Am I doing something wrong????

[TXbike]

Hey all, I just bought a rowERG this last weekend. I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or what. The reason I bought it was after doing some research I read that rowing works like 86% of your muscles. I rowed 4k meters today with the damper setting at 5 and yes I was sweating a little bit but didn’t really even start to feel like my muscles were working out. I also have a bikeERG and if I put the damper at 5 and go 4k meters I definitely feel it in my legs!! I don’t know maybe all is normal with the rower and that’s fine. I just wanted to see if everyone else is about the same. I did buy this rowERG used with only 110k meters on it. Thanks for any advice!!!!

[Sakly]

Hi,

You made a good choice.
Probably you are not going hard enough. You can row at 100W - you will feel nearly nothing. You can row at 300W - you will barely be able to do it. It's up to you how hard it is.
Another thing is technique. Other than on a bike, rowing is a technically more complex movement.

[jamesg]

I read that rowing works like 86% of your muscles.

Could be, so first thing to do is learn how. Most of that muscle is in legs and hips, so these are used. You can see the elements of technique here:

https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/ ... que-videos

The only machine settings needed are foot height and drag (damper). Keep both low to start with, during the action coordination learn-how phase.

The objective is a fast, hard and long stroke, with plenty of well earned rest before the next one.

[iain]

There are 2 fundamental differences between rowing and most other forms of exercise:

1) All the useful work is done in 1/3 or less of the time with the rest recovering to repeat. As a result the level of exertion required in this "powerstroke" is much higher than on a bike or running etc. It is much more like a squat, starting with an explosive movement pushing with both legs. The muscles can then recover and so enable this higher level of output stroke after stroke.

2) The erg provides variable resistance. This means that the faster you move the handle the greater the effort required to accelerate it any more (the power increases by the cube of the handle speed and so a small reduction in the handle speed massively reduces the effort required).

As James alludes to, it is also possible to "leak" a substantial amount of the power you could produce and thereby never get the handle speed up to a level that it is providing significant resistance. Most importantly, as it is the handle movement that is the object of the exercise, it is important that the handle moves as much as the body. At the start of the stroke there are 2 things that are necessary to achieve this: the arms need to be straight and in line with the chain throughout the leg drive and the body must not angle forward during this phase. If the arms are bent, either the greater leg force will straighten them (thereby using some of the force to straighten the arms rather than move the handle), or you will waste force working your arm muscles against the legs to maintain the bend in your arms, as the arms are weaker, this means you will not be able to use the full force of your legs while the arm work is wasted. In addition, if the hands are too low at the start of the drive ("the Catch") then the initial movement will be to pull up the hands wasting energy in the same way as straightening your arms. The other fault is that if you fail to use your back and lats to hold your body position then some of the leg force will go into levering you forward, so the seat goes back faster than the handle again wasting energy as well as putting excessive strain on the back (usually "compensated" by a lower power in the drive).

Once you have mastered the basic technique and learned to drive hard and then relax on the recovery (ie the seat goes back much faster than it comes forward), you will soon find that you can work very hard indeed.

If you don't find this, I recommend that you post a video of you rowing taken from the side and those with much more experience than me will soon put you right!

Enjoy!

[Ombrax]

TX,

What was your pace on the erg? If it was 3:00 min / 500m then the explanation is that you just weren't working that hard.

On the other hand, if it was 2:00 min / 500m then you're in pretty good shape, and have to potential to be a great rower.

[TXbike]

Thanks for all the advice. I think you guys are probably right in that I wasn’t going hard enough. So I looked back to see what I actually did and first thing is that I was wrong. I didn’t do 4k meters I only did 3k. And my pace was like around 2:30/500. Today I did a good arm work workout with weights and afterwards my arms were exhausted. I did jump on the rower real quick for only 500 meters and increased the pace to about 2:10/500 and I definitely felt that I was actually working out!! I’ll try tomorrow to do a full workout on the rower at higher pace and see what happens. Thanks again for all the input!!

[Ombrax]

Be careful and don't try to do too much too quickly - asking too much of your body if it isn't used to something can be a recipe for issues or worse, injury. There's plenty of time later to set PRs.

[jamesg]

As you note, rowing uses a lot of muscle. The immediate consequence of this when rowing, is that HR can go high quite soon, especially if unfit.

So if your HR stays low (< 110 say), either you're rowing at a very low rating (strokes per minute, spm), or you're not rowing at all. Perhaps you noted where it went in your arm workout, which presumably does not use a lot of muscle.

But no need to get into the no pain no gain state of mind: rowing can cause hefty effects if we keep it short and sharp, without undue suffering.

2:10 is 160W, so not bad as training, especially if your rating was low and you weigh say 70kg or less. You can relate it to your weight to get a W/kg estimate. A few 500m intervals is a typical workout, for ergers, and very useful.

[TXbike]

So I did the WOD today. For some reason it didn’t save in ErgData. But I looked at what I did and I 2:24/500m. I looked at the honor board and that would have put me in like 1070 place out of like 1300 or 1400 people. Lol, I have a lot of work to do. It’s amazing how fast some of y’all are!!!!

[jamesg]

The WODs are good: short and to the point. And we can row them as we like, no need to make it a race.

[iain]

Most of the people posting their times have been rowing for some time. A combination of mastering the rowing stroke and training the muscles to balance them for rowing allows rapid gains when we start. If you learn to row well and learn where your limits are you will surprise yourself with how fast you can progress and you will look back at this pace and laugh at the pace that you initially managed.

[Sakly]

Rowing is surprisingly a bit more complex as it seems. So if you struggle to adapt to the movement, you will leave much power on the field and waste it through your movement not putting it into the machine.
Second factor is your strength and explosiveness. If this is already well build, you can compensate bad technique a bit.
Last factor is cardiovascular system - if this is well build, you can apply force for a long time.
If all three factors are matching the needs, you can go really fast on a rower for any distance you like