Indoor rowing - Concept 2

[hellarda]

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned my size, it's half the reason I'm being made to "audition" for the team! I'm 6ft3 and 110kg atm - decent strength levels, decent fat levels too

Kinda depends what your fitness levels are like - you've got weight and height behind you, which will play to your advantage. 1km is just on the edge of being able to hold on if you blow, but pretty hard to call not knowing your fitness levels. I'd try some 500m sprints and see how you feel at the end of them.

I've not done a 2k test for a while so figured I should have a crack before the BRIC to see roughly where I'm at. I've been feeling like crap since the weekend so took a couple days off from training and thought I'd just aim for my previous PB and go from there. Pretty pleased with the result as I knocked a couple seconds off my previous time fairly easily while not feeling 100%. My last 2k was all out and I was ruined afterwards, so it's good to know I can go faster with some still left in the tank!

Ooff nice work! Sub 7 should easily be achievable

Done this a few times over lockdown - 3x(5x(20s on 40s off)) r34-36 5:00r between sets, and going into the first one I honestly thought they'd be easy ("it's only 20s on!!"), but they're actually pretty horrible at this kinda pace.

A challenge for anyone who fancies it Although weight is definitely an advantage for this kinda thing...

 

[PermaChanged]

Does the r stand for rest/recovery in these instances?

My fitness is pretty average to good - far from being very good or elite, but I do enough to keep me in better shape than most. I have Zwift and a decent turbo trainer so will be putting in the hours on that to get decent aerobic levels, as the majority of my training currently is weight lifting/anaerobic.

 

[hellarda]

Does the r stand for rest/recovery in these instances?

My fitness is pretty average to good - far from being very good or elite, but I do enough to keep me in better shape than most. I have Zwift and a decent turbo trainer so will be putting in the hours on that to get decent aerobic levels, as the majority of my training currently is weight lifting/anaerobic.

Sorry, a little confusing the lingo. r before is rate, r after is rest so "r34-r36" is a rate (spm) of between 34 and 36 and a 5:00r is a 5min rest!

When is the competition out of interest? A 1k will be mostly anaerobic, but building up some aerobic base will definitely help.

Rest wise, even if you've got guys hitting 3:00 1ks which is pretty damn rapid, then you'll have 12mins between, so realistically you'll probably have more like 14mins rest, which is absolutely plenty for a decent recovery. See a few posts above where I did 6x1k r24 5:00r I was pretty much going to balls to the wall each one (the rate cap makes a huge difference), and felt mostly recovered after 5mins, and managed similar splits throughout, so I wouldn't worry about not having enough rest!

 

[Street]

Done this a few times over lockdown - 3x(5x(20s on 40s off)) r34-36 5:00r between sets, and going into the first one I honestly thought they'd be easy ("it's only 20s on!!"), but they're actually pretty horrible at this kinda pace.

A challenge for anyone who fancies it Although weight is definitely an advantage for this kinda thing...

It's the rest that always gets me on sprints. At the start it feels like loads, by then end it feels like you've only just put the handle down and are picking it straight back up again!

Does the r stand for rest/recovery in these instances?

My fitness is pretty average to good - far from being very good or elite, but I do enough to keep me in better shape than most. I have Zwift and a decent turbo trainer so will be putting in the hours on that to get decent aerobic levels, as the majority of my training currently is weight lifting/anaerobic.

Any chance you can hop on an erg beforehand? You could see what you can do for 1km flat out, then you probably just need to knock a couple seconds off the pace for the actual attempt with ~14mins rest to be able to hold it for 5 reps.

 

[PermaChanged]

Sorry, a little confusing the lingo. r before is rate, r after is rest so "r34-r36" is a rate (spm) of between 34 and 36 and a 5:00r is a 5min rest!

When is the competition out of interest? A 1k will be mostly anaerobic, but building up some aerobic base will definitely help.

Rest wise, even if you've got guys hitting 3:00 1ks which is pretty damn rapid, then you'll have 12mins between, so realistically you'll probably have more like 14mins rest, which is absolutely plenty for a decent recovery. See a few posts above where I did 6x1k r24 5:00r I was pretty much going to balls to the wall each one (the rate cap makes a huge difference), and felt mostly recovered after 5mins, and managed similar splits throughout, so I wouldn't worry about not having enough rest!

Any chance you can hop on an erg beforehand? You could see what you can do for 1km flat out, then you probably just need to knock a couple seconds off the pace for the actual attempt with ~14mins rest to be able to hold it for 5 reps.

