How to Mentally Prepare for a Seat Race: 3 Steps That Actually Work

Seat races are one of the most psychologically demanding moments in rowing. The evaluation is direct, the stakes are clear, and every stroke is being measured against one other person. It’s not a regatta where you can lose yourself in the race; it’s a head-to-head comparison.

Most rowers try to prepare by pumping themselves up or thinking positive thoughts. Then the whistle blows, pressure spikes, and the automatic brain takes over. All that mental prep evaporates.

There’s a better approach. It starts with understanding what your brain is actually going to do when the piece begins, and preparing for that reality instead of fighting it.

Here are the three most important steps to mentally prepare for a seat race.

Step 1: Accept the Nerves Before the Seat Race Starts

Before a seat race, most rowers treat nervousness as a problem to solve. They try to suppress it, talk themselves out of it, or distract themselves. When the nerves show up anyway, they panic. Now they’re nervous and worried that being nervous means something is wrong.

Here’s what’s actually happening: your automatic brain is reading the situation correctly. High stakes, direct evaluation, physical demands coming. That stress response is going to activate. It would be strange if it didn’t.

The mistake is interpreting pre-race nerves as a sign you’re not ready. They’re not. They’re a sign your brain is taking the race seriously.

What to do instead:

• Acknowledge the nerves out loud or in writing: “I’m nervous, and that’s normal before a seat race.”
• Reframe the physical sensations (elevated heart rate, tension) as your body preparing to perform, not evidence that something is wrong.
• Stop trying to feel calm. Focus on being ready to execute instead.

Nervousness doesn’t need to disappear before you can row well. You just need to be able to row well while it’s there.

Step 2: Set a Process Focus Before You Push Off

This is where most rowers lose the most ground.

They know the goal (“beat them,” “win the race”), but goals are outcome-focused. Once you’re at race effort and your automatic brain is running the show, your conscious brain loses access to strategy and planning. What it can hold onto is rhythm, movement, and specific physical cues.

Under physiological stress, the part of your brain responsible for rational decision-making gets impaired. What stays online is the system that runs on practiced patterns. If your focus cue is concrete and familiar, it has a chance of surviving the pressure.

Before you push off, identify:

• One or two technical cues you can physically feel during the piece (catch timing, drive length, breathing rhythm).
• Your focus for the first 10 strokes specifically, not the whole race.
• What you will pay attention to, not what you’re hoping will happen.

Write these down before you launch. The act of writing makes them more concrete and gives your brain something real to return to when the piece gets hard.

Step 3: Plan for the Hard Part in the Middle

Seat races follow a predictable psychological pattern. The start is usually fine; adrenaline carries you. The finish is usually fine; the line gives your brain something to sprint toward. The middle is where things fall apart.

Somewhere around the halfway point, your automatic brain is going to send a strong message: “I can’t hold this,” or “they’re ahead, it’s over,” or just a wave of physical discomfort that drowns out conscious thought. For most rowers, this is the moment that actually decides the race, not fitness, but what happens in those few strokes.

The problem is that most rowers try to improvise a response to this moment while their brain is already under maximum load. That rarely works.

Prepare your response before the race starts:

• Choose a reset cue: a word, a breath, or a shift in focus (back to the catch, back to your split) that you can use when the hard part hits.
• Break the piece into segments mentally. Commit to ten strokes, then assess. Remove the need to think about the whole race at once.
• Decide in advance that the hard part is coming and that you already know what to do when it arrives.

The rowers who perform closest to their training in seat races aren’t necessarily the fittest. They’re the ones who had a plan for the hardest moment and didn’t have to invent one on the fly.

The Bottom Line

These three steps build on each other. Accepting the nerves means you’re not derailed when they show up. Setting a process focus gives your automatic brain something real to follow. Planning for the middle means the hardest moment of the piece doesn’t catch you without a response.

Mental preparation for a seat race isn’t about feeling ready. It’s about making sure the right things are in place before pressure makes clear thinking unavailable.