Too much cycling?

[los_dos_wioslos]

Hi everybody!
I'm from Poland, so please excuse my english. I've been rowing for five years but after that I had to take a break (2 years). I try to start again- I have 4 erg sessions, besides that every day I go to school by bike- daily over 40km. My HR during cycling is about 130-140. I don't know is it good to do such a long sessions at such a low intensity???

I tried to cycle at HR~160, but it's just impossible in the city. And after 20km of cycling and sometimes only 1 hour of rest I'm not able to do perform my erg session at high level of intensity.

So is it better for me to gaining general endurance on my bike, or I should rather be focused on higher intensity?

[JohnBove]

Hi everybody!
I'm from Poland, so please excuse my english. I've been rowing for five years but after that I had to take a break (2 years). I try to start again- I have 4 erg sessions, besides that every day I go to school by bike- daily over 40km. My HR during cycling is about 130-140. I don't know is it good to do such a long sessions at such a low intensity???

I tried to cycle at HR~160, but it's just impossible in the city. And after 20km of cycling and sometimes only 1 hour of rest I'm not able to do perform my erg session at high level of intensity.

So is it better for me to gaining general endurance on my bike, or I should rather be focused on higher intensity?

It's a little difficult to answer because you don't state what your goals are. Are you training on the erg to compete, or is your goal just to improve your fitness? Also, you don't say what sort of workout you're doing on the erg.

In any case, you have a problem that many of us have, i.e., working your training in around the demands of your day. I should think that the cycling at moderate intensity would go some ways toward providing an aerobic base, although not perfectly adapted for rowing, if rowing is your ultimate goal. But perhaps you could forgo additional aerobic work on the erg--are you rowing long pieces?--and replace it with some sort of interval training, so that you could raise the intensity of your rowing despite the fatigue of biking, something that may not be doable in longer pieces.

[Nosmo]

If it was me, I would treat the 20Km as part of the warmup and just start erging right a way. I often ride my bike to the lake before a row and it actually helps. Getting back on the bike and going up a hill after a hard erg or row can be brutal.

My feeling is that people usually don't do enough endurance work when rowing so getting endurance work on the bike is helpful. However it sounds like what you are doing is really three workouts a day--two commutes and the erg--which is not ideal.

[johnlvs2run]

Your cycling is excellent, and should be quite helpful to your rowing.

[los_dos_wioslos]

Thank you for your answers!
I did yesterday very good erg session. After two days without cycling my legs became "fresh" and I improved my pace over 4sec/500! I think that it is working

[Kangaroo]

Well I use cycling as one of my main "fitness enhancers" for rowing and it works perfectly for me, if that is what you are asking.