Is there a genuine performance advantage to erging outdoors?

[Gammmmo]

I've never measured this e.g. with HR and pace over repeated comparable sessions, but have often felt quite good when erging outside on my patio especially if it's cool and windy. Is there some sort of genuine performance advantage and for what reason? It feels like the air is better going into the lungs and cooling feels more effective than simply having a fan directly behind as per indoors with my setup.

[Cyclist2]

Hey, anything is better outdoors!

[hjs]

Yes and no.

In winter when its cool its a plus, in summer like now its a big minus. Last few day I could train at all. 35/40 celcius, breaking alltime heatrecord, three days in a row.
Training in a small inside place must be negative, with limited air available.

[Dangerscouse]

I have never trained outside, but I assume that as long as you're not in direct summer sunlight or in a heat trap of a garden (like mine is) it's going to at least feel better.

[Gammmmo]

Hey, anything is better outdoors!

Amen to that...

[Gammmmo]

I have never trained outside, but I assume that as long as you're not in direct summer sunlight or in a heat trap of a garden (like mine is) it's going to at least feel better.

Sometimes I train outdoors in the sun deliberately to get a hit of vitamin D.

[Dangerscouse]

I have never trained outside, but I assume that as long as you're not in direct summer sunlight or in a heat trap of a garden (like mine is) it's going to at least feel better.

Sometimes I train outdoors in the sun deliberately to get a hit of vitamin D.

Yeah, good point

[nick rockliff]

I would think 90% of my training on the erg over the last 15 years will have been outside. I think all my PBs apart from the 2k were done outside. Winter is best but strong wind can be difficult. High humidity outside can also be a killer, I used to row outside on my balcony when I lived in southern China for four years, had some pretty large lakes of sweat under the erg. Had to come indoors once the temperature started to get above 25c.

Problem with rowing outdoors is the condition of the erg, mine's a rust bucket

[mdpfirrman]

Been thinking about this a lot lately. Lived in Ohio before where rain (and humidity) made it nearly impossible to train outside. Also didn't have a great location for the erg there. Now I have a patio that looks out to a beautiful green valley in AZ up near the mountains (and at a mountain range to the distance). Around seven months here it's cool enough to workout outside. Thinking strongly about moving the erg to the back patio in September or October for six months or so. Been working a lot of meters working back from the back injury. Tons of slow boring meters.

[Carl Watts]

Both temperature and humidity have a big effect. I log both on my Concept 2 Logbook just using a very cheap HTC-1 LCD Digital thermometer.

Yes there is a performance difference, I used to row in a small bedroom with just a tiny window open. Its not just the fact there is more oxygen outdoors, the temperature rises in a small room and the cooling effect of air movement is huge on the body. IIRC correctly from my electronics days, forced air movement on a heatsink is 5 times better at removing heat than natural convection.

Pretty much have the ideal setup now. Its in the garage with the double roller door up and the garage backdoor open directly behind me with a huge fan outside blowing in the fresh air at me. Its an all weather set-up. The fan blows the outside air right past me and out the back door.

Humidity has a huge effect in raising your heartrate. I cannot imagine how much nicer it would be to row in countries where they call 30% "High", I just had to laugh we seldom get anything lower than 60%, most of the time its in the 70's and the highest I rowed in last season was 93%.

The ultimate set-up over here in Auckland would be a very large room, both temperature and humidity controlled with a big fan pointed at you.

[DSB]

I do 95% of my training outside. I would say yes it has a performance advantage if for instance, you moved inside your house and opened a window or something. But if you compared outside to an air-conditioned gym, its negligible.

[Carl Watts]

I guess its comes down to what you call a big performance advantage. Some people would call 1% negligible, however 1% is significant on a PB.

If you can get the humidity low, temperature in the right range, fresh air and a fan for forced airflow this creates the same conditions all year round to Erg in instead of having to wait for the winter season to do your PB's, it has to be an advantage.

No airflow and the sun on you outdoors on a hot day with high humidity will kill your performance so its all relative to the actual conditions, not just indoor vs outdoor. I used to find that when the temperature hit 34 Deg C with high humidity and no airflow, it was all over for training rows let alone trying to set a PB.

[Gammmmo]

there is more oxygen outdoors, the temperature rises in a small room and the cooling effect of air movement is huge on the body. IIRC correctly from my electronics days, forced air movement on a heatsink is 5 times better at removing heat than natural convection.

I kinda thought oxygen content would be similar but it I suppose it makes sense....it sure feels different outside when you breathe in. I do think lower ambient temperature would work better for cooling than a big fan too.

As an aside, further to your comment about getting to a point where even training let alone PBs are off the card....there is of course a benefit becoming accustomed to working out with heat...not just from an habituation type adaption but also whe one goes back to erging in cool conditions because of the favourable physiological effects (purportedly - I've not tried that experiment - have tried passive heat conditioning in a sauna but it saw no bump in performance).