WHOOP Podcast - Olympic rower Tom George talks high strain, red recoveries, and how he broke the elusive 5:40 mark

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Fewer than a dozen people have broken 5:40 in rowing. Olympian Tom George is one of them. Tom accomplished the feat during lockdown, while training on a rowing machine in his parents shed. A year later, he has his sights firmly set on winning gold for Great Britain in Tokyo. He joins Mike Lombardi to discuss making rowing history (2:36), staying calm in the moment (9:59), being accountable to teammates (14:50), strain and sleep (19:50), nutrition (25:56), managing red recoveries (31:49), how he increases recovery (36:33), the upcoming Olympics (43:53), and training for Tokyo (48:06).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of WOOP, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. Check us out at Woop.com. Learn about our wearable technology, improve your recovery, improve your sleep, improve your health, and you can get 15% off a W-W-M-M-M-E-D. If you use the code Will Amid, W-I-L-L-L-H-M-E-D.

This week's guest, Olympic rower Tom George. That's right. The Olympics are right around the corner. And Tom is one of the best rowers in the world. He's one of the only men on earth to break the 540 mark in the 2,000 meters, erg. That's right. The 2K, as it's known in rowing circles, is a famous erg test. And fewer than a dozen people of history have done it in under five minutes and 40 seconds. Tom has just done. this. He did it actually during lockdown while training for the Olympics in his parents shed. So Tom sits down with our very own Mike Lombardi for this discussion. Mike has a long and decorated background in rowing and has coached Olympic rowers in the past. The two of them discussed Tom's mindset leading up to and during his record-breaking attempt, the mental and physical intensity of Olympic training, his thoughts on nutrition and why eating things that make you happy is just as important.

is eating things that are good for your body. That actually really resonated for me. How he manages his high strains. He regulars getting over 20.0 strains and how he overcomes red recoveries. Tom has a lot of good thoughts on strain and recovery. I know you're able to take something away from him without further ado. Here are Tom and Mike. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the WooP podcast. I'm Mike Lombardi. I'm here today with Tom George. Tom is an Olympian for Team G.B. He is one of the fittest rowers to ever walk the earth. I know a big hype train there.

But we'll get into that a little bit more. But Tom's right now in Austria on a training camp getting ready for Tokyo. So Tom, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Thanks, having me, Mike. We're really looking forward to it. And this is probably one of the best G.B boats in a little bit. I mean, obviously the 8ths are always competing for. for gold at the Olympics and World Championships.

And this year's, you know, challenging, right? To even just go back to your highlights. You're one of eight people, or is it nine now with Mo to break 540 on 2,000 meters? So I think it's actually 11. I got told 8 when I did it. And then I got revised to 10th, I think. And then Mo was 11. So, yeah, that's the sort of group of guys.

obviously there's a few of us are a bit younger obviously Ziedler the German scholar for people that don't know who's just kind of a cyborg different sort of human and then Simon Van Daub who was at the University of Washington in the Dutch team he's done it recently so there's a few of us are a bit younger but I guess if you look through the list of people it's like a pretty esteemed list of people to be a part of

and to be sort of able to like be in the same sentence with it's pretty humbling for those that don't really understand what an amazing feat of physiology this is. If you've ever done a 2,000 meter test, I think for just an average man, I think someone would be excited to go under seven minutes if, you know, if they were just a hop on the earth. So to go under 540, Tom, what is that? 125. Okay, so 125 for 2,000 meters. Just hop on if you have a chance, if you have a rowing machine. see how long you can hold 125 for or even under 130. So just understand that Tom basically did this in a barn by himself during quarantine.

Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. We were sort of sent home. Actually kind of a weird turn of events that led to it where we got called in after our sort of Olympic final trials and told that we'd be training from home for two weeks. So everyone's like, yeah, we can do two weeks, you know, and then we'll go to the Olympics. And obviously three days later, Tokyo, like, well, we're not hosting Olympics this year. So it sort of spiraled into six months, yeah,

and just moved back to my parents' house and was training in the sort of shed at the bottom of the driveway by myself. It was pretty cool. It was kind of raw and weird. Obviously, there's like a lawnmower next to me, which maybe took away from the sort of elite athlete vibe of it. But you made a bit what you can,

and it was really cool to be able to use that time to, like, answer a lot of questions, I guess, for myself and also, like, prove that I was in, like, a position to push on into the, they'll sort of rescheduled olympics yeah i mean i think when that came out it was definitely probably a highlight for the definitely the rowing world uh with basically nothing going on so for something so cool to happen in isolation is amazing you've broken 540 and obviously you knew that that two k test was coming on the calendar you know when you see this approaching and you know

it's you know kind of probably a culmination of a cycle or you know a pinnacle of this at home training. What are you kind of thinking, how do you approach it leading up to it? And then when you're in it, it's okay, I think I can do it. What are you looking at on the screen? Are you looking at the projected finish? What are you looking at? So I guess the first thing is that I kind of guess it was probably just born throughout the first couple of months of lockdown where like I think the year before I'd probably gone like 541, maybe 540.8 or something. I'd been pretty, like, close enough that it was like, oh, this is something I'd consider it.

