Concept2 Forum

six weeks in, 48 years old 190lb 5'10" rowed a bit when i was younger. lived a very sedentary life in the past 17 years.
doing 2000m 4 mornings a week. consistently between 21:00 - 22:00 at 27 - 30 spm so have plenty of work ahead of me. HR at 164+ and sometimes I feel like I might not survive. no puking yet though!

would appreciate feedback on technique. clearly i need to come up the slide further to the catch. any thoughts on hanging longer and opening with the back a little later?

don't be shy

https://youtu.be/YWLkcOnahNM

29 spm by alarm timer. Concurrent enlistment of legs, arms, and back rather than consecutive makes for a weak stroke. Losing length at catch as you already know. Absolutely no rest in the recovery! Recovery to drive ratio looks to be LESS than 1:1 at some points in the vid! Should never be less than 2:1 for anything except short-stroked sprints.

What drag factor are you using? Is 21-22’ a typical elapsed time of your 2k efforts? Please consult/review plentiful instructional material/videos on proper stroke sequence available from Concept 2.

Drag factor is 110. Damper on 4. Erg is 6+ years old but effectively unused until 6 weeks ago.
yes, 21' - 22' is typical of 5000m six weeks in.
Will watch videos and go for consecutive engagement of legs, back, arms.

Thanks!

21’+ elapsed to complete 5k. That’s more like it!



So, 163 watts average power/29spm = average 5.6 watts work per stroke. A good start. Now at your height of 70”, if you were in fighting trim, you would weigh roughly 77kilo according to a BMI chart for men. Following a prescription for targeting range of training power seen often on this board, you should see improvement in cv endurance and performance parameters training at 1.5 to 2 watts per kilo “fit” or normal weight, so 115 to 155 watts in your case. Also try to generate that power at rates lower than your current 29-30spm. No point working so hard simply to run up and down the slide. That’s work that the ergometer doesn’t record.

And take thought about the salutary effect of the aptly-named “recovery” portion of the stroke on ascending heart rate.

david.kula wrote:six weeks in, 48 years old 190lb 5'10" rowed a bit when i was younger. lived a very sedentary life in the past 17 years.
doing 2000m 4 mornings a week. consistently between 21:00 - 22:00 at 27 - 30 spm so have plenty of work ahead of me. HR at 164+ and sometimes I feel like I might not survive. no puking yet though!

would appreciate feedback on technique. clearly i need to come up the slide further to the catch. any thoughts on hanging longer and opening with the back a little later?

don't be shy

https://youtu.be/YWLkcOnahNM

You should only have you frontfoot on the stretcher at the catch, you now miss lots of leg movement.

Rating should come down a lot. If you are not racing 24 is about max, if you just row 18/22 is more to look for.
The drive should be firm, the recovery very calm. Its not cycling or running, where you have a 1/1 movenent.

But first get your ankles moving and start from the frontfoot with your shins vertical and your back feeling strong, that would a world of difference. Rough idea is to get your knees 10cm further forward, this will also help closing the gap between your chest and upperlegs at the catch. From this position you can much more use the big muscle in your body.
"Fold" you body up at the catch and stretch yourself during the drive.

For the rest it doesn,t look that bad, only short and rushed. It should look long and relax.

As the 21-22 minutes was for 5K you are in a good place to start.
I am a relative newbie so I can share what helped me the most.

Don’t over think it in terms of pace and watts. Getting more meters consistently matters the most.

Work on getting same speed with lower rate. Doing this will naturally fix a lot of technique issues.

With reduced rate to 20 or so you can concentrate on the pull much more. If you think strokes/pulls as individual reps it is easier to make them more explosive. Concentrate on your mid section being tight and pushing with legs.

I’ll try to find ”decent rowing” -video for catch. The coach in the video talks about blendingcthe transition from legs to back and arms. For beginner more clear sequential order can be better.

I think it was this video
[youtube]https://youtube.com/KtYHGoLzOv0[/youtube]

https://youtu.be/KtYHGoLzOv0

Thanks guys! Appreciate the feedback. I will work on it!

I think I am rowing at high SPM to keep my heart rate up as high as I can handle under the impression that this is good for conditioning. As I am only doing 22 minutes x 4 per week I am trying to make it "vigorous-intensity exercise" based on HR to hit the 75 minute per week minimum.

At 27 - 30 SPM I am above 150 HR for all 22 minutes, going over 160 HR for the final 2 - 3 minutes. When I drop SPM below 26 - 27 my heart rate falls as well. I'll wear the Polar for my next few sessions and see how much lower I can go SPM and still have the heart rate in the range I want.

Just did 5000m going full slide and working to slow back and arms engagement, also kept stroke rate between 22 - 26 SPM at least until the final 500m where it crept up to 27 SPM. Drag at 110.

Scored a personal best of 20:55:4 for 500m!

Overall HR was about 10 BPM below average at higher stroke rates but was mostly above 150 which is where I want it.

Thanks for the feedback! I also switched to the view with the force curve and was focused on trying to have a smooth haystack-shaped curve.
Will work on this for a month or so and will post another video for feedback!

Thanks very much!

1). Form is inconsistent and consequently, so is the drive, and 2). you are very short at the front end/catch.

Regarding being short at the front end, you need more compression of the legs. Your shins should be vertical at the catch +/- 5 degrees. Additionally, you could use a little more body swing forward on some of your strokes. Good rule for body swing is 11 o'clock front-end to 1:00 to 1:30 back-end

As to the form, I see little ticks in the drive that vary stroke to stroke. Do some rowing with eyes closed 10 to 20 strokes at a time. On some eyes-closed sets focus on your body being smooth and connected and on other sets focus on the handle being smooth and powerful through out.

Your back and leg drive connection is OK, and will improve with a longer front end and better form. (Don't worry too much about whether you are driving legs and back consecutively or concurrently, there are world on the water champions in both camps).

On the plus, you have generally good engagement; your former foray into rowing shows.

I am attaching two videos -- they are erging on Coffey SimulatOars, not C2s, but the rowers are ex-world champions are rowing really well:

http://coffeycorporation.com/SimulatOAR_S2TI.html (scroll down the page for the videos)
The girl, Olivia Coffey, won a World Championship in the W4x in 2015. She is hammering. The slow motion is revealing. Great engagement. You will note that at the catch she drives primarily with her legs, but she is also opening up with her back

https://vimeo.com/77082313
The guy is Robert Dreher. He won a gold medal in the 1990 World Championship in the Men's lightweight 2x. Note the leg compression, the ease, the power and the efficiency.

would appreciate feedback on technique.

Looks fine, you've been afloat. Your first post indicated a comfortable ergy 2:1 recovery pull ratio (at 29), the third (at 24 ?) a slightly tougher 3:1 ratio, so you're back to your old watery ways. Nice.

working on hanging at the catch. Top is light effort, bottom is under heavy load so still have work to do under effort.
I think i need to continue to develop more core strength to be able to get to a consequent style. I think my back may be opening early to compensate for core strength weakness.
Appreciate all the feedback.