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Since its launch on 24th July 2020, Broken Oars Podcast has grown into the world’s best podcast about rowing, rowers and all things related to the art, practice and magic of moving a boat backwards down a river using an oar. Episode by episode, your genial hosts Dr. Lewin Hynes (the Southern One) and Dr. Aaron Jackson (the Northern One) have been joined for in-depth and revealing conversations with Olympic and world champions, elite coaches, world-leading sports scientists, journalists and commentators, and rowers from all backgrounds and walks of life - creating a treasure trove of insight, information, commentary and perspectives on the greatest sport ever invented. Enjoyed this episode? Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd. Thank You! Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1 Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/thelandingstage/ www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/ Read more Broken Oars: www.thelandingstage.net
Episodes

Saturday Feb 22, 2025
Broken Oars Podcast : Hadaway Harry
Saturday Feb 22, 2025
Saturday Feb 22, 2025
The Northern One reads Ed Waugh's classic life of the north-eastern legend, Harry Clasper.

Saturday Dec 14, 2024
Broken Oars Episode: The Night Before Christmas (For Rowers)
Saturday Dec 14, 2024
Saturday Dec 14, 2024
It's been a quiet year for Broken Oars Podcast in podcast terms. While life happened, we only managed to interview the world's best sports physiologist, the world's best sports psychologist, the man who created the on / off test for EPO and ...
SIR MATTHEW PINSENT!
And yet, it's the End of the Island that's been nominated for best rowing podcast - probably because we didn't get 'round to nominating ourselves. Go on Fergus!
As we approach Christmas, we should understand that it can be a hard time of year for many (rowers). We get it. The summer regattas seem a long way away. The test regimen is currently brutal. The mileage is high. The weather and the water cold, and bow won't stop dragging their fxcking hands.
And in times like this it's always wise to remember the words of good St. Hodge.
And so with this in mind, the Northern One again reads The Night Before Christmas (for Rowers) - live from Kings.
Get some!

Friday Sep 27, 2024
Friday Sep 27, 2024
After a week away in the North Yorkshire Dales recuperating, your favourite Northen One returns with part three of this autumn's deep dive into art, paintings and songs about poo.
In this episode, we'll talk and learn all about how William Frith's work spawned a craze for 'representative' scenes of modern life, why the term post-modernism is adolescently arsy, pictures as 'texts' to be read, and the commercial possibilities that occur when the 'vulgar mob' (F.W. Fairholt) sees itself positively expressed in your work - which is why critics don't know what they're talking about, Oasis sold more than Blur, and the sound of the sixties wasn't Dylan but Helen Shapiro and Englebert Humperdinck.
We touch on Victorian hypocrisy by noting that all ages are caught between their public faces and private actions, point out that all children are legitimate, mention Harry Clasper again, and come to the birth of the cities that still inform our view of Britain.
And Mancunian exhibitionism.
There's no exhibitionist like a Mancunian exhibitionist.
Look up Frith's The Railway Station (1862), Many Happy Returns of The Day (1856), and For Better, For Worse (1880), George Elgar Hicks' The General Post Office, One Minute To Six (1860), and William Logsdail's The Bank and the Royal Exchange (1887).
Take notes.
And buy us a coffee.

Saturday Sep 14, 2024
Saturday Sep 14, 2024
Your favourite Northern One returns, with the second episode in our Autumn Series of truth and knowledge bombs about stuff that all happened 170 years ago.
In this episode, he sing songs about badgers before expanding on the ideas explored in the first episode in the series. Then, he talked about Turner. In this he talks about William Frith and the rise of the commercial, savvy artist who realised that fame, fortune and mistresses lay not necessarily in representing only the rich and powerful but in capturing and intensifying the world around them.
Yes, for the first time, plebs begin to appear in art! And prostitutes! And pickpockets! And poor people!
To follow along, please look up William Frith's Ramsgate Sands and Derby Darby day; Cruikshank's London Comes to Town; and Rodgers, Hammerstein, Hart, Gilbert and Sullivan's celebrated South Sea Badgers musical.
One of the greatest musicals ever written.
Fact.
Buy us a coffee - and we'll stop doing this stuff.
Maybe.

