Everyday training

[gilles13006]

Hey,

Before, rowing was my only sport with a routine and occasionally made other sports, but this year i am adding running, climbing ans biking in my weeks. I want rowing to be « just » a soft training that i can put on a morning routine in addition to other sports.

What kind of training would you advice to me? Long distances only? 5k soft ? Intervals? The goal with rowing is to make sport but without exhausting myself for others sports. Or maybe this is useless and your advice is to make 1 « true » rowing session per week ? Sorry for the bad english.

[Sakly]

I use rowing "only" in combination to my gym sessions and this is the main reason I mostly do long steady distances. Otherwise recovery wouldn't be sufficient. If you mix even more sports activities, you need even more track of all the stuff to not overdo overall. In the end of depends on the intensity you are doing in each session of all this stuff, so it's difficult to give a good answer.

[gilles13006]

Honestly i am not a pro at all. I am 36M, with a 9-5 desk job with no kid, but with a good general shape. So i won’t ever participate to any competition but i want to improve my stats regularly and stay in a good shape with aging so i don’t want to make brainless trainings which can affect my body in a bad way.

[Sakly]

Ok, that sounds as you never go for harder sessions in any of your activities?! If this is the case, you can do whatever you want, as the stimulus is low and does not need much recovery.
For the body it is very beneficial to have 1-2 very intense short interval sessions per week, so it could make sense to add them - on the bike, running or on the rower, all possible.

Side notice: I am also not a pro, also desk job, but with a kid. So that does not say anything about your goals
You wrote "improve my stats regularly" - what does that mean more specific?

[gilles13006]

By improving my stats i mean improve my 10k at running and my 5k at rowing. Those are my two preferred trainings and kinda my personal reference for improvement.

Last few years i was focusing on rowing so yeah i went quite hard doing half marathons and trying to low my 5k time, but i want to diversify my activities this year. Considering my two main sports are running and rowing, i think those 2 hard sessions per week will be on it: 10k running and 5k rowing

Is it better to mix all sports in one week or to focus one sport on one week, then another on the other week, etc…?

[Sakly]

Specifically is always better compared to generalized training in terms of goals. So if you want to improve on rowing and running on mid distance, you have to train rowing and running accordingly.
Bike and climbing can be done as cross training, but will suffice the amount of sessions that can be done specifically for the main targets.
You should have a clear idea of your short term, mid term and long term goals, so you can think of what is necessary to reach them. As lower as the goals are, the more freedom in training you have.

[jcross485]

If I am understanding, both running and rowing are priorities at this time for you but you also want to climb and bike a bit as well, correct?

Priorities:
10 km running
5km rowing

Supplementals:
Biking
Climbing

If so, how many times a week are you planning on training? You mention mornings but did not indicate frequency.

[Elizabeth]

Without knowing your current training, it's hard to be too specific, but my personal experience supports the common saying that specificity matters. I can have a great engine and a decent amount of running mileage, but if my only hard work is on the rower, I underperform at running races and hurt a lot after - more than is normal to hurt after a race.

If I were designing a training program to support both, I would aim for 2-3 harder sessions per week, split between rowing and running, and then supplement with easier training across all the different things I want to do. This would all be in the same week. For improving at 5k/10k distances, you'd also want to look at longer intervals and at tempo runs (and the rowing equivalents), not at short intervals sprints. I've done 3x10/5:00r and 6x5:00/3:00r lately as an example. (Latter is 5 minutes hard, 3 minutes getting my breath, drinking water, paddling easy, repeated 6 times.) Looking at 5k/10k training plans could give more ideas, and take half on the rower and half running. I would also rotate what you're doing on what - intervals running and a tempo row one week, then flip it the next.

[iain]

Without knowing your current training, it's hard to be too specific, but my personal experience supports the common saying that specificity matters. I can have a great engine and a decent amount of running mileage, but if my only hard work is on the rower, I underperform at running races and hurt a lot after - more than is normal to hurt after a race.

If I were designing a training program to support both, I would aim for 2-3 harder sessions per week, split between rowing and running, and then supplement with easier training across all the different things I want to do. This would all be in the same week. For improving at 5k/10k distances, you'd also want to look at longer intervals and at tempo runs (and the rowing equivalents), not at short intervals sprints. I've done 3x10/5:00r and 6x5:00/3:00r lately as an example. (Latter is 5 minutes hard, 3 minutes getting my breath, drinking water, paddling easy, repeated 6 times.) Looking at 5k/10k training plans could give more ideas, and take half on the rower and half running. I would also rotate what you're doing on what - intervals running and a tempo row one week, then flip it the next.

+1

I would not recommend all out TT in both each week, but I was not training hard in my 30s so maybe you can take it! I would caution longer intervals most weeks and TT no more than once a month for each, in addition to not over-doing it, this gives you longer to improve so more likely to see motivating improvements each time. I would recommend doing regular SS runs and rows at lower intensities as well, the biggest issue will probably be fitting it all in.