Our local cycling club has a subset of recumbent and rowbike riders who only stick to paths because they can quickly become "invisible" to cars in less than ideal conditions. On paths theyre just like anything else.
Do you have a recentish concept2? If so, the performance monitor lets you connect apps to it and get live feeds of your performance data - you could do something like pause your stream/display a popup warning to remember your form whenever your force curve deviates far enough from ideal
I'd make one change to the advice - instead of "Buy a rower", I'd say, "Buy whatever machine you will actually use." Whether that is a rower or anything else, the point is to do something, and do it consistently.
Exactly. For me its a rower, for others it might be a treadmill or a stationary bike or stair climber. The key is to make using it part of your routine.
And, protip: If there are clothes hanging on it, you've failed.
That the same advice I've heard and seemed to make sense for diets, the best one is the one you can actually follow.
Anyone can attempt Dwayne Johnson's workout and diet, it's published all over the place. The reason we aren't swamped with ridiculously swole people isn't because it's a secret, it's because it take extreme dedication (and moderately good genetics, but nothing special).
With the caveat that achieving results anywhere close to his requires, um, anabolic support. Which is not to discount the very hard work that goes into his exercise routine. But he's 50... as the saying goes, he's as natty as a microwave.
And if you're all about optimization and time, you could get a VersaClimber cross crawl club model and spend 8 minutes (2 mins warm up, 4 mins HIIT, 2 mins cooldown) for better (clinically proven more effective at causing a metabolic shift) results.
Why doesn't everyone do this? For one, the intensity makes people ill when not used to it. That's why it's not in many clubs. For another, unlike rowers or cycles, you can't just sit on your butt or coast.
(In addition to road cycles, I own water rower, versa climber, and hydrow. The VersaClimber kicks your ass.)
I've noticed a couple of machines in the gym (pre-covid) got very little use specifically because they're brutal - specifically the jacob's ladder machine, and VersaClimber.
Are you able to actually look forward to an "ass-kicking" workout on daily basis ?
I guess you're not wrong, but the author does compare the rower to running. No knee or hip issues with rowing. Less injuries would improve on consistency.
If someone did bring up setting a fitness challenge, I'd say buy a rower over treadmill or bike. Rowing does add more of a full body workout over bike.
I swear by indoor rowing. I've dropped 80lbs (from obese to my target weight) in the past 8 years, and most of that was from rowing
I was running, but living in an area with seasons, there were just too many excuses (its too hot, its too cold, its too rainy, its still dark outside, its snowing, my BT headphones aren't charged, etc....) and I found myself skipping runs too often. I bought myself the rower as a no-excuses aerobic workout. No matter what the weather, its always there.
I now row 15km at a 15km/hr pace 3-4 days a week (alternate with other exercise) and I have totally stopped running. Some knee and hip issues that were aggravated by running have ceased to bother me.
I have a water rower. I highly recommend it, as draining it makes moving it quiet easy (its pretty light when drained). I never setup a tablet; I just listen to podcasts when I row, the same as I used to when I ran.
Did you have issues with the water being too weak a resistance on the back-pull? I'm reluctant to go over 40-50% to still be able to stow it away vertically.
I just filled it and forgot it. Whatever I have it set to matches some medium-ish setting that I've selected because it "feels right" on concept-2 rowers when I travel.
> I have a water rower. I highly recommend it, as draining it makes moving it quiet easy (its pretty light when drained). I never setup a tablet; I just listen to podcasts when I row, the same as I used to when I ran.
Pre-COVID, I would use the gym at work at the end of my day, and they had two water rowers. I must have been using them wrong, because I was pretty out of shape (5'8", 240 lbs), and I found that even with the rower set to the highest resistance, I could easily go 20+ minutes and my heart rate never got very high. Meanwhile, I'd struggle to jog a 13-minute mile.
With each stroke, I began with my knees bent, arms straight in front of me, with the row handle almost fully retracted, and ended with knees straight, leaning back, handle pulled completely to my chest.
