Would it not be more? (2s is only 2 percent on a 100 second effort)....you would think it should be closer to 3-4?

USA Swimming has the following altitude adjustments for 5000 feet.

1.2 seconds for a 200
5 seconds for a 400 meters
10 seconds for a 800 meters
23 seconds for a 1500 meters

I was wondering if rowing had an equivalent.

Altitude adjustment is more like 3-4 splits/500m for 6000m. For ex if you are 1:45/500m at sea level then then best guy can do is 1:48-1:49/500m.

To be sure go by heart rate. For 6000m you should be able to sit at 88-92% I’d HR max until the last 1-2min.

At the catch the body is definitely angled forward...... as much as you are comfy with.

Thanks to whomever provided these pics. Assume the legs go all the way down before we open our backs. We won this race by a bunch. Go West Side. Win Henley Gold.

Listen to Marty.

The only thing I have to add, which may be stating the obvious, but needs to be said if you're not aware of it. Rowing is about 'pushing' not 'pulling'.

The physics in the boat is that you 'lock' the blade in the water and leaver the boat past it, take the blade out, swing it back, lock it in repeat etc. When the blade is locked you push through your feet to lever the boat and the trunk and arms are used to transfer the force to the handle and thereby the end of the blade. The final opening of the body and bending of the arms is used to 'finish' the stroke and only happens in (roughly) the last 1/3rd.

Watch some lightweight olympic rowers in slow motion. Or the French LW double at the last worlds IIRR were superb.

Hey Simon, after yesterday's row session I went in the pool and after around 100m, things felt pretty strong in the winter. Not sure why, but my dolphin kicking off the wall felt way stronger. Maybe my lower body was just warmed up and firing after the rowing, but I suppose the lower back is also more activated during the rowing and also more warmed up by the time I hit the pool.

We used to have a second or so per 500 for 2000 feet, so I'd go 3-4 at mile high...

And to reiterate what the other former rowers here have said - listen to Marty. He's a pretty fair coach, and damn good rower, with the exception of him having rowed for Oxford.

I say that both personally and professionally.

x2

+1

You're about the same size as Mary.
Push the "footboards" like MJ:

https://www.instagram.com/...aken-by=rp3rowingusa

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Hey guys, in terms of pushing why do I feel like I want the board that my foot is planted on to be more vertical vs the angle it is at? It almost feels like I am doing deadlifts on a downhill board vs on flat ground. What part of the push are the legs working the hardest. I just don't feel a ton of burn/effort in my legs compared to the rest of my body. If I could push my body upward at a 30 degree angle from the ground it feels like the board would be in the proper orientation.

Maybe rather than pushing directly back with my feet I have to push down into the board so that my downward push is perpendicular to the board? Is that the feeling of the push with the legs?

Re: Footboard angle

As most of the how-to drawings show, shins should be vertical at the catch and heels should be no more than 1-2cms off the footboard. People will say that the heels shouldn't be off the footboard at all but I disagree. The drive starts off the balls of the feet, and you should be thinking about getting your "heels down" flush against the footboard as quickly as possible. The problem is that not all of us have perfectly proportional pelvis,femur,shin bone, and ankle flexibility. So the "feeling" you get on the footboard is slightly different for everyone.

Unfortunately, you are not able to change the footboard angle on the Concept 2 like you can in an actual rowing boat. But, you can change your heel height. I think if I watched you row five strokes and also knew where your heel height was set up I could help you more but I'll take a stab. Most of the general public sets their heels too low. Xeno, and others in the past several years have wisely started to have their athletes raise their heels on the Concept 2.

If the footboard feels too 'flat', as in too parallel to the ground, you are probably overcompressing (shins are passing vertical, heels are coming way off footboard at the catch). If you feel this, then raise your heels 2-3 holes (about 1-1.5 cms). If your heels are already way up and you don't have much room to go, you need to get a little technical. Roll up to the catch and just as you feel your heels lifting off of the footboards, put a piece of electric tape on the slide of the erg. Then every time you start to overcompress you'll be reminded, because your seat will hit the tape. Anybody who can stand this for more than 3 minutes probably also has scratched up lenses on their goggles, a creaky bottom bracket, and running shoes that are more than 500 miles old.

If the footboard feels too 'steep', as in too perpendicular to the ground, then you probably aren't getting enough compression (top of knees feel like they're up by your collarbones at the catch). If you feel this, then lower your heels 2-3 holes (about 1-1.5 cms). If you are already all the way down, then the fix for this is to raise your hips in relation to your heels. Find a nice piece of foam, about an 2-3cms thick, cut it out in the shape of the erg seat and sit on it, You will immediately feel like you can get more body angle from your hips, more weight forward at the catch and your footboard will feel much 'flatter' (closer to parallel).

