Three Top Tips this week, all of them sent in by readers. The first, from Phil Lajoie of Farnborough, is gnomic in both its wisdom and succinctness, and consists only of the mantra of Don't eat a Big Mac before a row as you'll throw up. The other two deal with the problem of boredom on the rower.Darren Rhodes: Well, being an on the water rower I try to imagine where I might be on the river I row on. That helps. Also, focusing on technique also helps to relieve the boredom, or counting the number of Mars bars you can eat after a session with the monitor set to display calories...Dave Cumber from Dorchester has a different tactic: As I train at home, often early in the morning before work, I have found wireless headphones to be a real boon. I can now listen to loud music in glorious stereo without waking up my children. It also encourages good technique - if you throw your head around, the headphones fall off! (I find they also help relieve the boredom of washing up.) It's amazing how a change of music can change performance. It's almost impossible to have a blast on the erg whilst listening to a slow ballad. A good dance beat such as Robert Miles' 'Dreamland' results in my performance improving considerably.How about a Top 10 of 'music to train to'?Well, as anybody who heard Terry O'Neill's attempts on the wheels of steel at Reading can tell you, Tony Blackburn we ain't, so we figure this is one best left to you lot. Suggestions to the usual address: [email protected] and we'll run the Top 10 in a future edition.