I think it was probably just over 541, and I've been like, okay. It's quite a big jump still. It doesn't sound like a big jump, but in rowing terms, that's quite a big jump, especially, like, that end of the sort of speed chart. And I guess it was actually, we did a 2K the day before as well, which kind of makes the story sound crazy, but there is a sort of, it does make sense with a big context, which is that the 2K the day before was,

Yogan was, like, treated it like a heat, so. hard as you can to the k and then just relax chill out glide at home you know so in that regard i found it was like well i'll um go at pace to the k i'll go at 540 pace to the k or the 1250 it might have been to the 1250 and then i'll decide how i feel and uh but i'll obviously back it off because i've got to do this other one tomorrow and it'll be absolutely horrible if i try and do it today and fail and then I've got to do it tomorrow and um um um in the week leading up to it obviously the sessions get shorter and more intense so we're doing like a couple of like 500s or a 1500 and a 500 with like 90 seconds rest or whatever and one of the things I did start doing was I started

shortening all the rests by a lot like a to do to like 30 seconds you know on everything I did I was like okay it's 1250 and 750 or like 1250 and a 1k I'm going to do 30 seconds rest this is going to absolutely suck and it's going to be horrible but I feel like it's important to familiarize yourself with that pain and kind of like a, you know, you sort of seek comfort in that as well. You know where your edge is and you know how it should feel. So then leading into it, basically that whole week in all the sort of shorter pieces and the week before, being like, okay, everything, any short piece, that's on pace.

That's on 125. That's how it's going to have to be if this is something that we're going to do. And sometimes even a little bit faster if it was like a few 500s, It was like, right, I'm going to try and go like 124s. And just see, if I blow myself to shreds, that's absolutely fine because it's important to like know if I can, I have the capacity to do that. Yeah, so then obviously did the one on the Friday. I think I went 546 or 47 just by going to the 1250 at pace at 125. And then just like dropping it to like rate 28 and just massive.

I just remember doing like really long strokes. And I got off it and I was like, you know what? Like, it could be on tomorrow. And like, I'm not going to tell anyone that. I'm not going to vocalize that to anyone. That's just an opinion that I've come up with that I'm never going to put out in the ether because I don't really want it to be like, there's pressure on me or people like expecting it. Yeah.

So I guess on that day, it was like, right, just do the exact same $1,250 you did yesterday. And if you do that, you're at 750 meters to really have it. Like, you'll either feel amazing or you're feeling. terrible but if you don't do that first 1250 you're not going to be able to do the last 750 it doesn't matter what you can do in the last 750 because everyone always says you can like sprint it in really well on the earth but it's not true like when you're some guys can but you're never going to go top end top speed top top end like speeds on the erg if you're going one if you're trying to come in at 180 in last 500 like you can take a lot of time off

but you've sacrificed so much in the first 1500 to do that that it's just like you're wasting your time to some extent. And so, yeah, just remember going out on that pace, got to 500, check that box, felt pretty good. I wasn't looking at the projected time. I was trying not to look at the projected time, but I did have it there. And it was on 540 and I was like, good.

And then it was like, get to the K, pretty happy with it. I think I was at 140.2 average coming through the K. I was like, okay, that's fine, but this next 500 is going to be just something that, like, this is kind of make or break 500 because I'm teetering here. Like, I'm, you know, I've come off at a touch, but not so much that I need to panic. So then it's like, do the next 250 and see where we're at. And I got through the next 250 and I was still at 140. And I was like, bang, here we go.

Just like fill with adrenaline. And I just feel, like with 750s ago, it was like, fill with adrenaline. It was like, okay, stay calm, stay calm. Like, don't go too hard now because you can still ruin this in this period. and I got to 500 to go and and like I kind of described this like this to some people and and it sounds ridiculous but it was like you're so calm and it was almost like time sort of slowed down you're like okay I'm going to do it here this isn't really a question anymore like there's enough adrenaline in me this isn't really hurting anymore if I like look back on it

I don't think about it being like a painful situation to be in I just remember being like okay you're going to break 540 how am I going to like prepare for that what am I going to do here like I still had to sprint, I still had to do all these little bits, but I think we sort of talked about on the team, like when you have those moments and it doesn't matter what speed you're going, if you're going to peevee,

like I feel like if you do it right, you regularly have that feeling and that lasts like 300 metres where you're like, I've done it. We just have to like complete this piece. It's not hurting anymore. And we always talk about like the bit in Gladiator when he's walking through the fields of wheat,

like dragging his hands. And it's like you're sort of like close to like the Nirvana moment of just like ultimate sort of sporting peace almost in terms of like endurance sports and yeah and then like finished don't really remember the last like 10 strokes of it that well because it was just like such a I don't know just like kind of a wave of like wow okay and then it was just like okay so I'm still in my shed like I'm still here I'm still like just this like bloke and I've done something kind of cool but but doesn't really mean anything in terms of like the ultimate goal of winning the Olympics but it's an important stepping stone

and so I need to like take stock of that and enjoy this moment and then that was probably reflected best in like I went back up to my parents house and I was like yeah I didn't really know what to say so it's just like saying so I said just you know like this just happened in the shed I'm going to go have a shout I just sort of like walked out I was like I don't really know how to deal with this sort of situation like it's cool but like I kind of view it as like I did what I was meant to do because of the training I'd put in in the first place. But I did have to overcome that like mental hurdle to get there. You see that these barriers just kind of get in your mind.

And I think, yeah, talking about that euphoric moment anytime you, yeah, when you know it's there, I think that will definitely most, you know, hopefully endurance athletes have felt that at least one point in their life. But sometimes to try and get that moment, you get it horribly wrong and it's the worst thing in the world. Yep. No question. Yeah.

That's amazing. That's really, I mean, I can't believe you go 547, 548 on a casual back 750. So that's good, that's good fitness. So just kind of going back, you know, rowing is such a accumulation of fitness over time. And when you showed up at Princeton, what was your 2K then? So I was recruited going 604. Oh, no, I was recruiting 608 when my junior year and then, or the end of my junior year. And then my senior year, sort of that summer just before I arrived, I went 604.

