Originally Posted by
Travs
I'm a big fan of the indoor rower, although don't do it at all nowadays. It's very good for all body strength and I highly recommend.
Personally I'd just set it up to the highest level and get used to pulling at that drag, you'll get used to it.
Quite similar to running in terms of what you can do... i.e. sprints, or longer distance. I think the best distance is 2000m as that is the recognised Olympic distance. If you're brand new to rowing then 8mins or below is a good time for 2000m. My pb was 7mins04 and that is severely hard work, and I think ranked me well into the top 100 in the country for my weight at the time.
Like running, constant effort over the distance is the best way to go quickly. Set the readout to give you your speed per 500m, for 8mins you need to average 2:00/500m.... it's quite hard work to pull under about 1:55/500m, and to maintain that kind of pull over a sustained effort is serious work. To get 7mins04 I had to average 1:46/500m which I'm pretty proud of, but then you see the Olympic rowers can do it around 6mins or below, and I can't even generate that power for one stroke, it's unbelievable....
1 minute sprints are also good hard work, but if you want endurance then I'd stick to 2000m.
As far as technique goes, do some research as it's quite easy to get this wrong and end up with a sore back. Similar to swimming (I guess), concentrate on generating power with each stroke rather than hammering out as many strokes per minute with less intensity. I think this is the commonest beginners mistake.
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