Concept2 Forum

I'm curious about how you guys do the over 30 minutes pieces. Since I row alone (no rowpro), the long pieces tend to be boring. Lately using music videos like the ones from the Black Eyed Peas, with the pretty Fergie as a company, tend to help a lot to do this long pieces . Also I tend to race against the PM3 that I preprogrammed with a challenge pace and tend to use the calories per hour as my favorite power unit. I row in my office with air conditioned since i live in a hot climate, and the ceiling fan always on. Any suggestion to overcome the boring and maybe someday begin to think in a half marathon piece.

Yes, music helps. RowPro helps a whole lot more.

Getting a C Breeze helps somewhat with dissipating the heat. Check it out at http://www.ps-sport.net/.

Atorrante wrote:I'm curious about how you guys do the over 30 minutes pieces. Since I row alone (no rowpro), the long pieces tend to be boring. Lately using music videos like the ones from the Black Eyed Peas, with the pretty Fergie as a company, tend to help a lot to do this long pieces . Also I tend to race against the PM3 that I preprogrammed with a challenge pace and tend to use the calories per hour as my favorite power unit. I row in my office with air conditioned since i live in a hot climate, and the ceiling fan always on. Any suggestion to overcome the boring and maybe someday begin to think in a half marathon piece.

I just finished a 12k plus 8' each of wu and cd. I use RP, but not on line, and that helps to provide some distraction. Other than that I play mental games with the number like estimating meters per stroke and checking out my time for each km, making sure that I am under the desired time. Another ploy is to introduce varying rates and paces at certain points. I don't do that myself, but I tried it once using a program based on the WP L-4 workouts and found that it takes a lot of concentration. I have heard the same from regular WP users.

Bob S.

Thank You Bob. I also use the mental calculations thing and it help me a lot. I tend to row for 30 minutes and divide in 5 minutes laps each 15 minute halve and the 30 minutes appear to pass faster.

Beyond boredom what is the motivation for rowing beyond, say, 10K which takes upwards of 40 mins. Fitness? Weight loss? Boredom itself? I've seen studies by eminent physiologists who state that no appreciable cardio vascular adaptations occur beyond 30 mins on a rower.

Cyclingman1 wrote:Beyond boredom what is the motivation for rowing beyond, say, 10K which takes upwards of 40 mins. Fitness? Weight loss? Boredom itself? I've seen studies by eminent physiologists who state that no appreciable cardio vascular adaptations occur beyond 30 mins on a rower.

On the contrary, I was advised by a physician that in 2003 that a recent large scale study had shown that effective heart strengthening required at least 30 minutes of continuous exercise daily with a heart rate of 80% of maximum. I made a check on it at the time and got confirmation of it from other physicians. I later heard than a follow up study showed that there was further improvement on up to an hour. At the time I was about 2 months into post op cardio rehab after an aortic valve replacement and 3X bypass, so I took it to heart, no pun intended. I already had an erg and I used that 2-3 times a week and alternated that with fast hikes involving elevation gain and using a treadmill at a local fitness center. It paid off. 18 months to the day after the operation, I competed in a satellite regatta and qualified for the free round trip flight to the Crash-B competition. In the following year, as an 81 yo lightweight, I became the first octogenarian of either weight to break 8 minutes in the erg 2k at 7:54.9. At 87, I have had to forgo the daily aspect of this routine because of skeletal limitations, but I still try to get in at least 30 minutes in the 80% zone with each real workout.

Another motivation is trying to get good scores on the long ranked pieces, including the marathon. Training for the marathon is best done with a series of increasing length pieces, building up tolerance for the long rows. As a result, I have 8 long row WRs in the 80-89 groups, both HWT and LWT for 10k, 60', HM, and FM (as of the last time I checked them, early this year). That has been a great motivation. It has also helped me to place well in the nonathlon.

Bob S.

Cyclingman1 wrote:Beyond boredom what is the motivation for rowing beyond, say, 10K which takes upwards of 40 mins. Fitness? Weight loss? Boredom itself? I've seen studies by eminent physiologists who state that no appreciable cardio vascular adaptations occur beyond 30 mins on a rower.

Well, My motivation is to lose some weight and that is the reason to want to do long rows. For now I'm doing 30' mostly with 5 and 6K' in between, all the rows done hard (1:54-1:57 Pace). I hope that slowly it will shred some pounds of my body.

