As you are all rowers here, I think you know what to do. If you have questions, pop an email to Coach, Mazz, or I and one of us should be able to get you sorted out 🙂
From Coach:
Tips for a successful training program:
- Plan your workouts in advance but be willing to adjust depending on how you are feeling. Feeling great? Go for it in time or intensity. Feeling stressed out and tired? Make the workout relief. Cover the monitor, turn on the radio and just row for the release of it.
- Include a period of warm up and cool down in each workout. This time can also be spent working on proper rowing technique.
- Experiment periodically with both your wind damper setting and your race stroke rate. You may find that a change in damper setting may make you slightly more efficient and compliment your improving cardiovascular conditioning and strength. This may also be true with stroke rate.
- Be sure to combine your Erg workouts with Stacy’s body exercises that encourage additional flexibility and reciprocal joint and muscle strengthening.
- Be sure to schedule in rest days as well as test days.
- Keep a log. This helps in terms of motivating yourself by noting your improvement and helps identify a successful series of workouts.
- Train with a friend either on two Indoor Rowers or by alternating pieces on one Indoor Rower while one of you is stretching or doing body exercises.
The Summer Fun Erg workouts:
Your preparation for the 4,000 meter race in the fall should be in the aerobic area and be focused on distance, measured both in time and in meters. With this in mind, here are 5 suggested workouts for the erg.
- Endurance: Rows of 30-45 minutes. This workout category includes:
- Thirty minute time trials.
- a continuous 5,000 meter piece with increasing intensity (decreasing splits in terms of pace) each 1,000 meters.
- “swing” rows at 20-30 seconds easier than race pace – a swing row is a steady moderately paced row; not so fast that you can’t keep up a conversation the whole time.
- and the old favorite: a continuous piece which consists of 5 to 8 repetitions of (3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute, as follows. Row 3 minutes @ a low stroke rate of 22 spm (strokes per minute); then 2 minutes at a moderate stroke rate of 27 spm; then 1 minute at a high stroke rate of 30 spm. Then repeat. There is no rest between these pieces.
- Repetitions: Moderate intensity work intervals alternated with short rests; such as: 15 x 1:40 work/:20 rest. For the 1:40, work at 2-4 seconds slower than 5k pace.
- Long Intervals: 3 to 5 repetitions of 1500 meters at 3-5 seconds slower than 5k pace, with 3-5 minutes rest between pieces.