Let’s face it. We would all rather be on the water. But there are many instances where it is simply impractical to be on the water as often as we might like. Even if we were, the weather and the water become the biggest variables. It’s hard to tell what kind of strength and conditioning progress you’re really making off the erg.
For example, an 80/20 polarized rowing erg training plan would include a majority of workouts that would be considered low intensity. But what does that look like out on the water? Sometimes you have wind, sometimes wake, sometimes other boats to maneuver around, sometimes you’re going upstream, sometimes downstream. Even though the water is where we learn how to make boats really fast, it’s tough to get a truly accurate assessment of intensity on the water because of all of these variables.
What is convenient about erging is that it is a constant in a sport with so many variables. We know that a 2:00 split time on one erg is roughly equivalent to a 2:00 split time on another erg. There are no random inefficiencies introduced like you often get on the water. So we need the erg to ensure that we’re getting the most efficient workout we can get from our time working on fitness.
The key, then, becomes optimizing how we spend our erg time.
Anyone can hop on the erg and pull on the handle until they are red in the face and call it a day. But that doesn’t necessarily make you measurably fitter or faster, and actually can set you back quite a bit if that’s all you’re doing. Injury and burnout can very quickly catch up with you.
So if again we consider our 80% low intensity workouts, we need a way to ensure that we’re staying within our low intensity bounds. It’s important for not only to avoid overtraining and injury, but especially for adaptation to have a chance to occur in our bodies. As we start to race other people, either on the water or in the erg room, we start to lose the efficiency with which adaptation occurs, and you may notice your gains slowing. The converse is also true on our 20% high intensity days; we need a way to ensure that we’re hitting our high intensity intervals with the right amount of power and strokes per minute to get the most out of our time on the erg.
We don’t want to spend more time on the erg. We just want to optimize the time we do spend.
BitCrew will customize a rowing erg training plan for you based on these same principles and guide you through each workout so you know you’re getting the most efficient workout you can get. As your body adapts and you progress and your fitness level improves, your workouts will adapt as well. Soon you’ll be looking back at where you started and be surprised at how far you’ve come.
If you’re going to spend time on the erg, spend it wisely.
Why choose between something that’s fun and something else that will optimize your training time to maximize your performance on the course or out on the trail or road?
Why not have both? BitCrew is fun, motivating, captures all of your data in a way that can easily be reviewed to chart your progress, while simultaneously offering expertly crafted training sessions and training plans. All in one place.
Crews are groups of users who can join private sessions together. Crews make it much easier to repeatedly invite the same group of users to multiple sessions and manage that list of users over time.
