The above photo shows one way to combine pushups with use of a rowing machine. But that’s not how I did it today.
Today was 1/2 marathon of rowing interspersed with pushups and other stuff. In other words, the 1/2 marathon was interrupted multiple times while the clock that was timing it kept on ticking, which is why it took so long.
Happy pushing and pulling with a rowing machine.
The above picture was found on an Irish rowing website. If you’re in Ireland and want to check it out, the website is called Rowing Ireland.
Today’s activity for me was some strength-training/pushups sets mixed in with a half marathon total distance on the Concept 2 Model D, which is the same kind as the machines you can see in the photo above.
I used the first few minutes of the half marathon as a warm up for the first sets of pushups, did those sets and then rowed some more before doing the next sets, etc until the strength-training was completed.
The half-marathon dragged out for quite a few hours because of that and also because I did a few other things and had a few conversations with Diane at various times before finally finishing the half-marathon after Diane left the house to do some grocery shopping.
As a result, I didn’t work up much of a sweat but nonetheless managed to burn about 1,200 calories or perhaps a couple hundred calories more (?) if you include whatever calories were burned with the strength-training.
The latest results of strength-training program will be found in the menu area, “Current Plan”.
Happy long, drawn out or otherwise rowing to you.
Today’s rowing consisted of two pieces. The first was the higher tech session, because it was done online. Doing a rowing session online is actually easy, but I consider it “higher tech,” because it not only involved the Concept 2 rowing machine and its own computer which is called the PM, but also it involves another computer which runs the RowPro software. That computer running RowPro connects to both the PM and to the internet. Via the internet, a connection is made to the Digital Rowing/Oarbits server in Houston. And other people who are rowing with RowPro, all over the world, can also connect to that same server in Houston at the same time as you, so you can row with them via the internet.
The first session was 30 minutes, with one other person who was located in England. It was not a race and we rowed within a few meters of each other’s boats, from start to finish.
The screenshot below shows some people who are all racing each other using higher tech of RowPro while their machines are all connected to one server. You can see that video at THIS LINK. That video is less than two minutes (it was a very short race) and everyone in the room who was not rowing applauds, when the race is finished.
So… it is possible for people to race each other using RowPro while they are all in the same room, but it can also be done with each rower and his/her machine in different rooms anywhere in the world.
The second session today was the Lower Tech of the two, because it only involved using the rowing machine and its PM. For the second session, the PM was set for a custom 3-interval session which consisted of 500 meters with 30 seconds rest, 1,000 meters with 30 seconds rest and 500 meters as the last interval. The second session was done for this month’s challenge on the C2CTC website. The goal was to row the first 500m interval at a rating of 22, the second 1K interval at 26 and the last 500m interval at 30.
There was also a strength training session today. If you want to see the results, they are going to be posted, along with the strength-training plan, in the page of this blog that can be found via the tab named “Current Plan”.
Happy higher or lower tech rowing to you.
The inspiration for today’s workout was a youtube video which I’ve resorted to a few times before but which I’ve not gotten tired of yet. It is called Turin silver skiffs 2012 and the actual rowing in the video is around 10K. The guy who is wearing the GoPro camera and doing the actual rowing is a young British rower.
Before starting the video and rowing along with it, I chose a custom RowPro session of 11K distance. Then I started the video. The actual race doesn’t start until a couple minutes into the video, but I started about 40 seconds ahead of the actual race start, since I would be rowing about 1,000 meters further. The guy who is rowing has to row against the current and much slower than me for the first half of the race course. Then he turns around and rows with the current and has a pace much faster than mine for the second half. I chose paces which resulted in me finishing the 11K at about the same time as he finished 10K.
When people race together online using RowPro and the digitalrowing.com Oarbits server, they usually follow the race with a 9 minute warm down but 4 minutes seemed more than enough to warm down after today’s 11K which was done at less than a race pace.
A minor software glitch showed up when RowPro generated the main session report. It’s visible on the line for the 16th split.
Though today would have normally been a day for strength-training, I skipped it today and will try to make a spreadsheet for the results of the new strength-training program, before doing the next session, so they can be displayed in this blog.
Here are screenshots from today’s indoor rowing:
Happy and refreshing rowing to you.
Today’s rowing was preceded by a new approach to pushups/strength-training. More about that later or in a following post, because there isn’t much time before dinner to write today’s post.
After pushups, I started to row 11K but there were interruptions so it wasn’t finished. An interesting video I watched on youtube is the one above, called Rowing HR and POV which has some interesting real-time readouts displayed on the screen. It shows the heart rate of one of the rowers (second from top right corner of the screen) simultaneous with the instantaneous speed of the boat in mph (bottom left of screen). It also shows accumulated distance (top left). Top right of screen is a heart rate graph. Bottom right of screen is a representation of the boat’s position on the course they row.
May you derive much happiness from your rowing.
After rowing, Ness was happy. But even if your name is not Ness, there is happiness for you after rowing because aerobic exercise that is sufficiently vigorous significantly elevates the happy mixture your body is capable of manufacturing and spreading throughout your body. Which includes your brain. Which is somehow connected to your mind.
