Concept2 Forum

I'm a 37 year old guy in good health and generally good shape (6 feet tall, 155 lbs.). I have two young kids at home so I don't have much time to exercise. I started rowing a few months ago because it's a good, efficient workout I can do at home. But other than this, I don't get much exercise (other than walking the dog and pulling the kids in a bike trailer). I've sort of defaulted to this routine and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on whether it will do any good.

My goals are: (1) overall cardio fitness and increased cardio capacity; (2) strengthen core to help ease chronic lower back pain; (3) develop a little bit of muscle tone / moderate strenth training so I can be just a little stronger. I want the workout to be uncomplicated and not require much additional equipment.

So here's what I do:

(1) Row for 25-45 mintues, depending on how much time I have
(2) Stretch
(3) 10 minutes or so of crunches and back extension on the floor
(4) Push ups
(5) Dumbbells on an exercise ball - military press and curls
(6) Lunges (want to keep legs strong for skiing - is this overkill since I'm already rowing?)

That's it. So far I've been able to do this 3-4 days a week. Am I missing anything obvious? Is it okay to do the same thing every time?
Thanks for any thoughts!

Looks very well balanced, simple and right to the point.

Cheers.

You might consider doing bench presses with your dumbells while on the excercise ball, then using the same weight roll over to your stomach and pull the dumbells to your chest in a rowing motion. You'd get the back and chest into it with the benefit that these excercises directly relate to your rowing routine (much more so than curls and military presses).
You might also consider doing your dumbell exercises and lunges with shorter harder rowing pieces and do your ab work when you do your longer rows. I find varying the workouts keeps them from getting too stale.

I would be curious how it is working for you. How do you feel. If you want to ease lower back pain I would hope you are using slides.

To me, I think 155lbs on a 6' frame is too lean/skinny. I would add some barbell exercises that stress function (not that you can't build with dumbells, but barbells allow for easier major muscle group lifts). The erg is already a muscle endurance exercise and despite what anyone says, I know firsthand can help build mass. I realize nowhere in your goals did you mention building mass, but I think barbells would still help with strength goals. I would also stress lifts that are opposite the rowing motion to keep your muscles in balance, unless of course your goal is to just be a good rower/erger. I really don't understand the value of focusing on rowing lifts after doing 1000 reps in a row on an erg. Pushups (which I know you are doing) seem to be a better compliment.

Looks like an ok program to keep active and avoid deterioration. In order to do more, to sculp your body inside and out, a healthy training strategy and technique is not enough, though, but a third key, intensity is needed to unlock the the door to success!

Since you have not mentioned intensity levels in your program, I suspect this might be an area for you to focus on to get new improvements.

I suggest you make two of the four training days a week pure erg days. The other two should be strength training days with warm up on the erg.

Warm up
Search the forum for Mike Caviston and his post about warming up.

Strength training
For building muscles training should be at an intensity where you fail after around 8 reps, every set. You can do the whole body both strength days.

Erg days
Workout for improving heart capacity should be close to 100% of V02 max, but need not be higher. 4x5min, 5x4min, 4x1k and similar workouts are great. This should be one of your two erg work outs. The second could be a continuous fartlek or steady session where your average wattage is in the 60-75% of 2k wattage for 30-40 minutes. It will have you breathing a lot at 75% and if average is only at 60% you should have done a fartlek session, including some more intense parts with slower in between.

Keep note of your training sessions and try to beat the previous session every time.

Good luck improving!

Edit
Rereading your post, I see your interest for muscle building is a little less than my first sloppy read told me.

So, erging alone will get you sligthly stronger and more muscular than doing no workout at all, + 5kg muscles is possible, and more could be sustained. Perhaps that's enough for you and no weight training need be added.

Your activities for the chronic back pain also seem to follow standard advice, resulting in better circulation, a little more strength and a little more support. If your back allows it heavy weights could develop more support and strength though, but that's not to be decided from reading an internet board.

To develop cardiac capacity though, my advice is still the same: do intense sessions, in a safe way.

Sorry for the sloppiness.