Rowing 101 for Crossfit! !

The Rowing Stroke! The rowing stroke can be divided into two parts: The recovery and the drive.! • The Recovery (Part 1)! • Extend your arms until they straighten.! • Lean your upper body forward to the eleven o'clock position.! • Once your hands and the oar handle have cleared your knees, allow your knees to bend and gradually slide the seat forward on the monorail.! • The Catch (Position 1)! • Arms are straight; head is neutral; shoulders are level and not hunched.! • Upper body is at the eleven o'clock position—shoulders in front of hips.! • Shins are vertical and not compressed beyond the perpendicular.! • Balls of the feet are in full contact with the footplate.! • The Drive (Part 2)! • With straight arms and while maintaining the position of the upper body at eleven o'clock, exert pressure on the foot plate and begin pushing with your legs.! • As your legs approach straight, lean the upper body back to the one o'clock position and draw the hands back to the lower ribs in a straight line.! • The Finish (Position 2)! • Legs are extended and handle is held lightly at your lower ribs.! • Upper body is at the one o'clock position—slightly reclined with good support from your core muscles.! • Head is in a neutral position.! • Neck and shoulders are relaxed, and arms are drawn past the body with flat wrists.!

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Concept 2 Rower: The Damper! Damper Setting is…! The damper is the lever on the side of the flywheel housing, or fan cage, that controls how much air flows into the cage. The fan cages are numbered so you can set the damper lever to a particular value from 1–10, indicating how much air is drawn into the cage on each stroke:! • Higher damper settings allow more air into the flywheel housing. The more air, the more work it takes to spin the flywheel against the air. More air also slows the flywheel down faster on the recovery, requiring more work to accelerate it on the next stroke.! • Lower damper settings allow less air into the flywheel housing, making it easier to spin the flywheel.! Damper setting is similar to bicycle gearing: it affects how rowing feels but does not directly affect the resistance. A lower damper setting on the indoor rower is comparable to easier gears on a bike.!

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Damper Setting is Not…! Many people confuse damper setting with intensity level or resistance. Instead, the intensity of your workout is controlled by how much you use your legs, back and arms to move the handle—in other words, how hard you pull. This is true regardless of where the damper lever is set: the harder you pull, the more resistance you will feel. Because the

indoor rowers use wind resistance (which is generated by the spinning flywheel), the faster you get the wheel spinning, the more resistance there will be.! Think about rowing on the water. Regardless of whether you are rowing in a sleek racing shell, or in a big, slow row boat, you will need to increase your intensity and apply more force to make either boat go faster. The difference is in how it feels to make the different boats go fast. Making a sleek boat go fast requires you to apply your force more quickly. Making the slow boat go fast also requires more force, but the speed at which you apply the force will be slower over the course of the rowing stroke.! At a damper setting of 1–4, the indoor rower feels like a sleek racing shell; at the higher numbers, the indoor rower feels like a slow row boat. Regardless of the setting, you will need to increase your effort to increase your intensity.!

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Progression and improving! How do I improve?! • Better flexibility (stretching and mobility work)! • Better form (good efficient form and application of power)! • Better power (deadlifts, sumo deadliest high pulls, pull-ups, ring rows, etc.)!

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How do I apply this during a workout?! All competitive rowers (and sometimes the non-competitive) have a race plan. It is a set of movements they will execute during the race — a “power 10” for example is 10 strokes at either the same stroke rate or higher and a higher intensity or pressure output (think steam power) — in other words - pull harder.! These movements in the race plan usually occur at milestones — every 250 meters, 500, 1000, etc.!

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For 500M workouts, the key is speed, not endurance, so decrease the damper setting to 500M should be a “start”, settling in for the middle or “body”, and a “sprint” finish.!

! Say 1000 meters…! !

Start + “power 10” should get you moving into the first 200-250 meters with a stroke rate >32/34, from there you should settle down the stroke rate to a 26-28 and then row the next 500 meters (or “body”), with 250 meters to go you should increase the stroke rate and intensity for your “sprint” again with the stroke rate of >32/34. You can use this plan to measure how you did and tweak it next time.!