My resting heart rate is about 90 bpm, and on the rower, it was only getting to ~130 bpm. I felt like I wasn't accomplishing much and used the stair machine for my cardio instead. There, my heartrate would be 160-180 bpm, and I'd usually climb for ~10 minutes, doing 20-30 floors, though I did hit 100 floors twice.
Sadly, since COVID made me go remote, I haven't been to a gym. I miss that feeling of pride and accomplishment I'd get from setting the 100-floor goal on the stairs and hitting it. I plan on going back once Oregon lifts the mask mandates. Exercising with a mask is absolutely awful.
How much water was in it? That's the only way to change resistance on the one that I have. How did you change the resistance for the one in the gym?
FWIW, my resting heart rate is now in the 50s, and I get my heart rate up to between 150bpm and 170bpm, depending on how hard I push.
EDIT: My ex wife had a hard time getting her heart rate up on a rower. She'd be miserable and out of breath, but her HR never got up above 120 or so.. I never figured out what the problem was. I always thought it was too much resistance, but changing the resistance is a pain, so she just moved on to other exercises..
The one at my gym had a dial to adjust resistance. It did something to change how the water inside moved around, I think.
I tried googling "water rower" to find the model, and I couldn't find it. I can say that it was different from most water rowers I'm finding though. Most of them have the water tank horizontal, while the one I used had it vertical. It looked very similar to this: https://sunnyhealthfitness.com/products/water-rowing-machine...
That's weird. What happened when you went flat-out on these machines? Did you just end up doing 200 strokes per minute with each of them having the resistance of a greased water slide? Doesn't sound like they did their job.
I have a Concept2 rowing machine at home, and even at the middle resistance setting, blacking out from going too hard is just a matter of willpower, so to speak. The resistance increases with speed.
Yeah, if I went flat-out, I'd end up moving fast with no resistance, and I would spend more effort pulling myself back towards the machine to begin my next row than actually rowing.
Based on a sibling comment, there probably wasn't enough water in it, but I seem to remember a fill line being on it, and it was up to that line, but it's also been two years, so shrug.
I had same issue. It was difficult to get the heart rate up on a rower. The key is to put the resistance down! (You mentioned putting the resistance to highest setting). At a higher resistance setting, my back muscles would fatigue before my heart rate went up. By reducing resistance, stroke rate will go up, less muscles fatigue and more cardio.
> I now row 15km at a 15km/hr pace 3-4 days a week (alternate with other exercise) and I have totally stopped running. Some knee and hip issues that were aggravated by running have ceased to bother me.
I started rowing about 6 months ago, and some chronic problems with my right knee completely disappeared within 3-4 weeks of daily rowing. It was kind of incredible. That knee had been bothering me for 15 years.
I can only assume it was something about the precise repetitive movement.
I do about 5km/day but this post is motivating me to increase that.
This is tangential but I’d highly recommend checking out the “knees over toes guy” program if you suffer from knee pain. It’s helped me quite a bit. Specifically, the tibialis raises and split squat.
I've been rowing twice a day, every day since the pandemic and it has been a game changer. A high intensity 2k (while listening to music) in the mornings before I start my day, and a low intensity 5k (while watching tv) at night.
It is the most consistent I have ever been with at-home exercise and it has been perfect for managing stress and getting good sleep.
Curious, what split are you going for your daily 2k? In college, I was doing semiregular 2k tests, and I could never imagine trying to uphold a regular schedule of them.
I don't go flat-out, but it is definitely high-intensity. I am always out of breath at the end, but not collapsed on the floor.
When I started I was doing around 2:05/500m. Now I am down to around 1:56/1:57, but some days I will go slower if I didn't sleep great or something. It is more about the consistency than the pace.
It is less than 8 mins total so it is enough to wake me up and get my heart pumping, but also allow me to recover quickly and feel ready to start the day.
I sometimes watch an iPad (velcroed to the rowing machine) with standard bluetooth headphones. I don't find it too loud. You don't even need noise cancelling headphones unless you have a really loud machine.
