Rowing.  The bane of my existence.  I run marathons, I do CrossFit, and rowing takes the prize as being one of the most challenging and detested things I do.  I am not very good at it.  As a matter of fact, I’m not very good at it at all.  I consider myself to be in pretty good shape overall and it is not uncommon to find me panting in the corner and holding my heaving stomach after a rowing session.  For those of you that are unfamiliar with the sport of rowing, I decided today’s post would be totally devoted to the history and benefits of one of the oldest sports in creation: rowing.

It all started with a man on a boat.  Could you have guessed?  The earliest recorded references to rowing go all the way back to 1430 BC in Egypt.  However, the first known ‘modern’ rowing races began when professional watermen (only men) who provided ferry and taxi service across the River Thames (in London) placed wagers on their trips across the river.  Formal competitions ensued.  While the boats and procedures have long sense been updated, if you have any imagination or have seen older movies you can picture what these boats and rowers looked like, long skinny boats with long oars (one on each side) to efficiently cut through the river.

This sport still lives on today and is in fact one of the oldest and most popular sports in the Olympic Games.  I, however, practice indoor rowing.

Concept2 Rower

Indoor rowing is used to simulate the action of boat rowing.  Indoor rowers (or ergometers) became commonplace around 1900, although at that time they did not do their job of simulating actual rowing very accurately.  It was more of a torture device.  In 1988, the indoor rower that we know today came to fruition.  It is a machine built for training and power measurement.  Ergometer is greek meaning “work measurer.”  The rower is built around a flywheel connected to a chain and a handle.  The flywheel has a braking mechanism that is intended to simulate the feel of the oar through water.

Rowing form is something that I continually try to perfect.  Essentially you have to get into a deadlift position while sitting on the rower: back straight, shoulders back, and your knees as close to your chest as possible.  On the actual pull, you push out with your legs and pull the bar to right around your solar plexus (mid-chest).  When you get tired (and it doesn’t take me long) my back tends to curve and I slouch my shoulders.  You lose a lot of power and run the risk injury to your lower back.  Much of the power behind the pull needs to come from your legs.  Proper breathing is also integral to good rowing form.  I tend to hold my breath which inhibits my force on the pulls.

One of the things I do like about rowing is the fact that you can “row” for many different facets of training.  You can row for calorie burn, for watts (power), for meters (distance), or for time.  Focusing on any one of these aspects will give you the benefit rowing affords.  Rowing primarily works the cardiovascular system.  However, while cardio is the focus, rowing also stresses many muscle groups throughout the body anaerobically, therefore rowing is often referred to as a strength-endurance sport.

Today’s rowing class was based on rowing for calories.  You can change the display on the rowers to specifically show the calibration you want to focus on.  Two of our very talented trainers (Brian being one of them) competed in the CrossFit Sectional competition a couple of weekends ago.  One part of a workout was a 5-minute row for calories.  That is an excruciatingly long time!  They developed a strategy of gaining one calorie per pull.  Sounds easy, right?  One measly calorie per pull?  Um, not so much.  You have to pull hard enough that you could pull down a 100-year-old tree (complete with a tire swing and tree house) while sitting down.  Throw a couple of kids in the tree house too.  Anyway, I managed a fair amount of 1 calorie per pull pulls and then I ran out of gas.  It was more like 2 pulls per calorie.  Tough stuff!

Our workout today alternated between maximum calorie pulls and regular rowing.  Here was the workout:

Row Class 2/23/2010

500m- max calorie pull & time

500m- regular row (calories & time)

500m- max calorie pull & time

1000m- max calorie pull & time

So, after the warm up and lesson, my results on the WOD are as such:

33 calories in 1:58

31 calories in 2:06

29 calories in 1:59

59 calories in 4:2?

Again, you’re probably looking at that and wondering how I could complain so much about something so small.  Firstly, those calorie counts are not actual calories.  Those are calculated based on the amount of work executed on the rower.  My actual calories burned will be different.  Secondly, it is freaking hard.  You have to have lots of power (watts) to ramp up the calories, and to cover the distance in meters faster.  It’s a great sport because it is a challenge for everyone, man or woman, no matter your athletic ability.

This might have been a boring post for those of you that are “in the know” about rowing, but for others I hope this makes you want to give it a try.  No matter how much I moan and groan and bellyache about it; it is an excellent exercise that is going to make me an all-around better athlete.

TODAY I LOVE: hot cocoa and getting my hair done today

SONG OF THE DAY: “Land Down Under” by Men at Work