Training Advice
Determine Your Goals
These may be one or more of the following:
- To lose some weight
- To maintain general health and fitness
- To aid in rehabilitation
- To cross-train for another sport
- To train for competitive rowing
Choose a Training Program to Meet Your Goals:
1. Weight Loss
If weight loss is your goal, then consistency and duration of your workouts will be very important. For more information on rowing for weight loss please visit our Weight Control section.
2. General Health and Fitness
The guidelines for general health and fitness are that one should exercise at least three times per week for 30 minutes.
Frequency: 3-5 times per week, alternate with other types of exercise if desired.
Duration: At least 20 minutes total.
Work Type and Intensity: Moderate steady work, moderate interval workouts for variety. Use a target heart rate if you have a heart rate monitor.
Sample Workouts:
- 20 minute row
- 4,000 meter row
- 40 seconds harder, 20 seconds easier for 15-25 minutes
3. Rehabilitation
Cardiac rehabilitation: You should work with a doctor or rehab specialist to develop an exercise plan that will meet your needs.
Injury rehabilitation: If you are working with a professional, ask them how to incorporate rowing into your rehab program. If you have a minor injury and are treating yourself, rowing may be a very good tool for you, depending on the nature of the injury. For example, if you are a runner with an overuse injury of the foot or leg, you may find that rowing gives you a great cardiovascular workout without stressing the injured part. See Cross Training by Rowing for more information.
4. Cross Training for another Sport
For more information of this training goal, see Cross Training by Rowing. Your program will vary depending on the nature and yearly cycle of your chosen sport.
5. Training for Competitive Rowing
The current racing distance for indoor rowing regattas is 2000 meters. The training suggestions given below are geared to this race distance.
Frequency: 4-6 times per week (less if you are rowing on the water).
Duration: 30-80 minutes depending on the intensity of the workout.
Work Type and Intensity: the whole range, from racing to easy, steady state. Different types of work shoud be done at different times in your training year.
For specific workout suggestions see our Training for Competition section.
Monitor Your Progress
No matter what your training goal, you can help yourself reach it by recording your progress in a logbook or LogCard. Record your daily workouts as well as occasional ‘benchmark’ workouts.
Logging your results accomplishes several things:
- You can look back to find a great workout that you did several weeks ago.
- You can compare your score today to the last time your rowed the same workout to see if you are improving.
- You can record other data like weight, heart rate, how you felt.
- You can keep a cumulative total of all the meters you have rowed so that you can join our Million Meter Club.
Benchmark Workouts: Test yourself at regular intervals by repeating the same workout and recording your score. Highlight these benchmark results in your log so you can find them easily. We suggest using the 2000 meter distance and the 30 minute row for your benchmarks so that you can compare your performance with others in your age and weight class in our Concept2 Online Ranking.