So that was my time then, yeah, and then freshman year, I went 557. Freshman year, and then senior year, you went 548. Is that correct? 545? 545. Yeah, I went 449. I mean, it might be one of those ones where it finishes 449 and then you go into the recall. And it says, yeah, 45.

Yeah. So, you know, it's. so crazy to see just that to drop basically 24 seconds over what's been almost a decade. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Right. Yeah. It's it's it's how intense it is at the top of rowing just for people to kind of understand the difference between going six minutes and five 58 and then 555 and then to put in perspective, breaking 540 is pretty insane. So, you know, so you, do you do junior your team for GP, correct?

Yeah, 2012, yeah. Would you say that what makes Great Britain so successful at rowing is the sort of accountability and kind of transparency of where you stand in the process? 100%. I think that that's a really important part of it and a really important part of the environment that Yergen created before and that obviously now that he's moved on, we're like keen to hold on to and that's something that we want to keep. it's like a sort of the lifeblood of the like ethos and culture of the team

and there's definitely been some changes like with COVID and stuff people have been able to train from home a bit more so that there's not so many people obviously you've got like socially distance all the ergos and things like that yeah that having that sort of ability to you just fill in a spreadsheet and that score is there and the coaches will look at it and everyone knows where everyone else stands I think that that's really important because ultimately like you've got to do to win the Olympic games you've got to be able to do some pretty incredible things with your teammates but But you also need to be able to rely on your teammates to do those things with you.

And so you want to know that they've been through exactly what you've been through to get to that point. Yeah, for sure. It's, I mean, as simple spreadsheets are as simple as I come. But if everybody's bought in, then it's incredibly effective. I feel like you've always been a pretty strong guy. You know, as far as, even if you look at like collegiate rowers, I remember Glenn, Ohio went to, I think when you went 545 and he's like, I've never seen a guy like Tom George in college before. So has strength training always been part of your program?

And how is it kind of still factored into sort of, obviously don't get me any secrets. I know that the GV training methodology is held pretty tight. But, you know, how is the strength training built in? Because I think in the raw and community, it's maybe it's kind of getting a little traction. Definitely in the U.S., it's still behind. mind in terms of understanding the physiological benefit of not just getting stronger, but strengthening those sort of weak points where, you know, we're compensating. Exactly.

Yeah, so, well, strength training is just like a part of the program. It's just like included within the program. And we have, we lift during the winter, especially we left four times a week, every week. And that's for like two hours at a time. And we have strength and conditioning coaches who will help. us with like loadings and uh what to put on the bar like for me i feel like uh i'd say that it's like a supplementary aspect to my training that i find really important and it's like massive injury prevention and for making sure that i'm at the sharp end of it and um it's important

to be able to like push out there's like a gold medal standard that they say the coaches will the lifting coaches will put out for it for you and be like this is what you need to get to and to like strive for that that number is obviously like very important but i'd say that it's something that like obviously as you just said in the US it's quite far behind like at Princeton we never really lifted we did a little bit here and there yeah yeah probably in the winter doing sessions a week just to like mix it in and try and um adapt the program in that way but you're kind of especially with collegiate athletes to put lifting sessions in you're kind of having to steal water time or erg time you know and that's not necessarily something that you

can do whilst once you are into like a national team and it's your full-time occupation it's a lot easier to commit time to do that without having to lose loads of training. And so I think it's really important, particularly on the injury prevention front, making sure that you're robust. Obviously, like, ultimately on a heavy week of training, you're going to do 270, 280Ks on the water. And so to be able to add in, like, have those strengths training, that strength training there is only going to be positive to how your body can handle that training. I'd say that obviously, as you get closer and closer to a big competition, that becomes less important in terms of, like, actually, like, I'm trying to do a max squat right now, but you need to keep that robustness

level up, so you're then doing, like, higher reps, lower weight. And I think that it's something that it was kind of eye-opening to me when I first came back from the States and came back from Princeton because I wasn't necessarily ready for it, and it absolutely flawed me. I remember being so knackered off the sessions, you're just like there. And you look at it, and you're like, how can this be so tiring? Like, I'm not doing hours of, like, a roving. My heart rate isn't raised for ages, but you're absolutely could. to the end of it so um for sure one and something that we um obviously use within our program as it's like a vital part of it and it's just like another session you know weights it's just a

session and so it's something that we have to roll into uh three or four times a week to make sure that we are in the best position to move the boat for us so in terms of overall sessions you talked about the 275 200 you know 90ish k per week how many sessions uh training sessions on on average are you kind of hitting during during a normal week and then obviously a training camps probably a bit more but yeah and in the in the UK in the winter when it's like at its heaviest point it's probably three a day every day and then two on Saturday and one on Sunday so that's the so that's two to two basically endurance or capacity sessions and there will be another strength session yeah yeah okay pretty wild yeah so um you've been

on move for a little while now how have you kind of managed to one what have you seen in your recovery. Yeah. You know, like, that's a, that's a pretty high volume training plan in conjunction with, with training. Obviously, you said, I get paid to do this. It's a full-time job. Yeah.

