New to Rowing - Any tips to get beyond 10min sessions?

[jakordas]

Hi all. I just get a Concept 2 and am new to rowing. I listened to the advice of starting off small with 5ish minute sessions to focus on form and get your body used to the movement. I found in the first 5 minutes that my hip flexors hurt a lot. I started to do specific stretches for those before I began and that pain has gone away during rowing. Now I get to about 8-10 minutes and my lower back is starting to hurt. It feels like a muscular pain so I am thinking that after a few weeks I should be able to get to 10 minutes with that feeling going away as I build up the endurance.

I read a lot of posts on here about 1hr+ long rowing sessions, yet I am struggling to make 10 minutes. Has anyone else started this low and been able to make it to 1hr+?

I like rowing slow and my damper is set roughly in the lower middle. I put headphones in and zone out to a good audiobook in the middle of the day to get my mind off work. I would love to be rowing for 30min+ so I can take that time and just enjoying being in my own head. Any tips to help get me there?

Thanks in advance!

[GreenStratMan]

Personally I’d take the headphones off and zone in on your form and technique. You might want to put your damper setting on number 2. Doesn’t need to be above 3 unless you machine is dirty or there is a specific training session you’re doing that requires it.

Watch the Dark Horse technique videos on YouTube. Watch his technique videos and his damper setting ones. Lower back issues in any sport is usually down to poor form and fundamental core weakness.

Do 3 smaller sessions a day. It takes a long time to build endurance foundation.Your body will need time to adapt as it grows miles and miles of new blood vessels, angiogenesis; along with all of the other adaptations it’ll make. Take your time enjoy the ride. The only stroke you need be concerned with is the stroke you’re taking now, focus and allow it to be the best it can be. It’s very satisfying when you begin to realise and recognise how rewarding a perfect stroke feels. Rowing shouldn’t be a means to and end, it should be an end in and of itself. But, enjoy the ride.

[jamesg]

Depends on age, I'm 82 and have started to get aches and pains everywhere. So I use low drag so I can move quickly (DF < 90), watch my posture and keep the rating low, using the legs with the style I learnt at school 65 years ago. It usually works, after about five minutes warmup. It's essential to go at over 100W so that the endorphines do their job; and in order to get any fitness effect at all, of course.

Here you can see how rowing is done:
https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/ ... que-videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf84O5cTWY4

Try to avoid doing anything wrong, nice full length rhythmic strokes at 20-22 without too much effort will get you fit as well if not better that any other method, if you pull enough of them.

If you want to work a little harder, do it in the form of intervals. 5x 3minutes low rate, pulled hard, with a minute or two rest is typical. But get warm first.

To do hour long pieces fastish is difficult, even when walking, let alone rowing. There we have to move the boat as well as ourselves. Start easy and work up; it's useful if we do it life long.

[Dangerscouse]

Welcome to the forum. Aches and pains are normal when you start for the first time. In addition to muscles, there are ligaments and tendons that need to adapt to the strain.

If your lower back is hurting, there's a possibility that your technique is at fault. Remember that it is predominantly a push, not a pull motion. There is some pull in there, but circa 65% is pushing. There is always a tendency to lean too far forward, to lengthen the stroke, which puts your back in a weaker position. Don't let your shins go past vertical is a good guide.

There is also a chance that your 'shooting the slide'. This is when you push but don't pull, so your seat slides back but your upper body is more or less in the same position. This needs to be a smooth fluid movement, with a subtle overlapping transfer of power from lower body to upper body. For a seemingly simple exercise it is surprisingly difficult.

You've got to give it time to build up the time on the rower, but if you're dedicated it will happen fairly quickly. Doing the longer distances isn't suited to everyone, but if it does suit you, you should know fairly soon. Everyone struggles as a newbie, unless you're one of the lucky few.

FWIW, I always row with music, every session without fail, so I'm a big advocate of music / audio books etc, but what will be beneficial is using it to allow you to really interrogate what you're doing in terms of technique, effort and how it feels.

[JaapvanE]

I read a lot of posts on here about 1hr+ long rowing sessions, yet I am struggling to make 10 minutes. Has anyone else started this low and been able to make it to 1hr+?

Babysteps, ignore your ego, listen to your body and above all have fun doing it.

I used to row 2500 meters in the gym once a week, which was over 10 minutes for me (I rowed a 2:12 pace back then, so around 11 minutes something). When I got my own rower, I made babysteps towards longer distances. I added 500 meters, rowed that three times a week explicitly with the aim to get comfortable with the distance (i.e. not the ambition to be fast, just to survive it without pains). Once I got the hang of the distance, felt that I could row it without hesitation, I added another 500 meters and the process started again. Currently, after a year or two, I structurally row 6000 meters at least three times a week and I have little restraint there. As it is about 25 minutes for me, I like that distance and pace as it fits my schedule.