Re: Simon Lessing's suggested workouts. He listed a good one. It reminded me of one of our staples

15' warm up
10' at 2k+20, then 5 x :30on/:30off (24,26,28,30 sm)

4 x 10', with 5,6,7' rest
4' @ 24
3' @ 26
2' @ 28
1' @ 30

the goal is to go at least 1 meter further each piece and you'll live between 80-90% of max for 40 good solid minutes.

Re: Keith Alber, Hello Keith it has been awhile.

Re: getting body angle from your hips and keeping weight forward as you drive legs. Do this exercise. Sit in a straight back chair, like something from a classroom. If I told you that you had to stand up in one swift motion without touching the arms rests, or pushing your hands off of your thighs what would you do. First, you would sit up, on the front of the seat, on your buttbones. Second you would get as much body angle (get your belly button over your junk) as possible. Then, you'd put your feet flat on the ground. This is how you should arrive at the catch. Then, as you stand up, you'd keep that weight as far forward as possible, as you straighten your legs. If you open your back too early, you're going to find yourself right back in that chair.

Re: drag factor. You can check your drag factor in the settings function in Menu. It should be between 110-125 which is 2-4 unless you're doing something specific.

Keep them coming Dev. It's nice to have a rowing thread going on here.

Let me take your chair visualization to another level. Imagine I am on the edge of that chair and I lean over like I am in the catch position such that my torso is parallel the ground and my knees over toes. With my feet flat on the ground when I push up, I feel powerful....now imagine if the ground was not flat, but the chair is on a 45 degree downhill, I just would not have as firm a push back....maybe that's a bit extreme.

I do feel my heels come up a bit, so I will try to move further up.

Not sure if this makes any diff, but my morphology is weird. I have long arms (wing span is nearly 6'1"), hands can palm a basketball, torso is super short (my full height is 5'6"), legs are reasonably long for my height and foot size is close to size 10.5. Basically everything on my body is the size of someone who should be 5'10" to 6 feet, other than my torso which is the size of a normal person around 5'2".

I will try to get someone to video me the next time I go to the gym and move the heels up to see if it makes things feel more powerful. Basically it feels like my knees are never really over my toes (the power starting position in most sports), other than really early in the catch phase. I tried "testing" by holding my upper body totally perpendicular to the ground and doing nothing with the core and arms (other than hold them static and not moving) and just using the legs but outside of the first few inches of push, the rest felt like doing not much.

OK, how about this for visualization of the feeling. Imaging riding a recumbant bike where the pedals feel like they are behind your body. This would not generate a ton of power, just like having the body and butt behind your legs getting out of the chair. So it sounds like I need to raise the heels up higher.

This is hard to do without pics/videos of your position at the catch.

I'm actually following your visualization, but don't want to keep moving one thing only to charge the angle of another and create another problem.

For example, one post from last night talks about footboards feeling too flat which made me think, overcompression. Overcompresson is fixed by raising heels.

However, now you're telling me you have a very short torso which makes me think, seat pad for sure, and heals lower or leave them the same. Anybody else out there follow me?

Easy fix with one picture or a five stroke video. Take video from the side, with camera angle 0 degrees, at belly button level.

I have not read the responses but figure I'll just throw in my own advice.

Why only short bursts? Rowing is a legit endurance workout. Back when I was rowing, some favorite workouts were:

5x 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off. The on was REALLY hard. Absolute max you can do while keeping splits pretty even on all 5 intervals.

3x20 minutes, 5 minutes rest, basically at "sweet spot" effort.

10 x minute on minute off in the middle of an hour row. The on is all out.

Of course there's just long steady rowing too... We rarely did more than 90 minutes straight on the erg.

Technique-wise from the catch, you need a powerful, body-forward position but don't get that hip angle too tight or you lose power. You probably know it's legs first, then back then arms. But there is overlap between those phases making it nice and smooth. Don't lay back too far.

Recover slowly, relaxed back towards the catch.

When you start your drive, a common mistake is people push with their legs sending their ass back but they don't keep a string connection all they way through their body to the handle. So while your legs are going down, the handle doesn't come back much (your forward lean increases). Don't do that. Keep that connection firm all the way through your body, using your skeleton as much as possible instead of muscles. (Don't bend your arms or engage your shoulders too early).

