High Performance

The High Performance Programme at Newcastle University is a simple pathway to excellent rowing achievements. It has been brought to NUBC by Angelo Savarino who has absolute confidence in its power. It is cyclical in nature employing 50%, 75%, 100% and race-taper levels to bring you to your best for race day.

Athlete Funding

The Club is highly successful in gaining funding for its performance and high potential athletes. Currently, most members of the High Performance Group and a number of promising novices receive support from the University’s Sports Bursaries, the Government’s Talented Athletes Sponsorship Scheme, the ARA’s World Class Start and National Lottery funding.

On the Programme the winter season is spent training in singles or one of the Club’s six pair/doubles. The water sessions are split up into pieces and done at a higher intensity than on many other programmes. This makes the training more exciting as each outing takes the format of varying rate-capped racing between the whole of the High Performance Group. This is far more enjoyable than the 20km UT2 paddles employed by many rowing teams. These sessions aim to improve athletes both physiologically and technically. In the summer crew boats are formed and as the distance drops the rating and boat speed is increased to maximal.

Weights and running are also significant parts of the Programme, aiming at maximising physiological development. Running plays an important role in loading as it increases total mileage but is also used in tapering as it is less stressful and time consuming than water sessions. Weight training is done to the point of exhaustion and failure, where it is not possible to do a single extra repetition. This aims to maximise muscular hypertrophy (growth) by recruiting previously unused fibres to work.

The high intensity of this programme tends to mean that the athletes seem to be able to cope with a higher training load and tend to get ill less frequently. Both of these result in better performance. The High Performance Programme has been followed successfully by those on all types of courses (including finalists and postgraduates) such as law, medicine, dentistry, architecture and engineering. So it is proven that it can be combined with getting a good degree.

When the training load is 100% you only need to think that this is the programme of World Champions and you do it to win.