Monday Sep 09, 2024
Better Erging through Chemistry
Monday Sep 09, 2024
Monday Sep 09, 2024
In our continued effort to bring you, the BrokenOars viewer and listener, valued information, the Southern on has spent the last five weeks mildly toxifying himself in pursuit of a faster ergo score.
There are numerous substances that promise a legal method to greater performance and in this video takes a wonder through a few of them and examines one rower's experience of trying them out.
But not creatine, that stuff is filth.
Better watched than listened to this one I am afraid. But give it a go.
https://youtu.be/eiL5tYGEdHc

Saturday Sep 07, 2024
Saturday Sep 07, 2024
Hullo,
Can't sleep?
Me neither.
The Northern One returns with a follow-up to last year's Summer Shorts series.
Inspired by a chat with a medical friend about the advances in technology in their career, your favourite Northern One takes a spin through representation in art. As everything in modern Britain is a footnote to the Victorians, in much the same way that Western Civilisation is a footnote to the Greeks, we go to the nineteenth century to look at how art changed in response to new technology and new social and economic realities.
Specifically, we look at how the invention of the daguerreotype changed the way that painting developed. Liberated from the religious strictures, from the Enlightenment on art had increasingly been about accurate representation and heightened representation - accurate representation meaning being able to accurately express a given scene / landscape / person; and heightened representation meaning being able to express an idea, emotion, or image in doing so.
With the camera increasingly rendering that irrelevant, art then became about the representation of art as a representation of an increasingly complex world.
We look at how that came about amid changing social, cultural and economic realities.
And if that sounds as dull as ditchwater, remember that this is the Northern One talking about this stuff. There's a joke or bad pun coming at any moment.
First - Turner. Now chocolate box, then ... revolutionary.
And determined to fail in order to succeed.
Listen on.
And buy us a coffee.

Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Did you miss us?
Of course you did!
We're back with Robin Parisotto, the scientist behind the on / off EPO test to discuss the history of doping in sport, why testing regimens are set up to show there is a testing regimen rather than to create clean sports, and why clean sport will never happen in the current systems.
Apart from British rowers.
We're clean.
Get some!
Bowside? Do some work. Strokeside are fixing their mascara. Again.

Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
Tuesday Aug 13, 2024
After the glory and the dream that was our crowing achievement (talking to Sir Matthew Pinsent), Aaron and Lewin return in typical Broken Oars fashion.
That's right.
We watch Olympic races and talk about them as they're happening and then post the episode after the Olympics has finished, but before the Para Games begins.
Oh, and it looks like Podbean took all of our episodes down and dumped them back on the stream so it looks like we were really busy on the 9th August. Apologies, but look at all of the goodness you've missed in the last four years!

Friday Aug 09, 2024
Broken Oars Episode 56: Talking Sensibly About Trans and Rowing
Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
Dear Listener, thank you for your attention to our podcast, which, unlike many and most activities on the internet is not free to make. Should you be enjoying the podcast and wish to help us make more episode please consider buying us a coffee or purchasing one of our digital downloads at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd. Thank you again for listening.
Having previously examined the science informing the debate around Trans inclusion in Women's categories in sport, Broken Oars Podcast returns with an updated look at what remains fast-moving, ongoing and highly-contentious issue.
During a recent conversation, Lewin and I turned again to discuss what had happened since our first discussion of these issues, particularly with regards to highly-contentious issue of natal-men being allowed to compete against natal-women in sport; the pressures faced by NGB's to promote a sport-for-all approach in the face of quite incendiary activism on the Trans side and pushback on the women's side; and the questions of fairness and inclusivity that must be at the heart of every discussion.
Upon reviewing our intiial conversation, we decided that, on occasion, we had been too flippant about what is a serious subject. You will know, as regular listeners, that we take very little seriously, including ourselves, and treat everyone as fair game, including ourselves.
On this occasion, however, we realised that given how inflammatory some of the rhetoric, language, case-making and arguments have been in the discussion to date, what was needed was a sober look at the facts and realities of Trans biology, inclusion, and the current policies of rowing's regulatory bodies - and what they mean for the current state of play.
So here it is ...
Full Crew. From backstops. The first movement is down and it doesn't have to be fast. You aren't grabbing the last sausage roll at the party. Attention ...

