Holy shit I finally just rowed 1km in 4 minutes and I feel like fucking dying

you need to set the damper at the proper level for your stroke, not for overall difficulty. You do not expend more energy or experience higher resistance at higher settings, it only affects how each stroke feels and resets. fiddle around until you find the damper setting that lets you be the most efficient, start with 5 and go up or down after every few strokes until you like it.

red pill me on benefits of rowing

these some of the crew team from the University of Warwick. 85-90% of their workout is rowing, and this is, in fact, what women want.

you get this body and an inhuman level of stamina and endurance, all for the low low price of 20-30K a week and mountains of food!
>there's a women's team with nekkid pics too

sensible chuckle

I row at the beginning of my workout for 15min. After about 2.5 months I've got up to 3500m at 7 resistance. When I started I struggled to reach 3000m. Is this at all good? It's pretty much a constant intense pace which is why I like it so much.

I've just started as well and I fucking love it.

I aim to do 6000 meters at 7 resist, 500 warmup, 500 cooldown.
I did my first two days on 10 and then did some quick reading and learned that even top rowers don't spend much time on 10 resist so I dropped to 7.

Coming in at ~26:30 but I think today I dropped to 23:39 (first time doing it in the AM instead of after work.)

I love finding my breathing rhythm, matching it to my music, and using it to keep my ass on pace because I start getting tired and sloppy around the 3500m mark.

you can not change the resistance on an erg. the damper controls how the stroke feels and flywheel resets, you are not changing how much power you put out. that number does not measure resistance, it is not like a bike or treadmill

>paying student athletes is unethical and takes advantage of them
>nudes are cool though

So it's more like finding a setting that fits your best? Huh, seems cool

2:00 splits for a 1k
Jesus, dude, even at the beginning of my novice year I wasn't that slow. Do more fucking cardio man holy shit.

>Go to rowing machine for dat dere cardio gains
>Set it down to 5 because its set on 10
Every time. Why does everyone do this? They dont jump on the treadmil and set it to 20% incline. Do they really think theyre getting a better workout with their flopping fish style stroke and 15 spm rate at a 3:00 500 pace?

i could row 310m in 1 minute on my first attempt.
that means that i could row 1240m in 4 minutes.
come again, kid.

Ah thanks I had no idea. So what's a recommended number or is it just preference? I really haven't looked into it as much as I should have. I've been doing it because it's what I have available to me at home and it's cold as fuck outside atm.

Yeah; the machine is exactly as hard as you pull on it. the harder your stroke, the harder the erg gets to maintain. the damper controls how much air resistance there is to the fly wheel, which means that at 10, the initial pull will feel harder and the wheel will slow down more quickly, and at 1, it will be very easy to pull and get the wheel spinning and it will continue spin for a longer time, but it has no effect on your output.

everyone has some idiosyncrasies in their stroke and a preference in how you want to row(hard and slow, light and fast) so that's what you are adjusting. but there is no other resistance factor here other than what you can put out.

I've never had sore legs from erging, except for with short power pieces. My cardio breaks before my legs do, and I'm not exactly strong. 6:50 2k

I rowed in high school, got tendonitis in both of my wrists. Also a lot of guys got back problems.
It's in amazing work out, just be careful

I'm not TRYING to be rude or target you here, but isn't what you just described exactly how it works on a bike or treadmill?

You can pedal a bike 50 times on lowest resistance or 15 on highest and go the same distance, (doesn't affect output but affects effort put into it).

And with the ERG, it makes the pulls harder, meaning your body is working harder in the same way.

I feel like I'm missing something here because putting the ERG to 10 fucks me up.

Interesting, I did not know this at all. What setting would you recommend for the novice rower?

nope, with the exception of an airdyne. You're partially right, the work exerted is massively different. 1 mile uphill is more work than 1 mile downhill. but there is no uphill or downhill in rowing.

try this out on one of the bikes that shows your watt output. use a consistent rpm you can maintain, and push the resistance up and down. notice how much harder it gets to maintain that consistent RPM vs how much less effort it takes, and notice how the watt output fluctuates even as your rpm stays constant. wattage is directly correlated to resistance.

now hit the erg and do the same thing, and you'll see that wattage has no correlation to the damper. you can make it go up or down based on your effort alone no matter what the damper setting is, and on what your stroke count is. you can do less work at 30 strokes/min or at 15/m or more work at either pace.

what you are feeling is that the initial pull is harder, which "feels heavier", but the actual amount of work is not affected to get the watts. You're just exhausting your fast twitch fibers quicker than otherwise, so you feel more tired, but if you look at the watt and calorie totals, you can see that is an illusion

3-5, and form is critical, watch a shitload of youtube, get a coach, doing it wrong is worse than useless, it's as complex a movement as a clean or a snatch, do it right