But, you know, how are you managing between sessions, so we can kind of break down into this. So we can start with sleep, you know, like what's kind of the bedtime wake group, you know, regiment for you to get this going? I've definitely got better at it as a result of wood. And I think that. I guess the first thing to say, my strain is regularly above 20, right? Like, I'll go like weeks with it just like above 20 and then like Sunday will be a bit lower

because we only have one session or it's off and then it'll be like again. And so I guess for me, I've sometimes found that the recovery is hard to like work out. You know, I'm like, oh, I don't really know what's like working for me. And ultimately it's like hours of sleep is like the most important factor, right? And so I've worked out that I need to just try and get more sleep. I used to be like 10.30 to 6.30. Then, like, actually during lockdown, one of the big things I started doing a lot was like headspace that.

And so now it's like I get up at six so that I can fit that in first thing in the morning. So then it was like 10.30 to 6. And I was like, well, that's just not enough sleep. So then it was like 10 to 6. And now I'm like, okay, I'm on training camp. There's not much going on in the evening. Like I'll happily go to bed. Like we'll be in bed, like, read my book at like 930, 9.45 to try and like get that sleeping.

but the other thing I just never really understood or realized was that you spent quite a lot of time a week in the night. Yeah. And so then I was like looking at it and I was like, damn, I was in bed for like nine hours last night and it's saying I've got like seven hours, 30 minutes sleep. What's going on? What am I doing? And obviously I guess there's just a lot of external factors in like the way in which that your training is each day and the differences in that can just like lead to like better sleep or worse sleep. I say that I get to like Saturday a lot and I'm like, okay, I'm going to bang in like 10 hours of sleep, which is probably not the best way to do it. But it's like, that's just the way it is I have to, like, do that.

It's saying that my sleep need is like phenomenally high. So I'm like, okay, here we go, stretch ourselves in when we're getting up till, you know, long into the morning tomorrow. Right. I mean, look, it's what it is with such a high volume of training and, and that demand on your body. I assume they're all two plus hour-ish sessions probably, right? Maybe even longer with warm up and putting equipment away and mobility. So what would you say you're doing about eight hours a day? Yeah, probably about eight hours a day, yeah.

So what are the things that you're kind of doing throughout the day to make sure you can kind of make it to the next session? Are you napping at all? It feels like maybe there's not a ton of time. But in terms of like nutrition, nutrition between workouts and then also like intro workout, what are you kind of doing to kind of keep feeling? Because that's so much time. Yeah, definitely.

During workouts, like I kind of hate them, but they're in this. necessary evil as like gels, you know? So that's something that you just got to have, like, whether it's like an isotonic gel or like an electrolyte gel. Try not to like consume too much on the water because it's just kind of sits quite heavily if you just start like banging quite dense bars. So it's always kind of be into workout, try and get like good food. And we have a chef at the training center and then when we're on training camp, it's pretty easy. Like basically every day is just fully structured to be like, wake up and have food, train, have food, train, have food, train like afternoon like chill out have food again training again late and then have food so it's

like it's pretty well set up to just be like the perfect situation and in that gap especially when on training camp I like nap a lot or try to just even if it's just like half an hour like I normally find that I'll just like read my book that's like the best way to just be like okay I could probably nap for like 25 minutes half an hour even if it's just that I find that yeah you feel absolutely terrible when you wake up from it but it's a something that's like you actually feel way better when it comes to time to be on the erg or on the water for the final session of the day. I'd say that, yeah, I try to keep in, basically in water bottles.

They'll always have like electrolytes or something like that for on the water because obviously you're going to lose a lot through sweat and you can always like pack in the food between sessions and the nutrition between sessions. But if you like get dehydrated, that's like a hard game to catch up on. And it's never like a good way to do it. Like we call it cameling here in the, team. I don't really know if that's a thing, but like where you basically like, oh, I'm

pretty dehydrated. I'm just going to chug like a litre and a half of water and then hopefully it'll just like filter in. But then you know that that's just not a good way to like hydrate your system. And so try to avoid doing that, which means that I'm quite on top of that throughout sessions to like maintain a electrolyte between. Yeah, I think that the nutrition aspect of it, the team sorts for us pretty well. And then in the evening, when we're in the UK, the evening, and just go home and like cook yourself and try to keep it pretty healthy. Like I'm listening to another podcast recently. This football on it, Hector Bellarine,

and he was talking about how like if you get injured, it's never really because you can never really put it down to be like, oh, I just stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time got injured. It's probably like to do with like, oh, you're not taking care of the other business around your sport, like your nutrition, your sleep. So trying to stay on top of that in the evenings when you don't really have like the team nutritionist and team chef,

like prescribing food to you is pretty important. So do you think, I mean, I completely agree with that statement that, barring some sort of, you know, crazy entry, like full contact, like in a rugby or football or something. You know, a lot of things are probably neglect either of taking care of an agging issue and just being like it's going to get okay, neglecting the sleep, neglecting the nutrition, you know, not listening to your body. So that's really interesting. I mean, for the nutrition part, you know, it sounds like you. guys have a pretty good structure at camp. Do they kind of give you guidance? You said you eat pretty healthy. I don't know how deep you go into this stuff. Like it's just like I eat healthy and I eat what I need to eat. Are you thinking about like it's sort of like an ideal

macro nutrient profile to fit kind of need or just kind of like let me eat enough to do this? It's kind of like a balance of it too really. Like you'll sit down with the nutritionist and you can sit down with her whenever you want to but um it's kind of like everyone sits down with her at the start of each year and then like at key points throughout the year you know like oh we're going into winter training or we're going into racing season and those are the key sort of fundamental points um there's kind of a balance of it because you want to obviously eat healthy but you don't want to eat stuff you don't enjoy or like because then you're not going to be happy and then your training will be impacted by that and so it's kind of the balance of i've got to eat really well

but I also can afford myself because I'm burning X,000 calories a day I can't actually tell you a number on that fully. I can look on my whoop in a sec and see. But you're going through it and if you're burning that many thousand calories, you can afford yourself.

