?? looks like he was consistently at 4000m in a little under 13 minutes.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Those are his 4k splits. Time for each split differs because power output.

This is a strange distance/time for rowing.

Also, this is still superhuman, even 5yrs later.

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

Is that saying average HR of mid 190s for those sets??

I didn't read the whole 12 pages, but my experience is I feel like transition from rowing machine to treadmill is very similar to the one from bike to run, so I go back and forth between rowing machine and treadmill to get used to the transition. Rowing is definitely not easy and it strengthen my back and I like that a lot. I noticed my heart rate stays up pretty high when I row hard.

High, sure but holding 190s for that long? That can’t be right.

I had an interesting experience today. I was doing 10-11 min treadmill shuffling followed by rowing ~2000-2500m and then repeated that twice. During the first round I did one 1000m segment at 4 min. On the second row segment I decided to row with my feet out of the straps but at level 10 for the damper. I've been experimenting with higher and higher settings to rehab my arm that was run over by the bus back in June to get the arm more exposed to higher forces. In any case, I was rowing off watts (not pace) and noticed that I did the first 500m in 2:04 and so I picked it up in the second 500m and ended up at 4:01. That was pretty good for me as I initially just got on the machine and was crusing for the first 150-200m and had not intended to push it.

In any case, I think my technique is getting better now. I am refraining from doing anything too hard because I don't want to hurt my broken body parts. I need to rehab them with the rowing erg, not break myself. Lumbar spine area is getting stronger. At 53 I have a better six pack than than when I was an 18 year old running track (although my almost 1175 km of swimming with lots of IM, fly and dolphining also have helped).

I will probably wait 6 more months before giving an all out 2000m a shot. I don't trust myself that I won't do dumb things right now and hurt myself, so I need to be patient.

Dev

That was my knee jerk reaction but I 'did the maths'.

Assuming a max of 220 then that is the same as me holding 155 (max of 180) for an hour, which I can definitely do.
So not so crazy

What adult has a max HR of 220?? My max HR when I was rowing in college was probably mid 190s, maybe 200

I ran the last 45 minutes of my PB open marathon at 185 bpm when my max tested in the lab was 195. This was back in 1993, so I was 27 years old for that marathon. How old was this guy. If his max is 200, then I think it is not entirely impossible?

Now I get it it. I thought those were previous workouts, they are splits in the workout.

I finally got my PM3 to work. Had to tweak a contact in the tach Jack. The jack is half broken. I can't let a part that costs cents ruin a PM that would take $~115 - $180 to replace.

I did a 500m row in 2:41. Slow, but my first real row on this device.

Just wanted to report back on this thread. I have been using the rowing as a compliment to swimming and also I am doing some treadmill jogging so trying to do a combo of 30 min split between Concept2 and the treadmill on alternate days and the other day, doing a combo of computrainer and rower. That's generally my morning working. At lunch I swim pretty hard.

I usually do 2x2000m on the Concept 2. I either do it all feet out of straps and try to hold between 180W and 200W or I do 1000m with feet out and 1000m with feet in. If I have feet in the straps, I try to hold 200-220W for the entire 1000m and usually finish off with 30 seconds above 250W. I find I like to row by watts because I can relate it to the computrainer. When I get on the computrainer, I then try to hold 20W-50W higher for the same duration on the Computrainer and then flip back to the Concept2. It's fun alternating back and forth between Concept2 and Computrainer or Concept2 and Treadmill. This morning I just did 10 min computrainer-15min run-2000m Concept2 and repeated the circuit twice.

Generally I am finding that holding 4 min per km is around the same perceived exertion of doing the same when I was running somewhat proficiently back in 2015. I have a Concept2 of my own in the basement now and I actually have an extra that one of my friends lent me. I am toying with taking it into the office but we're going to run out of space to put it into (actually we have run out)

Just wanted report back to all of you guys who helped me since last year:

1. When I started this journey on the Concept2, I was not able to bike nor run due to my disc complicatations. I am now biking at my old wattages and running is coming along. The concept 2 really helped my core all around
2. I generally use it 4-6 times per week, 2x2000m or 3x2000m as part of either a weight circuit, or a run (2000m before running, 2000m after running), or 3x (2000m row + 10 min computrainer intervals)
3. LOL....when I go on biz travel, I try to find a hotel with one of these
4. Generally I find that my 1000m wattage on the rowing machine is around 30W lower than computrainer. If seems like across the board its around 20W-30W lower except the really really high end (impossible to get 10 second wattage even remotely in the range of biking)
5. OK 8 minutes for 2000m is now easy. Pretty well every row has at least 1000m at sub 4 min so I am making the cut of the junior high school team
6. I now own a Concept2 so its right beside my treadmill and computrainer.
7. It is a great compliment to swimming in that it works my shoulders in another dimension that is opposite to swimming. I am swimming in the range of 80-100km per month, so its good to mix up the upper body activity to keeps shoulders healthy

8’ won’t make the junior high (boys) team but keep it up!! I’m only busting on you. I couldn’t make a 10 year old swim team.

