Concept2 Forum

I am a huge soccer fan (quite literally.) I am 14, and am nearly 6 feet tall. Yesterday, I weighed 215.8 pounds. I have never really been in shape in my entire life, and now I want to make my Freshman soccer team. So, I have been trying to row for 30 minutes each day to increase my endurance. Endurance really seems to be the one problem for me. I have been rowing about 6450 meters in the 30 minutes with the little blue wheel set at one. Is there anything that anyone would suggest to help me get better at exercising at relatively high intensities for long periods of time? I would greatly appreciate any advice.

If you keep the stroke rating the same as you do now, but increase the damper setting from one to, say three or four, then you should (theoretically) be able to increase the "intensity" if your workout because of the higher resistance. Of course, you'd need to keep the same or better power application. If you're just looking for a workout, I'd increase the damper to about those settings, if not higher.

6450m in 30' is an average split of 2:19. You can probably stand to lower that significantly if you develop good technique and make progress with your endurance. You could probably manage 2:10 average or better, I'm guessing. Lowering that number (the big one in the middle of the monitor) indicates that you're "going" faster, and hence a lower split is more intense.

You can also increase the length of your rows. If you're new to rowing, then 30:00 minutes is probably ok to start with. You could incrementally increase the length of your rows, e.g., 30:00, 33:00, 36:00, 39:00, etc., so that you get accustomed to getting through longer rows with good pacing. 45'-60' per row would probably be very beneficial to you as a soccer player.

Good luck!
Phil

Yes increase the length of your rows, but vary the length also--don't do the same length every day. Try 40 minutes one day then 20 the next. Once you do a few 40 minute rows the 30 minute ones will seam short. You want to work up to 60 minute rows, and when yo do that 40 minutes will be short. Also in soccer there is a lot of stop and go. So some of your workouts you should vary the pace quite a bit.

If you play soccer you should also run a fair amount--but not enough to cause an injury!

do a search on the various training plans (wolverine plan, pete plan, interactive plan) both on this and the UK c2 forums, and read everything you can so you have a good idea of the principles of training.