I row as well. Started doing it after my back did not feel well due to sitting in front of computer all day. It is seasonal for me. In the summer I cycle, hike and also every day I swim in the open water every. Fall is transitional period. Cycling but no swimming. Winter is almost all rowing.
I have a Concept2 that I’ve owned for three years now. I love rowing but I also love running and running gets you better kcal/min if you’re trying to optimize for weight loss.
If my goals were just general cardio though, I’d 100% recommend rowing. Just make sure you really work on your form in order to get the most out of it. You should be using you’re core most, if not the entire time.
Running is great, but it's higher impact. So some people can't keep it up as long or tend to get injured. For long term health it's probably best to rotate between multiple different cardio exercises and thus hit different muscles.
The biggest injuries I saw in rowing were grip related. I had a friend who probably could've made it to the olympics (D1 rower & 6'8 & lanky). He injured his wrists repeatedly to the point where we had to stop pretty much altogether.
In my experience (both indoor and outdoor rowing), you can get much more cardio out of rowing than running. Rather than core the main muscle you use is your legs, if you see professional rowers they're not very bulky above the waist, but they typically have massive legs.
I could have been a bit more precise, I guess you could always exercise with 100 meter (running) sprints and then get a 10-20 second workout that leaves you pretty drained too... That said there are some crazy youtube videos too for 100 meter rowing [0].
For me the key difference is feeling more thoroughly drained, legs mostly, core, arms, back.
If we're talking steady state cardio, when comparing the two running objectively burns more calories than rowing. Of course, there's different intensities that you can do of both that would increase or decrease how many calories you ultimately end up burning.
Rowing actually made me worse at running. I rowed in college and during the summers, I'd erg much less and run/lift a lot more. Every fall when I switched back, my 5k pace fell off a cliff even though overall I was in much better shape.
When rowing, you train your leg muscles at, at best (and only in sprint), half that frequency, and you get more muscles than you need for doing 5k well, so when running you have to carry extra weight.
You should look at your 5k times on the beach, running up sand dunes, or on a sandy horse trail :-)
For me, it felt more like the balance of muscles. My hams were way to strong compared to my quads and my running felt more like bouncing up than pushing forward.
I never tried measuring specific inclines or on sand though.
I bought a rowing machine, not top of the line but still pretty expensive, and I was annoyed to discover the computed distanced rowed and all the rest of those stats were derived solely from the number of times the seat passed a sensor, with no account whatsoever taken of how much the flywheel was turning or any other measure of how hard you were actually pulling each stroke. Which all made it seem rather pointless.
The sensor itself is in the rail with, I assume, a magnet in the seat. But no, not a Concept2, it's a Horizon Oxford IV. £600 new several years ago. Luckily I bought it second hand, but still, not the bargain I thought I was getting! I did wonder how common this ruse is on other machines.
Anyway, doing something on the flywheel might make an interesting Raspberry Pi project one day I suppose, although calibrating it to any meaningful distance travelled might be a problem. Suppose I'd have to get a professional rower in to estimate what it felt like!
“Between each stroke, the PM measures how much your flywheel is slowing down to determine how sleek or slow your “boat” is. This rate of deceleration is called the drag factor. On your next stroke, the PM uses the drag factor to determine from the speed of the flywheel how much work you are doing. In this way, your true effort is calculated regardless of damper setting. This self-calibration is what allows us to compare scores from different indoor rowers, making things like indoor racing and the online world rankings possible.“
~$1,500, and it calculates via the flywheel, not seat movement.
Not sure how much distance I have on it, it doesn't hold stats after a power reset. I'd guess around 1M meters after several years, but I usually only get to use it about once a week on average. Rowing is usually Tuesdays on my M-F workout circuit.
Three months ago I bought a Hydrow (Peloton of rowers, I guess) and have had a very positive experience. I didn't trust any of the reviews because they are all paid. If you're considering, AMA.
