow our athletes to live their lives without dealing with the consequences of a serious injury.

The truth is that there are only 3 ways to get injured from rowing (excluding any freak accidents or a serious crab).

1) Over-use or under-recovery

2) Technical error

3) Developed imbalances

Rowing is a non-contact sport therefore we have control over all 3 mechanisms listed above. Lucky for us we don’t have to deal with contact injuries such as ACL tears and concussions that are so prominent in other sports.  The only way you can truly keep a football player safe is by keeping him on the sideline. We, on the other hand, can reduce the chance of all injuries from ever even occurring in the first place. All we have to do is make injury reduction a priority.