Dampersettings during workout

[Poul Midjord Dam]

Hi. I have rowed Concept 2 machines for a time now, and have only now been made ​​aware that you must hold the damperlevel at airflow 4 to 6 during regular training, and only use higher settings during competitions and record attempts. I'm on airflow 10 during warmup and cooldown and airflow 8 to fast intervals. What is the reason for using a lower airflow? To avoid injuries? I have tried to row with airflow 6, and I find it very difficult to find a good rowing rhythm. I'm a +100 kg rower, in a avarage, or above average, fitness level.

[PaulH]

It's not a case of "must" have it between 4 and 6, it's just what is suggested. Among the guidelines I've seen that may be useful are:

* A damper of 3 is closest to the feel of a boat (but this is very subjective
* Keeping the damper below 5 helps to protect your back
* Olympic rowers generally train between 3-5, so if you can't get your rhythm right it's probably you, not the damper setting.

All of that depends on your machine being clean inside, which it may not be (particularly if it's in a gym). So first do a quick search for drag factor!

[Citroen]

All of that depends on your machine being clean inside, which it may not be (particularly if it's in a gym). So first do a quick search for drag factor!

And boy have we seen some machines that would benefit from 10 minutes of servicing. The worst I ever found had DF95 on damper ten (a hotel in Leamington Spa). I'm tempted to carry a philips screwdriver to be able to give a crap machine a clean out.

[Bob S.]

So first do a quick search for drag factor!

This is one of the more useful links for that:

UK drag factor site:

http://concept2.co.uk/training/guide/damper_lever

(Note that there is one error there. The lowest damper setting is not 1, it can be moved to one mark below 1, an unlabelled zero.)

Bob S.

[Poul Midjord Dam]

Thanks for the feedback.
My own machine is new and those I use in the rowingclub are well mentained, all with the correct dragfactor.
I was just wondering if other heavyweight and strong rowers used a significant higher damper settings than lighter rowers during training.
But it seems like settings between 3 - 5 are the reccomended ones.
If it's a matter of avoiding injuries, i'd better get the settings down. I guess it's a technique and patience's issue I'm going to work on that too.

[jamesg]

You're fit already and any progress from now on will have to be based on technique.

On the erg, technique means length of stroke and the right recovery sequence: hands away, swing, slide in that order. A long stroke must be fast, so needs low drag to keep the flywheel spinning, but has a lot of work in it thanks to the length, so moves the boat and helps us get fit too. This in turn implies low ratings, 20-24 according to height.

Your stroke is the right length if at the catch your shoulders are well forward, weight is on your feet and hands at the chainguard. This posture then lets you move fast and hard.

You can judge the quality of your stroke by watching the distance travelled per stroke and even better, the Watt/Rating ratio. 10 for both is a good start.

[Poul Midjord Dam]

jamesg, thank you for a great answer!

[JamesC71]

You're fit already and any progress from now on will have to be based on technique.

On the erg, technique means length of stroke and the right recovery sequence: hands away, swing, slide in that order. A long stroke must be fast, so needs low drag to keep the flywheel spinning, but has a lot of work in it thanks to the length, so moves the boat and helps us get fit too. This in turn implies low ratings, 20-24 according to height.

Your stroke is the right length if at the catch your shoulders are well forward, weight is on your feet and hands at the chainguard. This posture then lets you move fast and hard.

You can judge the quality of your stroke by watching the distance travelled per stroke and even better, the Watt/Rating ratio. 10 for both is a good start.

Jamesg, can you please explain how to use the watt/rating ratio? I have an old model C rower (new in 2000) and just started rowing. I competed in strongman and powerlifting and now just powerlifting so I need a competitive way to perform intense cardio and rowing will be the way to go. Before I get serious I am trying to find the best damper setting and stroke rate and technique. I am 6ft and 350lb and need to be 330 or so as my "powergut" is impeding my stroke length (I can only reach fully forward if I let all my air out). I will cut the weight. I do have very good flexibility and very long arms for my size. I have started out on damper 5 as recommended and can comfortably row at 1:45 pace for 4 sets of 500m at just under 16 strokes a minute. My strength is good and my cardio is pathetic! I learned that with a faster stroke rate of 30/minute, I could only get to 1:29 for 500m and I became very inefficient and lost a lot of power. My next experiments will be at damper 10. Do you think it would be better to row at damper 10 or damper 5? My goal is sub 7 min for 2000m. I did a 2000m in 6:46 (entered a rowing meet for fun in Michigan) 10 years ago at damper 10 (no rowing training) but only weighed 300lb at this time. I believe my gut is holding back my breathing, technique and therefore time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance. JamesC

[hjs]

For a guy like you a high setting will feel the most easy, but to improve you simply have to row, ther is plenty of power, but almost zero aerobic fitness. And given your build it is hard to make a long enough stroke, your seize is imply preventing that. You should not focus on low ratings, but the opposite, and also row on a lower drag.
The good thing you will improve rapidly if you row 3/4 times a week. 20 min in one go or in intervals would be ok
4x 500 meter is not enough and using rate 16 is silly, that is not rowing but light powerlifting, raise the rate to 24, forget about pace for a while and just row.

