Concept2 Forum

Hi all,

I'm 5'4 , on the journey going from 160 -> less than 130.

I used to play rugby hence my larger frame but i do want to compete in lw rowing so.

Are there any training plans which could help this while improving my erging fitness/ maintaining my current strength?



thanks in advance!

I'd honestly say any training plan will work, with more reliance on the longer slower paced sessions, and focusing primarily on your diet. Maybe look at the Beginners Pete Plan?

Strength can be maintained through your weight training programme fairly easily, albeit there is a conflict between maintaining muscle mass and losing weight, as I'm sure you'll already know.

Ah..the old familiar sound of wanting to lose weight. No idea what the metrics are, but rowing alone will only get you so far.

There's so much data out there about successfully losing weight and keeping it off - but very little information, if you'll allow the distinction between the two.

Anecdotally, I can tell you, rowing certainly helped me lose 50 pounds over the course of a year. I weighed myself everyday, cursing, shaking my fist at the sky (figuratively) when water weight would reveal itself, in correlation to consumption of carbs - which hold their weight in water...until they've been utilized, that is.

If I were you, I would ask myself a few questions:

Am I overall healthy, despite the desire to lose some weight? If not - perhaps address these issues first. Sometimes, a blood test may reveal issues that explain weight gain - like hypothyroid, lower testosterone, and who knows what else. So, of course, consult your doctor. (In all fairness, I never did until my insurance company bribed me with a $25 gift card.)

If I am healthy - what's the goal with respect to rowing? Marathon? 10k time trial? 2k time trial? Or just overall fitness.

Once you determine the goal, then you can choose a program.

Programs tend to come in 2 categories. HR based, and 2k time trial based.

Variables like sleep, or lack of it, diet, climate and many others can impact your HR. I have tried these programs before(the free ones) and could never really feel like I was getting anywhere - but that's just me. I read Phil Maffetone's book, and he never mentions anything about max intensity or Anaerobic threshold. Just slow, steady stuff. But, slow and steady for me was different by anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds a split some days. I honestly don't know if I was going too slow to be of any real benefit, or if six months wasn't long enough to see what it would do. Given the platitudes some give Maffetone, the error is probably mine.

The 2k time trial based ones are a bit more clear for me. I know what my last 2k time was, so it's easy to know what pace I should have, given the prescribed rate and time or distance. For me, this works a lot better.

Meal timing has been a key factor for me, probably as much as meal content. Eliminating food intake after 6pm seems to go quite a long way. As I would log my food, I often found that it was after 6pm when I would want to snack on the good stuff - like chocolate covered almonds.
Further research from https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson2/? ... -yt-clip4 suggests that intake of Fructose reduces metabolism. No idea how that really plays out in humans - yet, but their anecdotal evidence suggests it applies, although not to a very noticeable degree.

Still, when it comes to athletic achievement, often the total improvements are the sum of many marginal gains.

You can easily get to the weight you want. The question is - can you maintain it, and do so in a healthy, sustainable fashion? So many changes in circumstances this past couple of years for many of us - sustaining successful weight loss is an uphill battle, until you have firmly developed good habits and actually enjoy the process.

ukaserex wrote: ↑

February 13th, 2022, 12:47 pm

suggests that intake of Fructose reduces metabolism. No idea how that really plays out in humans - yet, but their anecdotal evidence suggests it applies, although not to a very noticeable degree.

Interesting i had not heard that, as opposed to snacking on carbs (chocolate, biscuits, etc) I eat fruit in the evenings, after 6.00pm too.

I have high triglycerides according to my recent health checkup and am carrying some extra fat.

Time for research!!

P.S. wholeheartedly agree with the view that erging alone is unlikely to be the panacea, in terms of 'weight loss, its not for me.

Are there any training plans which could help this while improving my erging fitness/ maintaining my current strength?

Only one: a long hard stroke pulled 2+ hours a week, at low ratings so that we can use the legs.

Useful indices can be Watts/Rating, Watts/kg, stroke length, average handle force and speed and of course HR; if it gets to between 130 and 150 there must be a reason.

Around 2W/kg should be a good average Power level, as to age.

What you do at the kit-chen table trumps what you do at the gym.

mict450 wrote: ↑

March 24th, 2022, 2:37 am

What you do at the kit-chen table trumps what you do at the gym.

I seem to recall a friend of mine from high school who's now one of those fitness gurus you might see on television in the Nashville area joke around and impersonate Arnold Schwarzeneggar saying, "Listen to me now: you cannot outrun the donut. It will catch you. Leave the donut alone"!

Or words to that effect. Amusing when he says it, anyway.

Calories, for most of us, are easily consumed. It takes me no time at all to consume 2000 calories in a peanut-butter sandwich, if not more! And a 2000 calorie row would take...2 hours maybe? Something close to that. 20 seconds to eat, 2 hours to burn.

The key for me, anecdotally, is to initially write down all the food consumed - amounts by gram or ounce, and look up the calories. I use Cronometer website to help with this, it's free. It tracks macros and micro-nutrients as well, so I can see at a glance if I'm missing any key nutrients.
It's so easy to suffer from calorie amnesia, and if you don't keep a running tally as you go, it's real easy to see how you could over-indulge.


Because Fitbits, Apple Watches and the like, and even our trusty PM5 monitors are only guessing how many calories we burn, it's can be a good idea to track these calories consumed over a week or 2 week period of time, and then see precisely how much weight you may have lost (or gained!) in that 2 week time. From there, you can get a decent idea of how many calories you're burning in a day - but it's damned tedious. I wouldn't do it unless I found my wearable tracker was giving me values that didn't result in success on the scale.

The hard part is determining how many calories were exercise, and how many were just sitting/standing around doing nothing, or being sedentary at work or whatever. Depending on your lifestyle and workout program, you may want to keep the food log for a "cycle", with cycle being as long as it takes to consider your workouts "average" over the course of time.
In my case, 1 top tier workout, 2 medium tiers, 5 low tiers, so I should catalog my food over 16 days, as the workouts across the two weeks should hopefully average out. It's still a guess, mind you - but I wager it would be a better guess than what a fitbit or Apple watch might tell you.

Excellent thought, writing things down that is. Not something i have done apart form odd times when trying to work out whether i am getting enough protein or calorie intake to maintain energy levels.

i am trying to shed a few pounds of lard (quite a few!!) simply by omitting the snacks/treats, but otherwise eating normally.

My weight was more or less static prior to reducing snacking, Ive lost 5lbs, not a huge amount, be interesting to see if I lose more over the coming weeks/months and whether the act of writing stuff down would make help me recognize the extra calories that prevent me losing the lard.

Sorry I've had to lock this thread as it's a constant magnet for spam. If you need it reopened please DM me.