This page is a late addition to the blog and a work in progress. Because there are so many rowing terms, acronyms and lingo that indoor rowing fans use it might be helpful for some of you who are new visitors to have a reference page.
Here it is. Terms and abbreviations will be added in alphabetical order as they are used or come to mind, so if you see one that is not listed here let me know and I will add it as soon as possible.
BPM is beats per minute, usually in relation to heart rate.
C2 is a frequent abbreviation in forums, chat rooms etc for Concept 2, the company behind the invention, design and manufacture of the Concept 2 rowing machines. Their website is concept2.com. C2 is frequently used to refer to whatever rowing machine a person uses, such as in the sentence, “Today I ran 5K in the morning and then did 10K on my C2.”
c2ctc or c2ctc.com is reference to a website which hosts competition events for anyone who has access to a Concept 2 rowing machine and who wants to participate as a member of one of the teams. The acronym C2CTC stands for Concept 2 Cross Team Challenge. It is not affiliated with the Concept 2 company.
calorie (or Calorie) This term is subject to sloppy use. There is only one scientific, official definition of a calorie. A calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius (or one kelvin). But most non-scientific references to calories actually refer to units of 1,000 calories or kilocalories and lazily neglect to say so. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilocalorie (Cal or kcal) is the amount of heat needed to cause the same increase on one kilogram of water.[1] Thus, 1 kcal = 1 Cal = 1000 cal. I tend to be somewhat sloppy in my usage of the term calorie, but when I think about it I try to distinguish between the two and therefore I usually (unless I forget) refer to calories and really mean “food calories” (large calories, kilocalories) and if I’m conscientious enough, will remember to use a capital C with those “calories” (The large calorie is sometimes written Calorie (capital C) to distinguish from the other unit. However, this practice isn’t always used and is often either forgotten or ignored. )
Cool down or cooldown: See warm down.
Custom rowing session – a rowing session which is not one of the ready-made, pre-formatted standard times or distances available as default choices in RowPro software or (if not using RowPro software) with the particular PM on your C2.
CD is an abbreviation frequently used in online rowing chat rooms or rowing forums for cool down.
DF is Drag Factor. The drag factor setting is determined primarily by the damper setting on the rowing machine, which can be from 1 to 10. It is also affected by any dust build up in the machine and the density of the air. Density of the air is determined by such things as elevation and humidity. You can read more about it on the concept2 website at this link and if you search the website, you can find more information and articles about drag factor and damper setting.
Drag Factor see DF
Drive is the part of a rowing stroke where you push with your legs. For more detail, see the article Biomechanics of Rowing on the Concept 2 website.
Effort is interchangeable with other terms that different people may prefer for the same thing, such as force or pressure. Effort is expressed in either its resulting pace, watts or calories per hour. Some software will display your effort/force/pressure in pounds, which would be how hard you are pressing on the foot rests or pulling on the handle, in pounds, for each stroke or on an average basis.
Erg is a term that is used for a rowing machine which has the ability to measure work. When used in this way, “erg” is short for the longer word, ergometer, which is a machine that measures work. The term erg is a physics term and an erg is a specific unit of work. Now that Concept 2 has two other machines which also measure work, the SkiErg and the BikeErg – the term “erg” could refer to either of those. But when a person who rows uses the term erg, he or she is almost always referring to a rowing machine.
Force is interchangeable with other terms that different people may prefer for the same thing, such as effort or pressure and is expressed in either its resulting pace, watts or calories per hour. Some software will display your effort/force/pressure in pounds, which would be how hard you are pressing on the foot rests or pulling on the handle, in pounds, for each stroke or on an average basis.
Handle down is the indoor rowing equivalent of letting go of the oars or ceasing to row a boat because of some usually negative reason. There are many reasons why a person using an indoor rower might handle down and the person who does it usually has those reasons on the tip of his tongue, if you ask. The explanation is frequently accompanied with a sad face. One person in a rowing forum who reported going “handle down” in his workout that day, punished himself the next day by rowing what was supposed to be a recovery session at a hard pace. But depending on a person’s reason and attitude, it might be accompanied with something more cheerful or even laughter.
HD is sometimes accompanied with a sad face emoticon. It is the abbreviation for handle down.
HR is heart rate.
HRmax is the highest number of beats per minute that a person’s heart can reach.
HR zones are numerous, depending on the reference points and methods of determining heart rate zones. There are % HRmax referring to a percentage of your actual maximum heart rate and % HRR which refers to the Karvonen method which is a modification on the usually very inaccurate 220-minus age formula, and there are quite a few others, such as UT1 and UT2 to name just a couple more. So HR zone depends a bit on context and if it is not spelled out then its a valid question in context. When I see a heart rate zone mentioned in any article or context, I’ve found that a little searching on the internet will quickly find enough mention of it to cobble together an understanding of what is meant by that particular heart zone reference.
HRR Stands for Heart Rate Reserve. This refers to a particular method, named the Karvonen Method, used to calculate heart rate zones for training purposes. The formula is HRR = (220-age) – RHR.
Intervals is the word used to refer to a series of rowing sessions consisting of alternating hard distances or times and easy (or totally non-rowing “stop”) distances or times. For example, 8×500 R2:00 would be a set of eight 500 meter sprints with two minutes of active or passive (stop) rest after each sprint.