Sessions could be 10 x 500 meter on 1 min rest,
5x 1k on 3 min
3x 1500 on 5
2k 1500 1000 500
5 k straight

Row on feel, note your results.

You're fit already and any progress from now on will have to be based on technique.

On the erg, technique means length of stroke and the right recovery sequence: hands away, swing, slide in that order. A long stroke must be fast, so needs low drag to keep the flywheel spinning, but has a lot of work in it thanks to the length, so moves the boat and helps us get fit too. This in turn implies low ratings, 20-24 according to height.

Your stroke is the right length if at the catch your shoulders are well forward, weight is on your feet and hands at the chainguard. This posture then lets you move fast and hard.

You can judge the quality of your stroke by watching the distance travelled per stroke and even better, the Watt/Rating ratio. 10 for both is a good start.

Jamesg, can you please explain how to use the watt/rating ratio? I have an old model C rower (new in 2000) and just started rowing. I competed in strongman and powerlifting and now just powerlifting so I need a competitive way to perform intense cardio and rowing will be the way to go. Before I get serious I am trying to find the best damper setting and stroke rate and technique. I am 6ft and 350lb and need to be 330 or so as my "powergut" is impeding my stroke length (I can only reach fully forward if I let all my air out). I will cut the weight. I do have very good flexibility and very long arms for my size. I have started out on damper 5 as recommended and can comfortably row at 1:45 pace for 4 sets of 500m at just under 16 strokes a minute. My strength is good and my cardio is pathetic! I learned that with a faster stroke rate of 30/minute, I could only get to 1:29 for 500m and I became very inefficient and lost a lot of power. My next experiments will be at damper 10. Do you think it would be better to row at damper 10 or damper 5? My goal is sub 7 min for 2000m. I did a 2000m in 6:46 (entered a rowing meet for fun in Michigan) 10 years ago at damper 10 (no rowing training) but only weighed 300lb at this time. I believe my gut is holding back my breathing, technique and therefore time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance. JamesC

[JamesC71]

Zero aerobic fitness is about right!
Thanks for the response. Does low drag mean low damper setting? Thanks.

For a guy like you a high setting will feel the most easy, but to improve you simply have to row, ther is plenty of power, but almost zero aerobic fitness. And given your build it is hard to make a long enough stroke, your seize is imply preventing that. You should not focus on low ratings, but the opposite, and also row on a lower drag.
The good thing you will improve rapidly if you row 3/4 times a week. 20 min in one go or in intervals would be ok
4x 500 meter is not enough and using rate 16 is silly, that is not rowing but light powerlifting, raise the rate to 24, forget about pace for a while and just row.

Sessions could be 10 x 500 meter on 1 min rest,
5x 1k on 3 min
3x 1500 on 5
2k 1500 1000 500
5 k straight

Row on feel, note your results.

You're fit already and any progress from now on will have to be based on technique.

On the erg, technique means length of stroke and the right recovery sequence: hands away, swing, slide in that order. A long stroke must be fast, so needs low drag to keep the flywheel spinning, but has a lot of work in it thanks to the length, so moves the boat and helps us get fit too. This in turn implies low ratings, 20-24 according to height.

Your stroke is the right length if at the catch your shoulders are well forward, weight is on your feet and hands at the chainguard. This posture then lets you move fast and hard.

You can judge the quality of your stroke by watching the distance travelled per stroke and even better, the Watt/Rating ratio. 10 for both is a good start.