I borrowed a Concept 2 at the start of the pandemic, it was great but they are pretty noisy (fan provides resistance). Eventually I returned it and bought a waterrower. I've been very happy with it. It's mostly wood, so looks nice, but more importantly (for me) it's much quieter than the concept2, and the performance is very similar (0). Highly recommend.
(0) I've rowed a lot on Concept2 machines, even on professional competitions, I was expecting bigger differences.
Concept 2 has an app for both iOS and Android, ErgData. It is quite good for logging your meters to your Concept 2 logbook which you'll need for qualifying for your t-shirt. ErgData requires the PM5 monitor which has ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart wireless. There are other apps, but ErgData is sufficient for me.
A downside is that an Apple Watch doesn't talk directly to a PM5. So your heart rate isn't displayed up on the PM5. Annoying. There are kluges but then they are kluges.
On Youtube there are excellent channels for indoor rowing.
Training Tall
Dark Horse Rowing
You also might consider gloves. If you're doing 5k sets, your hands will get kinda raw.
There is a flash drive on the PM5 but I don't think you can get that into ErgData. The security of taking that data from the PM5 to the Concept 2 logbook is important for indoor rowing competitions. So I think no.
I sync data from my concept 2 bike that also uses the PM5 to apple health. The ErgData app just does it. I must have granted it permissions during setup. Now I just use ErgData during a ride and when I finish the workout it appears in Apple Health.
One thing I enjoy about rowing is that you can get a lot of cardio in very short time. For example, 5 sets of 2 minutes on and one minute off aiming for 500 (or even 600) metres per set can leave you pretty drained.
I've got 3.8M on my C2. Easily the best purchase I've ever made. Rowing makes it so easy to get consistent with exercise, and it feels way better to me than treadmills or bikes do. The infinitely-variable pain levels make it super compelling for all ranges of training. 2k as fast as you can is one of the most harrowing experiences I've had. You can also go as slow as you want to and zone out on a podcast or something for a solid hour.
Oh wow the description of the sedentary lifestyle at 40 is literally exactly what has happened to me over the last year or two, it's depressing. I've been planning on getting a squat rack though instead of a rowing machine - anyone any thoughts on which is better for home use?
Depends on your goals. I personally prefer weight-lifting and think it's a bit easier to do when I'm low energy/don't feel like doing it. But thankfully is easy to snowball and keep up the momentum because the progress is quite obvious (looking better, feeling better, slapping more plates on the bar).
If you have the space it comes down to preference. If you're tight on space then a rower has the advantage imo since you can put it upright and roll it into a corner.
FWIW, you can do both. They're not mutually exclusive.
If you need to choose, it comes down to your goals. If you want to build stronger muscles, choose the weights. If you're interested in a stronger heart and/or weight loss, go with the rowing.
Motivation is really the important factor, not the specific type of equipment. It depends if you want to get strong or you want to get lean.
I'd personally get the squat rack because cardio is easily performed outside (running/cycling), whereas lifting very heavy but precise amounts of weight can really only be done with a rack, bars, and plates.
If you want to get lean then I'd recommend a bike (Zwift/Peloton) setup over the rowing machine. The ability to do workouts along with the mild gamification makes a big difference in motivation. There are similar programs for rowing but they are drastically less mature.
>Every year or so I replace the batteries in the Performance Monitor (PM). Not because they are flat, but to reduce the chance of them leaking and killing the PM.
Lithium (primaries non-rechargables, not Lithium-ion) batteries don't leak (or freeze, fwiw) and store a similar amount of energy as Alkaline batteries. They are considerably more expensive, but IMO a better overall choice for important applications.
If you are looking for an indoor rowing machine, I highly recommend a Concept 2, especially if you can find a used one locally.
It may seem expensive at first but if you decide you don't like it, you'll easily sell it for the price you paid. With any other rowers, you may have a hard time finding a buyer.
Concept 2 is pretty much the gold standard for every rower around the world so you'll always find someone looking to buy one.