You know, like if you want to eat ice cream or something, I don't know, that's a bad example maybe, but like have a healthy meal and then you can treat yourself afterwards. Those calories from treating yourself afterwards aren't going to make a difference to your overall performance, provided that it's not like every day I'm eating like fries and a burger then you can afford

yourself like little cheese here and there that will either like make your life more enjoyable essentially or make you sort of enjoy that meal more combined with the fact that yeah it's just like calories in is calories out to some extent when you're doing this much training you're like this hard like pushing it yeah no I think the volume that definitely plays a part in it but you also see that I can just, you know, speak from watching rowing for so long and being in different, you know, training environments of multiple sports that, you know, some people follow that. And then the people that are a little more in tune with the nutrition, one, they last longer in terms of their resilient performance is usually higher. So it seems like you're pretty in tune

with sports science and performance. When did you really start taking an interest in this and kind of like when did you realize like this is a path I'm going to go down like I'm very good at rowing and I think I can ride this probably later than it should have been ultimately you know like if I look at it through college I was probably just quite like a typical college student to some extent like college student athlete like I wanted to go well rowing wise but I wanted to do well in school and I wanted to be able to have fun I want it you know and I kind of wanted to juggle every ball have all those plates spinning and that was kind of interesting because I think that's important because you don't want to like you're not a professional athlete yet

and you don't want to set yourself up to be one because firstly you might not enjoy it secondly you can take that enjoyment out from later when you've got so many things going on it's important to have like a balance especially when you're young and then also it's like obviously hard if you want to go down that pathway other people might not want to who you might be in a boat with or whatever like there's a lot of different factors and everyone at college is trying to like enjoy life a bit so I'd say it probably was like I didn't eat badly at college and I wasn't like not in tune with it necessarily like we used first beat technologies a lot of Princeton which meant that we were always tracking heart rate data and we were always like looking at that stuff and that was fed into it you know like you could

see you could do recovery tests when you got up in the morning and you could see how recovered you were so that you could then factor that in but I think when you're a college student it's important that when your recovery score comes back low you're not just like oh the day's done like i can't train today because yeah man you're in the library till at midnight last night because you have to get this paper done you know whatever or you wanted to go a few beers with your mates and i think that ultimately that's like pretty cool and totally fine so um but then i'd say when i came back to the UK maybe that like carried over a little bit not fully but i just think that it took a bit of time for me to be like okay i'm actually like a full-on professional athlete now this is what i've wanted

basically my whole life like from being a kid it was like oh name of vocation professional athlete. Like I don't know what sport. Like I played rugby at school at high school as well as road and was like, I never good enough to like make it as a rugby player. But like I really enjoyed it. And that was something that was great fun. But being able to like step into being professional athlete was something that

I didn't necessarily take for granted, but I've been through like pathway. So it was like, oh, this is just like the logical next step. And I think that it probably took me a bit of time to be like, okay. Like for now anyway, like the Olympics is coming up. I don't have to be like trying to go out with mates and having beers or going and doing this or that. It's okay to just be like, no, I'm just going to work hard quietly in the corner and do my thing. Yeah, and I think that for me, like a hallmark of training is always just being like, do the training. Just do the training.

Like every day, just turn up and do the training, like whether it's at Prince, whatever level you're at because it's not always going to be stellar. It's not always going to be like gold medal standard, but just doing the training sets that like mental and like physical account. to like hold yourself to which means that then uh once you get to the sort of sharper end of the season you can continue to like thrive within the sort of that sort of benchmark that you've set for yourself so yeah like always just think that tune into doing the training and then I think once I left for instance it was time to be like okay I'm tuning into doing the training but I want to do the training well I want to be the best that I can be and that involves how much sleep I'm getting like nutrition I'm eating am I drinking off water each day something you

take for granted. Like, am I, you know, in the evening, am I having like, because obviously you're at Princeton, you've got those like soda fountains and everything all the time. Like, am I having soda in the evening? For sure. It's nice. That's kind of like wasted calories that I don't need to have that, okay, I've sort of contradades myself because I've said that, like, it's important to have things that bring enjoyment to you, but it's like, is soda the thing I'd want to have. No, I'd rather like have ice cream, like I said earlier or something like that and just like have water and keep myself well hydrated in that regard. I mean, it makes all sense, plus the caffeine aspect of it as you're trying to wind down for bed.

Two pieces here, I think, that jump out at me. I want to ask what you think about. So, you know, you said, oh, in college, you get a, you wake up, you have a bed recovery. Yeah, because you had to do X, Y, Z, or, you know, you're just kind of living life. How do you kind of handle when you, one, do you get a lot of red recoveries because of such a high strain and training volume? And how do you kind of handle it mentally? yeah i get a lot of reds like a lot more than i thought i think i actually at one point was like i think there's something wrong with this you know i'm not sure what's going on i'm like going to better

i'm trying to do this and that ultimately you've got to just block it out really like mentally you can't let it really especially when you're training every day you can't come in and be like i've got a red recovery therefore like i can't train to my maximum today or whatever ultimately the show goes on and if you're not willing to train hard someone else is and and you know they're getting a leg up on you and so you have to be it's like it informs me and it informs my training but it's not going to stop me from training and it's not going to stop me from putting in the best that I can like you know sometimes you're coming here like I had like a 2% recovery um okay it's never been that low for me but um you have had like a low recovery

what does that mean and it's like okay well I've got a water session and I'm going to wait and so the lift can will take care of itself because I know that like I'll have prescribed weights I just had to hit those And it's like the urge, look, I can, I know that I can just, like, till the cows come home, I know that I can sit there and do that. So that's, like, somewhere where I can be like, okay, I'm going to tune into my music and I'm just going to, like, put out my split and my, you know, my prescribed split, and I'm going to do that well.