Friday Aug 09, 2024
The BrokenOars Guide to purchasing rowing coaching
Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to:
https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb
and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
This is the audio version of the video we put up on YT some months ago about how to go about and what to look for in the purchasing of rowing coaching.
The Posh Southern One looks at -
Why you should and shouldn't buy coaching.
- The Pete Plan
- The Concept 2 Interactive Training Guide
- RowAlong with John Steventon
- Dark Horse Rowing, YouTube
- Asensei Rowing
What types of coaching and programming you can purchase.
- https://www.rojabo.com/
- https://www.live2rowstudios.com/
- https://ucanrow2.com/
- https://www.aliciarclark.com/
- https://tonylarkman.com/indoor-rowing/
- https://edgerowing.com/
- https://fletchersportscience.com/
- https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/about-us/faculties-schools-and-departments/faculty-of-science-engineering-and-social-sciences/sportslab/services-for-teams-and-individuals
- https://www.erg.zone/
What your initial interaction with a coach should be like, and the basics of managing the coach athlete relationship.

Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
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Your genial hosts, Lewin (Southern, posh) and Aaron (Northern, illiterate) returns as warriors of old who have journeyed beyond the circle of firelight to gain the knowledge that men know not wot of and return with it for the general benefit and edification of the tribe ...
... and lo, the tribe turned around and said:
Where the hell have you two been? You've slid out of doing the washing-up again, we see ... ?
But we return with the secret that men ...
... and women ...
... and women, that men and women know not wot of and we ...
That's all very well, but no-one's done the floors, and there's nothing in the fridge for tea ...
... but we return with the secret that men ...
... and women ...
... that men and women know not wot of, and ...
Shush. Henley's on.
Ah.
Yes, we return just in time for Henley's weeks.
It's like we've got access to calendars and watches and diaries and the internet and stuff.
So, in this episode there is:
No poetry!
No dead authors!
A couple of living ones ...
And a brief discussion of killer hayfever; people trying to outfox the strict liability rule, the death of wonder in sports, the joy, absolute joy of small regattas, the wonder of Hexham (where Lewin asks why our Victorian forebears decided to take representative slices of Surrey and the better bits of the Upper Thames Valley and put them as Southern embassies in the North in the case of Durham and Hexham); racing while gypsies wash horses in the river next to you; Appleby; why the correct number of boats, horses and guitars is always 'one more ...'; and why Women's Henley could now be considered as 'proper' Henley now that Henley Royal has become a superslick paean to elite athletes and clubs ...
But because it's us, we don't leave it there, diving into the cyclical nature of success; the art of commentary (and why we both want to do more of it); why stockpiling elite athletes in HP programmes (Hi, OB ...) like America and Russia stockpiled Nazi scientists after WW2 does not lead to global armageddon but does cut down on the pathways to rowing at Uni that many of our best and brightest and stalwartest came through ... before we do something amazing:
We invent a whole new regatta.
And it's the regatta you've always wanted to do.
So, bow, you tell me that you have rhythm? And you also have music? And yet you still dare to ask for anything more ... ?
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Enjoyed this episode?
Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1
Instagram: www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/
Website: www.thelandingstage.net

Friday Aug 09, 2024
The Sub7 IRC GenX Men’s Squad Support Group - Ian Wilde and Dylan Dragswiek.
Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
Enjoyed this episode?
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Enjoyed this episode?
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Two of the Big Beasts of the Sub 7 Indoor Rowing Club sit down with us for a good old Trans-Atlantic chinwag, about Indoor Rowing, Type II fun, Long Covid, the C2 Cross Team Challenge, trying (and failing) to bring others into the sport and why belonging to and indoor rowing club is good fun. Albeit Type II fun.
Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1
Instagram: www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/
Website: www.thelandingstage.net

Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
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Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to Broken Oars Podcast!
It's often been said, usually by us, that Broken Oars Podcast is the home of world-class rowing and rowers on the web ...
... and we prove it yet again in this episode as we are joined by the one, the only, the incredible ...
Elizabeth Gilmore.
For those of you have been living under a rock, Eli is the world-class rowing athlete who has been tearing up the record book since starting in the sport barely two years ago.
Eli joins us for a chat about her sporting background, how she got into indoor rowing, and her transition to the water.
Hardly covering ourselves with interviewing technique glory, Lewin and I basically fanboy gush over an incredible person and athlete who had smashed several world records immediately before our conversation. We explore the vital importance of good and supportive coaching in Eli's journey, the pressures young athletes face regarding body image, weight and performance, and look at where Eli's rowing journey might take her next (we suggested Henley Royal and Henley Women's, but that's just us ...).
We've always been blessed with amazing guests on Broken Oars Podcast, but that's largely because we talk to rowers ... who are, basically, amazing people.
And Eli is one of us.
Just considerably faster than most of us.
Get some!
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Enjoyed this episode?
Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1
Instagram: www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/
Website: www.thelandingstage.net

Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
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The world's greatest rowing podcast returns - and it couldn't be more timely.
As some of us head back to school (quite literally) and all of us head back to the water at the start of the new rowing season we are joined by Dr. Michael Cannon to talk about the impact on rowers, rowing and rowing clubs of balancing resources against ambitions.
(Right at the start of the season?
When every club in the land is setting its season goals and agenda?
Thank you, Broken Oars and Dr. Cannon! You're the best.
Yes.
Yes, we are).
Beginning rowing while at The University of Durham, Dr. Cannon went on to row, coach, and captain, helping out at college and university level before going on to teach and coach at schools level before moving on to row at and for Staines, Eton Excelsior, Maidenhead and Vesta.
One of nature's natural organisers and administrators, Michael's journey through the sport has taken in the side of the sport without which we wouldn't have a sport: the running and administering and organising of clubs, squads, boats, fleets, heads and regattas.
And while this all might sound about as fun as watching paint dry, not only wouldn't we have a sport without the Dr. Cannons of this world, but it (and a quick look at the books on offer at Companies House) raised the question:
What happens when clubs start raising their ambition levels above the levels of their resources?
(Or to put it more bluntly, what is UK rowing's current obsession with making Henley Royal Regatta costing clubs?)
We talk about the costs of running and maintaining clubs, membership levels and running a fleet. We discuss the perception of what a 'club' is supposed to provide and offer to its members, talk about how some clubs have gamed that and the current system to provide 'successful' programmes, look at what 'success' might mean, and what that means for the UK-wide representation within the sport. And we look at the impact of 'professionalism' on a volunteer-run and led sport, before addressing the realities of member turnover in metropolitan areas, and how cost-of-living / housing / work changes over time has impacted the sport as a whole.
Yeah.
We are the original and best.
But that's because our guests are.
Get some!
Bow Four! Provide a sunk-cost analysis by the end of this piece, or swim home.
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Enjoyed this episode?
Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1
Instagram: www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/
Website: www.thelandingstage.net

Friday Aug 09, 2024
Friday Aug 09, 2024
To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.
This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories!
Enjoyed this episode?
-----
We return with another episode that looks like it might have been hand-tooled for the start of the new season - precisely because it has been.
Great changes are afoot in the Broken Oars world. Not content with being the world's best rowing podcast (Crossy aside), the Southern One (Lewin) and the Northern One (Aaron) would like to spread their wings. We'd like to carry on with the Broken Oars Podcast as you know and love it: wit, charm, irreverent asides, profound points, amazing guests - quite simply the best, funniest, most informative and pertinent podcast about the art, craft and life that is shoving a boat backwards down a river (they said, modestly).
But if you've listened to us before, you'll know that for all of their badinage, your genial hosts are men of wide-ranging interests. You've already heard the Northern One claim the guitar hero for Newcastle, for example; and you've heard the Southern talk about genetics and millimoles with the elan and insight of a qualified scientist - because he is.
As we move into our third year of podcasting, we're really keen to add on new elements: deeper dives into deeper subjects, adding to our fantastic guests with more fantastic guests to add the expertise in their field, and so on.
And so, we return to Broken Oars University for a conversational chat about getting old; not wanting to do something you love badly; the psychology behind that (which is the psychology of why rowers row, really); how we now feel about racing, having always loved it; whether we'll still do it; male TRT; PED's and the nonsense that are the Enhanced Games.
We look at what the Enhanced Games thinks it means vs. what it actually means; talk about what TRT as a cultural phenomenon means for rowing at all levels; male menopause; and what winning becomes if it's only something that happens to those who get the medals.
Class is in!
Get some!
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Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1
Instagram: www.instagram.com/brokenoarsindoors/
Website: www.thelandingstage.net