! As the coaches say… always have a plan.! ! Links:!

http://stateoffitnessblog.com/2013/05/15/the-concept-2-rower-damper-explored/! http://www.concept2.com!

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http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/exercise.html#Row!

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Rowing workout with Peter Dressigacker (developer of Concept 2 rower, Big Blade oar, and former US Olympic rower! http://journal.crossfit.com/2009/07/rowings-lessions-with-peter-dreissigacker.tpl! http://journal.crossfit.com/2009/07/rowings-lessions-with-peter-dreissigacker-part-2.tpl! http://journal.crossfit.com/2009/12/rowings-lessions-with-peter-dreissigacker-part-3.tpl!

! Peter’s comments on the damper setting: http://youtu.be/vs158paMa2g! !

Form! http://www.concept2cts.com/markets/crossfit/videogallery.asp?video=peterd!

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CrossFit Journal Article Reprint. First Published in CrossFit Journal Issue 56 - April 2007

Indoor Rowing Damper Settings and Workout Intensity Peter Dreissigacker People often ask us at Concept2 what the damper on our rower does and where to set it for the best workout. The damper setting is important, but it does not determine how much actual work you are doing when you row. Selecting a damper setting is not like selecting how much weight to put on a bar. In the case of the bar, if for one workout you load it with 100 pounds and lift it 10 times, and for the next workout you put 110 pounds on for 10 reps, you have clearly done more work in the second workout. The rower, or “erg,” is different. It does not determine how much work you do; rather, it responds to the amount of force you put into the exercise. The more force you put into each stroke, the more resistance you will feel. Rowing on the erg is really about producing power, and here I would like to clarify what I mean by power. Power is often confused with force, and, although related, they are different. Force applied over a distance yields work. Work integrated over time yields power. By this definition, lifting 10 pounds two feet is the same amount of work as lifting 20 pounds one foot. And if both those lifts are accomplished in one second, they require the same amount of power. Obviously, the speed movement of the two-foot lift would be greater than the speed of the one-foot lift if they both take one second. When a rower does a 500-meter test, the 500 meters represents the amount of work they will do. Everyone doing the 500 meter test will do the same amount of work, regardless of the damper setting. The rower who does that work in the least amount off time

will generate the most power. So an athlete who is using the erg to train for maximum power output should set the damper where they can go a given distance in the shortest time. That is how they will generate the most power. Much like selecting a gear on a bicycle, setting the rower’s damper is a personal choice. You should experiment with different damper settings to find the setting that gives you the best workout and results.

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Damper Settings and Workout Intensity (continued...) At any damper setting, though, you can choose to row easy or row hard. Most people initially prefer to use the higher damper settings (7 to 10) for rowing hard because they don’t have to move as fast to generate a lot of power. Moving more slowly gives you more time during the drive to coordinate the stroke. At a low damper setting (1 to 3), you need to coordinate your drive more quickly in order to generate power. Rowing at a high stroke rate is another way of “moving faster to generate higher power,” but there is a trade-off as “wasted energy” becomes a factor, particularly if your goal is to achieve your best time for a set distance.

a slower starting speed on your next pull. Closing the damper (setting it to a lower number) reduces the air that the fan has to move, so you must get the fan spinning faster in order to generate the power. It’s more like rowing a fast-moving boat where the rower has to be quick in applying force to make the boat go even faster. Finally, the electronic monitor has the job of measuring all these factors and calculating the work so that the readout gives comparable results regardless of where the damper is set. This assures that two athletes rowing the same distance in the same time are in fact putting out the same amount of power. If the setting is lower, the rower will have to be pulling more quickly during the drive, and perhaps (but not necessarily) rowing at a higher stroke rate.