I don't think I could make the 12 year old girls swim team either. In terms of 8 min all out, I actually don't want to try as I don't want to risk hurting my disc. Everything is going well and its not worth the risk. I have gotten 1000m down to 3:40 so I think 7:35-7:40 would be in the theoretical range, but I don't think I would be able to go much harder. That would be in the 240W range. I think the max I could hold for 2000m would be in the range for 4W per kilo, which would be 255W which would put it sub 7:30, but there would be too much risk to that. Better to do that for 20min on the bike at this point!

Bumping this thread for those interested in trying the Concept2. It's an integral part of my training now (I actually feel like I should be doing more). My core keeps getting better month over month and this is what got me going. Recently I did some computrainer intervals and I noticed I am doing higher watts than 5 years ago. I think I have better force at the top of my pedal stroke now after all the time coming out of a deep squat with closed hip angle on the rowing machine.

Reporting back a year later. I can confirm that my bike watts are now higher at 54 than when they were at 49 even after all my comedy of errors crashes and injuries and rehab. A combo of swim racing for iM and butterfly and constent work on the rowing erg seems to have jacked up my cardio. In fairness I am also around 4-7 lbs heavier than when I was a pure triathlete, but I've almost lost no watts per kilo.

With winter here I really enjoy doing 15 min on the computrainer and 10 min on the Erg and repeat. On the bike I do 5 min easy then 10x54 seconds at 250-300W with 6 seconds at zero watts (so duty cycle is 90%). On the erg, 1000m ease in at 150-180W without straps and then 1000m holding 230-260W strapped in. It depends on how much time I spend hovering between 240W to 260W whether I do that 1000m just above or just below 3:50. And then I go back and repeat the cycle again for a 50 min workout or three times for a 1:20ish workout. Right now I am around 145 lbs. I am finding this to be quite a fun workout and just keeping things on watts makes its interesting going from one torture contraption to the next.

In 43 days I start racing 55-59 so this stupid torture device may indeed be some kind of fountain of youth from a wattage preservation angle, just because you can keep doing a lot of high output cardio really often.

Now if I can just get my running back to some semblance of respectability (I barely broke 50 min in my Olympic tris and did not break 1:50 on the single half IM run, when was biking around 1:06 on slow and windy and turny olympic tri courses and 2:26 in a half IM)...so the engine is doing OK for an older guy. I believe long tern the Concept2 will improve my run due to how well it works my core (psoas, glutes, lumbar)....I would not have been running again without it. I have also noted that I have way more calf and achilles flex than when I started this rehab journey with this machine.

I am also finding that I am cutting some runs short by 10 minutes to put in the final 10 min on the Concept2. I figure at this stage of my rehab, I get better quality training on that (cardio) with low risk of injury compared to more running.

Dev

Dev,
Great post. I have debated getting a Concept2 as a way to change it up a bit. Love some of the workouts you are doing. Did you buy have the Model D? Any other workouts you would like to share?

My two favourite workouts are alternating 2000m on the Erg and 15 min on the computrainer both on wattage and repeating. One version for the 2000m on the erg, I just do 10 strokes easy, 10 build and 20 sprints (for me) and I keep doing that for 2000m. Usually the easy for me is 160W, build to 220W and then crank it up to 240-300W range (depending on how energetic i feel) and wind it back down to the 10 easy, 10 buld and then 20 hard. The second version is simply the back half of the 2000m is a 1000m time trial with the goal of holding over 250W for the second half.

The other one that I do sometimes is (45 minutes)

• 10 min treadmill warmup
• 2000m concept 2 built
• 10 min treadmill hills alternating between 5% grade and 10% grade at 10 mph
• 2000m concept 2, 1000m warmup, 1000m "tt" (whatever I have that day)
• 5 min treadmill fast pace (it is embarressing how slow my fast running is these days, but its fast for me)

Another one that I do some days just before going to bed is (30 min)

• 2000m concept 2 at 150-160W
• 10 min hard weight circuit heavy weights (for me)
• 5 min treadmill jogging (5 mph pace) cool down
• stretch 5 min

I have found that other than swimming I can sustain my highest efforts on the concept 2 more frequently than bike or run. I'd say my biggest aggregate cardio load comes from swimming, second concept 2, third XC skiing, 4th biking, 5th running.

