"Why pay for camp when I could just erg at home?"
It's a fair question, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a sales pitch. The truth is nuanced: whether a camp improves your erg score depends on the camp's duration, its programming, and what you're actually trying to improve. This article breaks down the physiology of erg improvement, what different camp formats can realistically accomplish, and how to evaluate any program's claims about performance outcomes.
How Athletes Actually Get Faster
A faster 2K erg score is the product of three distinct pathways, each operating on a different timeline.
Aerobic capacity — your body's ability to consume and utilize oxygen — is the foundation. VO2max, lactate threshold, and the efficiency of your cardiovascular system determine your aerobic ceiling. Improving these requires sustained training stimulus over weeks and months. You cannot meaningfully change your VO2max in five days. The physiology doesn't work that way, regardless of how hard you train.
Technical efficiency is how effectively you translate physical effort into speed on the erg (or in the boat). An athlete with poor technique wastes energy on movements that don't contribute to handle speed. Correcting these inefficiencies — a more connected drive, better sequencing, reduced energy leaks — can produce measurable improvement without any change in fitness. And unlike aerobic capacity, technical gains can happen relatively quickly when paired with quality coaching and immediate feedback.
Mental and pacing skills govern how well you execute what your body is capable of. Many athletes leave significant time on the table through poor pacing strategy, premature fatigue from going out too hard, inability to maintain focus through discomfort, or simply not knowing what a well-paced 2K feels like. These skills are trainable, and a structured camp environment — with experienced coaches, competitive peers, and deliberate pacing work — can develop them meaningfully in a short period.
The honest takeaway: short-term interventions have real limits for aerobic development, but meaningful impact on technique and pacing. A camp that promises to improve your 2K by 10 seconds in five days is making claims that physiology doesn't support. A camp that helps you become a more efficient, mentally tougher rower over five days? That's realistic.
What Short Camps (Under One Week) Can Do
A five-day camp will not transform your erg score. That's a statement worth making clearly because the expectation that it will is one of the most common sources of disappointment in camp experiences.
Five days is not enough time to produce meaningful changes in aerobic capacity or lactate threshold. The body simply doesn't adapt that quickly to cardiovascular training stimulus, regardless of volume or intensity. Any erg test improvement after a five-day camp is almost certainly attributable to technique correction, better pacing, or increased motivation — not fitness gains.
That said, what short camps can accomplish is genuinely valuable:
Education and inspiration. Exposure to experienced coaches, structured training, and athletes from other programs broadens an athlete's understanding of what's possible and what quality training looks like. This might not show up on a Monday morning erg test, but it shapes training decisions for months afterward.
New technical cues. A coach who watches you row and identifies that your drive sequence starts with your back instead of your legs has given you something you can work on for the next year. The correction may happen in five minutes. Ingraining it takes months. But you needed someone to see it first.
Understanding effort calibration. Many developing rowers have never been coached through what different training intensities feel like — the difference between steady state and threshold, between a controlled start and an unsustainable opening 500. Experiencing this with coaching creates a reference framework for self-directed training.
Exposure to peers at similar or higher levels. Training alongside motivated athletes from different programs creates context. It can also be motivating in ways that are hard to replicate at home.
The athletes who benefit most from short camps tend to be younger (ninth and tenth grade), earlier in their development, and approaching camp as an investment in long-term learning rather than a short-term performance hack. The value is in what you do after camp, not the camp itself.
When Physiology Starts to Change
At two weeks and beyond, the conversation shifts. Extended camps enter territory where real physiological adaptation becomes possible — with important caveats.
Two to four weeks of consistent, well-structured training provides a meaningful training stimulus. Accumulated volume builds aerobic base. Repeated technical work under the guidance of consistent coaching allows changes to ingrain rather than just introduce. The body begins adapting to the increased demands in measurable ways.
For altitude programs specifically, two weeks approaches the minimum threshold for meaningful EPO response and red blood cell production — the adaptations that translate into improved oxygen-carrying capacity upon return to sea level.
Extended camp formats also allow for something that shorter programs can't: periodized programming. A two-week camp can include a loading phase, a recovery phase, and a testing phase — mimicking the structure of a proper training block rather than cramming maximum intensity into every available session. This approach produces better outcomes because it respects recovery as part of the adaptation process.
Athletes who train seriously for two to four weeks under expert coaching, with proper nutrition, adequate recovery, and progressive programming, often see measurable erg improvement. But the magnitude depends heavily on their training history (athletes with less training background tend to see larger initial gains), their starting fitness, the quality of the programming, and — critically — what they do in the weeks and months after camp.
The caveat that programs sometimes understate: even with extended camps, the improvement comes from the combination of camp training and ongoing development. Two weeks doesn't create permanent fitness. It creates a foundation that must be maintained and built upon.
Erg Score Is One Metric
The recruiting conversation tends to center erg scores because they're objective and easily compared. But reducing camp value to erg improvement misses most of what serious development involves.
College coaches use erg scores to start conversations, not end them. A strong 2K gets your email opened. But recruiting decisions involve far more: how an athlete moves on the water, their technical efficiency, their racing IQ, their coachability, their character, and their trajectory. An athlete who drops five seconds on the erg but can't transfer that power effectively to a boat is less recruitable than an athlete with a slightly slower time who rows beautifully and races intelligently.
What quality camps provide beyond erg improvement matters for recruiting in ways that often don't get discussed:
Racing experience and tactical awareness. Athletes who have raced in competitive environments — particularly head-to-head racing — develop instincts that coaches value. Knowing when to push, how to respond to a move, and how to manage a race plan under pressure are skills built through experience, not erging.
Technical development visible on the water. Coaches recruit athletes they want to coach. Technical potential and current skill on the water often matter more than raw power, particularly for programs that develop athletes over four years.
Relationships with coaches who can speak to development. Camp coaches who've worked with an athlete over two or four weeks can speak with specificity about their potential — their coachability, their work ethic, their ability to integrate feedback. That kind of recommendation carries weight.
The athlete who improves holistically — technically, physically, mentally, and as a competitor — is better positioned than the one who optimizes for a single number.
Questions to Ask
When evaluating any camp's claims about performance outcomes, a few principles and questions help separate substance from marketing.
Be skeptical of guaranteed results. If a camp promises a specific erg improvement, ask how they can predict that without knowing your athlete's current training, fitness level, and technical proficiency. Honest programs describe what they can provide — quality coaching, structured training, feedback systems — not what they can guarantee.
Ask about training structure. What does the daily and weekly training plan look like? Is there a progression across the camp, or is each day a standalone? How is training load balanced with recovery? Programs that can articulate a thoughtful periodization plan are more likely to produce genuine development than those promising maximum effort every session.
Ask about what athletes take home. The most important question may be what happens after camp. Does the program provide resources for continued development? Written evaluations? Video? A training framework that connects to what they'll do at home? A camp that invests in post-camp continuity is a camp that understands how development actually works.
Look for honesty about limitations. Programs that acknowledge what they can't accomplish — "a five-day camp won't change your aerobic capacity, but here's what it will do" — tend to deliver better on what they can accomplish. Overpromising is a red flag.
The honest answer to "can a camp improve my erg score?" is this: short camps probably won't, at least not through fitness gains. Extended, well-structured training can contribute to measurable improvement. But the better question is: what do you want to get out of camp?
If the answer is "a faster erg score and nothing else," dedicated erg training at home may be the more efficient path. If the answer involves becoming a better, more complete rower — technically, mentally, and competitively — then the right camp, at the right time, can be one of the most valuable investments in an athlete's development. Camps are most valuable when viewed as part of a longer development journey, not as a substitute for one.
