Uni Rowing teams

The weight limits are for lightweight rowing; there's no limits for heavyweight boats, and to be fair Sheffield is unlikely to have a dedicated lightweight rowing club.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/usport/sportsclubs/rowing/index.html

Sheffield look to be quite good, with (last year) boats rowing at the S1 and S2 levels (quite high) but they've doubtlessly got training and other boats available too.

Reply 25

Pork Pie Guy

10

cheers, my initial concern is that i aint that broad shouldered so could struggle in a heavyweight boat. I certainly don't expect to get to the standard of my sis but no harm in trying. Best to just wait and see i guess.

Reply 26

Shoulders don't matter- it's all in the legs. Seeing as you're supposed to keep the arms rigid and just rotate the outside shoulder anyway for proper placement at the catch, you might even be at an advantage with narrower shoulders from a technique point of view.

Reply 27

Marmaduke

2

There are both lightweight and heavyweight events at regattas like BUSA although in the head season is doesn't matter! Going on the head race season alone the crews looking awesome this year are Newcastle (men's S2 boat especially - women not looking so hot), Brookes (of course), Durham and Bristol. Hope this vaguely helps!
xxx

Reply 28

davey_boy

9

Consie

you got a blue in league?

I know i wont get into the Rugby unversity teams as a starter, becasue ive not played rugby for very long and rugby is Oxford's pedigree (and much of their intake's pedigree). If i can get into my collegees first XV i would really really, really happy. I'm hoping to get into the University teams for football though. Is university first team football semi-pro level? If so, I'd probably settle for starting in university seconds and being on the bench/odd start for university firsts.

Football is the biggest male participation sport in Oxford - hence you'd expect the standard to be reasonably high. There are 2 uni teams that play in BUSA - the 1st team just got promoted to the top regional division (there's a premier league N & S above that) which would rank them between 13th and 37th in the country. Most years a couple of players go on and dabble with a bit of semi-pro after they finish, although 150 quid a game isn't as much money to someone who has a degree from Oxford as it is to someone who is, say, a brickie so they usually don't continue doing it for that long. Each season they play a few 'rep' games - against teams like the Army, RAF, Southern Amateur League etc. - and win more than they lose. Once a year is the town Vs gown game, against Oxford City (semi pro - southern league), City usually use it to try out a few players but still usually win although its pretty close, last 3 years results have been 1-1 draw, 3-1 defeat and 3-1 win for the uni. There's also usually 1 or 2 games against other semi-pro or pro youth teams; didn't happen this year but last year there were games against Hellenic League Select XI (lost 1-0), Newport County U19s (won 3-0) and Oxford Utd U19s (lost 3-0). The 2nd team play in BUSA Midlands Division 3A, last season, the same division as Loughborough IIIs, Warwick IIs, Birmingham IIs, UCE 1sts and Bedford IIs and finished 2nd to Loughborough. They also play a couple of rep games a season, usually against '2nd' teams put on the same day as a blues rep game (e.g. against and Army 2nd team).
Have a look at www.ouafc.com or ask me to find out more about football at Oxford.

Reply 29

Cheers for the info. I think my original estimation of myself was quite accurate. so the second team in Centaurs? It is all pretty professional, like are players dilligent trainers and stuff, or is it just people who are naturally good at footy turning up on match day?

Reply 30

davey_boy

9

Consie

Cheers for the info. I think my original estimation of myself was quite accurate. so the second team in Centaurs? It is all pretty professional, like are players dilligent trainers and stuff, or is it just people who are naturally good at footy turning up on match day?

Its a balancing act - the better you are, the less you would need to train to get in the team. 2nd team is the Centaurs, yep. Blues "squad" typically train 3x per week, at least 2 of those sessions will be with one or both coaches, Centaurs typically train twice a week, with at least one session with the coaches. The Blues "squad" is usually about 18 players so there should be 1 or 2 players from that playing Centaurs each week. Some of the better Centaurs players end up playing for the Blues in the rep games, especially if they're not in their final season. If you want to play in the Blues regularly you need to have a pretty good excuse not to train, in the Centaurs its a bit more relaxed...