I second the concept 2. Definitely a great rower for a little less than a thousand on Amazon with free shipping. Warning make sure to measure the space properly. It's a beast
I originally read the title as "My indoor rowing tips after 15 meters" and was expecting a funny, sarcastic, take on advice given by founders extrapolating one quick failure into three pages of advice & cat pictures.
I've followed the same path exercise wise. I'm already through ST:TOS and now on ST:TNG season 2. 30min a day, and so far 2M meters (1400 miles) starting in May of this year. Really want a rower to get more of a full body workout compared to just the exercise bike.
Below are my two cents as a former high school and collegiate rower, an occasional assistant coach since then, and someone who hopes to continue to erg until they dump my ashes unceremoniously in some river, lake, pond or even bog.
Hopefully a couple tips that may be helpful for beginners:
- If you can set up a mirror or some other way to watch yourself row, do it. It's not a natural motion for beginners and what it feels like you're doing can be very different than how it actually looks. Good rowing vs beginning rowing can be like watching a professional golfer or baseball player swing vs someone who has picked up a club or bat for the first time. It's fluid, controlled, and powerful vs awkward, jerky, and underpowered. It takes time, patience and persistence.
- Rowing is mostly legs and it's an endurance sport. If you're doing longer workouts at lower strokes per minute, it might not feel like you're doing a whole lot until deeper into a workout. Your legs are effectively your strongest muscles. Guys especially have a tendency to try to use their upper body more, and frequently break their arms right away at the catch. Breaking the arms early is counterproductive because it weakens the leg drive. Let those arms hang on the handle and let the legs do most of the pressing. Think deadlift / hang cling. Legs do most of the work, upper body and arms finish what the legs started.
- Don't squeeze the handle. You can even put your thumbs on top like a pull-up to help you get used to hanging on the handle with the upper body.
- There should be an approximately 2:1 ratio between the recovery (the time you're moving up the slide to the catch and compressing your body) and the drive (when you're pressing with your legs and then opening up with your body - the part where you're doing the hard work). So at 20 strokes per minute that's a 2 second recovery, 1 second drive. That ratio is important whether you're rowing at 20 SPM or 40+ SPM. There's a tendency for newer rowers to go at more of a 1:1 ratio, which is inefficient. It's similar to being in the right gear on a bike.
- On the recovery, the handle should come into the catch at roughly the same height it comes out during the drive. When coaching, we would sometimes put water bottles between a rower's feet on the erg so that they wouldn't let the handle/chain drop too far and knock the water bottle over. You'll get a stronger, more effective drive with a good catch.
- On the recovery, don't break your legs until after the handle gets over your knees. So really let yourself stretch out of the finish. This is especially important as you get tired. If you break your knees before the handle clears, you tend to have to lift the handle and then it will drop after it's over the knees and you'll likely have a bad catch.
- If you're on a Concept 2, don't set the fan at a 10. I've trained with Olympic rowers and have never heard of anyone going over 6. In the 3-5 range is perfectly fine. There is no glory saying you row at a 7+.
- When I erg now, I watch soccer (45 mins with no commercial interruptions) or train POV videos on Youtube, and I use Airpods to listen to music.
- And for what it's worth, I don't think I've ever heard of any HS or collegiate program using anything other than Concept 2 ergs. I've hopped on other rowing machines at gyms, but found they felt awkward and less fluid. I don't know what some of the newer, higher-end machines feel like. They could be great.
I need some more exercise in my life. (Long pandemic + desk job = ailing mentally).
Is a rowing machine a good way to go? (Like so many people, I have temporal, spatial, and monetary constraints -- I can't imagine spending $1500 USD on a piece of exercise equipment, doubly so given that I don't know whether I'd stick with using it.)
I really, really wish something like BlackBox VR (https://www.blackbox-vr.com) was available to me. It looks phenomenal.
I've done Ring Fit Adventure, and I like it. I've tried some of the VR fitness games, and, well, they're okay. I had a running buddy (who has moved away), and that was good, but we're now entering the long season of cold, short days, and it was always hard to get enough umph to go out in frigid weather before dawn, but I need to do something again.