And that's, like, something that I've got a prescribed split, and I can just hit that. I don't have to every day, like, smash through that, you know? And then it's like, okay, I'm going on the water. Just make sure, like, I'm doing the basics that, like, technical aspects of what I'm doing really well, make sure that I'm not, like, not adding to the boat, and then beyond that, then you can start to, like, squeeze into it. Once you get your heart rate going, you start to feel pretty good.

It's always okay, so you start to feel like even, okay, you might feel absolutely inaccurate between sessions, but once you get going into a session, it's pretty easy to, like, slip into the groove of it, particularly, I think when you train as much as we do and a, like, kind of baseline is, as tired or as fatigued as we are, um, you learn to sort of become familiar with that. And ultimately, you sort of seek comfort in that because,

if you're tired and fatigued, that's a positive because clearly the program's meant for you to be tired and fatigue at this point. And therefore, like, it's important to use that to increase that adaptation. I think that's a really good way to put it. And, you know, I tend to talk about, just because you've ever read recovery, it doesn't mean that you, you can't go out and perform at a very high level. Exactly. I broke five, sorry, I interrupt you, but I've no please again in in that must be March time and that morning my whoop said that I was like 31% recovered there we go there it is right there really well because it was at a point where a lot of people were asking me about it and they were like I want to get one I want to get one I was like yeah

yeah you know towards the physiologist before because I don't want to be the guy that's like you know putting people onto this thing and then it you know everyone been like oh I'm red recovered I can't do this training or that training and so that that's like my biggest tell tell story for it basically is that like I went 539 to so I like a PBI again pushed it on and a big part of that was like for me was waking up and be like again I'm not recovered but that's not really a hindrance like I know that I'm in good shape my pieces coming into this on the earth have been really strong so that means that I'm able to go and like basically trust the process of just doing what I know I can do I don't need this like

ethereal performance that's just like going to pluck it out of the air I just have to do exactly what I can do for every stroke of that race so yeah I'd say that the recovery is score for me is like it's an informant but it's not like a deciding factor doesn't guide your day a little bit in terms of the non-training you know like obviously in the team environment you got to do the training you got to hit your splits you got to be dependable and you know yeah yeah are you like hydrating more are you trying to get more mobility in or like rolling you know are you trying to sneak in 45 minutes instead of 30 that type of stuff yeah um yeah on a day when i'm like red recovered. I'll probably try and nap at some point. And then on top of that, I'd probably, yeah,

try and hydrate more, trying to eat really well, make sure that I'm in a good position to be able to know that the next day, like, I've done everything I can today to make sure that tomorrow I'm better recovered. Yeah, you're just basically tightening the screws, right? Yeah, more or less. Because obviously, like, sometimes you come in, red recovered and you're like looking at the program, you're like, I've got two long rows in a wait session today. That's going to put me well above 20 again. and then it's like, okay, then you need to, that's when it's sort of a balancing act of it. But yeah, it's like, yeah, as you said,

tightening the screws is the perfect way to describe it. Just like ticking off little things here and there to make sure that you can recover as much as possible. That's great. What have you found gives you sort of the best bounce back? So it could be, you know, I've talked to a couple other elite athletes in different disciplines. And some people say it's a sauna or, you know,

I do sort of like contrast, hot cold and stuff like that. Is there anything that you found is just like, man, this is, this is lighted out for me. Yeah. The hot cold stuff is really good. I really like doing that. But obviously, that's hard because you don't really have the facilities. I like to do that probably in the evening, if possible. So when you're on training camp, if you're in the right sort of sports facility, that's

possible. But otherwise, that's like harder to do. I've found out just from my whip that my recovery scores are like, I think it's like 12% improved if I have acupuncture like therapy basically if I've like seen the physio and we use like dry needling to like loosen off muscles

if we do that then it's like greatly improved and like I don't I can't sort of pinpoint for you why that is ultimately apart from the fact that like my muscles are looser but like normally if I do that as well that'll be during the day it won't be necessarily in the evening just before I go to bed again except if we're in training camp where I can kind of be like go to the physio and be like hey so this improves my recovery and we want to do it anyway because

we're doing maintenance on this back on my back or on my like glutes or whatever um so can we just do it in the evening before I go to sleep because I know that it improves that and it might help even more but like even if I just do it in the day at some point um but that's obviously like something that like I don't do it every day because it's not good to do it every day to the muscle so I know that it's kind of one of those things that I can like almost like fall back on a little bit to help improve those recovery scores yeah no acupuncture i mean it sounds like you've got a very good physio there and obviously that you're understanding of you can't hit the same thing every single day and expect it to get better yeah like that's i think that's a good take home message for anybody

if you know your hamstrings or your adductors or your back or bother and you kind of got to either hit the chest one day and then you know kind of have routines like anything um you know i don't know your training program but you probably don't go in and just back squad heavy every single day. Yeah. You know, like it's, there's a variation and a science to it. So, you know, you talked about the soda. I heard you're a coffee guy.

Big coffee guy. Yeah. Big coffee guy. So are you waking up and hitting coffee or are you hitting it through the day? What's, what's, what's, and do you do you do you like, roast your own beans? This is an absolute vice because I've got some of this stuff here. Oh, small world. Nice.