Started out rowing with music but have long since moved to RowPro Online with a couple of mates and we row together along with some others that are typically from the UK. In terms of numbers online, your better off in the USA timezone slot.

30 minutes really is not a "long distance row" and it pretty much the minimum you would be looking at for weight loss and 40 minutes would be a whole lot better. There are 30 and 40 minute "Get Fit" rows online and these used to be very popular with full fields of 16 rowers at times.

Long term motivation is a problem on the Erg as it is a static bit of equipment. Mine was gatering dust like most of them out there before I discovered RowPro.

Carl Watts wrote:
Long term motivation is a problem on the Erg as it is a static bit of equipment. Mine was gatering dust like most of them out there before I discovered RowPro.

Rowpro will certainly help relieve boredom, especially if rowing with others online, but the cause of the boredom will always still be there.

As you said it's a static erg. Boredom while using exercise equipment is directly related to the movement. A static erg involves an extremely boring movement, hence motivation will always be a problem.

However, change the movement from a single action rowing movement of a static erg to the double action rowing movement of a dynamic erg and things become a whole lot better. Introduce a balance factor like that on the Rowperfect erg and things get even better.

I never get bored on my Rowperfect erg. Yesterday I sent in my monitor to the manufacturer to take advantage of the free upgrade that they are offering. It meant that last night for the first time I had to do a one hour workout on the Rowperfect without a monitor. It wasn't a problem though. I love the double action movement of the Rowperfect, unlike the static C2 which I loath. Time passed by very quickly and I could do that again without any issues. But there's no way I could spend one hour on a static erg without a monitor.

So it really comes down to the excercise equipment that you are using.

You cannot help but plug the Rowperfect on here.

But seriously the "movement" aspect of the rowperfect has nothing to do with it, The typical user still going to get bored with it.

What you need is either moving scenery or live competition or better still both like OTW can offer. RowPro has a way to go in the scenery department but the day will come when you can choose what lake you want to row on for training or in a race format. Throw in a 32inch flat screen or larger with decent graphics and audio and your there. The Hardware is already here, it just takes the man hours for Digital Rowing to develop the software.

I've watched some good movies that I would have never watched if I weren't rowing. Unless you're working on some hard interval pieces, getting lost in a movie is a great way to pass the time on longer pieces. I will do it with the PM turned down. Good wireless earphones and subtitles are a must though. Sometimes it takes two sessions to finish a movie, as most movies are around 100 minutes. But if it's a good movie and time allows, I have, on occasion, done an entire movie.

Also, you can get complete seasons of TV shows, which are around 40 minutes without the ads.

After cycling rides, which are easily 2 hours or more, an hour on the erg isn't "long" anymore. If I'm doing a specific interval workout, the time goes by quickly (especially the "rest" periods ). For those days when I just want to go steady and avoid the boredom, I choose a CD that is about an hour, cover the monitor with a bag, and just get lost in the music, varying the intensities with the different songs. I've done the movie thing, too, and those headphones and subtitles sure make it easy. Have fun!

Cyclist2, are you riding 2+ hours on an indoor stationary bike? I think that most would agree that doing anything outside, whether it's riding, running, or rowing, is preferable to the indoor counterpart. I can run for 2+ hours outside without music or any other distraction, but I won't last 20 minutes on a treadmill.

Carl Watts wrote:

You cannot help but plug the Rowperfect on here.

I was also sure that RR was going to plug the RowPerfect here. Sooner or later...

Carl Watts wrote:

You cannot help but plug the Rowperfect on here.

But seriously the "movement" aspect of the rowperfect has nothing to do with it, The typical user still going to get bored with it.

That's nonsense Carl.
The movement has everything to do with it.
You go to a gym and see what exercise equipment people tend to spend more time on. It will be the equipment that they get least bored on and enjoy the movement.

Lucky for C2 that Rowperfect isn't a large enough company to have an erg positioned in gyms across the world next to every C2 erg. Why do think that people need visual stimuli to stay on a C2 erg? Because they are sooooo boring to use. A Rowperfect is far more enjoyable to erg on than that old outdated designed heap of junk that your trying to justify using. Until people wake up to this I'll keep these unshameful plugs going.