What's the best way to include strength training?

[Masterninja]

Nice programs there 'ninj

I've done several variations from PTTP with barbell deadlifts and presses, 40 days with a mix of barbell and kettlebell lifts, 40 days with just kettlebells...

I've also done the old Starting Strength linear progression which worked for a while and I got strong but also spent half my life eating and not being able to do much else ...and then spent s long time trying to lose the weight I'd gained!

I'm unfortunately still in the process of coming out of that hole myself... still
Got lbs to shed from years of eating with reckless abandon chasing bigger squat numbers. I loved PTP and still
Employ a lot of those principles. Using the ladder method with pull-ups got me from 2 ugly body weight pull-ups up to a triple with BW plus 75lbs. "Greasing the groove" definitely produces results for me.

[hjs]

Greg,

In the big picture, you proberly are best of if you first look how strong you are and where your weakness/strenght lays. Given your training your body is proberly very row related formed.
Second, what is your goal? A more balanced body or better performance? Or ?

Based on the outcome, first focus on building your weaknesses, this will at first proberly go pretty fast at first. Certainly the very undertrained parts of your body. Apart from that, everybody has relative strenghts and weakness 's based on build. This we can,t change. Just accept those.

Injury, be carefull, the nmr one dealbreaker is getting an injury.

After the first fase, when you have trained away, the very untrained bodyparts, you might look again at your goals

[Balkan boy]

http://highperformancerowing.net/journa ... rship.html

[gregsmith01748]

Greg,

In the big picture, you proberly are best of if you first look how strong you are and where your weakness/strenght lays. Given your training your body is proberly very row related formed.
Second, what is your goal? A more balanced body or better performance? Or ?

Based on the outcome, first focus on building your weaknesses, this will at first proberly go pretty fast at first. Certainly the very undertrained parts of your body. Apart from that, everybody has relative strenghts and weakness 's based on build. This we can,t change. Just accept those.

Injury, be carefull, the nmr one dealbreaker is getting an injury.

After the first fase, when you have trained away, the very untrained bodyparts, you might look again at your goals

Wise words as always.

I have gotten advice to start this process with some tests including Low Pull on the erg and establishing reasonable guesses for 1RM weights for the major lifts. That way I have a baseline to look back to see if things are getting better or worse.

At a top level, my priorities are (in this order)
1. Get more balanced for injury prevention and general fitness.
2. Avoid losing endurance for long rows (My next big event is a 20 mile open water row next July, that's over 3 hours of rowing)
3. Increase peak power on the erg.

So, most important is the general fitness and injury prevention. I've read a lot that says strength training is a very good idea for guys over 50 to maintain muscle mass and slow down the worst effects of aging. If I can do that and not get much slower on the water, I'll be happy. That's why I am looking for the simplest way to do a little bit, versus some program to "max out my gains in xx days" or whatever.

[G-dub]

This is overly simplistic, but I added strength (as evidenced by adding weight to the bar) by just walking over to my trap bar and dead lifting it 5-6 times twice when the mood struck but generally 2-3 times a week. When I felt like it I added weight. Have been able to add more plates every 2-3 weeks. Did same with standing overhead press and bench press. Threw some kbells in there and overhead squats with the bar for flexibility. Gets tougher to do during intense periods of training on the erg, but when doing SS it's a piece of cake.

[aussieluke]

Greg,

In the big picture, you proberly are best of if you first look how strong you are and where your weakness/strenght lays. Given your training your body is proberly very row related formed.
Second, what is your goal? A more balanced body or better performance? Or ?

Based on the outcome, first focus on building your weaknesses, this will at first proberly go pretty fast at first. Certainly the very undertrained parts of your body. Apart from that, everybody has relative strenghts and weakness 's based on build. This we can,t change. Just accept those.

Injury, be carefull, the nmr one dealbreaker is getting an injury.

After the first fase, when you have trained away, the very untrained bodyparts, you might look again at your goals

Wise words as always.

I have gotten advice to start this process with some tests including Low Pull on the erg and establishing reasonable guesses for 1RM weights for the major lifts. That way I have a baseline to look back to see if things are getting better or worse.

At a top level, my priorities are (in this order)
1. Get more balanced for injury prevention and general fitness.
2. Avoid losing endurance for long rows (My next big event is a 20 mile open water row next July, that's over 3 hours of rowing)
3. Increase peak power on the erg.

So, most important is the general fitness and injury prevention. I've read a lot that says strength training is a very good idea for guys over 50 to maintain muscle mass and slow down the worst effects of aging. If I can do that and not get much slower on the water, I'll be happy. That's why I am looking for the simplest way to do a little bit, versus some program to "max out my gains in xx days" or whatever.

You could cover most of that with a simple program and a single kettlebell.

Goblet squats, swings, presses, getups and a few carries

Add heavier strength work later if you need it.

[hjs]

Re getting better low pull. Raw power is the key. Better deadlifts, squat, pullups/rows do help. Next to short lowpull work on the erg.

Re Kettlebells. Every time I see a kettlebell specialist, I think "do you even lift" often what they do with them is impressive, but compared to barbells its more difficult. Also you have less choise in weights. Or should have a stack of them.
For home use the are cheap/handy. The swing is the exception, easy to learn, although in my gym, everybody does them wrong.....

