Just an update on this as I was the original poster.
Had concept 2 since mid Dec. Love it. Def complimenting the cycling. I had FTP of 234 back at start of SSB mid 2 at start Oct. completed it and then wasn’t on a programme until last week when I retested at 254. In between I did some outdoor solo and group, odd indoor alongside some rowing. Am convinced the aerobic aspect of the rowing contributed towards the ability to hit the higher ftp despite a good six weeks not on a plan. Like cycling with power data it is easy to target and achieve measurable improvements.
Usually do 2-3 sessions per week. Quite often recently just so about 20m / 5k. Depending on how I’m feeling I will either push hard or just steady at around 2:10 pace.
Want to start doing more interval style stuff to increase my power - as my lungs and heart are good from cycling. Also going to get some weights to add power. I like it as a machine. Enjoy more than the turbo at moment.
Want to do a 7min 2k this year. Pb currently 7:38 though that was set a month ago so may be able to beat it now.
I would compare the 7 min 2K with breaking 60 minutes for 10 miles running or 25 miles cycling.
The best I ever managed was 7:01 (Crash B in Boston USA).
If you really want to improve your stroke and build strengt perform some 20 spm work. Try for 2:00 for 30 minutes so 7500 metres. It takes a lot of concentration as you need to focus on every stroke but it does give big benefits.
I built up to doing 60 minutes at 20spm and that is a workout. The bonus is that you can try and improve on how many metres you achieve which is definitely a sign of an improving stroke.
For me, during competitive rowing days, cycling was just part of breaking otherwise very boring erg/water routine. And this was between 100-150k a week with weights in the morning. However, I did try to race and TT a little as these somehow made me a better rower, but not other way around. I was heavy. Had massive torque, and high cruising speed, but no spark when it was needed. I thought this must be due to which fibers were used in two sports. Most of the rowing training is happening in range of 16-28spm, while high speed race work would be in the range of 28-40spm. That is way too low for any kind of cycling other than grinding. You may notice that most rowers when they are out cycling they sit at around 80rpm or lower (my friends do anyway) and grind grind grind and with their extremely high pain tolerance, they can do this forever, until they need to raise the cadence to 90 and 100+, that’s when their legs lose coordination, heart rates go sky high and all that.
The other major difference between two sports is how energy is dispensed. Rowing races are 2k, it means everything is given in these 6-8 minutes, while in cycling it is all about saving the energy for hours for the end. Two different mindsets…
Anyway, back to the original question. I think, cycling for rowing - yes, rowing for cycling - not too sure…
I am primarily cycling competitively now, but I would still love to have an erg at home. But not to improve my cycling, but my overall form.
After thinking a little, I think rowers generally do well when coming into cycling because they bring that huge engine developed while rowing. 80% of rowing training is aerobic.
The above TSS chart shows my cycling TSS for the last two years. From Sept to Feb each year, 80 to 90% of my workouts are indoor rowing on a C2 with some Zwifting on rollers to keep the cycling legs engaged. Usually the cycling is Z2/3 @ 90+ rpm. I jump into the SSBHV plan in the first week of February and set my FTP about 10 watts lower than the end of the prior season. I gradually increase my FTP a few watts at a time as the workouts become more manageable. 2 to 3 months of bike training and I am back to where I was at the beginning of the previous summer.
No. I keep an Excel spreadsheet where I record my daily WO. I don’t try to measure TSS but I estimated it to be between 400 and 500 per week.
The TSS chart is strictly cycling. I would usually Free Ride for 20 minutes easy after rowing. During holidays I would do some Zwifting but nothing intense.
I think they are complementary and I wish I still had my concept2 although I do not know how I would find the hours to row as well.
Nice spreadsheet. I notice you don’t appear to do much at around 20 spm. I would have thought that type of workout would have built up glute and quad strength which would be good for cycling.
In years past I followed the Wolverine Plan. The strength/endurance component starts at 16 spm. Here’s part of my 2010 log. I was doing alternating 2 minutes at 16 spm @ 2:04 pace and 18 min at 2:00 pace. Every day I would bump up one of those two minutes by 2 spm and the increased pace. I was eventually up to part of the WO at 24 spm at 1:49 pace. It was quite tiring but effective. I like to try different things every year. I was 10 years younger then but that was my best year with a 6:33.7 2000m.
Another former rower here (~8 years)…I still try to do a good block (3ish months) of rowing training at least once a year.
I basically take all the cycling concepts and just apply them to rowing. With a PM5 monitor on your concept 2 and the ErgData app, you can collect power and hr during your workouts. This can then be synced to TrainingPeaks (a little convoluted, it has to go through the concept2 logbook website). In TP you can set your rowing FTP and zones and TSS is calculated for you the same as with cycling.
Since I started with TR I have been manually doing TR workouts on the rowing machine during that block. Set the monitor to the interval and rest lengths, then just calculate the target (or targets, if an over-under) manually. The big difference is that I take the recovery between intervals as full rest (as someone above noted, just going easy on the rowing machine is actually pretty stressful on your back).
I can’t say whether rowing is or has helped my cycling. I was a pretty competitive rower when I was in college (sub-6 2k). Now 18 years later, my cycling watts are pretty high, but I’m far too heavy for my W/kg to be anything but a little above avg for a TR user. One thing it definitely did help is that I have a very highly developed sense of pacing and appetite for pain during FTP tests (though I find I’m willing to actually do those kinds of tests less and less frequently these days).
I find that my sprint power is typically highest in the spring (immediately after erging) and declines through the year as I start to work on fatigue resistance.
The other significant advantage of erging is the development of core strength and the ability to transfer the power that you do have, to the pedals. I still use the erg to warm up for my indoor training sessions and do some hard pulls for leg openers.
Another thought on erging. Maybe Zwift will start to transfer the erging culture from pure power to a W/kg model if it becomes more popular. At 180 lbs, I am lumped into the heavyweight division with competitors who are typically much larger and stronger. There is no disadvantage to being a larger physical specimen on an erg. The lightweight division is sub-165 lbs. My goal every year is to get my weight down to 165. Unfortunately, my discipline is stronger on the erg than it is in the kitchen .
tl;dr: the reason there’s no W/kg culture in rowing is that there are no hills in rowing.
In rowing, weight only impacts the drag of the water on the boat. The force of that drag grows at a far, far lower rate per kg of weight than the force from gravity on hills. Maybe it’s similar to CdA.
It would be interesting to know who had the highest W/kg. The lightweights or the heavyweights. You could probably guess at the lightweights being 164-ish lbs and calculate the W/kg but you would have to ask the heavyweight for their weight at race time.
Look at things like the wilks score in powerlifting. Human performance doesn’t generally scale in a (performance/ kg) fashion… usually you have to raise the weight to some exponent less than 1 in order to properly account for improvements from increased size.
