A Little About the Junior U19 Program

This program is for rowers under the age of 19 looking to compete at various local, regional and national regattas.

The ERC Junior/Junior Development program offers young people access to structured and organized training, supporting personal and life skills development. At the Edmonton Rowing Club, we value respect, inclusiveness, teamwork and volunteerism.

ERC’s Junior/Junior Development program is based on the “Long Term Athlete Development” (LTAD) model created by Rowing Canada Aviron. LTAD consists of several training stages, including “Learn to Train”, “Train to Train” and “Learn to Compete”. As rowing is a ‘late entry sport’, most athletes will start at the “Learn to Train” stage regardless of their age. We highly recommend and encourage that all athletes do other physical activity while enrolled in any of the LTAD stages.

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Training

The Junior program trains throughout the year. We offer afternoon sessions throughout the week offered in the afternoon. From May to October, training is usually on the river, and from November to April training is indoors. Indoor training is offered at our training facility and primarily consists of workouts on the ergometers and in the rowing tank. Depending on the time of year there are up to six (6) coached workouts per week, but there is no expectation for rowers to attend every session.

Juniors 2023 on Water Calender

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All Juniors will be registered with RCA as “Juniors/Youth” and will be split into Performance and Development groups as determined by the Juniors Coach. This enables the club to support its staff and members as they negotiate the RCA development pathways (LTAD).

Development (for new, LTR Upgraded and Train to Train athletes):

If you are in this group of athletes, you are looking for scheduled introductory training to improve your rowing skills and/or to improve your aerobic capacity. Development athletes will have the option of competing in local and regional regattas. Upon recommendation of the program coach, you may be moved into the “Performance” group.

Performance (For Experienced, Learn to Compete, Train to Compete athletes):

Member of the Performance group of athletes are in this group based on the recommendation of the Junior Coach. The workout plans followed by this group include higher volumes of rowing at higher intensities to prepare athletes for competition. Athletes will have the option to compete in local, regional, provincial, and national regattas.

Regattas

The ERC primarily competes and participates in regattas located in the Prairie provinces. We do attend regattas in British Columbia and have attended the Royal Canadian Henley regatta in St. Catharines, Ontario. ERC Junior rowers have also competed at the Provincial level in the Western Canada Summer Games, the Canada Summer Games and the National Rowing Championships.