Is doing 10k 5 days a week plus 1 day on the water good?

[Jimmy]

Hello all,

I have been lurking last few weeks and decided to join for bit of advice.

I'm 35 years old male , I have rowed on the water about 15 years ago and i'm joining a club to take up the sport again.

I'm marginally overweight according to the charts (79K , 5' 9") and seriously lack fitness.

So I started going to a gym and doing 10k everyday for the last week and a half , it was bloody difficult and boring at first but now I have gotten used to it, I have been clocking 47-48 min with damper on 5/6 which is not impressive at all by the looking at times on the internet but i'm not much bothered about it since i'm just starting the sport again. Mind you I have lost little over 2kg during this short time.

My goals are to
1. Loose weight (mainly the slab of fat on the tummy area) and to get to a reasonable shape.
2. Improve endurance and fitness so I can be racing again on the water.

Currently apart from my 10k erging there will be one day on the water at the club as well.(sometimes 2 days on water and when that happens it will be only 4 days on the gym)

So far I have not been doing any other forms of exercises/machines on the gym so my questions are

1. Am I on the right track by doing 10k everyday for 5 days a week?(erg Monday to Friday and on the water Saturday ) or should I change it?
2. should I start on other muscle build up exercises right now or should I hold that till I burn the excess fat on my body?

Thank you

[Bob S.]

For just training and getting into condition, that sounds fine. But I would think that a steady diet of 10ks would get stale rather quickly. It might help get a little variety into your program.

[f2d]

You need to do intervals as well.

Not only is doing only 1 workout boring as hell, but it's less effective than switching it up.

[Bob S.]

You need to do intervals as well.

I considered that for my own response, but a decided that the OP really doesn't have much to gain by doing erg intervals at this point. Intervals are fine for developing speed on the erg to compete in the short erg events, but for OTW racing it is a different matter. In fact, I think that erg intervals would be detrimental for anyone whose main competition interest is on the water.

A lot of long distance stuff on the erg would be fine for the goals the OP listed. But for the OTW racing, any speed work is best done during the sessions on the water.

Variety yes, intervals no.

Bob S.

[jackarabit]

Long erg sessions don't need to be boring if they have goals beyond simply completing the time or distance and the goals change day to day. Obvious goals are increasing distance with or without pace increases and improving pace with or without increasing distance.

Other changeups just for variety or to make daily distance possible while ministering to creature comfort entail splittimg or intervalizing long pieces-- say 2 x30' or 3x20'-- with brief rest for a drink, towel down, and stretch.

Long pieces can be done according to the guidelines at Indoor Sports Services Interactive Programmes for heart rate zone or 2k-based pacing. In my case a UT2 pace is roughly 8 to 14" slower than a UT1. A UT2 pace should burn fat for fuel; a UT1 carbohydrate. UT2 is active recovery. UT1 is work.

Long pieces can be done at restricted rate (30' @ 20spm) or with rate ladders as in the C2 daily workouts. Long pieces can also be done with pace changes or pace ladders. The simplest form of this is the "all-in-one" which changes pace between warmup, main workout, and cooldown without interruption. Or dual pace (X for 1K alternating with X-5" for the next K).

8x500m/5'R can turn into the most boring, repetitive and predictable workout of all (including the pain). So can 75' UT1. Boredom is voluntary disengagement from the order of rhe day. Those who are determined to be bored will be!

[Carl Watts]

Currently doing 30minutes five days a week followed by five 12minute cool downs at a reasonable pace. 30min at 2:01.5 at sub 20spm and the CD at 2:08.5 at 17-18spm. Staying away from any high heartrate work, those extra couple of hundred meters in the 30min just kill you. Saturday is now a 30min recovery row with the whole thing done at CD pace. The target is 2:00.0 pace for the 30min from one week to the next.

Distance information without pace and heartrate information is pretty meaningless, some people claim to be going over 40Km a DAY.

What you do know for sure is that your loosing weight, which is really the goal as you approach 40 and you also want to keep it off and maintain a high degree of mobility into your 70's and 80's. I would say your doing things right as long as you can sustain it week after week all season long

As much as I love the Erg, its incredibly boring rowing on your own and the majority of people who own one dump it after 1 or 2 years, what resurrected my rowing interest and motivation was the Online feature in RowPro, without it the Erg would have been sold years ago. Yes it helps to have a goal and racing OTW would certainly help, as do goals on the Erg or just trying to better your pace over time.

[hjs]

For general fitness this is not optimal, there is a lot you are not training. You should work in some strenght and some short speed work. The bulk should stay long work, should stay aerobic but the pace is very modest atm.

Re weight, 90% is eating, skip the junk and eat good whole foods. Plenty of protein fats, modest on carbs.

[T_M]

From a training and overall fitness perspective only (not considering OTW comps as part of the OP's strategy), I would agree with Henry...though I mix in my anaerobic training with weights instead of erg sprints/intervals. A typical session for me is 10 to 12K r20 @ 2:04 to 2:07 in low to mid UT1 band and then mix in power cleans, deadlifts, or front squats for some fast 5 to 7 sets of 5 reps and a little bit of pressing to prevent muscle imbalance. I address the monotony of the long SS rows with good music and there is usually something distracting on TV and some eye candy at my commercial gym.

[Jimmy]

Thanks for advice guys, I changed my schedule a bit buy doing 30 min erg session a day (rate 22 , drag 135) and then some other weight training. I can only spend one hour during a day since I do this during my lunch hour at work.