As for splits well... Hard to say. I was a lightweight. At 155 pounds I could hold 1:37 for 2000m, 1:45 for 6000m. That made me pretty good but about 8 seconds short in the 2000m of being a serious candidate for a world championship team slot (6:28 vs. 6:20 for a guy with a shot at the lm4x circa 2001). 18 seconds short of being a serious Olympic team candidate. I do not remember what my best 500 was... Height is a major advantage in rowing. I'm 5'9.5"

At 40 years old and the same weight my FTP is about 275

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Dev, you need to get your act together because I can see a "Slowtwitch" 6K Erg Challenge in the not to distance future!
How about a month from now?

I think this makes 100% sense, given that his feet are big enough to be able to adjust foot height w/o running into issues of where the strap hits this foot, and also accounting for long femurs. So, assuming Kleshnev/Grinko body position (and goal drive dynamic) at the catch: this should allow for ~45° knee, ~43° ankle, ~35° hip angle...kind-of ideal (ish)?

No offense to Dev: but from what he describes, he has a similar morphology, height, and weight to a lightweight female—which is why I linked Carlos' video of Mary cooling down after her 1x in FL, for reference. So, for Dev, a 2-3cm thick seat pad (like a cut-up garden kneeling pad) and, maybe 2 holes showing above the shoe plate on a C2 erg, should be a good place to start, eh?

Here's a discussion (by 4th pl London 2012 USA W2- rower, and your former colleague(s), right?) about heel position: https://rowfficient.com/...down/?v=ae551853b692
I tend to think heels down—smoothly and quickly—is the way to go, for efficient power transfer. Dev: you want to squeeze and accelerate, not jump, from the compressed position.

Tomorrow (Sunday), I'm sitting in on a day-long clinic w/ Mike Davenport. I'll see what comes up, w/r/t rigging thru the pin, heel depth, etc.. :)

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Yes. Rowing and lumbar spine problems don’t mix well. At all.

You won’t necessarily feel your form slip as you tire, but it will, and the road from there to lumbar disc issues is short and straight.

I will get a video done and post it. You guys are correct, I have the morphology of a lightweight woman.. This is probably fairly accurate (funny think at Kona 2010, I was remarking that the only people my size were pro women and FOP age group women)....all the guys were 6-8 inches taller and 20-30 lbs heavier!!!

Oh boy, I am just getting over lumbar spine issues and using the rowing to strengthen the area not break it!!! Thus my performance is not even close to elementary school status and which is why I am trying to focus on using my legs (with the various questions above)!!!

My desire to avoid that machine post college was a major reason I started triathlon! But, I would follow such a contest with interest.

Simon, what about 2000m. The goal would be to break my equally slow 400m IM swim time. Actually if I can't break my 2000m row with my 400 IM then I really improved at rowing.

I see the M80-84 world record is 7:34...I think I might be able to get my 400 IM time in that range, but no way my novice rowing is coming close.

Dev

Yep, I know. I remember reading about some of your back stuff. I’ve had lumbar spine issues on and off for the last 30 years ranging from twinges plus sciatica that recovers after a few days to genuinely agonising pain that has left me barely able to walk, and has lasted months. I’ve managed to provoke some reactions using a Concept 2 from time to time. Were I you I’d avoid the concept 2, and target swimming, Pilates, yoga and xc skiing (at least two of which I know you do well). In the gym, stick to recumbent bikes and xc ski machine simulators.

That said, I am completely useless at practising what I preach, so what do I know?

Maybe I should just cap things at >2:15 per 500m speed and stay firmly in 'rehab mode' which was the entire point? It just seems like your back should get stronger as you do more as long as you do it correctly? I am assuming it is one of these things that could be great for rehab if you stay in control and do it properly, and great for destroying things if you go too hard, and collapse to poor lumbar form and put too much load on there before you have the strength to deal with it?

Swimming has been excellent. Honestly, I am certain if I did not have swimming, I'd have been in a wheelchair or on crutches. My crutches sit quietly in my workout room and I hope to have them never more from that spot again, but I don't trust myself enough to actually throw them away!!!!

What a timely thread! I’m going to take a “learn to row” course in Ft. Worth in April. As we all know, entering into a new sport means everyone you encounter thinks they’re an expert, and until we know otherwise, it can be hard to detect the “BS”. Since rowing poroperly involves proper technique, are there any technique cues/ phrases that are kind of “old school” or utter nonsense that nobody does anymore? Like a red flag that lets me know this or that person doesn’t know what proper technique really is? I went though it with learning proper swim, and now Nordic skiing, and I guess I’d like to avoid the nonsense if I find I really enjoy single scull rowing and decide to continue doing it after the learn to row course is over.