Rowing routine to complement CrossFit 4 weight loss

[andog62]

Greetings and happy thanksgiving to all,

I'm new to the board and would appreciate feedback on ideas for a rowing routine to complement my CrossFit workouts. Me, 51, 215lbs, 5 9, moderate to good fitness level.. I CrossFit 4-5 times a week and now would like to add/substitute indoor rowing to my routine for more cardio, less stress on knees and some weight loss. In addition to adding rowing I will be overhauling and focusing on eating better. I'd like to CrossFit, m-w-f and row t-thur- sat.. I have a fair rowing base to start from with CrossFit but looking for ideas and understanding to what a good starting program maybe? First thought, a day of interval, second day,long slow and third a mix? If there is a website that might help educate me on this please advise, otherwise I'd like to establish starting points and jump in. Thank you in advance for your feedback..

Andrew

[Bob S.]

Take a look at the the Pete Plan (easy to find with Google). It is a six day plan, but you can split it up. That would give you one long, slow, session, one enterval session, and one long, hard session (or a second longer, easy session) each week. Since you want cardio, the longer sessions should predominate.

Bob S.

[andog62]

Thank you Bob, I'll check the website out..

[jamesg]

more cardio, less stress on knees and some weight loss.

With these aims, first thing is low drag: 3, 120-130 max, with plenty of LSS. Up to an hour a day with HR low (UT2 and some UT1 too), for a few months.

At 5'9/51M, 120-150 W and ratings 20-25 should do the trick, but a few pieces with longish warmup (7-10 minutes) will help find your sweetspot.

Then check what's happened. This is basic Lactate/Aerobic/Technique training, and we can do it til age 90+. Some short and nasty can be done after warmup, for light relief and to test your technique, at say 30-50% higher power for a few minutes.

[julieofarc]

Hey Andrew- I'm in a similar boat (bad and unintended pun!), and although I'm not an expert I can share what my rowing coach has me doing. I'm Crossfitting 4x/week, meeting my team for indoor practice 2 times a week, and then doing some long and low erg sessions at home solo. Her biggest concern for me in terms of weight loss and building aerobic base heading into our season was getting multiple long/low sessions in each week.

I prefer prescribed ratings/splits for hour+ pieces, so I use the L4 workouts from the Wolverine Plan. (Pete Plan is great, I just want something more than 'row 8k' in order to stay on the erg that long.) I'm not using any of the other L1-L3 pieces, assuming that between Crossfit and my team practices I'll be getting some of that. (Crossfit is almost always up there in the L1/L2 realm of things by definition.)

For example, today was a 60' piece based of the L4 plan paced off a 2:07 2K split (which was optimistic). So, I rowed six consecutive 10' pieces (2' @ 16/18/16/18/16). The 16 was at 2:39 and the 18 at 2:33. Based off my HR, I need to readjust my 2K time to about 2:10 split for a week or two and then walk back up- the last 20' got harder than it should have for a L4 piece.

I know the Wolverine gets complicated- I'm just stealing the L4 workouts for now. Wolverine plan link: http://www.concept2.com/files/pdf/us/tr ... nePlan.pdf

[DanielJ]

Perhaps this is a bit late for a response but I'm still curious: Julie, what was your HR through that L4 session?

My feeling is that Level 4 workouts should be quite tough -- certainly higher than UT2 for most of the workout. Lots of people find they have to build up to managing a full hour's L4. I think it's okay if you feel a bit too weary after, say, 40 or 50 minutes on the first few goes.

L3 is where you can drop the pace a little bit if you really need to. Or of course you can inject other spontaneous workouts into your regimen. Nobody has a gun to your head insisting that today is L4, etc.

Mind you, yes, a good L4 session is great for weight loss. The numbers keep it interesting and it's easy to make steady improvements with it.