rowing w/o monitor

[ccme]

I am new to rowing and I just joined a park district gym that has a concept2. It's monitor is broken. I watched some technique videos on youtube, but without a program to follow on the monitor I'm wondering how hard to pull, how many spm, and for how long should a session be?

[Citroen]

It's not impossible to row without a monitor. Just use a wall clock and all of your training will be time based. The ISS interactive program works with time based workouts and heart rate for measurement. http://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive

It's not difficult for your gym to do the right thing, PM3s, PM4s and PM5s can be fitted on any B, C or D rowing machine (Es have always had a PM4 or now a PM5). They just need to order one from Concept2. It's part of their periodic maintenance (which they should be doing on all of their gym machines). If they won't do that you should seriously consider changing to another gym where they care for their machines.

[jamesg]

hard to pull, how many spm,

About half as hard as your max; about 20-25 strokes a minute (lower in the range if tall); and all of them long. Keeping the strokes long lets us produce plenty of work by engaging the legs.

Don't rush in... The erg is for CV exercise, and we have to warm up before our CV systems can do their best. It'll take about 5-10 minutes to see sweat if you warm up slowly, but then you'll see plenty. Carry on for another 15-20 minutes. Not too hard, the ideal state is sweaty but able to go.

1 kg of sweat is worth about 500 kCal, so if you weigh before and after you know how much work you've done.

Low feet, low drag and low rating will help you use the slow recovery sequence that you've seen in the videos: hands away, swing forward, then legs. This gives you the right posture for a quick strong pull.

[ccme]

Thanks for the tips. I look forward to building slowly over many weeks and months.

[sekitori]

I stopped relying on the monitor long ago. I'm very competitive with myself and after each workout, I became disappointed if I didn't set a personal record. The purpose of my exercise routines became exactly what I didn't want it to be. Instead of getting a beneficial workout, I was constantly racing against myself.

I finally decided that except for the timer, I would cover up the rest of the monitor. I followed Concept 2's guidelines and selected a damper setting and a pace that I knew would provide me with a reasonable workout. I then used the principle of perceived exertion which is based on how one feels during exercise. If I felt I was exerting too much effort, I would decrease it a bit. If the effort seemed to be too easy, I would increase it. I generally use the same damper setting and stroke rate for my usual workouts but I lower the damper setting and increase the stroke rate when I do interval training.

I don't need a monitor to tell me the speed and distance of my workouts. I feel that I'm getting a beneficial workout knowing them and even more importantly, without feeling that I have to always compete against myself. Some may want to know if I have any desire to see the actual numbers on the monitor. I don't but if I did, I think they probably would be fairly decent.

If anyone wants to know about the principle of perceived exertion, this is a website that explains it. Because C2 users usually depend on receiving detailed information from their monitors, I'm sure it's probably not for the vast majority of them. But as I stated, it does work for me.

http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/bas ... ertion.htm

[Carl Watts]

I would find it pretty hard to train consistently without a monitor and these days I need a heartrate monitor as well.

Although I could just set a stopwatch for 30 minutes, that's not really going to be any good to hit the 7575m target each day.

Rowing without a monitor is like trying to drive a car with nothing on the dash working, perceived exertion is only a guide and not great for consistency because you feel better or worse from one day to the next. An identical row can feel hard or easy based on factors like hydration and sleep and any row at the end of the week is usually "Harder" than one at the beginning of the week, even for the same distance and pace.

[sekitori]

I would find it pretty hard to train consistently without a monitor and these days I need a heartrate monitor as well.

Although I could just set a stopwatch for 30 minutes, that's not really going to be any good to hit the 7575m target each day.

Rowing without a monitor is like trying to drive a car with nothing on the dash working, perceived exertion is only a guide and not great for consistency because you feel better or worse from one day to the next. An identical row can feel hard or easy based on factors like hydration and sleep and any row at the end of the week is usually "Harder" than one at the beginning of the week, even for the same distance and pace.

Not only do I not use the monitor but I don't use a heart rate monitor either. I've reached a point where I can stop very briefly during a workout, take my pulse, and be extremely close to what I expect it to be. Since I don't use the monitor, there is no target distance for me to reach in a specific length of time. If did have a target and didn't reach it, I would feel as if the workout was somewhat of a failure. If I had a really bad day and didn't even come close to it, that would be disastrous. If I exceeded it, that distance would become my new target. In other words, I would always be looking for better numbers, causing me to continually compete against myself. That's something I want to avoid.

As for the comparison of driving a car with nothing on the dash working, I think it would be kind of nice to avoid looking at any numbers and just enjoy the feeling the actual drive produces.

To me, there is no "one size fits all" method of training. What works well for one person may be a total failure for someone else. Many people are far more accomplished rowers than I am and I appreciate their opinions when they say that training routines like mine would never work for them. But I feel that it does succeed for me and that's all that really matters. As the saying literally goes, "Different strokes for different folks".

[Carl Watts]

There are a number of shall we say.....err.... psychological problems out there and unfortunately its some of those that also prevent people from using RowPro Online.

Quite common are the problems as it turns out, hence the really low uptake of rowing online. You have to be of a certain type of person who is comfortable with their own performance and just not care what other people think and just stick to a pace you planned at the start, somewhat a rare trait it would appear these days.

Not sure what pace your rowing at but at 1:59 pace I cannot afford to stop for 6 seconds to take my pulse during a row, it just is not going to work.

For 99% of rowers a working monitor is a must have. I don't have to do a load of analysis after the row, just key things like total distance and average heartrate for the row are very useful. Concept 2 need to fix the average spm in the results but apart from that that's all that's needed to track your performance.

[j1huegel]

My PM4 just crapped out on my Model E. Not sure if it's the pickup assembly or the PM but I get zeroes on the display. I may get a replacement pickup and PM5, not sure.

After a brief period of mourning, I set about getting a good workout in whilst rowing blind.

I know that at a medium-hard pace I can row 10k in 42-45 minutes. I also know what it feels like to pull a 2:30, 2:15, 2:00 and a sub-1:55 which is fine for my training.

So now I row to the wall clock and either do 45-60 minutes even pace, or I warm up and then do 6x500 (which for me is about 50-60 strokes), 10x250 (30 strokes), or other variations.

As a runner, I am used to mixing up the workout without GPS-ing my run, so this is just another way to get a good workout without being uber-analytical.

[jag]

Personally I like to row with a monitor, but I'll point out that real rowing (on the water) doesn't have any monitors or numbers to look at. Just the occasional bridge to pass under, or canoeist to avoid, or duck to scare away. So it shouldn't really be necessary.

[Carl Watts]

Personally I like to row with a monitor, but I'll point out that real rowing (on the water) doesn't have any monitors or numbers to look at. Just the occasional bridge to pass under, or canoeist to avoid, or duck to scare away. So it shouldn't really be necessary.

Yes but how many are still rowing without some sort of electronics like GPS or Speedcoach ? if you interested in anything other than just a paddle you tend to want to know how your performing. Yes perhaps when I get to age 55 or 60 I will not care either, but for now tracking my performance is motivational.

[Zach]

If you have the mechanics of rowing down and can count your strokes per minute, a HRM (maybe a Bluetooth one like a Wahoo Tickr) that can be used with your smartphone will help you gauge effort.