Every June, high school rowers face the same question: what do I do with my summer? The spring season is over. Fall racing is three months away. The boathouse may be closed, or running a lighter schedule, or offering a camp you're not sure about. Meanwhile, someone on the internet is telling you that erg scores are all that matter and you should spend every waking hour on the Concept2.
That advice is incomplete. A productive summer for a high school rower includes three components: aerobic base building (erg and on-water), strength development, and structured coaching exposure — camp, clinics, or small-boat training. The balance between them depends on where the athlete is in their development. But the structure matters more than any single session, and the athletes who arrive at fall practice ready to compete are the ones who trained with a plan, not just with intensity.
How should a high school rower train over the summer?
Most high school rowers should train five to six days per week during the summer, with 60–70% of their volume at low intensity (steady state), 15–20% at moderate intensity, and 10–15% at high intensity. This ratio is not arbitrary — it reflects what exercise science consistently shows about how endurance athletes build fitness. The World Rowing development guidelines suggest 6–8 training hours per week for athletes under 16 and 8–12 hours per week for athletes under 18. These are guidelines, not mandates, but they provide a reasonable framework.
The key principle is that summer is for base building, not peaking. The aerobic system — the engine that powers everything from a 2K test to a 5,000-meter head race — develops through sustained low-intensity work over weeks and months. Athletes who train at race intensity through June burn out in October. The ones who build their base patiently through the summer arrive at fall practice with the fitness to absorb the harder training that produces race results.
What does a sample summer training week look like?
For a developing high school rower with one to three years of experience, a typical summer week might look like this:
Monday: 60 minutes steady state on the erg (rate 18–20, approximately 65% of max heart rate). Afternoon: 45 minutes of strength training.
Tuesday: Erg intervals — 6 to 8 repetitions of 4 minutes on, 2 minutes off, at a pace roughly 8–10 splits above your 2K — or on-water practice if available. Afternoon: 30–40 minutes of cross-training (cycling, running, or swimming at easy effort).
Wednesday: 45 minutes steady state on the erg. Afternoon: strength training.
Thursday: A different interval session — 3 repetitions of 10 minutes at 2K+5 splits, with 3 minutes rest — or on-water practice. Afternoon: cross-training.
Friday: 60 minutes steady state on the erg. Afternoon: strength training.
Saturday: Longer piece — 75–90 minutes of steady state rowing, or a long on-water session. A time trial every three to four weeks to assess progress.
Sunday: Rest, or light active recovery — a walk, an easy bike ride, yoga.
This is a template, not a prescription. Athletes with less experience should reduce the volume. Athletes with access to on-water training should replace erg sessions where possible — rowing in a boat develops skills the erg cannot. The specific sessions matter less than the structure: most of the work at low intensity, deliberate rest days, and gradual progression over weeks.
How much erg training should a high school rower do in the summer?
Four to six erg sessions per week is appropriate for most high school rowers, with three to four of those at steady-state intensity and one to two at higher intensity. Total weekly erg volume for a developing rower typically ranges from 60,000 to 90,000 meters, building to 80,000–120,000 meters by late summer for more experienced athletes. For specific drills and protocols that build speed on the erg, see our guide on how to actually row faster.
Steady state dominates summer training for a reason. Research on polarized training — most associated with the work of physiologist Stephen Seiler — consistently shows that endurance athletes who spend the large majority of their training time at low intensity and a small fraction at high intensity improve more than those who train mostly at moderate intensity. The 80/20 principle (80% easy, 20% hard) is the simplest expression of this. The common mistake: athletes who do every erg session at race pace improve quickly for three weeks, then plateau or get injured. Erg improvement comes from building the aerobic engine, not from testing it repeatedly. If you're wondering what kind of improvement is realistic over a summer, the answer depends heavily on where you start — but the training structure matters more than the specific number.
Athletes who track their steady-state splits and heart rate over the summer can watch their base improving in real time — the same pace at a lower heart rate, or a faster pace at the same heart rate. This kind of self-monitoring is one of the most practical applications of learning to coach yourself. The erg provides perfect data. The question is whether the athlete is paying attention to it.
Should a high school rower do strength training in the summer?
Yes. Two to three sessions per week, 30–45 minutes each, focused on compound movements — squats, deadlifts, rows, presses — is appropriate for most high school rowers during the summer. Strength training supports injury prevention, power development, and the durability athletes need for the high-volume fall training cycle.
The exercises that transfer most effectively to rowing are squat variations (many rowing strength coaches prefer the front squat for its emphasis on trunk stability), Romanian deadlifts or hex bar deadlifts for the posterior chain, bent-over rows for upper-body pulling, overhead press for shoulder stability, and core work — planks, Pallof presses, loaded carries. Three sets of 8–10 repetitions for the compound movements and two sets of 15–20 for accessory and core work is a reasonable starting structure. For a deeper look at what the research says about strength training for rowers, including periodization and injury prevention, see our complete guide to strength training for rowers.