Jamesg, can you please explain how to use the watt/rating ratio? I have an old model C rower (new in 2000) and just started rowing. I competed in strongman and powerlifting and now just powerlifting so I need a competitive way to perform intense cardio and rowing will be the way to go. Before I get serious I am trying to find the best damper setting and stroke rate and technique. I am 6ft and 350lb and need to be 330 or so as my "powergut" is impeding my stroke length (I can only reach fully forward if I let all my air out). I will cut the weight. I do have very good flexibility and very long arms for my size. I have started out on damper 5 as recommended and can comfortably row at 1:45 pace for 4 sets of 500m at just under 16 strokes a minute. My strength is good and my cardio is pathetic! I learned that with a faster stroke rate of 30/minute, I could only get to 1:29 for 500m and I became very inefficient and lost a lot of power. My next experiments will be at damper 10. Do you think it would be better to row at damper 10 or damper 5? My goal is sub 7 min for 2000m. I did a 2000m in 6:46 (entered a rowing meet for fun in Michigan) 10 years ago at damper 10 (no rowing training) but only weighed 300lb at this time. I believe my gut is holding back my breathing, technique and therefore time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks in advance. JamesC

[hjs]

Re drag, the setting 1/10 influences the airflow, the higher the number the higher the drag.
But dust in the machine also does influence the airflow, a dirty machine on 10 can have the same drag a a clean one on 1/3.
To know that you have to check the drag. The numbers 1/10 alone won,t help you.

There are plenty of threads about finding the way to check the drag on your machine.

[jamesg]

how to use the watt/rating ratio?

How we can use the Watt/Rating ratio depends on our objectives, which could be:

2k racing. The basic idea is to train the stroke that you'll need to pull in a race. So, if you want to do a 2k at say 6:40 (350W), rating 30, the strokes need to be worth around 12 Watt-minutes. We then see if that's possible, by pulling 240W at 20, for long periods of time. If it's easy, carry on until it's not. If it's not easy, downgrade and stick to the lower level, for long periods. Training as it progresses will contain more AT and TR stuff, where you can check and use your abilities at higher ratings.

General fitness. The basic idea is to pull long strokes, without too much force: length engages the legs, which are already strong, and using them loads the CV system, which gets us fit. To see what the long stroke is, do a backstop drill (arms only at rating 60, then arms plus swing at rating 40, then arms+swing+increasing legs to rating 20-25) until you reach the chainguard, after five-six minutes total. Note the Watts and Ratings you pull when the stroke is full length.That's your stroke, and you'll get fit if you use it, even at very low ratings. Then as strength and fitness increase, adjust as suits you. The backstop drill as you will see is handy for warm up too, and can be used every day.

In both the above cases we use low drag. This makes the stroke quicker so gives us more time to rest before the next one. It's easy to adjust drag: set the damper lever as low as possible, try it, then increase only if the stroke is so slack that you can't reach the power output that you want. Low drag is inherently safer and is essential if we want to go fast; high drag slows the flywheel so makes the stroke slow too.

Strength. If you want to use the erg for strength, I'd guess this is possible, but I've never tried it and don't want to. According to Einstein there's no difference between lifting a weight and accelerating a flywheel, tho' practicalities might interfere. Presumably you would need to set the drag highish, and then from a strong catch position, pull as hard a stroke as you like. Then wait say 5 seconds as shown on the monitor, and repeat. On top of the physical a little mathematical and engineering gymnastics could tell you how hard you pulled, based on the power, rating and stroke length. For any given length and rating, the average force applied is directly proportional to the power readout.

NB: this last procedure is dangerous: the force you apply is not governed by the weight to lift off the ground, but by your enthusiasm, and it's effects depend on your technique and posture.

NB2: rowing does not use all muscles, so we are free to do anything else we want to work those that rowing doesn't.

[jimrothstein]

General fitness. The basic idea is to pull long strokes, without too much force: length engages the legs, which are already strong, and using them loads the CV system, which gets us fit. ...

In both the above cases we use low drag. This makes the stroke quicker so gives us more time to rest before the next one. It's easy to adjust drag: set the damper lever as low as possible, try it, then increase only if the stroke is so slack that you can't reach the power output that you want. Low drag is inherently safer and is essential if we want to go fast; high drag slows the flywheel so makes the stroke slow too.

To understand my performance at different spm and (lower) dampersettings, I'd like to collect a few data points. Today I was a bit out-of-sorts, but here's some 5 minute data, as experiment. I realize I should hold drag fixed and vary spm (tomorrow!) No need to comment in detail, but do you think this kind of data is useful? (low drag also seems to work the legs!)

[Citroen]

At those wattages you're not doing enough with the legs, let alone working them regardless of where you're setting the damper. Those numbers (even though you're shorter than short @ 162cm) tend to point to a serious defect in your technique.

Have you looked at the drag factor those damper settings give you? Is the machine clean or full of dust, are you at sea level or somewhere up a mountain?

[jimrothstein]

Bangkok
2k sets @14, 20, 22-24 spm (my usual workout)
But dropped Drag to 80 (level 2); much harder then usual!