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I've been angling after a sub 7 min time for a while, managed to knock 15s off my previous best with 7:02 today which I am pleased with. Will defo get it next time!
Oh dear. Joined a gym last night. First session tonight...
Erm. 8m 22s for 2000m. First time on a rower in about 5 yrs. Upper body seriously lacking in power, strength, endurance....
Short & overweight doesn't help.
What am i doing wrong then, usally have it on level 10, am just around the 8min mark (though not tried for a whille) and the rower usally ends up moving all over the place.
thatWhat am i doing wrong then, usally have it on level 10
and the rower usally ends up moving all over the place.
Crap technique too.
There was a great tip posted here on one of the other erg threads. Unless you are going for it, don't use the foot straps. You should be able to row exactly the same without them up to about mid 20s stroke rate. And yes, the machine itself should not be moving about, that's just wasted effort. Try to get smoother.
Upper body seriously lacking in power, strength, endurance....
Whilst upper body strength does help a lot, the drive should come from the legs.
Tried this tonight to see how i'd do.
Never really use the rower but used to do the occasional 1000m effort so thought i'd try a 2000m.
Took it fairly easy until the last 400m and pulled a 7:13 so with a bit of practise that should come down to a sub 7. Thought that was ok for a 40 yr old. May try it a few more times as tonights effort was an hour after a 20 mile road ride.
Often wished i'd joined a club when i lived in London, used to cycle past the Putney clubs but never wandered in.
Wow at some of them times.
I think i'm pretty handy on the rower and win the works gym competitions. I'm a 7.00 man though for the 2k which i thought was pretty bloody good hahaha.
I did 1.92k in 8mins as part of an indoor sprint triathlon. I'd probably been on a rowing macine twice before in my life and it was the last event. I'd already run 1.9k in 8mins and did 4.55k on the bike in 8min (slow compared to the others). A very painful 24mins, I wouldn't opt to it again.
6.46 when I was 17. I started using it a bit due to a torn ankle ligament playing rugby and couldn't go out for my regular runs any more. I'm sure I could better that now though at 31 (possibly)??!!
How are peoples 5k times looking? I'm a member of a gym now and need to start getting on the rower again- it's painful but quite addictive I seem to remember
Never tried a PB on a 2k
Just started using 2k rowing as a warmup before going to a Trixter Cycling class or a normal Gym session.
So long as I keep it steady & it's under 10 mins for 2k, I'm happy enough ... but im also late 40's and pretty unfit & I know for sure that I'm going to get beasted in the trixter class so am not going to go stupid before i go in.
Chris
5km best of 18m 34. These days anything under 19m00 is good for me.
5km test - 16min 40sec for me. It hurt.
pjm84 - Member
5km test - 16min 40sec for me. It hurt.
That's got to be about a 1min 40 average ?
I've just passed your details on to the GB Olympic Team pjm84, they'll be in touch shortly.
7:08 for me. Pretty pleased with that, but I think I could break the 7:00 with a bit of training.
seba560 - Member
I've just passed your details on to the GB Olympic Team pjm84, they'll be in touch shortly.
He'd be 2nd in the 40+ concept2 race series LOL
He'd also be 2nd in the 30+ concept 2 race series.
http://concept2.co.uk/challengeseries/results?cat=4&sex=m
The leader, Ollie Osbourne was in the world championships 😉 and finished 6t
Folk are making that incorrect assumption that the folk who are at the top of whatever leaderboards are the best at that particular event. They're just the best out of the people who entered the event.
glupton1976 - Member
Folk are making that incorrect assumption that the folk who are at the top of whatever leaderboards are the best at that particular event. They're just the best out of the people who entered the event.
He finished 6th in the indoor world championships, he's hardly a fat munter from Croydon is he ?
I'm not saying that he is. Merely pointing out that there will be people out there who dont compete but are every bit as good on a rowing machine. So while someone may finish 6th at the world championships, it doesnt always follow that they're the 6th best person at that particular thing on the planet.
pjm84 - Member
5km test - 16min 40sec for me. It hurt.
Good work - 8s better than my pb. I still have a scar from doing that where I fell off after and smacked my head on the concrete floor...
But as I said above, I was never much good on the erg compared to my on-water competition so it's hardly a GB-level score. Breaking into the mid 15s would be...
86kg: managed a PB of 7:01 last night.
Aiming for sub 6:50, as would love to see an "Excellent" on the VO2max Calculator someone posted the link to above. Although I have my doubts as to the accuracy of this measure!
Breaking into the mid 15s would be...
