Concept2 Forum

After reading helpful posts on here and watching videos I still can't improve my power !
Third week in and I'm doing 10k in around 55 mins.

I am 6ft and 40kg overweight. I think my fat belly maybe getting in the way lol

Just seen this, and it has given me hope

https://youtu.be/UxpSfL3CFtA?si=YQRwLPQVAOaUf5We

bigsimon123 wrote: ↑

August 20th, 2024, 3:03 pm

After reading helpful posts on here and watching videos I still can't improve my power !
Third week in and I'm doing 10k in around 55 mins.

I am 6ft and 40kg overweight. I think my fat belly maybe getting in the way lol

Never ever think that your destiny is set at this early stage. So many things will improve and they all cross pollinate each other to make it better than the sum of its parts

Assuming that you stay dedicated and patient, your power will keep improving. Your pace will keep improving. Your belly will disappear.

Keep interrogating all the parts of your stroke and you'll probably find some subtle changes will make fairly big differences, for example, don't grip the handle too hard, don't hunch your shoulders and make sure to take fairly regular deep breaths.

Give it another three weeks and I can almost guarantee that you'll be notably faster, and three weeks after that faster again.

That speed is about 75W Power delivered to the flywheel for nearly an hour. So a lot of Work done well. It will increase as you pull a longer stroke and get fitter and stronger.

Congratulation on surviving a 10K so early on. What I noticed in my rowing journey is that it takes some time to really get the rowing stroke, it isn't an easy motion to master for most. Once you do, you'll become faster as pace follows form. And perhaps do so shorter pieces, just to allow yourself to go to the max without worrying of finishing a 10K?

It took me 2 months to work up to an hour on the erg when I first started, and my pace was only marginally faster at 2:41.7 / 83W average.

So well done on your progress so far!

I attempted my first HM after 6 months at a slightly higher pace than that first 1 hour - so don't get too disheartened too early on!

Maybe ditch the pace targets and just target those longer/slow rows that will help build fitness and drop some Kg's. It's very easy to get focused on improving the speed as we look at what everyone else is able to achieve but we are all very different beasts and on very different journeys.

Once the Kg's and belly start to drop the pace will follow naturally if you can also nail the technique to a reasonable level.

What Drag Factor are you using also? Useful like here https://www.concept2.com/training/artic ... er-setting. It's worth checking you have it set to something that works for you and allow you to generate power for you current form.

Think of it like this -- you're not slow, you're an endurance athlete.

Thanks for all the encouragement guys, really means a lot. Going to continue improving my technique ( allready got my spm down to 20 ) All the best my friends.