FWIW, the Concept2 rowers break down very easily and can be stored in as compact of a footprint as you are going to find as far as stationary cardio equipment goes.
85 comments
[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 150 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMZSwYf7jxQ
Or, for some more challenge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1VxvXeQdg
> It is the result of a feasibility study and a commercial implementation of the ROWCYCLE will not be pursued further.
https://rowingbike.com/de/winkel/
And, protip: If there are clothes hanging on it, you've failed.
Anyone can attempt Dwayne Johnson's workout and diet, it's published all over the place. The reason we aren't swamped with ridiculously swole people isn't because it's a secret, it's because it take extreme dedication (and moderately good genetics, but nothing special).
And if you're all about optimization and time, you could get a VersaClimber cross crawl club model and spend 8 minutes (2 mins warm up, 4 mins HIIT, 2 mins cooldown) for better (clinically proven more effective at causing a metabolic shift) results.
Why doesn't everyone do this? For one, the intensity makes people ill when not used to it. That's why it's not in many clubs. For another, unlike rowers or cycles, you can't just sit on your butt or coast.
(In addition to road cycles, I own water rower, versa climber, and hydrow. The VersaClimber kicks your ass.)
Are you able to actually look forward to an "ass-kicking" workout on daily basis ?
If someone did bring up setting a fitness challenge, I'd say buy a rower over treadmill or bike. Rowing does add more of a full body workout over bike.
Lately i've been playing a game called "can you negative split a piece"; usually, the answer's yes!
https://thepeteplan.wordpress.com/the-pete-plan/
Rowing itself is good but not enough. For those looking for low-impact cardio, I can suggest you to try battle ropes in gym.
I was running, but living in an area with seasons, there were just too many excuses (its too hot, its too cold, its too rainy, its still dark outside, its snowing, my BT headphones aren't charged, etc....) and I found myself skipping runs too often. I bought myself the rower as a no-excuses aerobic workout. No matter what the weather, its always there.
I now row 15km at a 15km/hr pace 3-4 days a week (alternate with other exercise) and I have totally stopped running. Some knee and hip issues that were aggravated by running have ceased to bother me.
I have a water rower. I highly recommend it, as draining it makes moving it quiet easy (its pretty light when drained). I never setup a tablet; I just listen to podcasts when I row, the same as I used to when I ran.
Which one did you buy?
I think that corresponds to the "natural" on Waterrower's own site.
With each stroke, I began with my knees bent, arms straight in front of me, with the row handle almost fully retracted, and ended with knees straight, leaning back, handle pulled completely to my chest.
My resting heart rate is about 90 bpm, and on the rower, it was only getting to ~130 bpm. I felt like I wasn't accomplishing much and used the stair machine for my cardio instead. There, my heartrate would be 160-180 bpm, and I'd usually climb for ~10 minutes, doing 20-30 floors, though I did hit 100 floors twice.
Sadly, since COVID made me go remote, I haven't been to a gym. I miss that feeling of pride and accomplishment I'd get from setting the 100-floor goal on the stairs and hitting it. I plan on going back once Oregon lifts the mask mandates. Exercising with a mask is absolutely awful.
FWIW, my resting heart rate is now in the 50s, and I get my heart rate up to between 150bpm and 170bpm, depending on how hard I push.
EDIT: My ex wife had a hard time getting her heart rate up on a rower. She'd be miserable and out of breath, but her HR never got up above 120 or so.. I never figured out what the problem was. I always thought it was too much resistance, but changing the resistance is a pain, so she just moved on to other exercises..
I tried googling "water rower" to find the model, and I couldn't find it. I can say that it was different from most water rowers I'm finding though. Most of them have the water tank horizontal, while the one I used had it vertical. It looked very similar to this: https://sunnyhealthfitness.com/products/water-rowing-machine...