Yeah, it's not cool because like, you know, my girlfriend ships it to me, which is always fun. But yeah, I make it myself, definitely. Normally, like, when I'm on camp, it would be an aeropress. Some of the guys have bought, like, one of the big, like, machines, you know. Oh, really? Yeah, it's just like kind of a, it's a culture thing. It's like a lifeblood of what we do. And so it's kind of important for them in that regard, I guess, like, it's just like a sort of bonding thing. And it's an event during the day, particularly when we're on training camps, like something we all sort of come together and do, which is always great. I'd say that

I'd say that like basically it's something that do I hit it first thing in the morning? Probably not normally and when I'm at home now I'm not normally I'll probably wait until after the first session I kind of I don't know I don't know if this is necessarily true or not

but I've kind of read somewhere that it can like inhibit your serotonin production because instead of your body like making a wake up hormone you just have caffeine to do it I don't really know if that's true I've only ever read that in one place so it's yeah no i was uh i was talking to i don't know if you're familiar with uh dr kelly

starrett yeah he he's like you know becoming becoming a suppleap he's like he basically like oh no the book i know the book yeah okay so you know the book so uh he's a good friend and i've worked with them in california a couple years ago and um we were at a conference i don't know 20 just before the pandemic and he said we got to get people out of this sort of um drugged state of using wine to calm the body down and then coffee to get it back up we're basically just on the cycle of we can't naturally produce the hormones we need to slow down and then wake back up so I think there's absolutely something to it I try and do the same yeah you got to get going and and you know kind of hit it when you need it especially with the volume you're doing

probably if you hit coffee right in the beginning you're just going to potentially be on a vicious cycle of coffee like like then you just like have coffee in the morning and then it's like do your first session and then you got to have another one and then you got to have another one and it's like um if i have three sessions in a day i'm probably having three coffees ultimately it's like or two to two to three yeah um and then it's like try to limit it to two when you're in training camp it's always a bit more because it's kind of like kind of before every session to some extent you're like making it um but i guess it kind of like cycling it's kind of this there's a little bit of like a culture of it within rowing it's like oh we go to all these cool places

and then to race and stuff but it's like oh what do we do in the day between races like let's go get coffee or let's make coffee or what are you up to should we have coffee um and so people get quite into it and i do quite enjoy it i kind of enjoy the process of it um but maybe there's like an element of mindfulness in making a coffee as well where you're just sort of like okay i'm just going to focus in on this this is what i'm doing right now there's nothing else going on um but it is something that yeah uh probably underpins my life a little bit i'm like a big like do enjoy like a really good flat white or or just a straight black coffee as well so um it's something that i do enjoy and i guess like maybe i have too much caffeine if i

look at it yeah but then like every now and again i'll try and detox off it as well and i'll do like i went through a stage where i just like wouldn't have any on a sunday um and then after lucerne just didn't have any for like a week and everyone's like you're going to feel terrible I felt okay actually I actually felt pretty good so that was quite nice but that also just kind of became like an athlete kind of way I was like I can keep going on this everyone's like now sure do you want to have a coffee it's like no easy easy I don't need coffee fine but actually like then you have it again you're like damn this is like good and it's like a cool like fun event to sort of enjoy with with your teammates during the day yeah no it's I never really

thought of it as that sort of social aspect yeah in a training group because it's not like you're going to go out and like some pick up rugby yeah yeah like COVID bubbles it's like you know we're in these hotels you can ship stuff in but you can't leave the hotels unless you're going to train right so then we're here and it's just really nice to be able to like go to someone's obviously once when with the first five days you can't do this because you've got like test test twice negative but once you've done that we're a bubble and we can just like go and join each other in each other's rooms and it's like oh I'll make coffee today

like who's doing it today like you know what blend do you have what kind of It just becomes this whole, like, atmosphere that people buy into. And probably more so than we should. And it probably sounds quite sad, but it's quite fun. It's like, yeah, I think it sounds great. Break up life between, like, training sessions. Nah, you know, you're working so hard together. You said you've got to do things you enjoy to, one, keep morale up,

and it keeps a group bonding together. Yeah. Are you at all stressed about the protocol for Tokyo and how are you guys kind of handling. Obviously, you're kind of going training camp and kind of making your way over. But, you know, like once you get there, are you at all apprehensive about the guidelines and or is it just be more of the same for you? Yeah, it's going to be a lot of more of the same, which I think is pretty good. I think that we've done a pretty good job as a team and like our team doctor has done a pretty good job. We're like, yeah, we're doing COVID tests this often.

Just make familiarity with the situation. I guess it's one of those things that like this, not going to be a normal Olympics and we're like very aware of that and we've been very made very aware of that by like the press and and the public but to some extent you've got to just like block out that noise a little bit ultimately because you can listen to it and let it affect you or you can just sort of be like okay maybe it'll be like a bit terrible when you're just having to like sit in your room or in your like block or whatever um i think we can walk around the village as like once we're in and have been tested negative twice i think it's like you can in the evening. I don't think it's like you can always be walking around, but I think it's

like you're allowed to go for a walk to just like stretch your legs and like let your mind sort of be free of the four walls within which you're going to be like living beyond like your training. Look, I think it's something that every athlete is going to have to deal with and as a team we've dealt with it pretty well in the last like 18 months. So like let's just keep doing what we're doing and hopefully that will lead to like great success. But yeah, it is going to be strange definitely having to like do all the testing with time and i'm assuming that rowing still very early on and in the games correct yeah yeah with like in that first week yeah very first week yeah um so that's exciting is is the uh i guess you know it's a shame that maybe the olympic

