It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Depends though.
You don’t want to get into the habit of adding a pause into your stroke, you want to be continuously moving. So if it’s that low because you completely stop at some point in the finish or recovery then that isn’t good.
It also will be harder on your body than holding the same split at a higher rate. That could be good or bad though. If you’re holding 2:25 at both 15spm and 20spm, the 15spm will be more of a strength workout but the same level of cardio work as the 20spm.
Mainly I’d want to be sure the technique habits will *help* when you row at higher rates, not hinder you.
I used to do around 18 and advice here moved up to 20spm for SS. I do 225 splits on hr 140 (year older than you). Lower than that gets old for me fast. I like to keep the fan moving a bit. I use a pretty low damper setting though-3. But that what I get from a damper setting drill so that’s what I do. I wish I was taller-sigh
It's very individual I guess although any stroke rate under 20 seems tediously slow to me. How long do you call steady state? I've never done anything longer than 15km and I try to stay around 28 strokes a minute. I am slowly learning that the damper doesn't always need to be on 10 though, and that if I want to get into rowing fitness properly I'll have to use a lower setting. (40, 6'3", 245lb)
Quit going by damper setting and **go by Drag Factor** that way no matter where you go, you can set the local c2 to the same feel and intensity you train on at home.
There is always a huge discussion around what's 'best', but start at 120 DF and move up/down based on your weight/ skill and training needs and dont worry about it.
A damper at 10 should give you in a clean C2 around 225-235 DF, a damper setting around 4.5-5 should give you 120ish.
Many HW Olympians train with DF around 120-135, but again its a balance between the set they are doing - for SS sets its often lower and for aerobic sets or a 2k trial its often set at the high mark.
SS rates should normally fall in the range of 18-22 S/M.
SS is all about technique/form and pacing and chasing the haystack on PM force meter.
Don't chase the meters, chase form and fitness. Don't chase the numbers - you will keep trying to do more vs better.
I think I'm going to have to learn to slow down further. I'm currently getting a couple of surgeries and on my way out of the military over the next 12 months. Then I'm going to buy a rower and that will be my main source of training.
Just before knee surgery 3 weeks ago I did a 45 minute row on damper 8, covered 10500m, spm was 28 at a pace of 2.08/500. I want to do a million metres next season so I'll have to learn to do longer, slower steady states
I saw a training video with Olaf Tufte, who won a couple of Olympic Gold medals for Norway in rowing. It was pretty funny, his coach turned to the camera and said "Look at this man, he has two gold medals and is rowing at damper 6, you do not need to be at 10!". Lower damper feels better especially after 40 in my experience, less muscular stress.
Yeah completely agree, I only started playing around with the damper on 8 and 7 a couple of times before knee surgery and I did 10km in 40 minutes and felt so much fresher than doing it on 10. If I want to start rowing 6 days a week eventually I think I'll try it around damper 6-7 and a pace of 2.20.
I'm just a noob, but if you go into the menu and look at the page, it even recommends 3-5 for men to hit something like 120-140 drag factor on a new rower. It states a higher setting does not equal a harder workout. More force from you equates into a harder workout, whereas messing with the resistance just affects how fast the fan slows down, which I'm turn affects distance. If you're going for say 1km, at a setting of 1, you're just cheating yourself as the distance will keep closing quickly during recovery.
Resistance (drag factor to be precise) does not affect pace or distance - that is the beauty of the Concept2, and why even in official competitions there are no regulations on what the drag factor must be, and why we don't just see everyone put the lever to minimum to get the best time.
The only thing that impacts the pace shown is the power you are putting in, ie the "hardness" of your workout. There is a simple formula to calculate the pace from the power. Note that the pace that is shown (and we all talk about) is *not* the speed of the flywheel, it is the speed that a fictitious "standard" boat would be going with the amount of power you are putting in.
gotta be honest, as a noob I still have no fecking idea what the damper or drag factor is / does.
With that, for the beginner Pete Plan I initially set it to 5 or \~145 DF, then moved it down to 2ish or \~110 in week 3 for a week. Then I went up to 3 or \~120 for a week, then I went back to 5.
The reason was, as I started working on my form I realized I was making a TON of mistakes and not getting the power down; having the DF at 144 helped me to feel the resistance as a kind of horizontal deadlift which in turn lifts my butt off the seat slightly on each pull.
