Rowing, difference between light, moderate and heavy

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PineappleJ84
PineappleJ84 Posts: 9 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I started rowing about 2 weeks ago with a beginners schedule. It states to do between 20 and 22 as frequency. From day 1 I've had 29 to 33. I got it on the lowest intensity. I was just wondering, is this light or moderate. I'm starting to contemplate to fill it in as moderate. I row almost every day, usually after 2 rowing days I have one off day, Not looking into heart-rates that effective, but it shoots up from 113 in the resting periods to 140 - 150 bpm's. I tried looking it up online but the difference on most sites seems to be light exercise if you do it 3 times a week, moderate if you do 5 times and heavy if you do every day.

Thanks :)

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  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    A lot depends on what type of rowing machine you're using, and what the action is like. The factors that play into intensity are resistance level, stroke frequency and stroke length.

    At your stage the resistance level is the main element of how hard you're working, so personally I'd increase that until you're comfortably at the correct stroke rate for your session. Once you're comfortably at a higher stroke rate you'll find that you can vary intensity through varying stroke rate and length.

    That said your stroke rate seems lower than I'd anticipate, even for a beginner plan.

    Personally I have a WaterRower, so a fixed resistance unless I change the volume of water in the tank. I'll warm up starting at about 25spm and move up to about 40spm. I can do a 10km session at 40spm quite comfortably, but to increase the intensity I'll do 500 metres at 45, or 200 metres at 50spm.

    I would class a 10km session as high intensity, and one of thoe interval sessions gets well into highest intensities.

    As far as HR is concerned, I do find it harder to get my HR into the higher ranges on the rowing machine than when I'm running. So I'll generally find that I'm doing 130-140bpm rather than 140-160 in steady state running, and in intervals I'll be doing 160-170bpm rather than 180-200bpm as I would when running intervals. That said, I'm reasonably fit, so my normal basic level heart rate is about 70-80 prior to starting exercise, 113 is quite high.

    In terms of intensity, at the moment I'd suggest you're probably on light, but if you increase the resistance a bit then you'll veer into moderate.
  • PineappleJ84
    PineappleJ84 Posts: 9 Member
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    I got a Kettler Coach rowing machine, working with magnetic resistance.

    Keep in mind, I really got a ****ty basic condition here ;) (alot better now than 3 weeks ago though!). My usual heartbeat is between 70 and 80bpm. It's 113 whilst having the 30 seconds periods of rest between every 3 minute rowing spans. So not prior to rowing (Like rowing 3 minutes (140-150) bpm - 30 seconds rest (113) Hope that's a bit clearer).

    The stroke rate recommended is 20-22, I'm already doing 30-33 strokes (so going too fast. I can breathe in when pulling and breathe out when going back without getting struggles with the breathing (like too fast or too slow if that makes sense).

    I thought I was on light yea, so thanks for sort of verifying it. Will put up intensity when I can manage 30 minutes on 0. Then I am going to row 30 minutes on 0 and work up the schedule again on intensity 1.

    (the schedule is like this btw:

    Step 1: 5x1 minutes/ 6x1 minutes/ 7x1 minutes/ 8x1 minutes (interval of 30 seconds every 1 minutes)
    Step 2: 5x2 minutes/ 6x2 minutes/ 7x2 minutes/ 8x2 minutes (interval of 30 seconds every 2 minutes)
    Step 3: 5x3 minutes/ 6x3 minutes/ 7x3 minutes/ 8x3 minutes (interval of 30 seconds every 3 minutes)
    Step 4: 4x4 minutes/ 5x4 minutes/ 6x4 minutes/ 7x4 minutes (interval of 30 to 60 seconds every 4 minutes)
    Step 5: 4x5 minutes/ 5x5 minutes/ 6x5 minutes/ 7x5 minutes (interval of 30 to 60 seconds every 4 minutes)
    Step 6: 20 minutes/ 22 minutes/ 24 minutes/ 26 minutes/ 28 minutes/ 30 minutes (add 2 minutes every training you do

    Use a stroke rate of 20 -26 per minute. Keep a day of rest in between training. It's meant for people who just starting to get into rowing or people coming back to rowing. The idea is to build up the rowing till you can do a steady 30 minutes)

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