Concept2 Forum

Hey my name is Josh. I am new to the forum and rowing in general. I havent had much success with gyms so I decided to save up some money and I received my model D yesterday. I was never interested in being huge or how much I could bench but I would like to loose a little bit of weight and look fit. I do eat extremely healthy. The only real exercise/ workout I plan to do now that I'm beginning law school would be daily on the rower and abs exercizes with no weight training. A six pack would be ideal but just a long shot dream. Anyways my question is, what type of improvements have people seen in their physique when rowing is basically their only workout? Any other advice on rowing for muscle building or rowing in general would be very helpful and extremely appreciated because I have only been doing it for 2 days. Thanks. Josh

Sorry for those who saw this post in health and fitness as well!

To get any results at all, you need to row correctly and put work into every single stroke; technique in other words. There are some videos around showing what a very good sculler (Xeno Müller) does.

The objective of rowing is of course to shift boats fast with as little effort as possible, not to improve your physique or build muscle, tho' to some extent it can - depends where you're starting from.

Shifting boats is done by pulling long strokes, not particularly hard, and then letting the boat run, which she will; the same principle applies dry.

In terms of training, the major effects of rowing are cardio-vascular, because rowing uses large muscle masses and so overloads the CV system. So your long strokes will have to be at controlled rating (18-22) to avoid immediate collapse.

In terms of numbers, a good WO might be 60' at 20 and 2W/kg; but you don't have to do the hour as from day 1. Remember to warm up by starting slow. Don't work hard or fast, this can cause injury, and anyway it's not needed: long slow efforts are far more effective for CV training than short hard ones. It's litres of sweat that counts.

Then once you're CV fit, anything from Xcountry to kayak, freestyle, mtb, will be fun and not too much pain.

jdgberg36 wrote: Anyways my question is, what type of improvements have people seen in their physique when rowing is basically their only workout?

1. Shapely legs
2. Muscle has replaced some (but not all) of the fat.
3. More symmetrical shoulders (assymetry is a result of a bicycle accident).

bw