LEO Training: Strength & Conditioning | Endurance | Health | Performance | Injury Prevention | Joe DeLeo

In Episode #118 of the LEO Training Podcast, the 5th and final interview of the lightweight rowing podcast series I interview Stanford Women's Lightweight Coach, Kate Bertko.

In the previous episode we heard from Peter Antonie who went from competing as a lightweight to competing as a heavyweight. Kate will be sharing her rowing career and how she transitioned from a heavyweight to a lightweight and having outstanding success in both weight classes.

Kate took her experience from her athletic career and has immediately translated that to success on the coaching front with the Stanford Women's Lightweight Rowing program with three consecutive titles at the IRA National Championship at the helm.

Part 1 - Athletic Career | Heavyweight to Lightweight

• You graduated from Princeton University in 2006 and started your career on the national team as a heavyweight and later transitioned to a lightweight.
• You graduated two years out from the Beijing Olympics. What was the transition like going from Princeton University to the US National Team? What was your focus on in those first few years?
• In 2009, from your results on USRowing and World Rowing you appeared to be competing in sculling and sweep events. What's the back story behind World Cup III in 2009 at Lucerne, you competed in the W8+ and W4x, getting 2nd in the eight and a later that summer at the World Championships took a Silver Medal in the Women's 4x?
• Leading up to the 2012 Olympics you were focusing primarily in the heavyweight sculling boats, both the W4x and W2x.
• What led you to your decision to move from the openweight category to a lightweight?
• How did you make the change in terms of training, sleep, diet/nutrition?
  • How much weight did you have to drop in total?
  • How did this effect your performance?
• In the next quadrennium your focus was solely on competing as a lightweight.
  • You rowed the LW2x with Kristin Hedstrom which resulted in a silver medal at the 2013 World Championships. What was that that year like?
  • In 2014 and 2015 you rowed in the LW1x earning a bronze medal at the World Championships
  • In 2016 competed at Rio Olympic Games in LW2x with Devery Karz

Part 2 - Coaching Career | Stanford, USA W2x

• Retired after Rio and promptly named head coach of the Cardinal Lightweight Women on Sept 9, 2016.
• In your first two seasons, you have won the IRA National Championship in the Lightweight Women's 8+.
• What are some of the biggest changes and adjustments you had to make going from an athlete to a head coach?
• What are some of the aspects of the culture you have tried to create at Stanford from your international experience?
• Would you discuss your work coaching the Women's 2x of Meghan O' Leary and Ellen Tomek? You and Sarah Trowbridge are coaching the W2x. How did that come to be and what's that experience been like in conjunction with your head coaching responsibilities?

Extra | Training Recommendations | To be used

• What's your top technical tip/drill for a rower?
• Favorite session on the erg? Water?
• 2K PR?
• Injuries/Medical : Atrial fibrilation, emergency abdominal surgery
• What type of training session do you recommend an athlete do for continued development?
• Best advice to make weight?
• If you were consulting with FISA and the IOC what would be your recommendation to keep lightweight rowing in the sport?
• How does rowing need to continue to progress and evolve past the 2020 Tokyo Games?

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• The Road to Rio: Bertko '06 Prepares for an Olympic Debut 10 Years in the Making
• Stanford Profile
• Five Straight Titles for Stanford Lightweight Women

In Episode #117 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview Thomas Keller Medal and Olympic Champion in the Men's Double Scull and Lightweight World Champion, Peter Antonie.

First, I want to thank my friend Dan Garbutt for first telling me about Peter Antonie and for Drew Ginn for helping me connect with Peter to make this interview happen.

Peter Antonie's rowing career spanned 24 years. In that time he won a world championship in the lightweight men's single in 1986 and in 1992 along with Stephen Hawkins took the Olympic Gold Medal in the Men's Heavyweight Double at the Barcelona Olympics. A lightweight athlete who won at the highest level in both weight classes in rowing.

