Concept2 Forum

just a quick question (has probably been covered before) but does anyone know anything about optimum stroke length for various weight/ height rowers? I have been going through a lot of my recent workouts to look at stroke length and discover that it probably only make a difference when you get to 20-40 min efforts. My metres per stroke varies from 9-13m depending on the intensity of the workout.
Does anyone know of any good articles / posts on this topic?

The distance the boat travels depends on the amount of work you did in the last few strokes and on the rating, and (on the erg) on the various constants that are used to calculate the fictitious metres.

I use a constant work protocol, i.e. same length, same force for every stroke at whatever rating. Nowadays I can't get beyond rating 25 for any length of time, and apx 250W. A few years ago it was 270W for 7'.

It came roughly to 10m/stroke @ 27 in a 2k race during the central cruise (300 to 1700); any less than that meant I was rushing it (or so it felt) and was going into diminishing returns territory (aka trading one for the other).

Nowadays I w.o at 10.5-11m/st @ 19-21. Say 2W/kg. The only reasons are: I like it that way, less is useless and more is impossible. If I have to sprint to catch a train or walk a couple of miles in a hurry, I can, so it seems to work.