When I got to 6K meters and got comfortable there, I felt that in the weekends I could do more, so I used a slow pace (restrain your ego, as it will push you to a too fast pace) to do a 6K, followed by a 3K half an hour later. But when I didn't feel like it, I skipped the 3K and had a comfortable day. After a couple of trainings and reducing the length of the pause, I felt I could skip the pause and went ahead and just rowed a 10K at the same slow pace. That became my standard saturday training. Slowly, I'm increasing the speed, but finding the right pace is tough on these distances, as ego will make you do things you'll regret later. And sprinting for 10 minutes followed by 30 minutes of pain and suffering, it happened too often to me. So my advise here is to go slow on a distance first, and when you are comfortable doing the distance, slowly increase the pace step by step and make sure you enjoy the training.

When I recovered from injury I needed to restrain myself (slow pace, so my ego had to take a forced break), and my 10K was 50 minutes long without serious fatigue setting in, so I just did a 1 hour training a week later. As I still had to use that incredibly slow pace, I even made steps to a 15K once. From there on, the 1 hour became my normal Sunday training, I slowly picked up pace for both the 1 hour, so my 1 hour now gets close to 13K. I'm slowly eying the 15K, but we'll see when I feel like it.

[mitchel674]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new rower!

To echo the other good advice, be patient and focus on your form. If your lower back is an issue, you likely have a technique flaw causing too much strain from either over reaching or shooting the slide. Keep your core tight and your arms loose so you feel the hang of the handle on your lats as you drive.

Also, learn about drag factor and not just the position of your handle. I lower my drag factor whenever I am concerned about my lower back. Consider starting your drag factor at 110 and see how that feels.

[JaapvanE]

FWIW, I always row with music, every session without fail, so I'm a big advocate of music / audio books etc, but what will be beneficial is using it to allow you to really interrogate what you're doing in terms of technique, effort and how it feels.

100% support for music on the longer distances. Couldn't live without it.

I tried watching movies and hated it, I became sea-sick. The EXR game is pretty boring but relaxing, so I like it. Sometimes I watch Formula 1, but I discovered that it is a pretty bad experience when your favorite crashes and you have to watch 60 minutes of race without him, without the possibility of changing the channel

[p_b82]

Welcome from a fellow n00b,

I sat on the rower for the first time in 20 years 2 months ago, and did a 10min session - I had a few aches, but no pains luckily.

I'm not sure what your base fitness is, but if you're trying to go all out max effort then I'd suggest you back off the effort - and as others have said focus on the technique for a bit; ignore your pace per 500 and just get comfortable with the separate components of the stroke. Then look to find a stroke rate & drag factor that feels "right"; for my steady state stuff, 21-22 suits me nicely at a DragFactor of ~120.

I found when starting that focusing on - vertical shins & straight arms at the catch - helped the rest of the action just flow from there; driving with the legs then rocking back and pulling. I have the force curve on my pm5 so that I can check that things are smooth; that helped me a lot to visually see the transition of the stroke through each stage.
I also have stroke length displayed too - while it's a bit of an arbitrary number, I used it conjunction with the force curve to find roughly the right distance that corresponded with the right shape I was aiming for; I don't pay much attention to it now though.

After a couple weeks I bought a HR monitor (polar); I was getting off the machine in a puddle of sweat, and while the effort felt good, I was pushing myself too hard every time - there was no way I was going to manage to increase the time on the machine in any meaningful manner (my aim was/is hour long rows)

Tracing my HR and popping a post up to get some advice myself, enabled me to start to ignore my ego, and learn to pace myself better; my pace is nothing to write home about - I'm not last in my age group, but I'm not far from it - but that's ok, for me it's about the seat time currently.

Thursday I managed my first intentional hour's row. I'd set myself a target of consistent splits throughout, which I achieved.

It's taken me 2 months to go from 10 to 60 mins on the erg in a single session.

I also advocate music on the longer rows - for me 20mins+ is where I need that to help distract me, without it, I find I push myself a bit too hard.

[Erik A]

ive recently started back on the erg after an extended layoff initially due to injury (not erg related) then covid. when i was using the gym machine i found that i was significantly unfit. i started with intervals doing a set distance or time (say 1 min) then a rest (say 1 min) then did as many intervals as i could. at the beginning i was struggling to do 10 intervals. i have since got my own erg and started increasing my interval lengths while keeping my rest the same.
now im doing 5 x intervals of 1500m with 1 min rest. after another period of time off due to a persistent flu that is refusing to leave i should be back on the erg this week where i will consolidate my intervals for a week or so then add more distance so probably move up to 2000m. once i am doing 5 of these i will start dropping the rest period and start doing extended steady state time sessions.

[Joshua Hobbs]

Hi Mate,

I experience the exact same thing. Im office bound all day and have super tight muscles, especially hamstrings.

I 100% make sure I stretch the lower back, hamstrings,glutes and hip flexors for about 15-20mins before rowing. I find when I do this all the pressure off my lower back is gone and I can now row 5km no issues.

Give it a go and let me know your feedback.

Yesterday I just rowed my 2nd ever 5km - 20:40.3(newbie) and felt great(although tired).

Josh