Keeping fit while not cycling

[Prydey]

I bought my concept 2 so that I could try to maintain my fitness during the wet weather season. I cycle to work and the odd weekend social ride, averaging around 200-250km/week during good weather.

Couldn't be bothered riding through the winter this year so bought the rower a couple of months ago.

I've just been mixing it up between distance rows and intervals, and varying the spm etc. A typical interval workout would be 3x2000m with 2-3 minutes easy rowing in between. Distance normally just a 10km row.

This week was good weather so I got back on the bike. It felt like I hadn't ridden for months. Admittedly I was unwell with a cold and cough so the effects of this could still be lingering but I thought given I'd been rowing while not riding it wouldn't feel so bad getting back on the bike.

Anyone else cycle as their main form of fitness and use the concept 2 to supplement it? If so, what type of activity on the concept 2 do you find most helpful for cycling fitness?

Thanks in advance.

[Gammmmo]

If I'm reading your post correctly it sounds like you got the rower a cpl of months ago, stopped cycling and used the rower for a mix of intervals and 10Ks, and then did one ride on your bike and were surprised by how bad it felt? I think you need to give it more than one ride. It's probably a specificity thing not really related to underlying aerobic fitness...more like a neuromuscular thing. I suspect after a few rides it'll feel alot better.

If more than one ride, you might want to detail what your cycling week typically looks like and what you were doing on the ergo, specifically how much. Also, if you typically see a fair bit of variation of fitness when you've just biked, then that would be an indicator you really have lost aerobic fitness.

The ergo is very time efficient and anecdotally people don't tend to lose much underlying bike fitness by using the erg more particularly in the first year, after that I would expect more of a drop-off. That's what I personally found too. Some people go better by swapping in some ergo stuff but I think the higher level you are at biking the less likely this is obvs, not least because of slight weight gain and aero penalty if u widen your shoulders at all. TBH sounds like that's not something u need to worry about.

[jamesg]

Since bike means legs, and correct erging is legs too, there should be some transfer.

But erging is easy to get wrong: usually by rowing slow at high rating: low gear.

Rowing and erging are done fast at low ratings: in High gear. E.g. 200W+ at rate 20.

The "gearing" on the erg is the Watt/Rating ratio, which depends on style.

What to train is more important than How.

[kini62]

I bought my concept 2 so that I could try to maintain my fitness during the wet weather season. I cycle to work and the odd weekend social ride, averaging around 200-250km/week during good weather.

Couldn't be bothered riding through the winter this year so bought the rower a couple of months ago.

I've just been mixing it up between distance rows and intervals, and varying the spm etc. A typical interval workout would be 3x2000m with 2-3 minutes easy rowing in between. Distance normally just a 10km row.

This week was good weather so I got back on the bike. It felt like I hadn't ridden for months. Admittedly I was unwell with a cold and cough so the effects of this could still be lingering but I thought given I'd been rowing while not riding it wouldn't feel so bad getting back on the bike.

Anyone else cycle as their main form of fitness and use the concept 2 to supplement it? If so, what type of activity on the concept 2 do you find most helpful for cycling fitness?

Thanks in advance.

While I use the erg and skierg to supplement my biking since I'm not all that serious about biking. I only ride indoors (Zwift). But it seems biking is your primary focus. So you might have been better off getting a smart trainer and subscribing to an online program like Rouvi, Zwift, Trainer Road etc.... to maintain your bike fitness.

[Prydey]

Sorry about the delay in coming back to this topic. I got busy at work and then was on holidays camping with the family.

Gammmmo - My work commute is 21km each way with a total of about 450m in elevation change. The weather improved during that week so I rode for 3 days leading up to the starting of this thread. My ave heart rate was up at least 10bpm for the rides, and the legs just felt heavy. Admittedly, in the days prior, I hadn't been on the rower as much, only rowing about 3-4 times in the week, for around 30mins at a time, but at reasonable intensity. I'm not saying that the rowing isn't actually helping, it was more just that i 'felt' like i hadn't been doing any exercise at all. The times for strava segments were also down (not pb times but just the ave times i ride) but there are many factors that can affect those.

Jamesg - Thanks for this info. That's kind of what I'm asking. What type of rowing is best suited to supplementing cycling. I spent a lot of time on form and technique when i first bought the rower, as i do suffer from lower back issues already. The type of rowing you suggest is what i do already, with a big strong drive, and slow return. My natural spm (where it doesn't feel overly slow on recovery) seems to sit around 24spm. I'll try to get that lower while keeping the pace around the same, which is around 2:00 - 2:15/500m.

Kini62 - you are right, however I bought the rower as it can be used much easier by other members of the family. While a smart trainer can be used by multiple people, it requires different size bikes, more messing about to set up each time and generally cycling kit, at least knicks and shoes. I'm the only cyclist in my family. A rowerg was the more family friendly option.

[flatbread]

Since bike means legs, and correct erging is legs too, there should be some transfer.

But erging is easy to get wrong: usually by rowing slow at high rating: low gear.

Rowing and erging are done fast at low ratings: in High gear. E.g. 200W+ at rate 20.

The "gearing" on the erg is the Watt/Rating ratio, which depends on style.

What to train is more important than How.

To add to the above:

Have someone who knows what they're doing break down your technique on the erg and show you the drills and movement patterns to fix your mistakes. Fix your stroke before you worry about fitness -- I didn't do this, and I've had to spend a lot of the last year sorting out some small injuries because I hopped on with my cycling fitness and bashed away.

Build the stroke and train like a rower -- so a lot at 18-22spm. This will enable you to not only do a little more volume, but in the long run building the stroke and the watt/rating will make erging more enjoyable.

This will help you turn a bigger gear more comfortably on the bike, but it will kill your explosiveness. From the original post, you do the club ride, but you don't race -- but, that club ride is, most likely, a training race, so the deciding moments are 1-2minute attacks, or sometimes 3-5minute climbs, if you have them. Training for 2-6k on the erg will make you good at smacking a big gear for 5-20minutes, but unless you make sure that when you do get on the bike you throw in some high cadence work and some :10 sprints where you're getting over 115rpm, you'll lose your snap.