Eat to exercise or exercise to eat: which describes you?

I’d like to say ‘eat to exercise’
But I think I’m a little of both.
Lol

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »

An active lifestyle involves overcoming various injuries, aches, and pains. Jogging particularly seems to identify any problem practically anywhere in your body. But I've had back, neck, and hand problems with cycling and shoulder problems with swimming. With time and care, I've so far overcome all problems and been able to keep exercising.

My only solace is that my less active contemporaries have similar problems. Some problems actually get worse with inactivity, notably lower back issues. Also, some are overweight, making it harder on lower extremities, etc.

My point is that being active can help you to avoid injuries in many cases. Many parts of your body will get stronger with use, including tendons, ligaments, and bones. However, it takes much longer for hard tissues to respond than muscle, so you need to work up slowly (over months).

Exactly.

When I consider who among my age-mates is sidelined most often or longest because of pains and injuries, it's the inactive/overweight folks, not the healthy-weight (or close)/active ones. (I'm talking about people around +/- ten years of me, at age 65.)

As merely one example, both a rowing buddy (active/healthy weight) and a artist buddy (who is inactive/overweight) needed hip replacements. The rower was back rowing exactly 30 days to the day after surgery (and rowing is a leg sport). The artist was at an inpatient rehab nearly that long (2+ weeks) unable even to get along at home, then struggled with mobility for months. (The rower's around 10 years older, besides . . . 70-something at the time.) There are a lot of reasons why they had such different paths, but most of them come down to weight and activity history.

Sorry for the off topic question but, do you think this is the same movement pattern as your rowing activity? In other words, if someone is good at cable rows does it translate well to rowing in general?

Mellouk89 wrote: »

(snip for reply length)

Sorry for the off topic question but, do you think this is the same movement pattern as your rowing activity? In other words, if someone is good at cable rows does it translate well to rowing in general?

No.

Details of the answer differ for machine rowing vs. on-water rowing shells, but still "no", either way.

There are of course various types of cable rows, which hit somewhat different muscles, but most of those muscles are of secondary importance to rowing machines/boats. Leg/back strength is much more central to effective rowing, and that's only the strength side of it. I'm not a strength training expert, not even strength-conditioning for rowing expert, but things like squats and deads are more material than cable/weight rows, when it comes to rowing power.

Then, as @lietchi said, cardiovascular capability is central to rowing fast over any meaningful distance. Strength athletes can perform very well over short rowing machine distances (like 500m), but without CV conditioning, not as well at what rowers consider real race distances (2k is the main sprint race distance). Strong cyclists often come up to speed relatively fast as rowers, because they have strong legs and CV systems. Elite rowers have high VO2max, big/muscular hearts, etc.

Rowing is also a technique sport, more than many people appreciate. Most people you see machine rowing at gyms (including trainers) have sub-par technique: They could hit a faster pace at the same general physical-exertion cost if their technique were better . . . often a much faster pace.

When it comes to technique, even strong machine rowers are not necessarily the fastest on water. (There's a rower saying about this: "Ergs don't float.") There are things that don't hurt machine rowing performance, and even a small number that might improve machine rowing performance, that will slow down a boat, or even quickly turn the rowing into swimming. (A racing single is about 12 inches wide at the water line, around 26 feet long: It's easy to swim. Another rower saying: "It's not 'if you swim' in a racing single, it's 'when you swim'".) That's without even getting into the extra layer of technique that applies on water, doesn't exist on the machine, like bladework.

If you're a weight lifter/strength trainer, and you want to row boats or machines, don't skip leg day. 😉

As you say, this is off topic on this thread. If you want to discuss it further, start another thread over in Exercise, tag me.

I neither erg nor watt and when I first started walking, I walked to eat.

Things definitely morphed over time and I now definitely mostly want to move for different reasons.

Given that I seldom exceed what I perceive to be relatively moderate exercise I don't know that I officially *exercise*; I just enjoy spending time *moving*, even if my Fitbit often gets confused and calls my "moving" "exercise"!

ninerbuff wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

I'm not the person you asked, but cable rows are strength exercises, and rowing is cardio. Being able to pull heavy weights for perhaps 10 or 15 reps is very different to rowing (less strength, more endurance).
As for the movement itself, sure, similar arm movement, but rowing also has leg involvement, not just upper body. Correct technique is more complicated than cable rows.

Not really comparable IMHO 🙂

Well kinda depends on the intensity of the rowing and hand/elbow position. If you're talking competitive rowing....................hell no. Even rowing on a cardio machine doesn't simulate it just like running on a treadmill doesn't simulate actual running on a road or hard surface. If you're talking about a leisure row in a row boat, the muscles used are also used in cable rowing. However in free rowing, elbows tend to move around more, whereas with cable rowing, most people just keep them close to the body on a narrow grip like the one above.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

There's quite a lot of similarity between rowing on a machine (of the Concept 2 style) and rowing a standard rowing shell (the kind with a sliding seat), especially when sculling (two oars per person). There's more similarity (machine to shell) in the legs/back part of the stroke, somewhat less in the arms part, and the back/arms phase of the drive is quite different between sweep (one oar per person) and sculling because of the rotational component in sweep that's absent from sculling.

I don't have an informed opinion about whether the difference between treadmill & outdoor running is a bigger difference than that between machine rowing and sliding-seat shell rowing. My ignorant impression is that outdoor-competing runners (collegiate and elite) largely train on indoor tracks rather than treadmills, if not training outdoors. Rowers at the higher levels, though, routinely train on C2 rowing machines (sometimes as a component of training even in on-water season), though there are other types of simulations available (like rowing tanks). However, there's nothing I'm aware of for rowing training that's as close to the real thing as indoor track running would be to outdoor track running.

Yes, cable rows use basically the same muscles as the least important part (to power/pace) of the rowing stroke, on either that type of machine, or in that type of rowing shell. That generality is less true for sweep, too. I'm not extremely knowledgeable about all types of cable or freeweight rows, but I'm not aware of any that would simulate the arm motion in sweep very well.

Rowing a fixed seat rowboat is a whole different deal, and not something I have expertise in.

Still off topic, though.

Do I need to get a signature block with my rowing vita/certs in it? Nah, I don't think so. 😆

Neither. I eat for weight loss, and exercise for fitness.
Exercise burns so little calories that I don't even think of them, I don't track calories burned. I workout 5 days a week, but it is solely to build aerobic endurance, and to build muscle, for overall better fitness and health.

Technically I do make sure to get enough protein because I am weightlifting, so in that way some of what I eat is for exercise I guess, but I see it more as eating properly for my needs, it is the only food that I eat with exercise in mind.