EDIT: Actually, it more closely resembled this one: https://firstdegreefitness.com/shop/fluidrower/vx-2/
I have a Concept2 rowing machine at home, and even at the middle resistance setting, blacking out from going too hard is just a matter of willpower, so to speak. The resistance increases with speed.
Based on a sibling comment, there probably wasn't enough water in it, but I seem to remember a fill line being on it, and it was up to that line, but it's also been two years, so shrug.
I started rowing about 6 months ago, and some chronic problems with my right knee completely disappeared within 3-4 weeks of daily rowing. It was kind of incredible. That knee had been bothering me for 15 years.
I can only assume it was something about the precise repetitive movement.
I do about 5km/day but this post is motivating me to increase that.
It is the most consistent I have ever been with at-home exercise and it has been perfect for managing stress and getting good sleep.
When I started I was doing around 2:05/500m. Now I am down to around 1:56/1:57, but some days I will go slower if I didn't sleep great or something. It is more about the consistency than the pace.
It is less than 8 mins total so it is enough to wake me up and get my heart pumping, but also allow me to recover quickly and feel ready to start the day.
If my goals were just general cardio though, I’d 100% recommend rowing. Just make sure you really work on your form in order to get the most out of it. You should be using you’re core most, if not the entire time.
For me the key difference is feeling more thoroughly drained, legs mostly, core, arms, back.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVl0Zt-kZys
To run fast, you need to do about 180 steps/minute (each leg moves back and forth 90 times/minute (https://blog.squadeasy.com/en/blog2020/running-pace-why-work...). Also, 5k runners tend to be not that muscular.
When rowing, you train your leg muscles at, at best (and only in sprint), half that frequency, and you get more muscles than you need for doing 5k well, so when running you have to carry extra weight.
You should look at your 5k times on the beach, running up sand dunes, or on a sandy horse trail :-)
For me, it felt more like the balance of muscles. My hams were way to strong compared to my quads and my running felt more like bouncing up than pushing forward.
I never tried measuring specific inclines or on sand though.
I don't think they even have a sensor for the seat.
Anyway, doing something on the flywheel might make an interesting Raspberry Pi project one day I suppose, although calibrating it to any meaningful distance travelled might be a problem. Suppose I'd have to get a professional rower in to estimate what it felt like!
“Between each stroke, the PM measures how much your flywheel is slowing down to determine how sleek or slow your “boat” is. This rate of deceleration is called the drag factor. On your next stroke, the PM uses the drag factor to determine from the speed of the flywheel how much work you are doing. In this way, your true effort is calculated regardless of damper setting. This self-calibration is what allows us to compare scores from different indoor rowers, making things like indoor racing and the online world rankings possible.“
~$1,500, and it calculates via the flywheel, not seat movement.
Not sure how much distance I have on it, it doesn't hold stats after a power reset. I'd guess around 1M meters after several years, but I usually only get to use it about once a week on average. Rowing is usually Tuesdays on my M-F workout circuit.
(0) I've rowed a lot on Concept2 machines, even on professional competitions, I was expecting bigger differences.
A downside is that an Apple Watch doesn't talk directly to a PM5. So your heart rate isn't displayed up on the PM5. Annoying. There are kluges but then they are kluges.
On Youtube there are excellent channels for indoor rowing.
You also might consider gloves. If you're doing 5k sets, your hands will get kinda raw.If you need to choose, it comes down to your goals. If you want to build stronger muscles, choose the weights. If you're interested in a stronger heart and/or weight loss, go with the rowing.
I'd personally get the squat rack because cardio is easily performed outside (running/cycling), whereas lifting very heavy but precise amounts of weight can really only be done with a rack, bars, and plates.
If you want to get lean then I'd recommend a bike (Zwift/Peloton) setup over the rowing machine. The ability to do workouts along with the mild gamification makes a big difference in motivation. There are similar programs for rowing but they are drastically less mature.
House of Cards - 2013
If you need more proof VR doesn't work and won't for a long time this is it.
Tight parameters, easy to make safe, sensors are easy. People still prefer to watch TV.
