New to Rowing But Experienced MTBer

[Bighairybeast]

Hello,

I just bought my Concept2 last year and put 100000m on it. It then sat as my workout area was torn apart. Started up again this fall and having been at it pretty regularly putting in another 140000m. I am 38, 6'3" and 210lbs (95.3kg). I consider myself fairly fit for my age. I drink a fair bit of beer and am a shift worker who sits on his ass for 12 hrs a day and is gone for 15.5 hrs.
I have done 5K in 18:12 and 10k in 38:28 (had to get off as machine and pull it back as it walked into wall underneath TV ) These times were close o my best efforts but most rows are done in the evening after I have either worked, rode my mountain bike or had a beer or two. I know I will improve especially if I focussed on preparation when I try PB's.
I was a competitive mountain biker in my teens and early 20's but since then I just ride recreationally.

After reading these forums my main question is how do I know if I'm using my legs enough. I have watched a few videos and feel like I have good form. The only time I felt my legs to any degree was during my last 10k effort and this was after a day with one hard bike ride and a shorter ride with my dog. Is it possible that due to my years as a cyclist it will just take time for my upper body to catch up or should I be feeling my legs to matter what my upper to lower body strength ratio is??

[hjs]

It indeed takes some time for the upperbody to catch up, but on longer work it is often not strenght but lungs that are the limiting factor.
Rating plays a role, rating high wil make the stroke softer and you not feel the legs a lot.

[jamesg]

First leg-work guess comes from the ratio Watts/Rating. If it's over 10, as it will be in your case if you can do your 18' 5k at rate 25 or lower, most of the work is from your legs.

A more accurate estimate is given by doing a back-stop drill: first row a minute with arms only, noting rating and Watts; then arms + plus swing only; then full stroke. For each, calculate the W/R ratio. This ratio is the mechanical work done on the handle in each stroke. You don't have to bust a gut in this test. You might see 100W at 60, 160W at 40, 250W at 20. We all differ, but the three numbers will probably relate to each other 1-3-10, which implies 70% of the work is from the legs.

Rowing uses legs a lot, especially if at the catch you have vertical shins and trunk well forward so that there is some leverage. The stroke can then be long, using legs, back and arms in sequence and there will be no knee/handle interference during recovery. But rowing is not so hard on the legs as climbing stairs or hills on a bike, because the forces have to go through our maybe weaker trunk, shoulders and arms, not direct to the ground/pedal. And of course we use two legs together, not one at a time.

Exercise that uses little muscle stresses that muscle heavily; exercises that use all our muscle stress the heart and CV system - weakest link.

The main technical difficulty of erging is getting the work from very strong legs to the handle, through relatively weak trunk and arms. Oarsmen spend their lives solving that problem, and then still have water to think about.

A walking erg is due to the inertial forces we generate, and could imply you are slamming the catch too much; lower drag and a smoother catch will help, but if the floor's slippery it will happen anyway. Dust under the feet acts as a good lubricant. Clean rubber pads might stop it. If it's a problem, get a pair of slides, after all boats are supposed to move.

[Cyclingman1]

I am 38, 6'3" and 210lbs ... I have done 5K in 18:12 and 10k in 38:28

At your size, I doubt very seriously that you lack sufficient upper body strength for erging. Plus, MTB really uses the upper body.

Fitness is task specific. Your 5K at 1:49.2 is better than your 10K at 1:55.4. When you get fitter on the erg, I would expect a differntial of about 3 to 4 secs between those two distances.

Given your size a pace of 1:49.2 is not going to tax your legs. You need to start doing some shorter, faster efforts, that is, intervals to feel and develop the strength that you are speaking of. Now, I want to caution that sudden all out efforts on an erg can definitely cause injury. You have to build up to it. At your size I can see you doing 250m at 1:40 or below to begin with. Later you will undoubtedly be in the low 1:30s. You have to noticeably use your legs to go fast. You need a strong toe off keeping your trunk and arms locked for the first bit before starting to use your back and then arms. You will feel the push in your quads. Building such strength is the way to get steady state rowing times down. Given your age and size, 17min 5Ks and 36min 10Ks are definitely within reach.