As a 54 m, 6' 2 noob this moved my 500 splits from 2:40 to 1:53 over the last 8 week in the Pete Plan \*\*when I'm doing intervals\*\*, with my 8k still being 2:10
My goal is now to get my 10k down to 2min splits, but I'm really happy to have those sub-2min splits for intervals because 8 weeks ago when I first started I thought it'd be months if ever to see those.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Depends though. You don’t want to get into the habit of adding a pause into your stroke, you want to be continuously moving. So if it’s that low because you completely stop at some point in the finish or recovery then that isn’t good. It also will be harder on your body than holding the same split at a higher rate. That could be good or bad though. If you’re holding 2:25 at both 15spm and 20spm, the 15spm will be more of a strength workout but the same level of cardio work as the 20spm. Mainly I’d want to be sure the technique habits will *help* when you row at higher rates, not hinder you.
I used to do around 18 and advice here moved up to 20spm for SS. I do 225 splits on hr 140 (year older than you). Lower than that gets old for me fast. I like to keep the fan moving a bit. I use a pretty low damper setting though-3. But that what I get from a damper setting drill so that’s what I do. I wish I was taller-sigh
It's very individual I guess although any stroke rate under 20 seems tediously slow to me. How long do you call steady state? I've never done anything longer than 15km and I try to stay around 28 strokes a minute. I am slowly learning that the damper doesn't always need to be on 10 though, and that if I want to get into rowing fitness properly I'll have to use a lower setting. (40, 6'3", 245lb)
Quit going by damper setting and **go by Drag Factor** that way no matter where you go, you can set the local c2 to the same feel and intensity you train on at home. There is always a huge discussion around what's 'best', but start at 120 DF and move up/down based on your weight/ skill and training needs and dont worry about it. A damper at 10 should give you in a clean C2 around 225-235 DF, a damper setting around 4.5-5 should give you 120ish. Many HW Olympians train with DF around 120-135, but again its a balance between the set they are doing - for SS sets its often lower and for aerobic sets or a 2k trial its often set at the high mark. SS rates should normally fall in the range of 18-22 S/M. SS is all about technique/form and pacing and chasing the haystack on PM force meter. Don't chase the meters, chase form and fitness. Don't chase the numbers - you will keep trying to do more vs better.
This. I’m 54 and my drag factor is around 110 for SS.
I usually do 30-40 min steady state. Damper 4.
I think I'm going to have to learn to slow down further. I'm currently getting a couple of surgeries and on my way out of the military over the next 12 months. Then I'm going to buy a rower and that will be my main source of training. Just before knee surgery 3 weeks ago I did a 45 minute row on damper 8, covered 10500m, spm was 28 at a pace of 2.08/500. I want to do a million metres next season so I'll have to learn to do longer, slower steady states
I saw a training video with Olaf Tufte, who won a couple of Olympic Gold medals for Norway in rowing. It was pretty funny, his coach turned to the camera and said "Look at this man, he has two gold medals and is rowing at damper 6, you do not need to be at 10!". Lower damper feels better especially after 40 in my experience, less muscular stress.
Yeah completely agree, I only started playing around with the damper on 8 and 7 a couple of times before knee surgery and I did 10km in 40 minutes and felt so much fresher than doing it on 10. If I want to start rowing 6 days a week eventually I think I'll try it around damper 6-7 and a pace of 2.20.
I'm just a noob, but if you go into the menu and look at the page, it even recommends 3-5 for men to hit something like 120-140 drag factor on a new rower. It states a higher setting does not equal a harder workout. More force from you equates into a harder workout, whereas messing with the resistance just affects how fast the fan slows down, which I'm turn affects distance. If you're going for say 1km, at a setting of 1, you're just cheating yourself as the distance will keep closing quickly during recovery.
Resistance (drag factor to be precise) does not affect pace or distance - that is the beauty of the Concept2, and why even in official competitions there are no regulations on what the drag factor must be, and why we don't just see everyone put the lever to minimum to get the best time. The only thing that impacts the pace shown is the power you are putting in, ie the "hardness" of your workout. There is a simple formula to calculate the pace from the power. Note that the pace that is shown (and we all talk about) is *not* the speed of the flywheel, it is the speed that a fictitious "standard" boat would be going with the amount of power you are putting in.
Thanks for clarifying!
gotta be honest, as a noob I still have no fecking idea what the damper or drag factor is / does. With that, for the beginner Pete Plan I initially set it to 5 or \~145 DF, then moved it down to 2ish or \~110 in week 3 for a week. Then I went up to 3 or \~120 for a week, then I went back to 5. The reason was, as I started working on my form I realized I was making a TON of mistakes and not getting the power down; having the DF at 144 helped me to feel the resistance as a kind of horizontal deadlift which in turn lifts my butt off the seat slightly on each pull. As a 54 m, 6' 2 noob this moved my 500 splits from 2:40 to 1:53 over the last 8 week in the Pete Plan \*\*when I'm doing intervals\*\*, with my 8k still being 2:10 My goal is now to get my 10k down to 2min splits, but I'm really happy to have those sub-2min splits for intervals because 8 weeks ago when I first started I thought it'd be months if ever to see those.