Part 1 - How you go started in rowing and career

• Earliest result was 1977 in LM4- (Silver at World Championships)
• 1986 LM1x World Champion
• 1987 World Championships - Result was 5th but I checked the time stamps and you were in 1st for the first 1500 meters.
• 1988 Seoul Olympics Heavyweight Men's 4x
• 1989 and 1990 | M2x finished 4th and 3rd respectively
• 1991 in Heavyweight Men's 1x finished 4th against Thomas Langer of Germany
• 1992 Barcelona Olympics Gold in the M2x

Part 2 - State of Lightweight Rowing Currently

• Potentially up for removal
• Latest FISA News | http://www.worldrowing.com/news/fisa-council-meeting-decisions-february-2019?fbclid=IwAR3I5oWwWAHWP152bmSPrzYypCBnJoLz0voPBWqQCbj1nvm_Bn9lI4uISz4
• What would you say to FISA and the IOC?
• What would be your suggestions to keep lightweight rowing as it is but still move the sport forward and help it continue to grow and expand.

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• Wikipedia
• World Rowing Profile
• Thomas Keller Medal Write Up
• Rowing still holds attraction for Olympic Gold Medallist Peter Antonie
• 1986 LM1x Race
• Barcelona Olympics 1992 M2x
• FISA Council Decisions
• Out of his Shell

In Episode #116 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview world record holder and entrepreneur Juliane Rasmussen.

The third interview in our lightweight series is with Juliane Rasmussen. Juliane has a long and storied career and has competed in four olympic games beginning in Athens and through to the Rio Olympic Games. She has earned multiple medals at world cups and world championships in the lightweight women's double and lightweight women's quad.

Juliane and I discuss her consistent success over so many years while starting a family as well as entrepreneurial endeavors with a company she co-founded, Athletes Own.

• Started rowing in 1999
• How did you start?
• Rowed until 2012 Olympics then 3 year break
• How did you manage training around family and work?
• Set the Lightweight Women's 2K Record this past Sunday at Crash B's on Sunday Feb 17th, 2019 with a 7:05.3
• Culture | A lot of clubs not popular at university/college level.
• If you could race another boat class other than the LW2x, what would it be and why?
• If you could row with any rowing athletes from any era and in any boat class who would you pick and why?
• What solutions would you propose to FISA to keep lightweight rowing beyond the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games?
• What is Area 9?
• Tell us about the clothing company that you and your wife created and why.

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• World Rowing Profile
• Athletes Own
• Area 9

In Episode #115 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview my friend Mads Rasmussen, Olympic Champion in the LM2x.

In this interview Mads will share the insights of his career in high performance sport all while going through medical school, getting married, and starting a family. If you are looking for insight into how to excel in both sport and life you will enjoy this episode.

Part 1 - Becoming a Champion

• How did your athletic career begin? What sports did you begin your career with?
• When we were in Avis, this past spring you told me that when you were a young boy knew you wanted to be a world champion. You didn't necessarily know what sport - yet but knew you wanted to be the best at something. What drove you at such an early age to have this goal?
• How did you come into the sport of rowing?
• You began competing in the LM2x at the Junior World Championships in 1998 and continued competing all the way through the Rio Olympic Games. An 18 year career competing at the international level that resulted in 2 Bronze Medals, 1 Silver Medal, and 2 Golds at the World Championships and a Bronze Medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a Gold Medal at the 2012 London Olympics. Please take us through your journey and experiences leading up to each Olympic Games and the years in between.
• Let's discuss some of the successes you had between 2004-2008 and what lessons you and the team learned in the lead up to Beijing that effected the training. ( I recall you saying there were some injuries for Rasmus and you were both quite tired with the additional training load.)
• Not many people know this but you were in medical school while training as an elite level rower. Your doubles partner Rasmus Quist was a full time plumber while he was training. What year did you enter medical school during your international career? How many years were you in medical school while you were training and competing?
• How many sessions a day did you train? How many during camps? How did you balance training with a professional career, personal life, and family while also being a high performance athlete?

