Today’s rowing was 12K while watching two more lectures on cognitive neuroscience. The first lecture was on the subject of meditation. When I searched for images using the two terms mindful and rowing, the above image was one of the results. It’s from a British website called Breaking Muscle and the web page it is found on is called Mindfulness and is about meditation in connection with working out, exercising and competition.
May your meditations while rowing lead to happy things.
The title of today’s post was a spur of the moment choice of two words, cognitive and rowing, as the words to use when searching for an image to paste at the top of this day’s blog post.
The above image was one of the top results when I searched images for “cognitive rowing” and it was found on an appropriate web page, which has information about exercise being good for the brain. The website is called Mother Nature Network and the particular article is called Exercise Keeps Your Brain Young. I scanned the article but didn’t actually read it because it looked like information I had already been exposed to years ago. But if its news to you that exercise benefits your brain, then give it a read.
The indoor rowing activity today was 12K done while watching two more lectures on cognitive neuroscience. The 12K wasn’t the same as the one done yesterday while watching lectures, however. Today was done differently in that the first 15 minutes was easy rowing for warmup and then the rest of the session alternated between rowing fast for 30 seconds and rowing easy for 150 seconds and repeating that twelve times, using an automatic interval timer to signal each of the time intervals.
Hard rowing requires more mental effort than easy rowing and I discovered that the activity of multi-tasking between trying to focus on what the lecturer was saying and the task of rowing as hard as I could for 30 seconds each time the timer announced it was time to do so… resulted in a slight degrading of the outcomes of both activities. I comprehended less of what was being said during each of the twelve 30 second hard-rowing intervals. Also, I didn’t row as hard as I could have during each of those 30 second intervals, because I was simultaneously trying to pay attention to the lecture.
It was educational in more ways than just what was presented in the lectures.
Happy rowing to you while you keep your brain young.
Today’s session was technically the same as yesterday’s except today’s wasn’t boring. Same 12K distance and two more lectures on video in the same cognitive neuroscience lecture series. But the difference was that today I managed to do the entire 12K without stopping for any breaks. Stopping rowing and taking breaks, it seems, contributes to boring.
The above photo was found among the search results when I searched for images using the terms “don’t stop rowing”. The search engine didn’t come up with any rowing images at all and seemed to “think” that I meant “growing” instead of “rowing.” It’s just as well, because I like the picture and the quotation. The image and its accompanying quotation were found on a website called HarlemCondoLife which is, I assume, most likely in New York. My second guess would be that it’s in the Netherlands, but I think the city by the same name in Netherlands has two consecutive a’s in its name instead of just one.
Happy non-boring rowing to you.
Today’s rowing session was 12K done while focusing on something else. The something else was a series of lectures on cognitive neuroscience for the layman. So that’s where the mental focus was. The rowing was boring but since I wasn’t paying attention to the rowing while watching the lectures, that was okay.
The photo at the top of this page could be of boring rowing or of fun rowing… the photo doesn’t reveal whether its one or the other. The website where that photo was found is a a blog page on a site called Pumpd Nutrition and you can see the whole page (and more, if you wish) at THIS LINK. The particular article where that photo was found is called “Ready, Set, Row!” … so I’m guessing that because of the exclamation mark, which is normally associated with non-boring activities, the photo was of some non-boring rowing.
Happy rowing of whatever type is appropriate for what you’re doing, to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was done 100% online except for a brief preliminary warmup.
The above photo, for those who are interested, was found on row2k.com on THIS PAGE. It is a photo of OTW rowing somewhere in Oklahoma.
The first piece was a 20 minute session scheduled by a guy in England who called it “20 minutes easy” but when I asked him what his easy was, it was 2:00 which I consider hard. He decided to row at 2:05 and I did too. About halfway through the session, RowPro 5 for the Mac had a case of graphics freeze, so I could no longer see what the other guy was doing. But otherwise, the session seemed to be still in progress, so I watched the PM (personal monitor) on the rowing machine instead of the computer screen and aimed for an average pace of the 2:05 that we’d agreed to.