experience won't be quite the same yeah um is the team planning on hanging around after or so you have to be out of the country 48 hours after your event ends wow Wow, okay. So, no, it's the answer to that. But, like, I guess in a weird way, it's better that it's that way and everyone comes home and, like, the UK is opening up and we're all double-vaxed. And as a result, then we can, like, do something together in the UK as a group and as a team. Or I think that the TeamGB are planning to do something as well beyond just, like, individual teams

to, like, create, like, a sort of atmosphere of it. But, yeah, it's a bit of a shame, like, especially when you hear the stories of, like, what it means to like go to the Olympics and like how much fun it is afterwards and sort of get your two weeks being, I guess like all Olympic sports are these sports, okay with the except for like basketball, football, tennis, soccer that is, where the Olympics is the pinnacle for most sports and so you get treated like royalty for two weeks

which you just never happens in your career. And so I think like it's something that people always talk about and they're like you get these amazing memories and when going to be denied that on this occasion. however like 12 months ago the Olympics probably wasn't even happening so you kind of have to take the rough with this mood and be happy with it and just like I'm happy to keep training hard to like go into that and hopefully succeed and do well that's like the ultimate aim and and if it comes off well then that would be epic do you see this as just the beginning of your career if you as long as

you stay healthy are we are we going for another well three at this point not even yeah through at this point um yeah i think probably carry on that sort of like i guess i never really sort of vocalized that necessarily but um it's one of those things that i kind of want to get through this olympics first and then make a decision ultimately because everyone always says that when you cross that finish line you know and like either you're like fully at peace and you're just like wow i did what i wanted to do and now it's time to go in a different direction or you're like let's do it again here we go so i want to wait and see um trying to go study again next year for a year so that would be a cool way to like break it up a bit maybe and i can hopefully keep rowing at a high

level whilst doing that which means that like all the doors are open and it's an opportunity so but i think it's important that like this last 18 24 months have been phenomenally intense and like the bubble aspects is i added to that obviously but on top of that just like wanting to train harder every day. And like I think when we were at home, when I was training at home, it was just like every day. It was like, it kind of became like an obsession almost of like, am I doing this better than like my opposite man in the German eight or the Australian eight or the USA or whatever. And so it's just been an intense like amount of pressure putting on our set that that we've put on ourselves. I think a lot of people feel that. And so like I want to step off

the carousel for a little bit before I sort of make any concrete decisions, I think. But like I love what do and like it I'm pretty happy with just like life the state of life at the moment so like that's pretty cool and I like I'm not saying that like a lot of people can't say that but I do talk to a lot of people a lot of Princeton mates who are like who sort of went down the sort of finance route or the corporate route and they all sort of seem to chime in with the same thing like don't rush to like move into that and so for me like I'm pretty like happy to see where the future goes and also like I just broke 540 but that's just like on the row machine like I want to be able to achieve amazing things on the water as well and like there's opportunities to do that going

forward and I don't really want to limit myself and be like oh this is what I did and it was really good but could I have done more and I guess that's just like there's sort of never-ending cycle isn't it you can always try and do more and so you're not you're not even really in your prime yet well that's what people get you're just you're just getting you're like you're maybe entering the beginning like there's so much more So we'll see. Yeah, you know, it's having been on the other side, like on the coaching with Sarah and then just London and Rio, yeah, you know, it feels like you want to walk away

and they're like, nah, I just can't. And there is. There's the intentionality of like knowing exactly what you're working towards. Yeah. It's something very rare in life. It's never that, I would say it's never that clear again. because things just start getting added in, right? Yeah.

And something I find quite sort of almost poetic about it in a weird way. I'm reading this book at the moment called The Art of Cycling. It's basically like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but with cycling is the like sort of medium for it. And one of the things he says, the guy who wrote it was in the Peloton in Europe, in the professional cycling. And he was just like, yeah,

I met up with a friend like 20 years later or 10 years later or whatever. And he was like, isn't it weird that we committed so much time to something that now we're just kind of bad at because we haven't done it anymore. And it is kind of weird to look at it like that and you're like, okay, I'm on this like journey and I'm going to keep improving, but every time I try and keep improving,

it gets harder to improve. And so then you kind of want to improve more and you want to like work harder to get to that next level of improvement and then you get there. You're like, okay, like my catch is now smooth and you're like, oh, but my slips too much, damn. Like, but I make my catch fast, you know, whatever.

And so then you kind of, you kind of, kind of go for that next thing. And so it's a weird one where you're sort of on this journey. And sometimes it's like nice to step back and have a look at it. But like you said with Sarah, it's like you step back. And then you're like, no, actually I could do it again. I'm going to go again. So we'll see what happens.

I'm very excited for you, Tom. We're excited for you. Tokyo is going to be a barn burner if the Euros and the World Cups are or any sort of precursor. Yeah. Well, I hope so. But obviously like it's an interesting one because it's like I'm kind of firmly the belief you're only as good as your last race and you always have to keep improving,

but you also know that everyone else is trying to improve as well. And so keep grinding away and doing it, which is going to be cool. We're definitely going to be watching and we're excited to see you rip down the course in Tokyo. So thank you very much for joining us, Tom. Thanks so much, Mike. I really appreciate it. It's been awesome. Thanks to Tom for coming on the WOOP podcast. We are wishing him luck at this year's Olympics. I remind you, you can get 15% off a WOOF membership if you use the code Will Ahmed,

W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D, that is at whoop.com. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. Stay healthy, folks. Stay in the green.