Reply 31

Thanks again.

My bro used to play footy for Durham firsts, and depending how much of a beer gut he had he either slotted in at centre back or midfield if he was slim. They seemed to be a lot more relaxed about players as long as they were good. Suppose a lot of it is to what the given coach is like.

Is university thirds just a kick about?

Speaking of footy, what a game the Man Utd vs Roma one was.

Reply 32

TRB

Consie

Incidentally, I just beat the record holder in my local gym for rowing as far as possible in 1minute 50. Look out for [Edited out - Dali] at Stroke in 2008 :P.

how long does it take you to do 1000m? We had a comp at my local gym and I got 3:10s we used resistance settings of 3 (which for us is normal water resistance)

It soooo helped that there were sexy yoga girls there watching!

feel free not to state time if you can do better btw, and if your in a uni rowing team just ignore my post

Reply 33

I dont know mate, it was the first time id been on a rower in years, and the first time ever i had any sort of goal. The only thing i can do on a boat in water is Kayak.

Reply 34

davey_boy

9

Consie

Thanks again.

My bro used to play footy for Durham firsts, and depending how much of a beer gut he had he either slotted in at centre back or midfield if he was slim. They seemed to be a lot more relaxed about players as long as they were good. Suppose a lot of it is to what the given coach is like.

Is university thirds just a kick about?

Speaking of footy, what a game the Man Utd vs Roma one was.

Incidentally, I just beat the record holder in my local gym for rowing as far as possible in 1minute 50. Look out for [Edited out - Dali] at Stroke in 2008 :P.

Uni thirds don't exist at Oxford - they just play 1 game a year against Cambridge as a warm-up to the 2nd team varsity match...

Reply 35

Ads.

OP

7

polish_lad

how long does it take you to do 1000m? We had a comp at my local gym and I got 3:10s we used resistance settings of 3 (which for us is normal water resistance)

It soooo helped that there were sexy yoga girls there watching!

feel free not to state time if you can do better btw, and if your in a uni rowing team just ignore my post

3:10 is quite a good time depending on age, height, experience etc. I've only done it once flat out and my time was 3.08. If you look at the rankings section on the concept 2 website you should be able to see the times from a few years back and get an indication of what level you are at.

Getting back to the original topic of this thread, how does the uni rowing season work? Given that most of the races are in the summer and the uni term finishes before then, do you still row for your uni in the june/july races? Or do you go back and row for you local club during that period?

Reply 36

Marmaduke

2

Basically the Head Race season runs from September through to Easter, then it's the summer regattas until the end of the summer term. Our club tends to disband when term ends and go back to our respective 'home' clubs but we do race a couple of races, like our home regatta, during the holidays.
x

Reply 37

Marmaduke

Basically the Head Race season runs from September through to Easter, then it's the summer regattas until the end of the summer term. Our club tends to disband when term ends and go back to our respective 'home' clubs but we do race a couple of races, like our home regatta, during the holidays.
x

Exactly. Very few people at my uni are around in the summer, hence as they tend not to do regattas they've not got many ARA points.

Personally, I now live in my uni town and cox for both my college and for a town club, so that's the best of both worlds.

Consie

Incidentally, I just beat the record holder in my local gym for rowing as far as possible in 1minute 50. Look out for [Edited out - Dali] at Stroke in 2008 :P.

Doubt it; you're not a member of the German national squad so the Boat Race is probably off limits to you ATM :p:

1:50... well, try and do an hour's erg, keeping your split below 1:40/500m and THEN you'll know the true meaning of pain!

I managed a 1:33 500m the other day, which bearing in mind that I'm a cox isn't too bad. I'm going to try again when I'm next on an erg (next week) as I've had a lot of coaching since then and have improved my technique.

Reply 38

Doubt it; you're not a member of the German national squad so the Boat Race is probably off limits to you ATM

Lol, tell me about it. I heard they have some sort of programme to get freshers who havent rowed before into the boat race. Is this true?

Reply 39