moving around..

[Darwin]

Hi all,

I just bought a new concept2 rower and placed it in my ecxerciseroom. On the floor there is laminate and wheneever i use my rower it moves around the room. It slides over the floor and goes wherever it wants, but does not stay on the place i want it to stay? DOes anyone have a solution for this or is familiair with this problem?
I like to hear from you.
Greatzz DArwin

[johnlvs2run]

You can use some of that gooey non slip material made for rugs or lining *** DELETE - SPAM *** drawers.

The latter is only around $2 for a roll of it.

[Nosmo]

If it only moves in one direction then you can put a piece of wood or something on the floor between the erg feet and the wall.

If it is moving in the direction you are facing you should improve your technique. IF it is moving the other way then I think that is good. If it is moving sideways...

[Bob S.]

If it is moving in the direction you are facing you should improve your technique.

I would have thought the same thing, but, in one of the more spectacular wins at the Crash-Bs, the winning erg was jumping around like a grasshopper. An attendant had to put a foot on the wheel end support to keep it from moving too far. If the erger, Henrik Stephanson, has a flaw in his technique, it certainly did not hurt his performance. He also has an excellent record on the water. There were a number of messages about this on the forum not too long ago.

Bob S.

[Citroen]

This should be a FAQ.

How tall are you?
How heavy are you?

It can be a question of technique that moves an erg (unless your name is Gwyn Samuels and he just a big strong fella that gets them moving by sitting on and paddling with his "light" stroke ).

There's a certain amount you can do with duct tape round the feet. Two turns to stick the tape to the erg, then a half twist and two or three turns sticky side out.

[PaulS]

If it is moving in the direction you are facing you should improve your technique. IF it is moving the other way then I think that is good.

There are only two ways for this to go, so let me explain why the above is not quite right.

If the Erg moves in the direction you are facing, it can be for a couple reasons.
1) You are slamming into the catch and pushing it that way. (Bad)
2) You have your body angle set and are prepared for the catch, begin the drive with the legs quickly, forcing the Erg to move slightly prior to catching up to the speed that the chain is being fed over the cog. (No real problem, other than not enough friction between the feet and floor.)

If the Erg is moving the other way it is being dragged that way by either the feet or the handle as a reaction to reversing the momentum of the body far to aggressively, and that might not be terribley bad for Erg performance but it is quite awful if carried over to a boat. (Bad)

Both of the "Bad" situations above will also be problems if the person is put on slides, as they will be more likely to be hitting the ends of the rails.

The intuitive notion that moving the Erg in the direction you are facing would be effecting the boat in a negative way is understandable, but a bit of hull check is going to happen no matter what we do, the ultimate goal being to make it as brief as possible, which also happens to make it rather sharp. In opposition to that, we end up accelerating our body toward the finish line very quickly, all while the hull is traveling at a lower velocity and incuring less average drag.

As far as keeping the Erg in place, get some sort of pad with a high friction surface on both sides and all should be well. Or get a pair of slides.

[coggs]

I erg in the basement with a very slick cement floor. The erg would move backwards a few millimeters (more at high intensity) with each stroke.

Was a pain when:

A. Fifteen minutes into a workout your water bottle and towel were now 5 feet out of reach.

B. You were about to do a personal best for the hour but hit the wall (literally) with 5 minutes to go.

I now have a short nylon strap tied from the erg to a support column.