As far as the other guy was concerned, it worked out fine because apparently I kept pace with him fairly well and we finished within a boat length of each other.
The second piece was a 6K that I scheduled. I called it “6K Super Easy” hoping that whoever joined would have a preconceived notion of a pace that wasn’t too fast. The guy who joined said he was fine with a pace of from 2:10 to 2:15, so we did that and finished with an average pace of about 2:10.
Happy rowing at your own definition of easy or whatever you like.
Today’s rowing session was chosen because it is supposed to help increase a person’s VO2 max, if it is done twice a week on non-consecutive days. It was a set of twelve 30 second intervals with 2 1/2 minutes rest after each interval.
The workout suggestion was found on a website called Healthy Living (healthyliving.azcentral.com) and was found on THIS PAGE (<-click to get to that page). It’s a big page, so if you don’t want to bother going to that page, the relevant part of that page where I got the idea for today’s workout was: “VO2 Workout: According to Bicycling.com, sprinting all out for 30 seconds in the red line zone followed by 2 1/2 minutes of easy recovery can improve VO2 max by 3 percent in just four weeks. Do the intervals 12 times per workout, and work out no more than twice a week on nonconsecutive days.”
The website’s definition for the term “red line zone,” is 90% to 100% of maximum heart rate. But it’s not possible to get heart rate up to maximum or even 90% maximum in a mere 30 seconds, so I just rowed as hard as I could for each 30 second interval. Except the first one… during which I had to take my hand off the rowing machine handle for a bit, to make an adjustment.
Thirty seconds passes very quickly and you can row very hard for 30 seconds. Most of the 30 second intervals were done at a calories-per-hour rate of between 1,500 and 1,800 calories per hour.
The rowing session was scheduled and done online, but nobody noticed it in time to join, so I had the fun all to myself and rowed alone.
Happy rowing with a nice measure of zip, to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was done while watching a couple of recorded lectures. There were a few interruptions. It barely worked up any perspiration.
Happy perspiring while rowing to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was composed of two 30 minute pieces and a 9 minute warm down. All three were done online with plenty of inspirational company. I won’t bother to show any screen shots of the warm down – just the two 30 minute pieces.
You can treat each piece as a hill climb and decide in advance whether or not you want to be breathing hard by the time you reach the top of each hill.
I chose to be breathing easy by the time I reached the top of the first 30 minute hill and to be breathing a little harder at the top of the second one. The second of the two 30 minute sessions consumed 29 calories more than the first, so I didn’t work very much harder, though I was breathing a lot harder at its finish, because the second session ended with a sprint.
Happy indoor rowing hill climbing to you.
Today’s main piece was a 30 minute online session with three other rowers. Two of the others were in Europe and one was in the US (Connecticut).
Each person rowed to the beat of his own drummer. My plan for the 30 minutes was to keep the average pace at 2:15 for the first five minutes and then at the beginning of each subsequent five minutes, to increase the pace enough so that the average pace of the session would increase by -1 seconds.
So the first five minutes was done with the Concept 2 monitor displaying an average pace of 2:15.0/500 meters. The second five minutes was completed with the average pace sped up a tiny bit, to 2:14/500 meters and so on until the session ended with the final average pace displayed to be 2:10.0/500 meters.
It felt good. I seem to be coughing up a tiny bit of phlegm lately for some reason and the rowing helps to clear it out. To help a bit more, today I started taking doses of an expectorant syrup whose active ingredient is guaifenesin and which has only a small amount of the toxin known as high fructose corn syrup. (Dr. Robert Lustig, MD, has identified high fructose corn syrup as a toxin).
Happy and easy-breathing rowing to you.
Today’s session was 12K done online in the company of one other rower who was in Europe. I did the first 6K easy, the last 6K a bit harder and the last 500-800 meters served as a warm down.
May rowing enhance your health and happiness.