TV is more immersive than VR and probably always will be, unless you are watching TV on VR, which is legitimately one of the best uses for VR so far.
My WFH workout (which I haven't been sticking to) is dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags. And also walking outside.
Lithium (primaries non-rechargables, not Lithium-ion) batteries don't leak (or freeze, fwiw) and store a similar amount of energy as Alkaline batteries. They are considerably more expensive, but IMO a better overall choice for important applications.
It may seem expensive at first but if you decide you don't like it, you'll easily sell it for the price you paid. With any other rowers, you may have a hard time finding a buyer.
Concept 2 is pretty much the gold standard for every rower around the world so you'll always find someone looking to buy one.
Hopefully a couple tips that may be helpful for beginners:
- If you can set up a mirror or some other way to watch yourself row, do it. It's not a natural motion for beginners and what it feels like you're doing can be very different than how it actually looks. Good rowing vs beginning rowing can be like watching a professional golfer or baseball player swing vs someone who has picked up a club or bat for the first time. It's fluid, controlled, and powerful vs awkward, jerky, and underpowered. It takes time, patience and persistence.
- Rowing is mostly legs and it's an endurance sport. If you're doing longer workouts at lower strokes per minute, it might not feel like you're doing a whole lot until deeper into a workout. Your legs are effectively your strongest muscles. Guys especially have a tendency to try to use their upper body more, and frequently break their arms right away at the catch. Breaking the arms early is counterproductive because it weakens the leg drive. Let those arms hang on the handle and let the legs do most of the pressing. Think deadlift / hang cling. Legs do most of the work, upper body and arms finish what the legs started.
- Don't squeeze the handle. You can even put your thumbs on top like a pull-up to help you get used to hanging on the handle with the upper body.
- There should be an approximately 2:1 ratio between the recovery (the time you're moving up the slide to the catch and compressing your body) and the drive (when you're pressing with your legs and then opening up with your body - the part where you're doing the hard work). So at 20 strokes per minute that's a 2 second recovery, 1 second drive. That ratio is important whether you're rowing at 20 SPM or 40+ SPM. There's a tendency for newer rowers to go at more of a 1:1 ratio, which is inefficient. It's similar to being in the right gear on a bike.
- On the recovery, the handle should come into the catch at roughly the same height it comes out during the drive. When coaching, we would sometimes put water bottles between a rower's feet on the erg so that they wouldn't let the handle/chain drop too far and knock the water bottle over. You'll get a stronger, more effective drive with a good catch.
- On the recovery, don't break your legs until after the handle gets over your knees. So really let yourself stretch out of the finish. This is especially important as you get tired. If you break your knees before the handle clears, you tend to have to lift the handle and then it will drop after it's over the knees and you'll likely have a bad catch.
- If you're on a Concept 2, don't set the fan at a 10. I've trained with Olympic rowers and have never heard of anyone going over 6. In the 3-5 range is perfectly fine. There is no glory saying you row at a 7+.
- When I erg now, I watch soccer (45 mins with no commercial interruptions) or train POV videos on Youtube, and I use Airpods to listen to music.
- And for what it's worth, I don't think I've ever heard of any HS or collegiate program using anything other than Concept 2 ergs. I've hopped on other rowing machines at gyms, but found they felt awkward and less fluid. I don't know what some of the newer, higher-end machines feel like. They could be great.
Is a rowing machine a good way to go? (Like so many people, I have temporal, spatial, and monetary constraints -- I can't imagine spending $1500 USD on a piece of exercise equipment, doubly so given that I don't know whether I'd stick with using it.)
I really, really wish something like BlackBox VR (https://www.blackbox-vr.com) was available to me. It looks phenomenal.
I've done Ring Fit Adventure, and I like it. I've tried some of the VR fitness games, and, well, they're okay. I had a running buddy (who has moved away), and that was good, but we're now entering the long season of cold, short days, and it was always hard to get enough umph to go out in frigid weather before dawn, but I need to do something again.