Part 2 - Reflections on sport and current projects

• If you could race another boat class other than the LM2x, what would it be and why?
• If you could row with any rowing athletes from any era and in any boat class who would you pick and why?
• What solutions would you propose to FISA to keep lightweight rowing beyond the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games?
• Let's discuss your article "deterioration in lung function over time, in former national team rowers" or pre-ischemiac on limbs.
• What is Area 9?
• Tell us about the clothing company that you and your wife created and why.

Extra | Training Recommendations | To be used

• What's your top technical tip for a rower?
• What type of training session do you recommend an athlete do for continued development?
• Best advice to make weight?

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• • World Rowing Profile
  • Instagram
  • Area 9
  • Athletes Own

In Episode #114 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview triple olympic gold medalist Eskild Ebbessen.

Eskild Ebessen won three olympic gold medals, 2 bronze medals, 6x world champion, and 19 world cup gold medals. In 2013 he was awarded the Thomas Keller Medal by World Rowing and named to the Danish Sports Hall of Fame in January 2017.

This interview will take you through Eskild's career and how he continued to find speed. Enjoy the show!

• How you go started in rowing and career
  • Earliest result was 1990 Junior Worlds. How did you begin rowing? I watched your 2012 interview with World Rowing and you said you rowed at a club for 2 years before you competed and it started off as a social endeavor. Were you just trying to make friends?
  • You said it was a "natural choice"
  • Lead up from 1992-1996 Atlanta Olympics.
  • 97-99 World Champions and in 2000 Sydney Olympics Paulson had a knee injury.
  • 2004 - Starboard stroked LM4-
    • Retired after Athens but returns in 2007?
  • 2008 - Port Stroked LM4-
    • Returned in 2011

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• • 1999 World Champions LM4-
  • 2004 Olympics LM4-
  • 2008 Olympics LM4-
  • 2012 Olympics LM4-
  • 2013 Thomas Keller Award
  • World Rowing Profile
  • World Rowing Interview
  • Danish Sports Hall of Fame
  • Instagram
  • Website

In Episode #113 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview world champion and Olympic Gold Medallist Lindsay Shoop.

I sit down with Lindsay Shoop. Lindsay has amassed nearly two decades of coaching and rowing experience through to the Olympic level. She earned her MS Ed in Exercise Physiology and her Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist from the NSCA credential all while coaching full time in order to elevate her technical skills and knowledge through research-based understanding.

​As an athlete, she is an Olympic Gold Medalist, US National Hall of Fame Rower, 3-Time World Champion, 5-Time World Cup Medalist over 8 World Cup Appearances, and has been part of a FISA Female Crew of the Year.

​As a Coach, she has helped athletes find excellence at every level from middle through high school, college, elite, and masters.

Our conversation is split into two distinct parts. Her personal journey from novice to Olympic Champion and then her post rowing career and segueway into coaching.

Enjoy the show!

• Part 1: Finding Rowing
  • Your personal story and journey into rowing (Olympic Champion, World Champion and National Rowing Hall of Fame)
  • How you found the sport
  • National Team

• Part 2: The last 9 years...
  • - Post National Team Career
  • CSCS and Masters in Physiology
  • Coaching rowing at every level and lessons learned (junior, collegiate, pre-elite, elite, paralympic, and master)
  • Presentation at USRowing doing with Marc Nowak
  • Developing interpersonal relationships with athletes, trust, and buy i

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• • Lindsay Shoop
  • World Rowing Profile

In Episode #112 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview world champion and Olympic Silver Medallist Annie Vernon.

Annie is the author of the book, Mind Games: Determination, Doubt and Lucky Socks – the psychology of elite athletes .

The book aims to show how elite athletes train their mental skills in exactly the same way that they train their physical skills. Our chat takes you through some of the key elements from her book as well as her experience as a world class rower.

Enjoy the show!