For athletes new to lifting, movement quality matters far more than load. A poorly executed heavy squat is worse than no squat at all. If your athlete hasn't worked with a qualified strength coach, the summer is the time to start — the off-season is the lowest-risk period for introducing new physical demands.
Where does camp fit into a summer training plan?
Camp is not a replacement for independent training — it is a different kind of developmental input. Independent training builds fitness. Camp builds the athlete's understanding of the sport, their technical skills, and their ability to coach themselves. A productive summer includes both.
The right type of camp depends on where the athlete is:
For younger athletes (ages 13–15, with zero to two years of rowing), a three-to-five-day camp is the right developmental step. It exposes them to serious coaching, athletes from other programs, and the sport at a higher level than their home club can provide in the summer months. The rest of the summer should be structured around general base fitness — erging, running, swimming, building athleticism. Don't worry about erg scores yet. The goal at this age is falling in love with the sport deeply enough to sustain the commitment that comes later. For families in the Northeast, our guide to rowing camps in the Boston area covers the specific options. Midwest families may want to start with our guide to rowing camps in the Midwest, where options are more limited but the need is just as real.
For developing athletes (ages 15–17, with two to four years of rowing), camp serves a different purpose. Longer immersion programs — one to four weeks — provide sustained technical development that short programs cannot, particularly in small boats, where singles and pairs accelerate technical learning in ways that larger boats cannot replicate. A typical summer for this athlete: four to six weeks of independent base building, one to four weeks of camp, then two to four weeks of integration and fall preparation.
For athletes in the recruiting window (ages 16–18), camp contributes to the recruiting conversation in ways that erg training alone does not — coaching IQ, the ability to articulate technical goals, experience adapting to different coaching styles. These are the qualities that become visible when a college coach asks an athlete what they've been working on and why. An athlete whose summer consisted entirely of solo erg sessions has a narrower answer than one who also trained under different coaches in a structured developmental environment. For more on why this matters, see our article on why erg scores alone won't get your kid recruited.
Sparks operates three-to-five-day collegiate camps at BU, Notre Dame, Cornell, Columbia, GW, and Cambridge with a 1:5 staff-to-athlete ratio, and one-to-four-week immersion programs in Canada, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, and New Zealand with 1:3 to 1:4 ratios and admissions-based enrollment. But the principle holds regardless of which program an athlete chooses: camp and independent training are complements, not substitutes. For a broader look at the landscape, our 2026 guide to the best rowing camps for high school athletes evaluates programs by structure and philosophy rather than ranking them.
How do you build a summer plan that prepares for fall racing?
Work backward from your fall season. If the first race is in late September, training should peak in volume four to six weeks before that race, then shift toward higher-intensity work in the final weeks. A simple three-phase structure works for most high school rowers.
Phase 1 — June (four weeks): Recovery from the spring season and a gradual return to structured training. Volume is lower. The emphasis is on technique, enjoyment, and rebuilding motivation after the competitive season. This is where a shorter camp fits well — the athlete is fresh, curious, and ready to absorb new coaching.
Phase 2 — July (four to six weeks): Base building. This is the highest-volume phase of the summer. Steady state dominates. Strength training runs at its full two-to-three-sessions-per-week cadence. This is where a longer immersion camp fits — technical development alongside base building, in an environment designed for focused training.
Phase 3 — August (three to four weeks): Transition to fall. Volume decreases slightly and intensity increases. Practice pieces at fall race paces. Time trials every two to three weeks to assess readiness. Strength training shifts to maintenance — two sessions per week with reduced volume but preserved intensity.
Build in rest weeks — every third or fourth week, reduce volume by 30–40%. The body adapts during rest, not during work. Sleep matters enormously for adolescent athletes: eight to nine hours per night is not a luxury, it's a training input. And nutrition during the summer should support training, not restrict it — this is not the time to make weight or cut calories.
What mistakes do high school rowers make in summer training?
Five mistakes appear consistently, and each one is avoidable.
The first is training too hard too early. Full-intensity interval sessions in June, when the body needs aerobic base work, produce fast initial gains followed by stagnation or injury. The second is having no structure at all — erging sporadically, skipping days, then doing a massive session out of guilt. Consistency at moderate volume beats sporadic heroic efforts. The third is skipping strength training entirely. Fall injuries — particularly lower back pain and rib stress fractures — often trace to summer neglect of the posterior chain and core. The fourth is treating camp as the entire summer plan rather than one component within it. Camp is valuable precisely because it provides something that independent training cannot. But it does not replace the base fitness that independent training builds. The fifth is not tracking training. Athletes who log every session — distance, pace, heart rate, and a brief note on how it felt — can see their progress and diagnose problems before they become plateaus.
Beneath all five mistakes is a common thread: the athlete is reacting rather than planning. The ability to design your own training, follow through on the plan, notice when something isn't working, and adjust — that is the definition of coaching yourself. Summer is where that skill develops, away from the team structure and the daily direction of a school-year coach. The athletes who arrive at fall practice able to describe what they did over the summer and explain why they made the choices they made — those are the athletes coaches want to recruit, and the ones best prepared to thrive in a college program where independence is expected from day one.
