When Old-School Rowing Meets New-School Analytics, Modern Training Evolves

Rowing has never been a cheap sport, but in recent years the financial gap has widened sharply. Well-funded programs invest in sports science, data analytics, and advanced equipment, while smaller federations and community clubs struggle just to keep athletes training full-time. Globally, the costs of boats, oars, transportation, storage, and membership fees continue to rise, driven up by inflation, higher manufacturing expenses, and supply-chain delays. For many young or lower-income athletes, the barriers to staying competitive have never been higher.

Instead of relying on expensive infrastructure or large performance staff, Ukrainian rower Vladyslav Avramenko uses a system built on accessible, affordable tools, such as power data, GPS metrics, heart-rate zones, split analysis, and detailed video technique review. A multiple national champion of Ukraine, a former member of the country's elite Schools of Higher Sports Mastery, and an athlete who represented Ukraine at U19 and U23 World Championships, he built his career without the financial backing enjoyed by larger rowing nations. After relocating to the United States and continuing to compete successfully for Hollywood Rowing Club, he refined a training methodology designed specifically for athletes and clubs that need efficiency more than budget.

His approach combines these tools with the disciplined, technique-driven European training he received in Ukraine and the high-intensity, race-focused style he encountered in the U.S. The result is an integrated system that helps athletes maximize every training hour, regardless of resources.

From Ukraine's Elite System to the U.S. Rowing Scene

To understand why Vladyslav's method works, it helps to look at the environments that shaped it. Ukraine's elite rowing system. There, he trained as a multiple national champion, a member of the Schools of Higher Sports Mastery, and a representative at U19 and U23 World Championships, known for its technical discipline and long, endurance-heavy workloads. It taught him to value precision, efficiency, and movement quality long before he began working with data.

"When I came to the U.S. and joined Hollywood Rowing Club, everything was faster," the sportsman recalls. "More races, shorter prep cycles, and athletes who train hard while juggling work, family, studies, everything. Back home, rowing was my whole schedule. Here, you realize very that every hour on the water has to matter. There's no wasting strokes. You show up, you focus, and you make the most of the time you have."

This environment forced Vladyslav to rethink how to keep high technical standards while reducing unnecessary load, a challenge many rowers face today as costs rise and time becomes scarce.

This contrast between systems is what ultimately shaped his methodology. Ukraine taught him how to build a strong, technically sound rower. The U.S. environment pushed him to make that process more efficient, more analytical, and adaptable. His ability to combine the strengths of both models into a single approach is what makes his work relevant to athletes seeking high-level results without incurring high costs.

How Analytics Modernizes Rowing Training

For fans, rowing may seem like a display of raw strength and rhythm. But at the competitive level, races are often decided by tiny details: how well an athlete holds their split, how they handle a course bend, or how their technique holds up when fatigue hits. Instead of treating data as background information, Vladyslav uses it the way a boxer uses timing or a sprinter uses stride metrics. Numbers help him understand where speed comes from and where it disappears, and that turns training into a process athletes can read, adjust, and convert into race-day confidence.

A large part of this work starts with how he reads the power output. Step tests on the Concept2 show him not only what split an athlete can hold but also how their force production shifts as the intensity rises. When wattage begins to wobble, he looks for the technical pattern underneath: a catch that slips, a drive that softens, a posture that collapses under pressure. This kind of analysis helps rowers stay consistent across both sprint races and long head-race formats, where pacing mistakes cost more time than most realize.

"Once you collect enough sessions," he notes, "the data starts revealing things you'd never catch by feel. A force-curve that shifts just a few percent at high rates can predict a drop in boat speed long before an athlete notices it."

On the water, the picture becomes even more detailed. GPS speed traces and acceleration curves reveal how each segment of a course behaves: whether the boat drifts off line, loses speed in transitions, or wastes energy in places the athlete can't feel from the seat. Vladyslav uses these traces to model race scenarios more accurately, helping athletes understand how to pace not in theory but in relation to the exact demands of a river, lane, or turn.

"Two 'identical' 2k courses can demand you row absolutely differently," he says, "One rewards a long, patient drive; another punishes it. The GPS data exposes those differences, and you start training for the course you'll actually race, not the one you imagine."

Technique, meanwhile, gets its own layer of scrutiny. Video breakdowns allow him to slow the stroke to the level where timing flaws and asymmetries become obvious. These details are almost impossible to detect while rowing. Athletes often discover that their biggest time losses are not physical at all but mechanical: a late entry, an uneven leg drive, or a finish that disrupts the rhythm of the boat. Having trained in Europe's discipline-first tradition, Vladyslav uses the footage to provide clear corrections and immediate visual cues that help rowers connect technique with boat speed.

And then there is the question of physiology. Instead of relying on generic weekly volumes, he adapts training around heart-rate zones, fatigue markers, and individual thresholds. This keeps athletes from slipping into overtraining and makes progress more predictable, especially for rowers who cannot train full-time and must fit sessions around work or study — a reality in both Ukraine and the United States.

"Data only matters if you can turn it into a feeling in the boat," the athlete explains. "When you know what a stable split feels like, or what efficient pressure feels like, you stop guessing. You start rowing with a plan instead of rowing with hope."

Because his system is built on tools that most rowers already have access to ( a Concept2 machine, a GPS device, a phone camera, or a heart-rate monitor), it allows athletes to improve without relying on expensive technology or full-time support teams. For many competitors, especially those from smaller clubs or countries with limited funding, this kind of structure makes it easier to stay competitive and continue developing even when resources are tight. At the same time, rowing faces a growing challenge: recreational participation is rising, but many federations struggle to retain teenagers and young adults, who often move toward cheaper or more flexible sports. Approaches that make training more accessible and less dependent on costly setups can help reduce this drop-off by giving developing athletes a clearer path to progress.

At Hollywood Rowing Club, Vladyslav has become a point of reference for rowers looking to refine both technique and race strategy.

As he says, "People come to me with the same issues over and over: unstable splits, pacing that falls apart, technique that drifts in longer races. And they're often surprised by the way an analytical approach gives them fixes they can actually feel in the boat."

His experience as a technical evaluator and competition judge in Ukraine adds weight to his feedback. Athletes trust that his observations come not only from personal intuition, but from years spent assessing technique, rule compliance, and performance quality at regional and interclub regattas. This background has made him a reliable voice within the club: someone whose advice connects the athlete's perspective with the evaluative eye of a trained expert. Simply put, he helps teammates adjust boat rigging, refine catch timing, correct drive sequencing, and adapt pacing patterns for different course types.

The Future of Rowing

Rowing is moving toward a new competitive reality shaped by economics, technology, and shifting training cultures.

"Emerging technology will definitely shape more of the sport in the coming years," the sportsman says. "I hope that tools like oarlock sensors measuring force and angle, and AI-driven training apps that adjust each session in real time, will soon be available not only to national teams but to regular clubs and developing athletes as well."

For Vladyslav, the future is not only about advanced tools. He will be engaged in making those tools usable for everyone. His focus on adapting technology for amateur and club rowers comes from a simple belief: the sport becomes stronger when more people can access effective training without feeling limited by cost or background. He sees technology not as a barrier, but as an opportunity to help a wider range of athletes stay engaged, progress confidently, and enjoy the competitive side of rowing without requiring elite-level infrastructure. As the sport continues to globalize and more athletes move between training systems, hybrid models like Vladyslav's will likely become increasingly relevant for any kind of sport.