Chapter 3 | Coming to Violence over Trivial Pursuit. Competitiveness and Elite Athletes

• Everyday there is a spreadsheet working for you.
  • Athletes are very used to having a lot of their training tracked such as HR, sleep, sleep quality, flexibility, ergo scores, 1x or 2- racing,
  • Why objective judgement is the critical part of the jigsaw.
  • Intrinsic vs. external competitiveness and why the internal opponent is tougher than the external one.
  • Why competitiveness is dangerous if nothing is ever 'good enough'. How can or does this spill over from sport to life and why may this be a negative. P 70.

Chapter 4 | Choosing Training Over Cold Turkey. Motivation and Happiness

• When you were 17 you rowed because you loved it and enjoyed the internal motivation of getting better and having fun. Moving to international competition it switched to extrinsic as the focus and goal became success and winning. Let's discuss how you and others keep training over years and years and finding the motivation to do evolves as times goes on. Winning is addictive and staying at the top. - Pinsent and Grainger P 86-87
• Frances Houghton. P 91 Why shifting motivation and freeing oneself from stress can release higher performance.
• Happiness in elite sport is different from happiness in everyday life. Why is this a critical piece for non athletes to understand and how it can impact friendships, family and relationships?

Chapter 5 | Personality. Every family has an odd member, and if you don't know who it is, it's probably you

• The Three Step Theory of Athlete Personality
  • 1. Boredom Threshold
  • 2. Mind control
  • 3.mindfulness and reflection
• Why mental skills are different for each sport
• Pain and pain tolerance

Chapter 6 | The Confidence Wand. Sourcing, building, maintaining, and utilising confidence

• Confidence doesn't mean not self questioning, but it maybe means not self-criticizing
• World class work ethic and moderating it
• Over vs under comfidence and riding the line

Chapter 7 | How to be Tarzan, How to be Jane

• Anna Watkins. Hyped up vs. anxiety. Finding the right balance to perform
• Performing med ball slams on race day
• Training your brain to deliver your routine under any cicumstance
• Brainwashing and switching off for your best performane
• What is 'red mist' moment?
• How Pinsent and Redgrave raced on their 'worst days' and Why

Chapter 9 | Becoming a Carrot Farmer. Coaching

• Athlete qualities vs. coaching qualities
• 'The line betwen coaching and therapy is tiny." - Adrian Cassidy
• All the responsibility but no power over outcome wants competition begins.
• Telling others what to do and giving athletes ownership of themselves.
• CD Player story about you from Adrian Cassidy
• Coaching from the inside out
• Do you take the right tools out of the toolbox, at the right time? - Stuart Lancaster

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• • Annie Vernon
  • World Rowing Profile
  • Mind Games

In Episode #111 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview strength and conditioning and rowing coach, Pat Rufo.

Pat's company, RUFO OPTIMAL WORKOUTS® was established in 2011 to serve as an athletic consulting company for all types of athletes (especially rowers!) and clients of all ages and abilities.

The goal has been to fill the "gaps" in their training and mindset. Pat has been a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer since 2007 and has been involved in rowing, sculling, and coaching since 1996!

His passion is to help his athletes, coaches, and clients believe in themselves and their mission. In addition, he assists parents with understanding their child's strengths and behaviors that work best for them.

One final note: This interview was originally recorded in 2018. Since then Pat has continued to evolve his approach and philosophy focusing more on team dynamics, coach/athlete relationships, performance cues and separating "athlete self" from "real self".

Pat and I will be doing a second interview later this spring to update you all on what he has learned as well as what has changed.

With that let's roll to the interview. Enjoy the show!

• Pat's philosophy and approach to training
• DISC and Profiling: what is it? How can it help? How does it tie into performance and behavior? How you integrate this into your work with athletes and teams?-
• Joe's DISC profile - Rowing at GW, SFB and, SFG II-
• Profiling collegiate, professional and elite athletes

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook

• • Rufo Optimal Workouts
  • Case Study
  • DISC Assessment

In Episode #110 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview Olympic Silver Medalist Jeremiah Brown

In this podcast interview I sit down with 2012 Olympic Silver Medalist from the Canadian Men's 8+, Jeremiah Brown. Jeremiah was gracious enough to send me a copy of his book, The Four Year Olympian and to discuss his journey from a complete novice to Olympic Silver Medalist in just four years.

