Hello Rowers,
Sometimes it is important to consider changing up the traditional training menu in order to keep motivated to workout. Below you will find technical advice for a warm up and the road map to a fun & short paced workout which lasts 35' minutes.
Take five minutes to build the stroke from arms only to full slide, by gradually lengthening out the stroke: Arms only, arms and body, quarter slide length, half slide length, three quarter slide length, and finally full slide rowing.
For some of you who may feel a little fuzzy about the technical aspect of slide lengths increments, here follows a quick explanation on how I was taught:
Arms only: Isolate the movements of the arm draw. Keep the shoulders relaxed, support the lower back, keep the legs fully extended, sit on your sitz-bones at the front half of the seat, fully extend your elbows before each draw, bring the handle below the chest line with a gentle touch to the sternum, make sure that the forearms are parallel to the ground when you draw and release at the finish. The release lowers the handle by hinging the forearm at the elbow joint. I could go on with more detail but let's move on to arms and back.
Arms and back: By adding the back swing, you want to make sure that you hinge at the hip joint, while you keep the lower back supported. If you are lucky and can use a mirror in front of you, monitor your head movement, which should follow closely a horizontal line. Allow the arms to extend away from the chest, and let the straight arms draw your upper body to the forward angle. Engage the back swing while keeping the arms hanging as long as possible, until it is absolutely necessary to draw the handle below the chest line.
Quarter slide rowing: The most difficult of all, because everything rowing technique has to offer is crammed into a really short stroke length. Key is to do what I mentioned above with the upper body BEFORE you roll into the quarter slide catch. Often rowers tend to extend their arms too late and wait at the quarter slide catch with the leg drive. The only way to have a direct catch through the leg drive is to have the "forward body angle hanging position" ready in time for the push.
Half slide, three quarter slide, and full slide, is "just" the added leg compression, while the upper body stays at the "forward body angle hanging position".
The drive phase, no matter what stroke length you are in, follows one fundamental sequence of power application: Smaller muscles hang of the larger muscles for the first 3/4 of the stroke. The last quarter of the stroke consists of pulling which is done with the smaller muscles above the hips.
NOW ONTO THE WORKOUT!!!
This is an interval workout. You can chose to rate higher during the shorter pieces and lower during the longer pieces, it is up to you. For the shorter time periods, consider applying more torque. My preference for this workout is to cruise at stroke rate 32 while adjusting torque depending on the interval duration.
The intervals start at 15' seconds and increase by five seconds each time until you hit one minute, which is the top of the pyramid, then reverse and reduce the intervals by five seconds each time. The rest period is equal to the duration of the interval.
Her is how it looks in numbers:
[7' minute warm up]
15ON 15OFF total 30'
20ON 20OFF total 1'10"
25ON 25OFF total 2'
30ON 30OFF total 3'
35ON 35OFF total 4'10'
40ON 40OFF total 5'30'
45ON 45OFF total 7'
50ON 50OFF total 8'40"
55ON 55OFF total 10'30'
1'ON 1'OFF total 12'30
55ON 55OFF total 14'20'
50ON 50OFF total 16'
45ON 45OFF total 17'30'
40ON 40OFF total 18'50'
35ON 35OFF total 20'
30ON 30OFF total 21'
25ON 25OFF total 21'50"
20ON 20OFF total 22'30'
15ON 15OFF total 23'
[5' minute paddle cool down]
It is your choice how many times you want to repeat the pyramid, or extend the intervals, or how hard to drive the stroke rate and the torque.
Over and out,
Xeno
www.ironoarsman.com
1297