Great, thanks for this info guys.

The gym I train at primarily doesn't have any ergs, but does have water rowers - no idea what they're like comparatively to a Concept2 erg as I've never used them, but I've rowed Concept2 ergs a fair few times in the past.

The competition is the 7th of Feb - plenty of time to get ready for, just need to mix up the training to incorporate more cardio and technique work, may switch gyms for a month in the lead up just to get on to the Concept 2s regularly - I live in Guernsey, no gym lockdown restrictions here fortunately.

 

[BennoUK]

Kinda depends what your fitness levels are like - you've got weight and height behind you, which will play to your advantage. 1km is just on the edge of being able to hold on if you blow, but pretty hard to call not knowing your fitness levels. I'd try some 500m sprints and see how you feel at the end of them.



Ooff nice work! Sub 7 should easily be achievable

Done this a few times over lockdown - 3x(5x(20s on 40s off)) r34-36 5:00r between sets, and going into the first one I honestly thought they'd be easy ("it's only 20s on!!"), but they're actually pretty horrible at this kinda pace.

A challenge for anyone who fancies it Although weight is definitely an advantage for this kinda thing...

Challenge accepted, next time I can get on an erg, lol

 

[hellarda]

Great, thanks for this info guys.

The gym I train at primarily doesn't have any ergs, but does have water rowers - no idea what they're like comparatively to a Concept2 erg as I've never used them, but I've rowed Concept2 ergs a fair few times in the past.

The competition is the 7th of Feb - plenty of time to get ready for, just need to mix up the training to incorporate more cardio and technique work, may switch gyms for a month in the lead up just to get on to the Concept 2s regularly - I live in Guernsey, no gym lockdown restrictions here fortunately.

I'd try and get on a C2 as much as possible if you can.

Thats plenty of time you should be able to make some pretty decent aerobic progress before then!

**********

So today was 5k day. I don't feel like I slept well last night, and I was nervous as hell this morning (probably something to do with being back at the club for the first time in a month and going straight into a 5k)



About a split off what I wanted, wasn't my best performance, HR was ridiculously high (hit 190 with about 6/7 minutes to go and thought to myself "Oh ****" ), for some reason I was really struggling to get enough air in, possibly due to the cold but who knows, breathing was all over the place.

I'm still fairly happy with it, but would have liked to go sub 17. But that can wait for Feb now!

 

[BennoUK]

Sounds like it was 100% mental, we’ve all been there. On the flip side sometimes you get days where you just feel invincible, luck of the draw I suppose.

You should easily be able to smash 17min. When I’m not mentally in the mood for a 5k and frankly it’s too long to ever been in the mood for, I break it down into two 2ks with a 1k paddle inbetween. If you hit the first and last 2k at 1:40, which we know you can smash, you get a nice chilled 1k in the middle to do a 1:50 split and catch your breath. Won’t give you your best time but makes it more manageable mentally.

 

[Street]

I've been struggling a bit for motivation for the last week or so and my garage being a toasty 10C doesn't help either. Everything feels harder when it's cold! At least I'm back in the office now though so I can get some sort of proper routine going again. I did one last attempt at a 2k tonight before the BRIC and now I'm going to take a couple days off. I think sub7 might be a stretch too far at the moment but I think I can get close at least.

I'm still fairly happy with it, but would have liked to go sub 17. But that can wait for Feb now!

Good job.. I guess I need to put more effort in as I've never seen my HRM read that high!

 

[Street]

Not my best time for the BRIC as I was 0.2 seconds off my time from Wednesday but pretty pleased for my first race and at least I'll know what to expect for next time. It was a pretty strong group for the Mens 30 LWT!

It didn't help that I'm not used to looking at the PM with the race info covering half of it and it also went a bit scatty at the start. The race listing refreshed when it said go and it bumped me to the top of the screen so I wasn't in the main race. My pace was all over the place at the start while I was trying to see what had happened. It looks like it dropped me from the race as although it registered on the BRIC timings, I'm listed as "not in competition".

 

[BennoUK]

You will be better next year, must be an odd experience doing it online. The roar of the crowd normally helps push you on through the pain (and the fear of humiliation). What did you see on the pm5? When I’ve done it there you see your split, who is behind you and in front and by how many metres.

Hellard, first day back in the gym last week after a month and my warm up ergo was shocking, puffing on a 2k 30s slower than usual, damn you Boris!