This is a fantastic read and isn't your typical rowing tale. Jeremiah writes with a candor and authenticity that really grabs the reader's attention and immediately has them become invested. He also pulls no punches when it comes to sharing the sacrafices that Olympic hopefuls must make physically, mentally, and socially in the pursuit of their goals.

The Four Year Olympian is a raw, unfiltered insight into training at the Olympic level and the lessons learned are applicable to anyone with a desire to improve and getting better.

• What were some of the biggest transformations in going from being a offensive lineman in football to being a rower? For the audience provide your height and weight at end of college and what you ended up rowing at.
• What characteristics and lessons from football translated well into rowing? Which did not?
• In your book, The Four Year Olympian, you mentioned briefly that you did continue to do some strength training while rowing but it seems you stopped because it made you more muscle bound and slower, less explosive. Please explain.
• Why did you only give yourself a 4 year window of becoming an Olympic Medalist?

• What were some of the key differences between Doug White and Mike Spracklen? Personality wise and training program wise?
• One of the key tenets in your training was how focused you had to be during your training. Do you think you could have been as successful in such a compressed time frame had you not been able to be so singularly focused on your goal? Do you have any regrets in how you went about it.
• Your book candidly details the process of going from a raw athletic talent (in rowing terms) to becoming a national team athlete to Olympic Silver Medalist. Reflecting back on this, what was the most challenging part of your journey?

• In 2015, you took on a leadership role with the Canadian Olympic Committee as National Manager of Game Plan. What is "Game Plan and how has it grown and developed since 2015?
• More and more athletes appear to be speaking out and becoming more vocal about anxiety and depression and other mental health issues. In your experience as an athlete and in your current role, how large of an issue is mental health for elite athletes

Extra | Training Recommendations | To be used

• What's your top technical tip for a rower?
• Favorite training session on the erg? Water?
• 2K PR?
• What type of training session do you recommend an athlete do for continued development?
• Advice to yourself 10 years ago.

• • The Four Year Olympian (Website)
  • The Four Year Olympian (Book)
  • Jeremiah Brown (Facebook)
  • Jeremiah Brown (Twitter)
  • Jeremiah Brown (Instagram)
  • Olympic Final Men's 8+ 2012 London Olympics

In Episode #109 of the LEO Training Podcast, I interview Phil White.

Phil is an emmy-nominated writer and has co-authored the books UnPlugged, Waterman 2.0, and Game Changer with Fergus Connolly. He is also a frequent contributor to The Inertia and SUP the Mag.

Waterman 2.0 gives paddlers, surfers and rowers of all ages and abilities a one-stop guide to understanding:

• Basic movement baselines for optimal and sustainable performance on and off the water
• How to identify and fix weakest links, and become faster, stronger and more resilient
• Mobility techniques to help prevent, assess and address soft tissue, joint and sliding surface issues
• Common errors that lead to pain and performance limitations
• Corrective strategies that enhance movement patterns and unlock more speed and endurance
• Lifestyle adaptations that enable better preparation, training and racing
• Tactics for more effective recovery, hydration and sleep

Waterman 2.0 also features unique insights and tips from more than 30 of the world's top watermen and women, including Laird Hamilton, Kai Lenny, Emily Jackson-Troutman and Paige Alms.

• The Standards
  • How did Kelly come up with these?
• Standard 1 | Achieve and Maintain a Stable Spine
• Standard 2 | Can You Hinge from the Hips without sacrificing stiffness?
• OH Squat
• Shoulder Show Notes:
  • Phil White
  • Dr. Kelly Starrett
  • Waterman 2.0 Book