Rowlike Redgrave II: Revenge of the Rowing Machine
You have mastered the style, you have wiped out those energy wasting errors and your rowing is now a symphony of power and precision. Great. Now what? Time to step up to your own olympic challenge.
There were several reasons for this.
First, they had the incentive of being the best in the world, and wanting to stay that way. Second, they had an East German coach bellowing at them if they slowed down for a second, Third, working at the limits of physical endurance they had the bonus excitement of not knowing if they were about to throw up or fall off at any moment.
You and I, on the other hand, probably don’t have any of the above - except possibly the third if we go training after a heavy night out. Us mere mortals tend to plateau - we do all right and then hit a point where training doesn’t seem to bring any benefits. Sure you can try and get through it by training harder, but doing the same thing for longer can get tedious. Going for a gutbusting personal best on speed every time can end up being off-putting, to the point where you dread strapping your feet into the rower and may end up avoiding the gym altogether. Interval training, however, aims to add a little spice to your gym life by mixing and matching on pace, stretching both your speed and your endurance. Whether you’re looking for extra power, or simply the motivation to keep on shedding those pounds, interval training can help.
Basics
First get an idea of your standard pace (and in the process give yourself a yardstick to measure progress) by rowing for 30 minutes without a break. Warm up for five minutes beforehand,and try not to go off too fast at the begining. Pace yourself so that you have given it all you’ve got by the end of the half-hour. Not only should that be a nice fat-burning workout for you, but it gives you something to compare with others online at sites like Concept II (www.concept2.co.uk). Once you’ve got that yardstick it’s time to try one of the following.
Pyramid row
This works much like pyramid sets in weightlifting. Start off gently with a warm-up for a couple of minutes, then start your pyramid. Two minutes fast rowing, followed by two minutes at a pace where you would feel easy enough to chat while rowing (health and safety note: don’t chat to strangers while you row - they will hate you, especially if they themselves are breathless). Follow that with three minutes fast, then three minutes easy, then four minutes fast, four minutes easy. That’s the pyramid climbed, now for the way back down. After four minutes easy it’s back to three minutes fast, then three easy, two fast, then two easy. You get the picture. Feeling hard? Try starting your pyramid at three minutes and going up to five, and if that doesn’t get you, then try starting at four and going on to six. The mathematicians among you will have spotted that the effort curve rises sharply each time you notch up the start of your pyramid.