Re: the topic of SPM, strokes per minute. Everything in erging is a tradeoff. Low SPM is good for building strength. But I maintain that for fitness and going fast, one has to ramp up the SPM. SPM numbers alone don't say much. Trust me, to do a 17 min 5K @1:42, you will be pushing hard with the legs at a pretty good SPM. There will be nothing soft about any of it. That would be about 330 W. At 30 SPM, that is 11 W/stroke. If you can do that for 17 min, you will move to near the head of the list. However, if you attempted that time in the low 20s for SPM, you would have to do 14 W/stroke or greater. I want to see that.

[Bighairybeast]

Thanks for the detailed responses. I've dealt with the "walking" rower by putting a yoga mat underneath. On short intense efforts I feel I'm stressing the mid machine attachment point so will work on a smoother catch. When discussing rate should I be varying it more with different workouts? Most of my easier rows are 28-29 spm, and from the photos you can see I can hold 30-31 pretty consistently on my harder efforts (The drop in my 10k was getting of machine and pulling it back). Since I've had the machine I have never rowed below 27spm. Should I be including lower rate workouts or increasing intensity at my current rates?

[hjs]

Rate 30 at this pace hardly takes much force, so you won,t feel your legs much. Nothing wrong with that. But say you would use a rate of 24, which would not be low for a guy your height you need much more force per stroke.
Otw rowers do much of there long work at rate 18 or 20. The reason beeing to build a strong stroke.

[Bob S.]

I have watched a few videos and feel like I have good form.

Good rowing form can be rather elusive. It is not easy to spot your own technique errors. This was brought home to me quite strongly when a friend took a photo of me during an erg race and it caught me in a glaring error of form (mantis wrists) that I had no idea I was committing, even after many years of rowing on the water and on the erg. The best bet is to get your technique checked out by a coach who is well familiar with rowing technique (not the usual gym instructor. If that is not possible, a video on this forum (and the UK C2 forum as well) will generally bring out some good advice. On special trick for checking out your sequencing technique is to row with the foot straps off. If you legs/back/arms sequence is not well timed this can result in falling off the back of the machine, so the first attempts should be done cautiously and at a low stroke rate.

Bob S.

[Cyclingman1]

Rate 30 at this pace hardly takes much force, so you won,t feel your legs much. Nothing wrong with that. But say you would use a rate of 24, which would not be low for a guy your height you need much more force per stroke.

1:49.2 pace at 30 SPM is 9 W/ stroke. That is not bad. 1:49.2 at 24 SPM would be 11.2 W/ stroke. That requires a good deal of fitness. It is all a tradeoff: force on the handle versus the stroke rate. If one parameter is increased, the other generally goes down. More fitness means that an increase in force will not require as much of a decrease in stroke rate. Strength training can make an increase in force less taxing allowing less of a decrease in stroke rate.

One cannot automatically just dial in force versus stroke rate. I suspect that the OP cannot do 11.2 W/stroke at 24 SPM, but obviously can do 9.0 W/stroke at 30 SPM even though the resulting pace is the same. I see higher W/s being done as strength training at shorter distances.

[hjs]

Rate 30 at this pace hardly takes much force, so you won,t feel your legs much. Nothing wrong with that. But say you would use a rate of 24, which would not be low for a guy your height you need much more force per stroke.

1:49.2 pace at 30 SPM is 9 W/ stroke. That is not bad. 1:49.2 at 24 SPM would be 11.2 W/ stroke. That requires a good deal of fitness. It is all a tradeoff: force on the handle versus the stroke rate. If one parameter is increased, the other generally goes down. More fitness means that an increase in force will not require as much of a decrease in stroke rate. Strength training can make an increase in force less taxing allowing less of a decrease in stroke rate.

One cannot automatically just dial in force versus stroke rate. I suspect that the OP cannot do 11.2 W/stroke at 24 SPM, but obviously can do 9.0 W/stroke at 30 SPM even though the resulting pace is the same. I see higher W/s being done as strength training at shorter distances.

It missed the 5k, my comment was about the 10. The 5k is indeed not bad. The fact that noth the 5 and 10 k are rowed roughly at the same rate is tough. That is unusual. For a tt I think a stroke of 3 difference would be more optimal.
In itself I have nothing against rating high, the softer you can stroke, the less wear and tear on the body. In the long run, low rate work is very tough on the body.

[jamesg]

It is all a tradeoff: force on the handle versus the stroke rate.

