Concept2 Forum

What I do for training at home, with no erg access, is something I highly recommend to anyone who wants cardio and strength training quick, easy, cheap and complete. No need for buying expensive running shoes, fashionable gym clothes (you can be 100% comfortable at home), memberships, or for using your car or taking time to travel.

You only need one buildable dumbbell and that's something I think many people allready have at home but never use. Use a weight of 5-25kg depending on aerobic fitness and strength. Do not use locks but grip the dumbbell with your hands outside the plates with both hands, locking the plates between the handle and your hands.

Once again, be sure to use a low weight! Also you should know how to perform snatches and squats in a safe manner (need not be perfected for maximum weights).

The exercise you will do now is at least as complete as the ergometer and I have also made a simple power output estimation to keep track of training progress, and to give you a hint of erg performance in relation to others.

Initiate the movement with a snatch from the ground to dumbbell above head with straight arms and legs. Lower the dumbbell to rest on your shoulders behind the neck while simultaneously squatting down to a full depth squat. Now squat the dumbbell forcefully up to straight legs and arms above the head again. Lower the dumbell to the floor as close to your body as possible, quickly and controlled, while leaning the stable upperbody forwards from the hip. That's one repetition.

Set your clock to signal every minute and count number of repetitions. For example do 2x4 minutes for a great workout.

The base wattage formula is for 10 reps per minute (10rpm) and a 6 foot person:
Wattage = 2 x bodyweight + 6 x dumbbell weight.

I have studied typical high rep training (snatches, squats and similar) performed in gyms and recommended on the net as "cardio". These use too high weights for allowing high enough frequency for any real wattage output. Muscular fatigue limits performance if you are fit, not cardiac output.

Here are some realistic examples to give you a hint of why the exercise above is effective cardio training when using the prescribed weights:

2m , 100kg , 20kg dumbbell, 13 rpm
Wattage = (2 * 100 + 6 * 20) *(lenghtfactor 1.1)* (rpmfactor 13/10)
= 458 watts. ~80% Hwt M WR 2k wattage.

1.65m, 59kg, 10kg dumbbell, 15 rpm
Wattage = (2 * 59 + 6 * 10) *(lenghtfactor 0.9)* (rpmfactor 1.5)
= 240watt. ~80% Lwt W 2k WR wattage.

The outputs achievable (yes, 15 rpm is possible when you are short and used to the drill) is as you can see able to support even elite fitness (it's hard to find such exercises doable at home with no other equipment than a small dumbbell, and with only medium impact as well, as opposed to high impact jumping and running), and the movement also trains the rowing muscles and rowing similar movements effectively. At the same time this exercise is so complex, with 4 secs plus per repetition, to be mentally stimulating ( =not boring) while doing it.

Tips:
Build dumbbell momentum with your large muscles to avoid muscular fatigue in shoulders or triceps. This will otherwise limit performance.

Start out at a low weight.

Relax you shoulders and triceps when you can, especially during the squat.

Be warned that you can get the same cough and throat soreness from this as you get from a hard 1k or 2k on the erg. This exercise is the real deal.

If you have any comments, questions or feedback on doing this training, please post below.

Good luck and effective training!

Great idea.

I don't quite get the length factor. Are you converting 6 feet to metric then dividing by height?

Cheers.

John

Yes, John, that's correct!
6 foot is about 1.80m (1.83m actually), 2 meters divided by 1.8m is about 1.1. The lengthfactor for a 2m guy.

lengthfactor = (height in meters)/ 1.8

There is no point in being too precise, just choose a factor that is easy to calculate with and stick to it.

Will you try the exercise? It will probably feel tougher than the same erg wattages the first times, until you get used to it, especially for the shoulders.

Carl,

Yes I will try this. How often do you do it?

John

I do one or two hard sessions a week, or any time I feel there has been too long since I had a real workout. I sometimes do a few slow light reps to wake the body up aswell as an interruption from just sitting by the computer. This is a good way to get to know the movement. I think it's important not to do the excercise all out often or you'll be over training. Still just some slow light reps can be done every day, on waking up for example. The snatch will then be more of a slow high pull followed through into a shoulder press.

Here is I believe, the same thing only with a bar. "The Exercise"

http://www.rugbycanada.ca/content_files ... ercise.wmv

rtmml,

Thanks for you post. It's quite a similar excercise, but less fluent than the one I described above and therefore requires more strength than cardio. If those are 10kg plates he is not even lifting with 200w in relation to the formula above. Also, arguably the excercise in the video is not as specific to rowing in terms of the requirement to apply a certain speed and power smoothly over the whole range of a motion. It does work the same muscles though.

Carl Henrik wrote:rtmml,

Thanks for you post. It's quite a similar excercise, but less fluent than the one I described above and therefore requires more strength than cardio. If those are 10kg plates he is not even lifting with 200w in relation to the formula above. Also, arguably the excercise in the video is not as specific to rowing in terms of the requirement to apply a certain speed and power smoothly over the whole range of a motion. It does work the same muscles though.

Ok Carl,

It is a page I ran across some time ago and when I read your post I was reminded of it. I am old/new (see my sig) and have no knowledge of the technical side of exercising.

rtmmtl,

I think most "solutions" will tend to look the same, but a few differences can be made for different goals. Here is a link to excercises recommended to rowers for stability, agility, control and some strength.

http://rodd.se/dokument/Aktiv%20rörligh ... vstång.pdf

The excercise I do is a combo of the high pull snatch and squat pushpress seen there. The other excercises are good also but does not move both body weight and dumbbell enough to require much power easily. Since power is what my goal was I chose those two.

I considered including something where you do a push up as well since that moves the body alot, but getting down on the floor I think makes it too uncomfortable. It also means you need more space and preferably a clean floor.

Hmm -- very Crossfittish (www.crossfit.com), but that used to be a very dirty word around here.

'Bye

Good to hear from you Porkchop. Stop by more often.

Hi Tom,

Thanks, but probably not. I'm not rowing much these days anyway.

Porkchop; I'm curious. The crossfit site introduced me to rowing and I'm hooked. Crossfit was quite enthusiastic about the erg, in fact they thought the erg was the best piece of cardio equipment. To paraphrase they liked the erg because the erg don't lie. Why would crossfit be a dirty word?

FatboySlim, porkchop,

Concept2 has never considered crossfit "a bad word". I, an arbitrary forum member, however, did (in a few posts 2 years ago) argue in a negative tone without positive views of crossfit. So I'll take the opportunity now to say "crossfit good". That is my overall opinion.

Edit: Looking more at the archive it seems I was mostly positive back then aswell. How reassuring

Carl Henrik,

My comment was not directed at you.

Fatboyslim,

Long ago, in a former C2 forum, there were some very sharp exchanges over the Crossfit methodology. I don't want to replow old ground; I just found it amusing that what amounts to a Crossfit-type met-con drill would end up here.

I don't post here very much anymore, not because of anything related to Crossfit, but because of unrelated disagreements on another topic. I don't want to replow that old ground, either. I also don't row much anymore, because my priorities are elsewhere.

Best wishes to you all,

Porkchop, out.