Just out of interest. I was looking at the record time for various age groups on the concept website. There are only 3 times that dip below 16 minutes:
Event - Category-Name --------- Gender -- Weight -- Age --- Country -- Record ---- Season
5000 - 30-39 - Rob Waddell ----- M ------ Hwt ----- 32 ---- NZL ----- 14:58.3 ---- 2008
5000 - 19-29 - Matthew Pinsent - M ------ Hwt ----- 25 ---- GBR ----- 15:11.0 ---- 2000
5000 - 40-49 - Nik Fleming ----- M ------ Hwt ------ 40 ---- GBR ----- 15:57.6 ---- 2009
Now, I've not heard of two of them but I seem to remember the middle one was a bit handy in his prime, so yeah I reckon sub 16 minutes would be pretty tidy.
Only times that are published. Times from inside the international teams tend not to be publicised other than by word of mouth.
are we still doing this?
First opportunity to have a crack this lunchtime, having not looked at an ergo for a year or more - 6:41 went out too fast and blew up in the last 3-400m 🙁
Just cranked out 7:14 @ 95kg or so.
Quite happy with that given the amount of training I've done on the rower of late.
Did 7.25 last night - first time on rower for weeks. I'm 80kgs and in my early 50s and was suffering from the after-effects of the previous evening's rather brutal circuits class, so reasonably pleased. I reckon I could knock 10-15 seconds off if I did it more regularly but not sure about getting under 7 mins.
Bad! Had another bash at it on Monday, gone.8:22 again. Going hard, while conscious of another 40mins cardio to do. Reckon I could have only knocked a few seconds off that at best though!
I'll be happy just to hit 8 mins..!
7:43.3 now @ 61kg. May have sicked up a little bit afterwards and can't walk today. 🙂
I've tried a couple more times now and seem to have hit a wall. 7:05 & 7:08. Will try and break 7mins but simply don't have the stamina to sustain the effort at the moment.
Was going to have a little challenge with the gym instructor until he told me his PB is 6:05.........! He is 17yrs younger than me though.
I won't be challenging anyone in my gym, it's full of Cambridge Uni Rowing squads training.....
Cracked it tonight 🙂
6:57.6 Wasn't as hard as i'd expected, i just had to start off a tad faster and then keep up a steady pace. That's not to say i wasn't slightly gasping at the end though.....
I busted my ribs shortly after starting this thread so getting out of bed and sneezing are the only challenges i will be facing for a while 🙁
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about warmups before XC races that got me thinking. Never having raced my idea of a warmup would be 5-10 mins of light work to "get the blood pumping". However more experienced people were recommending more like 20 mins hard work, including full-effort intervals. This all makes sense now that I think about it.
How would you apply this to a 2k rowing time trial? Bearing in mind I'm looking at giving 100% effort for less than 7 mins. What would be the best warmup for optimum performance? A couple of minutes hard intervals? Or am I overthinking this?!
Why doesn't it matter how the resistance is set?
Is it because the higher resistance - the further you move on each stroke? If so there must be an optimum resistance?
zilog - people will vary but I used to do 30 minutes steady road riding before - enough to get warm and a bit of a sweat on but not tiring as such - followed by about 5-10 minutes on the erg at a steady pace (starting to get a bit breathy - say I was doing 1:33 average for my test, I'd probably be at around 1:50 - 1:55 for the warmup) with two or three 15-30 second bursts flat out.
tiggs - the computer constantly works out how fast the fan slows down between strokes and then uses that to calculate how hard the fan is set. It then adjusts the score accordingly - so if you want to get a good score at a low resistance setting, you have to really move the handle very fast (it's a good technical exercise, actually) or conversely, you don't have to move it so fast at a higher resistance setting.
Resistance that feels closest to a rowing boat (ish because even that is very variable depending on conditions and type/size of boat) is usually around 4 or 5 (135ish drag factor) - that's a good balance between it being like lifting heavy weights (less aerobic) and being too light.
Thanks, for that clubber, might have a go tomorrow with a "proper" warmup like you suggest, hopefully get a PB!
re: drag factor - yes, I think there is an optimum level but it is different for everyone depending on your level of strength/endurance/etc. Probably worth some experimentation. For 2k I seem to be fastest at the moment around the 135 mark as clubber suggests. If I set it higher I'm probably a bit faster for the first k but then can't sustain it for the second!
I managed 7.20 after a five mile run and with my arm in cast cause ive broke my wrist.
then nearly threw up
I'm still on 5000m (Too many bad memories at 2k).
Second one tonight and now at 18min 9sec (30sec quicker). SPM capped at 22. At 45 years old it's getting hard.
I love the C2, but cannot do the short fast stuff, 10K @ 39:15 is my PB.
Dead chuffed right now as I just beat my above PB - managed 10k in 39:09, and I didn't collapse in a ragged heap at the end.
😀