"Balance base for rowing machine"

[floatingbones]

This is the patent application for the FlowRow Board. The patent has not been approved yet. They sell bases that fit the C2 Rower, the Water Rower, and a First Degree Fitness rower.

Has anyone tried these? Has anyone cobbled together their own rocker boards? These are pretty sophisticated with varying damping, but $252 per rower is awfully expensive.

[JaapvanE]

Looks interesting.

[jackarabit]

This is the patent application for the FlowRow Board. The patent has not been approved yet. They sell bases that fit the C2 Rower, the Water Rower, and a First Degree Fitness rower.

Has anyone tried these? Has anyone cobbled together their own rocker boards? These are pretty sophisticated with varying damping, but $252 per rower is awfully expensive.

Byron Drachtman had a home-brewed transverse instability seat for OTW sim back in 2012-15. Said to encourage balance and core muscle development. Basically a knife-edge teeter totter mech bolted between seat trucks and stock C2 seat. Posts included pix and build instructions. Can’t find thread atm. Think CorePerform CP2 was a commercial offering about the same time.

The elastomer donuts appear to rock the “boat” whereas the pivot board mainly swiveled the butt cheeks. A gotta have for those what gotta have, ya think?

[Dangerscouse]

This is the patent application for the FlowRow Board. The patent has not been approved yet. They sell bases that fit the C2 Rower, the Water Rower, and a First Degree Fitness rower.

Has anyone tried these? Has anyone cobbled together their own rocker boards? These are pretty sophisticated with varying damping, but $252 per rower is awfully expensive.

Byron Drachtman had a home-brewed transverse instability seat for OTW sim back in 2012-15. Said to encourage balance and core muscle development. Basically a knife-edge teeter totter mech bolted between seat trucks and stock C2 seat. Posts included pix and build instructions. Can’t find thread atm. Think CorePerform CP2 was a commercial offering about the same time.

The elastomer donuts appear to rock the “boat” whereas the pivot board mainly swiveled the butt cheeks. A gotta have for those what gotta have, ya think?

Seeing your name in a post always pique my interest as I quite often read it without fully knowing what you're referring to, and marvel at your mastery of the English language...but this is one of your best.

[jackarabit]

Sounds a bit like praising with faint damn, Stu, but I ain’t choosey. I’m like one of them Pique Blinders from Brum. Always cuttin’ up. Nothing opaque about Byron. Didn’t like rolling his single hence the rocker seat for dry fire practise. Someone asked about him just last week.

[cas_sj]

No experience but those are interesting. I've used a set of shox-boxes for a number of years (sadly, company now out of business) - same concept but they also provide a bit of cushion (up and down) at the catch and finish as well, perhaps to simulate the feel of a single on the water. Now if I could only figure out how to put them on slides....

These aftermarket slides with tilt attachment have intrigued me as well. Expensive add-on, but cheaper than replacing with a dynamic erg (that won't provide the tilt)....

https://ccrowingslides.com/features/tilt-attachment/

[istro]

Hi friends, rather than posting a new thread I’ll resurrect this one with feedback.

First, context to gauge how reliable is my feedback: I’ve only been rowing since last August, and only have just around 1.4 million meters experience. Of these, about 400k on a model D, and around a million in c2 dynamic. I’ve taken exactly 1 lesson of sculling on the water, so accounting for off-water lecture time around 1h total on the water.

Ordered the flowrow kit with 3 difficulty levels (level 3, 4 and 5), this kit - https://www.flowrow.fit/shop/flowrow-bo ... 16fd43adaa

With shipping to California it was $321. Not cheap by any means, but offset by a good flip of a model D (best I’ve had yet - bought for $550 sold for $780). Quick detour on the topic of cost - if you live in a metropolitan area, set an alert on Craigslist for the search term of “concept2” - people sell rowers cheaper than they’re worth fairly regularly; and if you fancy trying a dynamic one you can find those too occasionally. My dynamic I got for $600 with 171k meters. Apart from that I’ve bought 4 model D-s and resold them for small profit with a bit of patience (usually around $100). In total for all my gear - including heart rate monitor, c-breeze, c2 maintenance items and now flowrow kit - I have only paid $793, accounting for resale profits as reducing total equipment cost.

Now back to the kit: just did my first workout (4x1500m +3min) - and I LOVED it. Feels like it forces better technique, and it helps a lot to keep the core engaged all through the stroke. Definitely felt similar to my (very very minimal) experience on water. And it felt like most balance benefits came from keeping obliques (like… side of the trunk muscles?) engaged at all time through the stroke; abs could be relaxed during the release/recovery as usual. I look forward to tomorrow to see how a longer single session will feel (10500m up next, according to BPP schedule).

On the topic of difficulty levels: when just trying it out level 3 (training plus) seemed pretty solid, rocking was there but seemed to bring me back to center almost on it’s own. So I switched to the softest of the options I got - level 5 (pro). Switching is super easy - 4 bolts with a long leverage Allen key provided in the kit, a matter of minutes. The “pro” level was waaay too rocky haha, so I then switched to the middle option - level 4, “challenge” - and that felt juuuust enough work. Definitely recommend getting a kit with multiple levels, as I would have been disappointed had I only ordered it with a damper too soft or too stiff.

Anyway, if someone years from now finds this thread in search - if you’re considering the kit above, get it!

[elwoody]

Ist there any knowledge/experience if the gyroscopic load when tilting the device may overload the c2 structure?