Dev

My understanding is that Concept IIs are self-calibrating and the calculation of drag factor accounts for differences in altitude, bearing resistance/wear, air density due to other changes in temperatur/pressure/humidity, dust in the chamber, damper setting or ambient wind, you name it. This is feasible because (unlike e.g. cycling) every rowing stroke has a recovery phase where you are putting in no work so the spin-down of the flywheel can be carefully monitored and a resistance or drag factor calculated.

I say this having only dipped my toes into the water of erging very recently -- due to a trip where the hotel gym had no stationary bike but did have a concept 2. I read a bunch to try to get a sense of how the power calculation worked and this was what I gleaned... this website was really interesting: http://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/...ysics/ergometer.html

Others with more experience/background knowledge please jump in and correct me if I'm wrong!

I would like to thank everyone who came in on this thread 2 years ago in 2018. It eventually strengthened my lumbar area where I could bike again and then in 2019 running.

I am able to run every day now and generally covering 60-85km per week.

During this covid19 crisis I am following all my runs with 4000m to 8000m per day. Lots of 400m 1000m and 1600m intervals
...the runner in me likes chasing intervals that I do running.

As I have a concept2 in the basement it's a perfect compliment to end my runs with my highest intensity workouts. Other than swimming and XC skiing I cannot get my cardio working this hard.

For anyone looking for something to do in isolation that will keep us super fit go and order one of these and get rowing. Worth every penny and a lot of experts on here posted great advice in this thread.

I feel grateful for the help of all of you....and I picked on Simon to reply to because we had a multi time tri world champ weigh in.

Hello Thread,

Thanks to all for what amounts to a tremendously insightful thread on the nuances of rowing. We purchased a Concept2 just as the lockdown went into effect, primarily for purposes of replacing the swim sessions that are no longer possible. I’d like to think this will be one positive outcome of Covid-19, as our household is enjoying the rower and has a new appreciation for the sport.

In the spirit of “critique my bike fit”, I’m sharing the humiliating clip below. For context, I’m rowing an easy clip of 2:30/500 at around 23spm. Not trying to break any records, just want to find good form and build base fitness as I adapt to the machine.

Fire away: what should I fix first?

One of the best visualizations someone gave on this thread was the feeling of jumping backwards off the platform while holding on to the handle with the legs (doing nothing with the arms yet) and feeling like your butt is elevating off the seat! It works better at high effort though. At 2:30 per 500m pace though, you're barely exercising as this is only 100W of effort. I always warm up for a kilometer with feet on top of straps at 160-190W range before going into my "main set". I found the warmup with feet on top of straps really ensures that I have good contact leading the motion with my legs and using my core as a 'reverse whip' before finishing with arms.

Yeah, I saw that post and embedded video. I’ll give it a go without the straps as you suggest.

Regarding effort, I’ve been reluctant to push it until I’m confident I have the form. The body hasn’t complained about anything yet, so will step it up a notch. From playing around, I feel a big difference in effort at 2:00/500m.

Great thread BTW!

For me, anything between 3:00 down to 2:15 feels like nothing at all. 2:15 to 2:00 its feeling like work all the way to "its going to be uncomfortable". Everything from 1:59 to 1:45 are varying degrees of intervals of different kinds.

Few bits and pieces from me

- in that last roll or so of the wheels into the catch, your hips are moving forward without the handle doing further forward (your hips have started to rotate posterior). Try to keep the hips forward as you roll in, and think about keeping the shoulders in front of your hips for most of the leg drive

- relax your chin a wee bit into the catch. Sit where you are at the mo - probably at computer or phone. Lift your chin as far as you can and see what effect it has on your breathing (hard, isn't it?). Make it easy on yourself

- away from the finish, try to get your arms a bit straighter before you rock your hips, and definitely before you let the legs come up. Will just make the roll into the catch a bit easier.

As a coach, I'd not aim to do too much coaching of the drive, unless there's something outstandingly bad. There isn't. I think a lot of the things I'd want to see would fall into place with a bit more punch of the legs.

If I'm confusing you, drop me a PM.