Even during the harsh winter months, the ISU Crew Club continues to work in the offseason as a team and train for the spring season.

The club strives to provide a sense of competitiveness in the sport of rowing while being positive and staying fit.

“[We] try to promote a healthy attitude of being in shape and being competitive when we race,” said junior Andrew Walag.

In the offseason, the team prepares for the spring competition by staying in shape in the recreation centers and working as hard as they do outdoors.

“We have a team practice every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 6 a.m. and that’s where we’ll do conditioning and calisthenics,” said sophomore treasurer Mikaela Nabity. “And then individually, we have our own weight lifting groups where we go lift twice a week.”

Even though the club cannot continue its regimen of rowing practice as it would outdoors, it has its members focus on building strength during the indoor training periods in the offseason.

“We’ll spend the entire winter working out, lifting, doing a lot of erging, which is essentially using the indoor rowing machine,” said junior Mark Saul, club vice president. “So we’ll be doing a lot of that to prepare for the spring season, which is more sprint-type season.”

The club will be heading out around the Midwest to compete against other collegiate crew clubs — including Nebraska, its “friendly rival.”

Nabity also mentioned late-winter training events happening within the club.

“We have our spring break trip we take every year, which is a lot of fun,” Nabity said. “And then after that, our season starts.”

ISU Crew Club will travel to locations such as Omaha, Neb.; Topeka, Kan.; and St. Cloud, Minn.

“We do two big competitions in the spring,” Walag said. “One is in Omaha and then there is the Great Plains Rowing Championship which is in Kansas.”

The club will continue through spring break to continue training for the sprint-style season that is to come. Any tall, strong athletes looking for a spring sport are what the club is looking for now.

“We had other small victories but overall we’re looking to up the competitiveness so that we can get in contention in more races, in more places,” Saul said.