New rower looking for advice.

[Galeere]

If I was Mr Stanger I would hopefully come back to the forum and join the fun.

I'm still here, I just think we're arguing for the sake of arguing. I've checked my technique against all of the videos, even going so far as to record myself and compare them, it's fine. What I've tried to explain is that my upper body is the limiting factor right now, not my legs. I have in the past had tremendously strong legs, and that strength appears to have been retained to a point. I admit that the cardio aspect is also a limiting factor, but being an athlete I am used to pushing through that tired feeling. What I was saying is that I didn't want to hurt myself (my back mostly) and therefore I am limiting myself based on my back and arms.

For those saying that rowing will not build upper body muscles, I think you underestimate how small my upper body muscles are currently.

As the other guys have been observing it is better and more efficient to do weights (bench press, curls, push ups, lat pulls and the like) in order to build up upper body muscles. This should be done (after a sufficient warm up of course) with a load that allows relatively few repitions (6-12) and/or doing the relatively few repitions until fatigue. Do each workout 3-6 times over (3-6 sets). Anything above 12-15 reps is good also but affects cardiac more and therefore adresses tone, body fat and cardiac but less muscle mass itself. And for lean people it is very important to eat accordingly (good food, no box food). Plenty more to be found in the internet or by speaking to fellow athletes.

[jackarabit]

OK, OK, OK. The OP will gain muscle tone and maybe see a bit of hypertrophy in biceps and forearm flexors after a few million meters. Might also weaken his preconceptions. Jack

[Bob S.]

@ Stanger127: I hope that you can ignore the wrangling that has developed on this thread. There really is a lot of good information available on this forum, in spite of the arguing. You mentioned viewing some training videos and I wondered if you had seen this one which gives you a frame by frame view of one full stroke by an Olympic gold winner in the single sculls:

https://invernessrowingclub.org.uk/strokecycles/8

There is one odd flaw here that puzzles me. Xeno lets his hands drop quite low during the recovery. He certainly wouldn't do that in a boat, as can be seen in the companion video available from the link at the end of the first line. What I like about the video is that you can get the exact timing of the sequencing. In fact the number of frames of drive and recovery are specified in the text. Note that the erg demo was done at quite a high rate, 39spm. In the other video, the rate is much lower, 22spm. Note that, at both rates, the time of the drive is the same, 0.69 seconds.

If you can view your own video frame by frame, you can get a pretty good view of how your technique compares.

Bob S.

[Robt.Lee]

All the advise about form is the first priority. Have no doubt that you can improve your leg strength for biking by working on the erg. You will notice it in hills in particular.
I use the Eddie Fletcher (see Fletcher Sport Science) workout. You will not improve as much doing the same 4 x 1K at low speed every day. You will need to push yourself and get uncomfortable to have adequate recovery stimulus to get stronger and improve cardiovascular conditioning. For example I row
4x15" at an HR 141-154 on Monday
4x8" at an HR 154-160 on Tuesday
90" at an HR 135-141 on Wednesday
8x1" at an HR 173-179 on Thursday
2x15" at an HR 141-154 on Friday
7x4" at an HR 160-173 on Saturday

that is a hard week by the way, even after a Sunday rest I do a lighter workout the following week to make sure that my 70 year old body can recover.