Olympic rowing gold medal-winning coaches share their knowledge - Western Australia Coaches Conference 2019

This is a collection of three of the best conferences session from three of the best in the business. All three coaches have won at least one Olympic Gold medal plus numerous rowing world championships.

Lyall McCarthy - Formula for speed, Sweep and Sculling Technique, Rigging and what makes a Successful Coach

To say Lyall knows his stuff is an understatement. Hold onto your hats as he covers 100s of key rowing topics in this 1hr and 19min session in full high definition video 1080P.

Lyall has coached crews at the last 6 Olympics for Australia and has won 4 medals, including a Gold with Kim Brennan at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the single scull. He also has a further 14 World Championship medals to his name.

Now, after 24 years as a high-performance senior coach, Lyall is pouring his vast knowledge into developing athletes and coaches.

In this video, he covers:

​- His formula for speed

- Warm-up practices

- Timing and slide control

- Hand skills

- Sweep rowing technique

- Sculling technique

- Leg drive

- Oar bend

- Pitch

- Lay

- Height

- Standard gate to water height

- Feet to seat height

- What through the work is

- Is and is depth significant?

- Arcs

- Gearing

- Essential rowing technique

- The correct sequence

- How to practice race technique and pressure at a low rate

- Balance

- The hardest skills to learn

- Boat run

- Levers

- Video analysis

- Training volume and progression

- What makes a successful coach

- The difference between coaching men and women

- Formula to win a Gold Medal

Noel Donaldson - What it takes to win Gold. How Australia and New Zealand create champions 🏅

In this video, Rowing Great Noel Donaldson highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the Australian and New Zealand pathways for rowing success. In this 1hr13min session, Noel shows how two countries develop their athletes so they can achieve Junior, U23, and Olympic/World Championship gold medals.

Noel has spent over 40 years developing high-performance athletes in both Australia and New Zealand. His medals include 7 World Championship gold and 2 Olympic gold.

Noel's professional roles include high school coach, elite development manager for U21 and U23 for Rowing Australia, Coach of the Oarsome Foursome, Australian head coach, High-Performance Director at Rowing Australia, and Men's Head Coach. Head Coach for men's sweep At Rowing New Zealand.

The lessons in this session can and should be applied to all levels of training, from school and club to high-performance programs. Whether you are self-coached or the head of the program, this session highlights the path from slow to fast.

Noel discusses:

- Culture, positives, and negatives of each country's approach.

- Recruitment, what to look for

- Governance

- Centralized vs. Decentralized training

- Equalization of opportunity for clubs and schools

- Training methodology

- Volume, time efficiency, and consistency

- The importance of minimizing travel time

- Coaching

- Athlete performance support

- Developing athletes (physical, time management and upskilling)

- Benefits of data collection to manage athlete welfare

- Planning for the season, communication and execution

- How to retain athletes with your program

- Weekly training load

Rhett Ayliffe - Masterclass - Coaching Boat Speed

In this video, Rhett Ayliffe discusses what it takes to move a rowing boat.

His approach focuses on what the boat is doing. His unique approach looks for problems with the boat working backward to discover the source. Rhett has coached his crews to rowing World Championships, including a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Rhett is the head rowing coach at the West Australian Institute of Sport.

In this 60-minute session, Rhett discusses:

- What contributes to boat speed

- Whether or not you should copy fast crews

- Three things you need to know about the drive

- How to move the blade through the water

- How to make changes in your athletes

- Rowing acceleration curves, why you need to understand them and what they should look like

- The relationship between your maximum and minimum velocity

- How to increase your minimum velocity

- How to approach coaching your athletes

- What you need to know about the recovery phase

- What it takes to get the job done on race day