Some coaches of top rowers (big guys scoring in the 6:00 range for 2000 meters) insist that their athletes’ off-water winter training be done at the lower damper settings so that they train at delivering high force quickly—which translates into making a boat go fast You can experience what I mean by this last point the rather than being a big and strong but slow team. This is done specifically for improving boat speed on the water, next time you get on an erg. Pick a pace (time per 500 meters) and a stroke rate but keep in mind that these are that is comfortable for you to “power athletes”; their goal is maintain—perhaps something to produce the most power to like a 2:00 pace and 28 strokes Rowing at a high stroke rate propel the craft as fast possible. per minute. (Note: the monitor is another way of “moving displays the “pace” of each stroke How the damper works in the center display window and fast to generate higher It may be helpful to know how strokes per minute in the upper the Concept2 rower creates the right). During this demonstration power,” but there is a tradeworkload you feel when you pull you will try to make every stroke the handle. As you apply force, you at the 2:00 pace and hold a off as “wasted energy” are both accelerating the mass of constant stroke rate of 28. Start the flywheel and working against in a high damper setting and becomes a factor. the air resistance of the spinning maintain this for a minute, then fan. On the recovery portion of switch to a lower setting and get your stroke, air resistance slows back into the 2:00 pace at 28 the flywheel down. The damper strokes per minute. First, you will controls the amount of air that be able to feel the difference in the fan can move. The more air the quickness of your movement that has to be moved, the more during the drive. You will also be resistance is generated for a given taking more time coming back up fan speed. So, opening the damper the slide on the recovery. The (setting it to a high number) has goal of this exercise is to prove two effects that make your drive to yourself that the same power feel heavier: You are working can be generated at different against greater air resistance for a damper settings and at the same given fan speed, and the flywheel stroke rate. You will need higher slows down more during the force during the drive in a higher recovery, meaning that you will damper setting, but the speed of have to get it moving again from your pull through will be slower.

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Damper Settings and Workout Intensity (continued...) In practice, an athlete will generally row at a lower stroke rate when rowing in the high damper settings. This is because more time is spent on the drive, requiring a rush back up the slide on the recovery in order to achieve a high stroke rate. A rushed recovery can result in wasted energy and leave the athlete unprepared to deliver a best effort on the next drive. It is important to note that, unlike weightlifting, the goal is not to use a higher drag factor as a means of achieving fitness on the indoor rower. If your goal is to train for maximum power output, I suggest trying different damper levels and drag settings, while improving your speed, form, and muscle coordination, to discover where you can achieve the highest power output. This will be where you are able to get your best time for a test distance. Fine tuning the damper setting by adjusting the drag factor In addition to choosing a damper setting, you can also adjust the drag factor of each rower. Drag factor is a numerical value for the rate at which the flywheel decelerates. This number changes with the volume

of air that passes through the flywheel housing. Since higher damper settings allow more air into the flywheel housing, the flywheel decelerates more quickly, resulting in a higher drag factor value. The PM measures the drag factor on the recovery phase of each stroke and uses it to calculate your score (in the units you care about: time, distance, pace, or wattage). This method of “self-calibration” compensates for local conditions and damper settings, making scores on different rowers truly comparable. Indoor racing and the online community and rankings are made possible by this self-calibration. However, because it is compensating for a number of environmental factors (such as temperature, altitude, wind, and lint accumulation inside the flywheel cover), drag factor settings can make different rowers feel different even at the same damper setting. So on an unfamiliar indoor rower, you may need to change the damper setting to make it feel “right” to you. For more detailed information on drag factor and how to view it on your rower’s monitor, see “Understanding Drag Factor” at http://www.concept2.com/us/training/ tools/dragfactor.asp.

Peter Dreissigacker, along with his brother Dick, founded Concept2 as an oar manufacturer in 1976. In 1981, they developed the first Concept2 indoor rower, which rapidly became the standard for windresistance indoor rowers. In addition to his work at Concept2, Peter continues to row competitively both on and off the water, with some backcountry skiing for variety in the winter. He also makes time for painting and drawing, and at 55, is a novice piano student and closet accordion player. The February issue of the CrossFit Journal included Peter’s article, “How to Prepare for an Erg Test,” in which he stated his goal of finishing the 2000-meter race at February’s C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints in under 6:40. He is happy to report that his time of 6:39.2 placed him fourth in the 55-to-59 age category.

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