You're forgetting length. A longer stroke has more work in it for the same force, so less of them are needed. It's very difficult to pull full length coordinated strokes at high ratings, as well as very hard work, so we train and learn slow. On the erg short strokes at high ratings are doubly damaging, because of the slack catch.

This is how rowing is done in training:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20rSoTo8fQA

The OP can produce a 12 W' stroke very easily, with a little technique.

[Cyclingman1]

The word "soft" is getting to me a little bit. Doing rowing pieces of 2K on up is about total fitness and total energy expenditure. I'm sure that the OP doing 9.0W/stroke at 30 SPM did not feel "soft" doing it. I'm sure he was breathing hard and pointing to the end. Lance Armstrong won 7 tours [ignoring the drugs] by using low gears and high cadence. Of course, he had to be very fit to do that. But those using higher gears at lower cadance could not match him.

I'm sure the OP can do 12 W/s, but for how long and at what SPM? I gurantee that he cannot do 1:49.2 for 5K at 12W/s. His SPM would have to slow considerably. It takes too much rest to maintain 12 W/s. Of course, younger, very fit ergers can do 12W/s at 30 SPM. However, out of nearly 5000 ranked 5K rowers, there are 5 who can do 360 Watts for 5K.

OTW rowing is different than erging. It takes time to pull the oars thru the water on a full stroke. 18-20 SPM is quite reasonable for OTW rowing. I'm sure at 30 SPM on up OTW that some compromises have to be made on stroke length. But the erg is different. A full stroke length at 30 SPM is not hard to accomplish. But one does have to have the fitness to recover fast enough to start a pull every 2 seconds. And force on the handle is important. If one muscles up to pull 12 W/s and on up, chances are the average good erger cannot recover to do 30 SPM. One subconsciously or consciously picks a force that is sustainable for 30 SPM or other SPM. It is a tradeoff: force on handle vs. SPM. As I said before, given one's current strength and fitness, if one parameter is increased the other has to decrease. That is what training is all about: the ability to have a higher level in one of the parameters at the same level in the other. In the case of the OP, perhaps he can gain the strength to do 10W/s at 30 SPM. That puts him right at 1:45 or 17:30 for 5K. Of course the combinations are many: 11 x 27, 12 x 25, 9 x 33, etc, etc. A person will do what his strength and fitness dictates. In the case of the OP, for now, that is 9 x 30 = 270 Watts or 1:49.2.

[hjs]

I use the term "soft stroke" not soft pace. You can use a soft stroke and work hard.

On the other hand you can also use a strong stroke and don,t work hard.

For the op, the strokes used on the 5 versus the 10 differ a lot. Not uncommon though, instead of changing spm he changes force per stroke on different distances.

[Cyclingman1]

For the op, the strokes used on the 5 versus the 10 differ a lot. Not uncommon though, instead of changing spm he changes force per stroke on different distances.

One has to decrease the force as distances increases. As I said earlier, the fitter he gets, the less he will have to decrease the force. Now he is going from 9.0 to 7.7 W/s. 8.3 W/s at 30 SPM is more reasonable once he is fitter. Of course, again, the combinations of W/s and SPM are infinite. He has to pick/feel what is best for him.

[hjs]

For the op, the strokes used on the 5 versus the 10 differ a lot. Not uncommon though, instead of changing spm he changes force per stroke on different distances.

One has to decrease the force as distances increases. As I said earlier, the fitter he gets, the less he will have to decrease the force. Now he is going from 9.0 to 7.7 W/s. 8.3 W/s at 30 SPM is more reasonable once he is fitter. Of course, again, the combinations of W/s and SPM are infinite. He has to pick/feel what is best for him.

For myself on the 5 and 10 that is not so much the case. My 5 is faster due to the rating, much less so for using a stronger stroke. Below 5 k I do use a stronger stroke.

[Cyclingman1]

For myself on the 5 and 10 that is not so much the case. My 5 is faster due to the rating, much less so for using a stronger stroke. Below 5 k I do use a stronger stroke.

There really is no way to determine the strategy or the necessity of how rowers in the C2 rankings transist from 5K to 10K. Something has to give or both. I suspect keeping the same W/s and lowering only the SPM would be the minority approach. Most rowers are not strong enough to do that for twice the distance. I believe that for most lowering both the W/s and the SPM would happen to some extent. In my case the W/s goes down a little and the SPM goes down maybe by one.