The Rowing Resource Page For Training and Racing
Mike Caviston
michael.caviston@navsoc.socom.mil
6/30/08
EDTEC 541, Summer 2008

Problem, Need, or Opportunity

High school, college, and recreational rowers and their coaches need evidence-based recommendations for planning training programs and determining race strategies for competition.  Web-based media can provide clear, concise plans and strategies supplemented with graphics and tables for easily calculating individualized goals and instructions based on personalized information. 

Audience

The audience for this web site will be athletes and coaches interested in maximizing performance during rowing competitions.  All will be competitive racers, though they will vary somewhat as to ability and aspirations (some will be content to do well at the local level and some will hope to be among the best in the world).  These athletes tend to be very computer literate and are used to looking for information on the web, participating on internet forums, uploading and downloading video clips of rowing races, etc. 

User’s Needs

As a former rowing coach (over 20 seasons coaching university athletes), and continuing as a consultant to several individual athletes and a few teams, I have developed a clear picture of what information and resources this audience wants and needs.  These include:

• Custom or personalized training plans based on individual or team goals, experience, and resources (for example, different programs for high school athletes, and college graduates trying to make the Olympic team).
• Most users tend to want quick, clear, simple directions for training – something they can begin immediately without any lengthy preparation.
• Some (not all) also want detailed background information, including physiological explanations for why training takes the form it does, and links to more resources about training.
• Many users would like the opportunity to compare progress with other athletes of similar background.

I will serve these needs by providing 4-5 basic plans, geared to different users depending on interest, ability and experience.  These plans will be navigable from a starting page with generic introductory information, and linked to secondary pages with more detailed background information.  There will be a hierarchical table of contents accessible at all times so users can quickly navigate to whichever area they wish.  The text will be supplemented with explanatory tables and graphs; a few cool photos or illustrations for artistic effect; and perhaps some animation to illustrate different race strategies.
Environment

Most users will access the site through home computers, and some will access it in a group setting (a coach during a group team session with athletes).  The site will not be built around complex video or animation, so plug-ins for these features or high-speed internet connections will be useful but not essential.  Socially, this group of users tends to be very technically savvy and able work with this type of media probably better than me. 

Resources and Limitations

The basic resources of training programs for rowing and physiological background information currently exist (created by me), though it will take some time and effort to reformat them for the proposed web site.  I have a large data base of results from various rowing races to illustrate the success rates of different race strategies that can be utilized with relatively little modification.  I have access to images and video that may be adequate for my needs, though it may be necessary to get some permissions depending on exactly what images I want to use.  I will most likely not be able to create a means of gathering user data (training and race results) as part of this project, but the possibility remains for the future. 

General Solution

A web site with training plans and race strategies for rowers will be useful to competitive athletes at the high school, college, recreational, and even pre-elite levels.  My site will offer simple but useful directions for designing weekly/monthly training programs and planning race strategies.  Different pages will be linked with a simple menu that will have headings such as “Weekly Schedule”, “Interval Training”, “Endurance Training”, and “Race Plan”.  Each of these pages will provide a general overview with enough information to proceed without in-depth preparation, but allow options for obtaining more detailed examples, background information, data, technical resources, etc.