The above photo addresses another subject related to happiness: a person’s relationship to God. I found this photo while looking for rowing photos, even though it doesn’t show any rowing. It is located on a blog relating to its pictured theme, at THIS LINK.
Today’s rowing consisted of 11K while watching two DVDs about the next strength-training/pushups program I’m going to do. Here’s a hint: It won’t be a continuation of the “7 Days To 100 Pushups” program. It will be something different and in my opinion better, but it will still focus on pushups as its general exercise specialty.
The DVD-watching of the two instructional videos seemed to help enhance being focused while rowing. The only break I took while rowing was for the purpose of swapping DVDs. The session was done at a mostly constant, easy pace with the exception of the aforementioned break and a moderate sprint during the second-to-last of the 20 splits into which this session was divided by RowPro software.
Yes, my happiness level was enhanced afterwards.
Below is a view of today’s session from its information screen in my Concept2.com online logbook:
Much happiness derived from rowing to you.
I kept my eyes open… but the champion rower who was in the stroke position in the race video pictured above rowed with her eyes closed.
Today was a double-duty day which started with a little rowing to warmup and then a strength-training/pushups session, with rowing to occupy the rest times between pushups sets. After that, I chose a POV video of the coxswain’s view of the winners of the 2012 HOCR W8+. I chose a video of the women, because I had a better chance of keeping up with them, than with a crew of young men. It was quite a workout, nonetheless especially considering that I also let myself have a little head start of some gentle rowing after starting the video and before the race actually started.
Nothing to brag about but here’s the results of the last session of the 10th week of pushups/strength-training (on the bottom line labeled F for Friday of week 10):
Happy inspirational rowing to you.
Today’s exercise time was divided into four pieces as follows: (1) 4,528 total meters rowed while warming up for and resting in between doing sets of pushups. (2) 8,000 meters mostly easy while watching a few videos of crews racing the 2K. I rowed faster for about 1,000 meters of that time, when syncing with the rating of one of the crews. (3) 2,000 meters at a vigorous but not all-out pace, when racing against a video of a crew of lightweight 8+ who were themselves racing a 2K. They finished about 100 meters ahead of me, after which I slowed down for the final 100 meters. (4) a warm down of 520 meters very easy.
The one piece that was 2K in length is the one referenced in the title of this post and it will also be the only one shown in the screenshots, because it was the most interesting one. That 2K burned 131 calories and it would have been a few more, if I hadn’t slowed down when the crew I was racing finished about 100 meters ahead of me. All totaled, today’s rowing burned 814 calories and went a rowing distance of 15,048 meters.
Today’s strength training results were somewhat ambiguous but I’m happy with them.
Happy burning of calories to you.
You can take the applied meaning of the phrase “just ducky” in reference to today’s rowing either way and you will be right. By “either way,” I mean you can take it literally in the most common sense or sarcastically.
Today’s rowing was partly used as warmup and rest activity during a strength-training, pushups workout. That part of the rowing was just ducky in the sarcastic sense.
The last 2/3 of the session was done partly to music and partly in synchronization with videos of people rowing. That rowing was nice, in the more common, non-sarcastic use of the phrase “just ducky.”
Below are screen shots of today’s rowing results and the strength-training session.
Below are the strength-training results. You might notice that I didn’t make any progress and in fact seemed to regress. I guess that was a result of taking a whole week off. I was really surprised – thought that taking 7 days off would leave me the same or a bit stronger, though I had no scientific or experiential reason for those thoughts except that I thought that the week-to-week, every day muscle-soreness which I’d been having ever since starting the strength-training indicated that my muscles never recovered from the workouts from session-to-session and that if they were given enough time to stop being sore, maybe they’d be stronger than if they were never given enough time to lose the soreness.
Guess I was wrong and a constant, low level of soreness is a good thing?
Happy just ducky rowing to you.
Today was the day for me, if not anyone else, to do the May 2017 C2CTC challenge which was called BW Rowing Sprint Monster. Before doing that, I did 15K at an easy pace while listening to music from a youtube playlist called “music for erg half marathon or longer” … even though the distance I rowed was quite a bit less than a half marathon. I listened to the music in the order it is listed (did not choose to shuffle it) and by the time the 15,000 meters was done, the 9th selection was still playing.
Did not do any strength training today. Am still putting it off until next week, but my sleep is starting to suffer from lack of the strength-training supplement to rowing.
One little nuisance thing I notice about RowPro 5 for the Mac compared to the RowPro windows version I used previously is that when I do intervals like today’s BW Rowing Sprint Monster, RowPro does not add up the distances separately for active and rest portions. So, to get the total meters rowed during the active portion I had to use a calculator and add those 10 distance manually.
When doing the series of 10 sprint intervals, I decided to go kind of easy and do the first one about 2:00, the second one a little faster, etc all the way through all ten of them. I chose to do it that way, because I’ve noticed problems in the past, when I’ve gone all-out from the start on comparable short interval sets. The results in total meters aren’t great, but there were no problems afterwards.
Above are screenshots from the 15K and below are screenshots from the 10X sprint intervals.
Happy erging to you.