Types of Rowing Training Exercises on a Rowing Machine

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m Anna-Marie; I’m a Canadian Olympic Rower. I’m here on behalf of expertvillage.com. In this clip, I’m going to talk a little bit about different types of rowing workouts. Just beware, if you’re just starting out on the rowing machine, look at the clip about getting started. For this one, I’m going to talk to people who are already comfortable on the rowing machine. There’s a variety of different types of workouts you can do. We’ll also talk in a later clip about how to setup your monitor for those specific types of workouts. Probably the most basic workout is just steady state. That’s keeping a stroke rate between about 18 strokes a minute and maybe the high end will be 24 strokes a minute, and just going continuously. A workout like that can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 60 minutes or longer. You’re just going at a nice comfortable easy pace that you’re able to maintain trying to hold the same splits or the same power output for the entire time, working more on the endurance. Another type of workout can be interval training. That’s when you do maybe 1 or 2 minutes at a higher intensity then take a break for a minute or 3, then another a couple of minutes on, then another couple of minutes off. So you’re kind of on an on/off type switch. Another type of workout can be higher intensity, but shorter duration. For example, as an elite rower, I might do a 6k all out, as hard as I can go, as fast as possible, or a 2kilometer all out as fast I can go. Those are different types of rowing workouts. You can also play around with the amounts of times that you’re doing particular workouts. A pyramid for example, you might start off with 4 minutes, then go to 3 minutes, then 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then work your way back up. 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes. At each of those changes, you choose a different stroke rate. 4 minutes at 18, 3 minutes at 20, 2 minutes at 22, 1 minute at 24, and the same thing in reverse. 22, 20, 18. There’s so many different types of workouts you can choose. You can start to make up your own once you get comfortable. "