Gave a set of the 20s, 40s rest thing a blast 1:21.6 ave. I’ll get used to the rower again and take your time on near Xmas if I may? Just wondering why the 5 min rests are needed, I feel the workout would be more beneficial without them, if you throw up from a workout that’s good

 

[Street]

You will be better next year, must be an odd experience doing it online. The roar of the crowd normally helps push you on through the pain (and the fear of humiliation). What did you see on the pm5? When I’ve done it there you see your split, who is behind you and in front and by how many metres.

I figured out what went wrong.. Like an idiot I forgot to weigh in! I wasn't the only one at least. It just completely threw me at the start when it changed and looking at the graph afterwards, I didn't pull until about 3 seconds after it said row. As I was now only racing the other three that hadn't weighed in, it said I was in position 1 so I eased off a bit as I thought I must be going too fast. By the time I realised I was behind main race, I was playing catch up. It was still good fun though and I'm glad I did it, it gave me something to work towards for the last month as well. Back to the grind now to get sub 7 before Christmas.

 

[Street]

Managed to set a new 10k PB tonight, knocking 4 seconds off my time from last year. I'd love to go sub 38 but it still feels a long way away. It's rows like this that sometimes make me glad my garage is cold in the winter!

 

[hellarda]

Managed to set a new 10k PB tonight, knocking 4 seconds off my time from last year. I'd love to go sub 38 but it still feels a long way away. It's rows like this that sometimes make me glad my garage is cold in the winter!

Lovely work, always nice to see a step on!

Training slowed down a little for me over Christmas, with the club closed, its training at home alone again and as ever motivation takes quite a hit. However, last week and this week have been pretty good, with a 30r20 last week, went into it feeling like there was no way I'd PB, but got a small one so I'll take that!

Tried to negatively split this one a lot more than previous ones, which seemed to work better than going balls out from the start and having to hold on!


upload images

 

[Converge]

I’ve hopefully got the opportunity to order a shiny Concept2 rower next week having been on a waiting list since October...

As I’ve not done any rowing (erg or otherwise) in a very long time. What would you guys recommend I start off with resistance wise and target wise? I’m 5’11 and about 12.5 stone if that means anything

 

[Street]

I’ve hopefully got the opportunity to order a shiny Concept2 rower next week having been on a waiting list since October...

As I’ve not done any rowing (erg or otherwise) in a very long time. What would you guys recommend I start off with resistance wise and target wise? I’m 5’11 and about 12.5 stone if that means anything

When I first got mine I worked through the Beginner Pete Plan. It's a great plan for building a good solid base and gets you doing the different types of session, SS, speed intervals and endurance intervals. Don't let it fool you at the start when you're doing about 25k a week if you do the optional session as it soon ramps up. After a couple months you'll be doing around 40k working metres plus warm up and cool down every week.

 

[Converge]

When I first got mine I worked through the Beginner Pete Plan. It's a great plan for building a good solid base and gets you doing the different types of session, SS, speed intervals and endurance intervals. Don't let it fool you at the start when you're doing about 25k a week if you do the optional session as it soon ramps up. After a couple months you'll be doing around 40k working metres plus warm up and cool down every week.

Thanks Street, that looks like something I’ll be giving a go. I’m sure I’d keel over in the first week but should see some improvements!

Are there any recommendations as to resistance level? I understand 3 or 4 is around the resistance level of water?

 

[Martynt74]

I've always just left it on 10 whenever i do stuff in the gym, although i reckon the guys above will be able to advise better!

 

[Street]

Are there any recommendations as to resistance level? I understand 3 or 4 is around the resistance level of water?

I'm 5'10 and 69kg and I settled on a drag factor of 115 which is about 4 on my flywheel slider. If you go into the options on the PM you can pull the handle and see the drag factor. As you're a bit heavier, something like 120-130 would be a good starting point.

I've always just left it on 10 whenever i do stuff in the gym, although i reckon the guys above will be able to advise better!

Yeh, 10 is a bad idea, unless your machine is really clogged with dirt! Depending on your height and weight, something from about 110-140 is probably ideal.

 

[Converge]

I'm 5'10 and 69kg and I settled on a drag factor of 115 which is about 4 on my flywheel slider. If you go into the options on the PM you can pull the handle and see the drag factor. As you're a bit heavier, something like 120-130 would be a good starting point.



Yeh, 10 is a bad idea, unless your machine is really clogged with dirt! Depending on your height and weight, something from about 110-140 is probably ideal.

Thanks both. I’ll give that a go when I take delivery of it. God knows how long that might be, even the ordering of it is taking forever!