Robin Winkels on the joy of teaching cancer patients to row

06/29/21 • 47 min

As soon as I heard about Row to Recovery I knew I wanted to talk to Robin Winkels, who founded it. Robin is a rower who, as a result of one phone call in 2014, ended up founding a charity that provides rowing for people who are undergoing or have had treatment for cancer. It's a subject close to Robin's heart after several members of her family had cancer, and she loves seeing the positive impact that rowing has on the participants. Here's what we talked about:

How Robin got started with rowing and her love for the quad
The River Corrib in Galway and the wildlife on it
Robin's own experience of cancer in her family
How Robin came to start Row to Recovery
The practicalities of working with women who have had breast surgery
The importance of being participant-led
How rowing together diminishes the feeling of powerlessness in the face of cancer
Being inspired by the participants and what Robin has learned from them
How rowing makes the participants feel
Robin's plans to encourage male cancer patients to join Row to Recovery
Physical and mental benefits of exercising during and after cancer treatment
How they kept each other going through lockdown
Fundraising, recent developments and plans for the future
The benefits of the project to Robin personally
How to get involved, find the project or donate!

Resources
Find out more about Row to Recovery here.
Click here for their Facebook page. Go to @rowtorecoverygalway to find them on Instagram.
Check out these links to find out more about the benefits of exercise following a diagnosis of cancer, at all stages of treatment and afterwards:
Exercise guidelines for cancer survivors: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31626055/
Impact of exercise on mortality, recurrence and side effects of treatment: https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/39/1/71/3760392#114725911
Guardian article about the benefits of exercise for cancer patients: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/07/cancer-if-exercise-was-a-pill-it-would-be-prescribed-to-every-patient

How Robin got started with rowing and her love for the quad
The River Corrib in Galway and the wildlife on it
Robin's own experience of cancer in her family
How Robin came to start Row to Recovery
The practicalities of working with women who have had breast surgery
The importance of being participant-led
How rowing together diminishes the feeling of powerlessness in the face of cancer
Being inspired by the participants and what Robin has learned from them
How rowing makes the participants feel
Robin's plans to encourage male cancer patients to join Row to Recovery
Physical and mental benefits of exercising during and after cancer treatment
How they kept each other going through lockdown
Fundraising, recent developments and plans for the future
The benefits of the project to Robin personally
How to get involved, find the project or donate!

Previous Episode

Baz Moffat, ex-GB rower and women's health coach, on women's health and sporting performance

Before I go any further, I want to say something to my male listeners. This episode is for you, too. If you're a male coach working with female athletes, it's an absolute must-listen, but even if you're not, assuming you have a wife or a mother or a daughter or a sister or a female friend, or if you belong to a club where there are female athletes, you'll learn something valuable. So please keep on listening.
When I decided to invite someone on the podcast to talk about women's health, there was only one person I could possibly consider - the brilliant Baz Moffat. As a former GB rower turned women's health coach, with a huge passion and enthusiasm for her subject, she had the complete package, so I was thrilled when she agreed to join me.
Baz started her career as an elite athlete, spending three years as a member of the GB rowing team and winning medals at the World Championships and World Cup. She now works as a women's health coach, with a specialism in pelvic floor, core, nutrition and women's wellness. She is one of the co-founders of The Well HQ which provides much-needed education on women's health to both individuals and businesses.
We could have talked for hours, but managed to keep it to just over an hour, during which we discussed:

Baz's career as a rower and her unusually late start in rowing
How healthy her life was as an athlete
The challenges talking about women's health in sport and the workplace and the particular challenges for male coaches
How parents and coaches can get the conversation started about women's health
Body literacy and how little we understand about our bodies
The importance of not judging people for their lack of knowledge
The benefits to performance of understanding our menstrual cycle
Effects of contraceptive pill on sporting performance
Exercising during pregnancy and after childbirth - what is safe?
Benefits of consulting a women's health physio in second trimester
Training through perimenopause and menopause
Importance of strength training and what that actually means
What to prioritise if only have 10 minutes for yourself a day
Avoiding overwhelm
Misconceptions about core stability (and what is included in the core)
Importance of pelvic floor exercises
How to get advice and reminders for pelvic floor exercises
The Well HQ - its mission to improve the health of female athletes and to help male coaches to address women's health issues without being inappropriate or creepy

Resources:
You can find the Clue app for tracking your menstrual cycle hereYou can sign up for webinars with The Well on everything from understanding the pelvic floor to menstruation and menopause here.
Check out and download the NHS Squeezy app here.

Next Episode

Camilla Hadland, rowing commentator

S2 Episode 5 Camilla Hadland has a voice that many of you will recognise. Having started rowing as a junior at a small club, she won a place in the U23 Women’s 8 and competed at the World Junior Championships in 2010, where they won Britain's first ever women’s gold medal at that event. After university, where she was President of her university boat club, she stopped rowing regularly and moved over into coaching.
Camilla fell into commentating, but soon found herself in demand. In 2018 she won World Rowing’s first ever commentating competition and achieved a spot commentating at the World Cup in Serbia. Since then she’s regularly commentated at international events and is part of the commentary team at the Tokyo Olympics. Having done a couple of stints commentating at my club regatta, I was fascinated to hear all about her experiences and to glean some wisdom from her.
We talked about:

How Camilla got started in rowing and her multiple capsizes
Learning to row in a small club set up
Being selected for the GB Team at the Junior Worlds
The challenges of looking after your health while training at such a high level
Body image and the ups and downs Camilla has had with it
Not making it into the U23 8+ and moving across into coaching
Favourite seat in the boat
How Camilla got started in commentating
How she learned the craft of commentating - how to cater for the whole audience and create atmosphere
Finding your own voice
Different types of event - the different preparations and style
The challenges of live streaming remotely from the European Championships
The idea set up for commentating
How to make an uneventful race sound exciting
Keeping tabs on rowing teams throughout the year
Making mistakes - and learning from them
How to show compassion to a crew losing badly
Essential equipment
Advice for anyone wanting to improve their commentary skills or progress in commentating
Plans for Tokyo and the likely challenges

Let me know if you're inspired to have a go at commentating or to take your experiences of it to a new level. You can find me at @girlontheriver on all channels or by emailing me at [email protected].