Not only is rowing fun and easy but there are many physical and health benefits:
Rowing improves your mood.
Rowing combats chronic diseases.
Rowing helps you manage your weight.
Rowing strengthens your heart & lungs.
Rowing promotes better sleep.
Rowing strengthens your muscles.
Rowing is low-impact and won’t hurt your joints.
Rowing is - gasp - fun!
The sport of rowing offers an ideal vehicle through which such objectives may be achieved. Rowing combines the elements of fitness, coordination, and personal achievement into a challenging sport. Regardless where one sits in the boat, each person is equally relied upon. In fact, the most important person in the boat, the coxswain, does not row at all!
Since rowing is a sport which relies more on hard work, commitment and team effort than innate talent, it gives young people who may not have the ability to do well in other sports an opportunity to achieve athletic distinction. Rowing, moreover, is a sport for life. Once learned, it can be enjoyed well into old age. A variety of weight classes allow for the participation of smaller athletes who may be excluded in other sports.
Why Children Row
You can fulfill your responsibilities better as a parent by knowing why young people choose to row and why they choose to quit. The most important thing to know is that children have the right to choose. Of course it’s OK to encourage your child to play, but it’s not OK to pressure her or him. The difficulty is in distinguishing between encouragement and pressure. You’ll need to be very careful that you don’t push your goals onto your child so hard that rowing becomes stressful.
Young people row because they like the action and excitement of the race. They don’t want to sit on the bench or be spectators; they want to be involved in the action. They like close races and racing teams of similar ability who challenge their skills. They don’t want to get walloped, nor do they find much fun in clobbering another team.
Young people also row because it provides opportunity to make new friends, but more importantly they want to play sports with their existing friends. These are the qualities that make sports fun for young people.