[gregsmith01748]

This is overly simplistic, but I added strength (as evidenced by adding weight to the bar) by just walking over to my trap bar and dead lifting it 5-6 times twice when the mood struck but generally 2-3 times a week. When I felt like it I added weight. Have been able to add more plates every 2-3 weeks. Did same with standing overhead press and bench press. Threw some kbells in there and overhead squats with the bar for flexibility. Gets tougher to do during intense periods of training on the erg, but when doing SS it's a piece of cake.

I think this is basically what I'm going to do. The only difference is that I tend to like structure and planning, so figuring out what I'll do in advance and how to arrange it with other training is part of the fun for me. This may sound dumb, but the thing I'm proudest about in terms of rowing is that I'm still doing it almost every day 6 years after starting it. There are very few habits that I've been able to develop since reaching adulthood, and I am trying to find the right way to make regular strength training another success story for me. I think it would be cool to be able to deadlift 300 pounds when I'm 60.

[gregsmith01748]

Re getting better low pull. Raw power is the key. Better deadlifts, squat, pullups/rows do help. Next to short lowpull work on the erg.

Re Kettlebells. Every time I see a kettlebell specialist, I think "do you even lift" often what they do with them is impressive, but compared to barbells its more difficult. Also you have less choise in weights. Or should have a stack of them.
For home use the are cheap/handy. The swing is the exception, easy to learn, although in my gym, everybody does them wrong.....

I just sprung for a couple of kettlebells to give that a try as part of some workouts. I think I like the idea of 5 exercises per workout in the general catagories I described, but switching up the specifics on a regular basis.

I need to find someone to teach me how to do a kettlebell swing. I might watch some youtube, film myslef and post it for some coaching. Same thing with getups. The moves look quite complex to master. That's good thing because the rowing stroke has similar precise technical demands.

[hjs]

I just sprung for a couple of kettlebells to give that a try as part of some workouts. I think I like the idea of 5 exercises per workout in the general catagories I described, but switching up the specifics on a regular basis.

I need to find someone to teach me how to do a kettlebell swing. I might watch some youtube, film myslef and post it for some coaching. Same thing with getups. The moves look quite complex to master. That's good thing because the rowing stroke has similar precise technical demands.

Its a hip snap, NOT a squat. Its really the glutes that move the body during the swing. Which should be done explosive.

[mdpfirrman]

Interesting thread. I've been doing a similar workout to what Luke describes but only 2 or 3 times a week. These last two weeks, I've been on vacation and lifting nearly daily (for only around 20 minutes). Though my gym has a great selection of KBs, I row at my gym, so I'm going to get a KB for home when I get back and start lifting 6 or 7 days a week (like described in the Easy Strength book).

[Gammmmo]

Greg, if you want to get stronger it is not very complicated- you need to do relatively heavy compound movements consistently over a long period of time-twice a week should be sufficient- lower reps

OTOH, if your muscles are long and lanky, of the endurance type, more reps will be more effective - 12 to 20, as hjs said.
The distinction is important.
The exact same stimulus will have very different outcomes, depending on your physiqe.
I am in the latter category, For years I followed the standard (but wrong) advise "heavy weights for strength", and for years I was stuck in the plateau. Once I changed my plan (12 to 20 reps) I made real gains, both in strenght and muscle mass.

Even more interstingly... I gained more upper body muscle from my kayaking and cross country skiing than from lifting heavy weights, despite the fact that kayaking/xc-skiing are "low weight, many reps" type of activities.

2x per week is optimal, during the racing season maintenance phase you can switch to 1x week.

This is interesting to me being the classic ectomorph somatotype. Over the last 5-6 months I've been doing weights, mainly to look better and help put on some weight so I can sneak under the 75kg limit. I tend to stick to 5-10 reps with as heavy weight as I can handle going to failure - if I can do 5 reps then that is my "goto" weight for the set with that exercise when I am fresh and have warmed up. I guage progress as to how many reps I can do on this first "fresh" set. I've eschewed squats and deadlifting because of a lower back issue and instead have concentrated on incline dumbell press, seated dumbell curls, triceps pushdowns, seated T-bar like row, palms towards the body chinups (this created am elbow injury because, what I now believe, to be because my hands were twisted directly towards the body whereas I think if I'd had them rotated slightly I'd have been OK).

I quickly plateaued and my weight now hovers at just under 72kg. I now believe I really ought to be including the squats and deadlifts very gradually to send a better anabolic signal - some say this will do more for arm size than the specific exercises I was doing. I suspect as above I should be working in a higher rep range. I think the above comment about kayaking etc is now ringing true as much more freqency and not necessarily having to go to failure (I have learnt elsewhere from a trusted source) will build more muscle by sending more (slightly smaller) signals and reducing soreness from fewer "all out" sessions. Time to make some changes...

[GJS]

A nice collection of links about strength training for rowers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rowing/wiki/strength

I've just started doing Bulgarian Split Squats. Having done no lifting before 3 x 10 with a weight vest is reasonably challenging for me atm. Stronger citizens might struggle to load it sufficiently. I should be ok for a number of months with vest and dumbbells.

Less anabolically stimulating than squats but perhaps a nice alternative should your back continue to trouble you, Gammo. Reports seem to indicate it's pretty back-friendly.