Studying the Effect of Culture on Training

Paul Guthrie, using rowing in his studies
© Paul Guthrie

Paul Guthrie Jr. has a rowing story that is filled with familiar tones. His story contains elements that athletes across his home country of the United States can relate to. But Guthrie’s rowing story has taken a new turn, a turn he hopes will give him the edge in his quest to compete again for the United States.

Guthrie’s rowing story started when he chose the sport as a 14 year old high school freshman and, like many new rowers in a country where there are no popular rowing heroes, it was nothing to do with a burning desire to do the sport.

“The rowing coach approached me about joining,” says Guthrie who pictured himself as more inclined towards baseball and lacrosse. But his bad eyesight got the better of him. Rowing became the more suitable sporting option. Twelve years and one national team later Guthrie is still involved and drawing on the sport in his graduate studies.

Guthrie sees that certain ideas, especially those in relation to science, take a long time to be adopted by people and he is looking at this in relation to the culture of the country. Citing the example of rowing training at low intensity with a low heart rate, Guthrie says this idea is nothing new. But, he says, despite research showing its effectiveness the lag in which coaches in the United States have adopted it have been relatively slow.

“It is not a great cultural fit (in the US) to do long slow workouts. People would rather do a hard workout,” says Guthrie. “Some ideas get integrated quickly while other ideas take years. Rowing (in the US) shows a clear example of the time it takes.”

Guthrie sees the strong influence of culture as being part of the reason for resistance to accepting new ideas. He has also noticed other reasons. “By doing something new means admitting that in the past you have been doing something wrong,” says Guthrie. He also believes that people really trust what has been told to them and are willing to stay with those ideas.

As an athlete Guthrie said he made very little improvements in his first three years as a collegiate rower where the idea was to always work as hard as possible. In that time he had two shoulder operations from rowing induced damage. Guthrie then started reading prolifically about training physiology. After coming back from surgery Guthrie changed his training ideas. 

“I started to pay attention to heart rate zones, lactic acid levels and overtraining, rather than getting on the erg and pulling hard,” says Guthrie.  “In the space of two months I made huge improvements with less effort.”

After graduating from college, Guthrie’s passion for rowing continued to grow. Turning to full time training he joined legendary former USA national team and Soviet coach Igor Grinko at Grinko’s training centre. Guthrie went on to compete for the United States at the 2003 Pan American Games. He raced in the lightweight quad finishing with a bronze medal.

Under Grinko’s system Guthrie believes it was up to the athlete to be clever and find a way to make the training programme work for them as individuals. He saw a fine balance between doing the best to stand out in the training camp situation and avoiding the tendency for overtraining.

Guthrie sees the US training culture pointing more towards making workouts hard rather than making them effective. Willing to experiment with new ideas he has honed his training energies towards the Ayuvendic principle. This principle focuses on low intensity training that develops the way the body is able to utilise oxygen. Has Guthrie found the edge?

Guthrie’s research continues and so do his aspirations towards elite level rowing. He plans to aim for the US national team again in 2006.