Beginner rower, intermediate gym goer

[Realaccount542-67]

Hi,
I have just purchased a Nordictrack rw300 and am planning to go hard on the rower for the upcoming year. My only experience with a rower is concept 2 at the gym. I am able to do 10km with 1500m intervals with intermediate ease.
I am looking for a workout plan that involves attaining 5000-10000km in a year. Can I get some advice on a good workout plan.
I am considering;
1500 m with 1-2 minutes breaks
Total 10.5km
x2 daily

Any help is appreciated.

[JaapvanE]

Hi,
I have just purchased a Nordictrack rw300 and am planning to go hard on the rower for the upcoming year. My only experience with a rower is concept 2 at the gym.

My experience with the NordicTrack (Rx800) is far from ideal: metrics aren't trustworthy at all, and the drag they put on damper 10 is insane (DF450). Tore the belt within 6 months and the machine had a nasy vibration at high RPM ever since. I moved to the C2 RowErg since, been happy since.

I am looking for a workout plan that involves attaining 5000-10000km in a year. Can I get some advice on a good workout plan.

So, be aware of the distance the NordicTrack displays, as it isn't anyway related to any real distance. When you can accept that, you can easily do 1000K a year.

5000K to 10000K is a totally different ballgame. That is 100K to 200K a week, or 5 21K's to 42K's a week. It is a really tough schedule where cumulative load comes into play big time: you won't get any decent recovery from ailing injuries, often making them chronic. I personally aim at 4000K this year, but getting close to 92K a week is really challenging (did 71K a week last year), as the load every week is tough. Last year I rowed a 21K and 5 10K's per week. Did that relatively easily. Now I do 2 21K's, 2 15K's and 2 10K's a week, and I'm struggling to keep the schedule. And please realize, you really need rest days.

First step is to perfect your technique, as technical issues that cause a bit of stress in your body (back, elbows) will hurt and deteriate quickly, as your schedule won't allow for any injury repair. For example, my underarms hurt (still a bit too early on the arms during the drive), and I'm using quite some stalling tactics to delay the required downtime into already planned downtime. I need downtime to recover, but the schedule is tight.

Also be aware you can increase your total distance with a max of 10% per week without overloading yourself. And I found out the hard way it is optimistic when doing that week-on-week increase to get to a new target distance. I now plan to increase 10%, wait a month to stabilise, and then further increase, as it is tough with that volume.

[iain]

I was doing 80k / week average for over a year, typically one hard interval session (generally PP sessions), one grey session of moderate hour or so and sometimes an extra session for TT, CTC or other challenge (sometime instead of grey session, sometimes in addition), then hour+ SS sessions 3 days and a day off. Only ever done 5 days with more than one session so not sure how these add up, but plenty of serious athletes do 2 most days and some 3 some days as well. Personally the limiting factor for me has been time and the lack of sufficient motivation to dedicate my life to the metal mistress enough to do this. Even at that volume I had issues periodically with stiff fascia joints and took a few days as quickest solution (when combined with physio). On a really hard schedule I would reckon on 6-8 weeks a year of down time from injuries, illnesses etc. As a result, I would have said with 2 sessions a day, most would need to be SS and harder sessions would need to be sub-maximal to reduce the downtime. There is a reason that top athletes are frequently injured! The sessions that have the highest impact also have a significant risk of injury. Some (notably Mike Caviston) have continued very high loads with substantial amounts of high quality for extended periods, but I suspect that adaption to this is a matter of years not months.

As for your actual question, how you break up longer sessions is a matter of personal preference. I find 2 hour sessions are reasonable without a break so long as I am well fed and watered. Some find technique deteriorates (some might say that only doesn't apply to me as my technique has no where worse to go!) and breaks help them to keep it sharp. But I would say the breaks are only necessary as recovery from harder sessions, although they will probably allow you to do a longer distance in the session.

I have read 10% increase in distance per week should be the max. Personally usually geared up quicker after not rowing for some time and when I started I went from 10k per week to 60k overnight. I would say that it is the load that matters, so less intensity allows longer distances. But I would recommend that you get some assistance to iron out defects before you gear up or you will be stuck with them!

So in conclusion, easiest solution on your body would be to do all steady state. I recommend taking days off when the load is making you tired or any signs of illness (eg increased resting heart rate) as well as physio support early. What you should do should be balanced by how you recover and what produces the effects you want from your training. I for one would never stick to a permanent diet of SS, so some harder sessions can be incorporated, but need to be integrated within mainly SS and provide time to recover between them.

[JaapvanE]

I for one would never stick to a permanent diet of SS, so some harder sessions can be incorporated, but need to be integrated within mainly SS and provide time to recover between them.

Physically, with such a load, it could be wise to SS. But, mentally it is extremely challenging. I've split a 15K into a 5K at HR Zone 3/4 and a 10K SS, and that is so much more fun than a 15K SS. Not hitting Zone 5, but just a nice gem to spice up things is sometimes a thing you need mentally.

[jamesg]

5000-10000km in a year

That looks like the workload of a Thames boatman training for Doggett's in his apprenticeship years: considering 5 days a week, 250 days a year, 20 to 40km/day.

Failing any chance of getting on water and actually doing it, you need a machine that measures power (in Watts) and calculates speed and distance from that.

On a C2 Rowerg, 100W is 12km/h, using a cube law W=kV³ with constant k like a racing shell. This is what I could do in a 1x at age 60, 1.85 x 90kg: my lake was 5km long and took me about 50 minutes there and back with no hurry. Once a day was enough.

Most efficient will be to do it at constant rating.

Technique in such repetitive work is essential to avoiding injury as well as getting it done.

How much power you can deliver depends on your sex, size and age. To get a reasonable measure of this power, you can either do some engineering, based on your height, weight and rating, or get a C2 Rowerg.

[JaapvanE]

On a C2 Rowerg, 100W is 12km/h, using a cube law W=kV³ with constant k like a racing shell.

Please note that V is in m/s.

But this formula is completely useless, unless NordicTrack has made significant changes to their monitor recently. At least up to recently they used to assume a static drag of DF450, regardless of damper setting. This has a huge effect on power calculations, and thus they can't be trusted either. Aside from several decent brands (C2, RP3 and SmartRow) most monitors aren't doing anuthing decent.

Alternative might be to remove the current monitor and replace it with OpenRowingMonitor, or wait for the SmartRow handle to become available (see https://www.reddit.com/r/smartrow/comme ... atibility/)

[lucyy7]

i am 15 yr old girl. started rowing last year and i got the 2k record at my school for junior girls 7.51 2k. is this good do i have potential? we only trained 2x a week on water and no ergo sessions. this year we train 5x a week. can i get my 2k down to 7.35? im hoping to go to the US for rowing. which i need to get below 7.15 atleast in the next 3 years

[iain]

Lucy, erg times are not the only requirement to get in a good boat, your OTW technique is key and worse erg scores would be required from lighter rowers. As for progression, no experience with the rowing of girls of your age, amongst men the change in potential varies hugely around your age depending on growth and testosterone surges. 16S off 2k is a lot so is likely to take time unless you paced your 7:51 badly, were not all out, rated too low or had a technique issue. That said, upping training from twice to 5x per week will have a significant impact unless you were doing other training/sports as well before.

Last year only 1 15 year old ranked a sub 7:35 (7:34.5), while 7:15 was only exceeded by 9 girls (ie under 19) these are worldwide. So you are setting a tough standard and size will play a part as will genetics, so your ultimate potential will only be found from trying. But for now you need to learn great technique and to enjoy it as college rowing for those that don't is miserable!