I got a few emails in the past couple of weeks that I found interesting to answer and post on the blog.
Q: xeno,
quick question for you. Is there an advantage to rowing 6k and 2k erg pieces on slides as opposed to not on slides? If there is a difference, how many seconds do you think that is?
B.
A: The longer the distance the less of an advantage the slides by Concept 2 provide. However, if you burn up 100 or 500 meter sprints the story is different. Moving the rowing machine back and forth is "lighter" then moving your own body back and forth. We found out that if someone tries the sliders for the first time, the rowing stroke shortens up by a few inches at the catch. This is a technical issue that when mentioned is easily corrected, yet it turns out it requires a tad bit of an effort to get the right reach at the catch without rushing in.
If you are someone who does a lot of miles and hard work on the Concept 2, I highly recommend the sliders, because the turnaround points of the stroke are smoother on the body. I found that the WaterRower is very gradual in the resistance and feels as smooth as rowing on water. I hope you will have the opportunity to one day try both rowing machines side to side. When you use the sliders you can do the one legged rowing drill, which is extremely effective for learners to figure out that the rowing stroke is a push with a pull at the end.
Q:
Hi there! I have been watching your videos for a while and they are awesome have learnt a of alot. But I have decided to go from 8s to single sculls and just wondering if you have any extremely beginner tips for me :)
A:
A couple of thoughts come immediately to my mind.
Make sure you are rigged high enough to have clearance between the handle and the top of your thighs on the recovery. Make sure that you adjust yourself on the footboard so that you can pass your hands slightly past the rib cage at the finish. This enables you to lift the oar out of the water by hinging the forearm at the elbow joint and not by breaking the wrist and washing out.
Make sure that you get the forward body angle at hip joint, feel your hamstrings a little to make sure that you don't prematurely lift the knees. Make sure that your lower back is supported at the finish and maintain that feel all the way to the catch. When you roll in the catch, draw the single scull under with your heels. Train at really LOW stroke rates to get a feel for connection of the blade in the water. Strap a bunch of bungees around your hull and feel the nice stability you get and the development of more powerful rowing muscles. Bungees go between the footboard and the stern.
Q:
hello Xeno, i need your help, ive been trying to lower my erg score but i havent been able to, ive been in th erg almost everyday for the past 4 months and im still pulling 740 is there any help you can give me regarding this, i would much appreciate it, counting with the fact that i have an erg test at the end of march and im the only lightweight on the team, im 150 and my height is 5,9 thanks
A:
Hello. My former coach Marty, who helped me win two Olympic medals in the single scull, always said that it is never too late to build and maintain aerobic capacity. From the sentences that you are writing to me, it sounds like you are in a junior or collegiate rowing program. You are plateauing and that can be a result from too many hard workouts and not enough long steady state aerobic training. How have the other rowers been doing, have they increased their personal bests? There is a dangerous false positive that junior coaches use to believe that their training program works. Juniors, as they grow and mature, their physical ability increases. With the right training program, the physical ability increases more rapidly than with a program that focuses too much on hard and high intensity workouts. The result of the later approach to training is a physiological state called acidosis. Too much lactic acid too often and that leads to being overtired, mental exhausting, and to some degrees injury. The coaches find the excuse to such hard training that in order to succeed a rower has to be mentally tough... and use their mental toughness as the end of all ends to win races.
Here is what I would do in order to get ready for your March Erg test. If you can, only train hard every three to four days. In between, do 70 to 90 minutes on the ergo at stroke rate 18 to 22 at a higher resistance that you are used to. The goal is not to rip your arms out of your socket, but to move and find the groove. Train at your aerobic target heart rate which you can figure by using the Karvonen formula:
(MAX HR- REST HR)X80%+REST HR= Target Heart Rate +/- 5 heart beats.
Also make sure that you use carbs and electrolytes when you train in order to replenish the glycogen reserves.
Check out my pacing entry on www.indoor-rowing.blogspot.com
Q:
My name is R. and I am 17 years old. I am from Portugal. I have some objectives for this season.
(...) I know that you won the Olympics in 1996 and few more. I want you to tell me what you can make a difference between our goal and we can. and what you think is the most important one to win a championship rower in the world.
my English is poor or very poor but that does not even want to answer says something...
A:
R., No worries. Your English is good enough for me to figure out a good answer for you. While I was competing, I had rowing on my mind ALL THE TIME. At your age, I imagined rowing the last 500 meters in the single scull at the Olympics leaving the other sculler behind over and over. Through my imagination I could feel the tears of rage and joy trickling down my cheeks and the TV commentators yelling out to the world that I was on the right track to win the Olympic gold medal.
When I would do my endurance weightlifting I always tried to add a bit more weight, because I knew that if I do it in training I will be able to deliver decisive blows to the competition and make them regret that they chose to row the single scull.
I never passed out after a race, but I certainly imagined it many times. I wrote into my second single scull: Push to win, and Push to death. My wife knows I am dramatic... My outlook on rowing has certainly changed after the 1996 Olympics and certainly after becoming a father.
Finally, what makes you the best you can personally be, comes from long training sessions where you hold the target heart rate at the aerobic level. Out of the 500 Watts I was able to pull at the Olympics, 300 Watts were generated at stroke rate 21 for up to 90 minutes at a time. This is why it is so important to train torque at low stroke rates so that you develop you aerobic capacity.
Q:
I recently purchased a waterrower s1 and am really enjoying it. I did a half marathon 21097 a couple of days ago and managed 1hr 19 mins 13 secs. Afterwards my backside and hips were shot for a couple of hours! How would this time stand up to a similar time on the concept 2 online rankings ?
I have used both but find the waterrower a more pleasant place to be (relatively).
Thanks buddy, loving your stuff on youtube !
J. U.K.
A:
Make sure that you get your forward body angle at the hip joint. If the lift of the knees is the primary movement that makes you roll back to the catch, then you are overusing the hip flexor. When you hinge at the hip joint and wait to feel the tension in the hamstring, you can use the contraction of the hamstring to roll into the catch, that keeps the pressure off the hip flexors which is a much smaller muscle.
It is safe to say that the WaterRower measures speed faster than the Concept 2. Numbers have been tossed around and I feel pretty comfortable saying that WaterRower is 5% faster. So in your case it would have taken you 3 minutes 57 seconds longer on a C2.
I am at a stage where I don't care anymore what time I put in or how far I am going. I love a sweaty shirt, the feel of being worked out, and the duration spent rowing.
All the best,
Xeno Muller
Olympic gold and silver medalist, men's single scull.
www.ironoarsman.com
Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
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