Help with rowing plan please

I would think that 30-40mins 3 times a week is a good place to start. But have a variety of sessions to keep the interest going.

e.g.
6000m steady

6 x 5 min efforts with 1 min rest between

1k warm up, 4 x 500m 1 min rest, 1k cool down

5000m changing stroke rate every 1k i.e 1000 @ 22 spm (strokes per min), 1000 @ 24 spm , 1000 @ 26 spm then back down


These all beat the monotony of sitting on the rower for 6k at the same pace.

Trying to be nice here but 2:50/500 (especially if your spm is high) suggests that there are big technique improvements that could be made. Have a search on 'Concept 2 Damper setting', the amount of people at the gym who just put it on 10 (including the staff) is amazing.

Lastly, the C2 forum is a friendly place, don't be hesitant to ask questions.

Happy rowing.

GoodLardy wrote: »

@trochanter thank you for your reply. I have my damper set at 4 and I keep my spm at 24/25. Is that considered high? I will keep watching technique videos and see if I can improve that way, as there are no coaches for rowing in my area.

Your damper setting and spm are fine.


I'm male,and weigh 152# today. I row 10k meters a day in an hr a day in 4 intervals of 12-13 min each w/a spm of 26-28 and the damper set on the line between 5 & 6 w/a drag factor of 120. This is a relatively moderate rate of rowing by which I burn 550 cals/day.

The fan lever adjusts the drag factor, which at 4 for you is probably around 100. You can ck your drag factor on your PM. If you don't know what the drag factor is, C2 has a full pg on their website that explains it.

I am NOT rowing for speed or endurance. I am rowing strictly to burn cals to increase my nutritional intake while remaining in maintenance with the side benefit of maintaining my strength and fitness in the process.

Until this month, for the past 6 months I both rowed and lifted. I lifted regularly for 2 years previously and have achieved significant gains in strength and muscular development but I've had enough of that for now. So, all I do now is row and, given my prior strength and muscular development, this is enough for me for now.

What I do would not necessarily make any sense for you or anyone else. So, I don't have any specific plan to suggest. The only thing I will say is that the more you row, the better you will get at it and the fitter and stronger you will become.

Just remember that just because you're on a rower, doesn't mean it has to be a race. If your goal is primarily weight loss, a slow and moderate effort is fine as long as you are burning enough cals to put you at a,sufficient deficit to lose the weight you want to lose.

The PM on the C2 gives me a very accurate estimate of the cals burned but if you are far off the standard weight used to compute the estimate (I believe the standard is around 170), then you may have to make a cal adjustment and C2 has a calculator for that too.

Good luck!

GoodLardy wrote: »

@sgt1372 I haven’t seen the calories burned on mine, I clicked around w the buttons but couldn’t find it. I will head over to the c2 site and see if I can find directions there. I will unfortunately have to adjust the calories because I am quite above 170 for now. I enjoy the rowing very much , but after reviewing the technique videos today again, I see I have lots of work to do. Thank you for the taking the time to reply, I definitely appreciate it!

If you've got a C2 w/a PM5 (or probably any other PM), after you select a specific workout ( say for example 2k meters), you'll get the rowing screen w/2k meters in the upper left hand corner.

You can then scroll thru various measurement options including cal/hr & watts (both in real time) and time/500m (both total and split times) using the "units" button on the left below the screen. You can also vary the way the data is displayedusing the button marked "display" in the middle under the screen. Once you select the units of measurement and display, it stays that way until it is changed.

I just use the display that shows the cal/hr rate, total cals burned, total elaped time, split time (which I find useless) and projected finish time.

I use the real time cal/hr measurement and the projected time to finish to adjust the rate at which I am rowing on the fly. I find cal/hr easier for me to understand and use than watts (which is a more accurate measure of work performed) but is not sensitive enough for me to use to adjust my rowing effort on the fly as cal/hr.

Here's the link to C2's explanation of the relationship between the damper (fan) setting and drag factor: Damper Setting 101

And here's the link to the calorie adjustment calculator if you want/need to use it: Calorie Adjustment Calculator