LTHR is Lactate Threshold Heart Rate. Its the rate to which an individual’s heart rises which corresponds to the point at which that person’s metabolism is unable to get rid of lactic acid as fast as the lactic acid is generated. There’s a lot more to know about it, if you want to search for articles relating to it. In some of what you may read among the search results, lactic acid is sometimes described as “wonderful stuff,” and also it is mentioned that it becomes painful if a lot of it builds up in the body.
The higher a person’s tolerance for lactic acid, the better off that person will be when racing.
K is the abbreviation for kilometer.
OTW means “on the water,” which is a reference to rowing in an actual boat instead of using an erg. This blog is about indoor rowing and therefore you won’t find many terms and abbreviations here which are exclusively applicable to OTW rowing. OTW rowing is a lot more complex than indoor rowing because there are so many more things that must be taken into consideration.
Pace is a measure of speed on the rowing machine. It is expressed in the amount of time it takes to row 500 meters. The units used are minutes and seconds per 500 meters. For example, if you are rowing 500 meters every two minutes, that would be expressed as 2:00/500m. Pace may also be expressed simply as minutes and seconds. For example, if some asks “What pace will you be rowing this piece?” you might answer “205” or you might write 2:05 if you intend to row at a pace of 2 minutes and 5 seconds per 500 meters.
Piece is a term used to mean a specific rowing session or a specific part of a rowing session which has a beginning and an end. For example, if the rowing you do on one day consists of a 1K warm up, a 5K time trial and a 2K warm down, you could refer to any of those three as a “piece” and the entire rowing session as 3 pieces. The term is used more among OTW rowers than indoor rowers who have never rowed OTW.
PM is the general abbreviation for the Concept 2 Personal Monitor, which is the little monitor that comes with every Concept 2 rowing machine. If someone writes PM followed by a number, they are referring to a specific model of the monitor. The one I have, which is more than 12 years old as this is being written, is the PM3 and the current latest model is the PM5. You can read about their features on the concept2.com website.
Pressure is interchangeable with other terms that different people may prefer for the same thing, such as effort or force. Pressure is expressed in either its resulting pace, watts or calories per hour. Some software will display your effort/force/pressure in pounds, which would be how hard you are pressing on the foot rests or pulling on the handle, in pounds, for each stroke or on an average basis.
QR is the acronym for an online rowing session which is not scheduled in advance. It is called a “Quick Row” within RowPro but most people just call it a QR, as in the sentence, “I’ll set up a 10 minute QR for warm down.” On the Oarbits website results listing, the sessions will be listed as either QR or SR. SR stands for Scheduled Row.
Rate of Perceived Exertion: See RPE and its corresponding chart, below.
Rating is the number of strokes per minute a person is rowing. Frequently you may see rating designated with the letter r. Such as if someone says “Today I did a 30r20”, which would mean that the rower did a 30 minute session and restricted the rating to 20 SPM for the entire 30 minutes. If the first number had a K after it, then it would be referring to distance instead of time. For example 5Kr22 would mean the session was 5,000 meters at a stroke rate of 22 SPM.
Recovery is just what it probably sounds like to most people. A recovery session is a session done at a moderate to very easy effort level, after having done a race, time trial or something else comparably strenuous immediately preceding or on the day before.
RHR Resting Heart Rate. This is the lowest rate, in BPM, at which a person’s heart beats. This heart usually only occurs when a person is asleep but it can occur when the person is awake and has been extremely motionless for a while.
RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. This is not strictly an indoor rowing term, but I use a scale of RPE 1 to 10 to rate the effort level of rowing sessions, beginning with the rowing session done on December 15th, 2018. Here is an explanatory chart:
SB is abbreviation for “Season Best”.
Season Best is the best result a person has for a particular distance or time during the season.
SPM is strokes per minute, also known as “rating”.
SR Stands for scheduled row. See the definition of QR for more information.
SS is an abbreviation for “steady state” which is one term used for a rowing session intended to be rowed at as constant and unvarying a pace as possible.
TT is the abbreviation for time trial. If you are curious to know how quickly you can row any particular distance, such as the Olympic 2K distance or any other distance… or if you want to know how far you can row in any specific amount of time, then you do your best for that distance or time and your effort is a TT.
UT1 A training zone based on HR. (also referred to as “high aerobic” or “intense aerobic”) defined as 60%-70% of the rate of power at which a person can row his or her fastest 2K on a C2 erg and/or 70% to 80% of the number arrived at by adding a person’s HRR+RHR.
UT2 A training zone based on HR. Also referred to as “utility zone” by some and “utilization zone” (which is probably more accurate) by others, which may (or may not?) reference oxygen utilization and “low aerobic zone” or “aerobic endurance” defined as 45% to 60% of the rate of power at which a person can row his or her fastest 2K on a C2 erg. It also may (sometimes) refer to 65% to 70% of the number arrived at by adding a person’s HRR+RHR
Variable Intervals are interval sessions for which each interval is not equal to all the other intervals. For example, a set of intervals which would consist of rowing 500meters hard, resting 1 minute, rowing 1,000 meters hard, resting 2 minutes and then rowing 500 meters hard and resting 1 minute would be variable intervals. All variable interval sessions are intervals but not all interval sessions are variable intervals.
Warm up or warmup is usually a piece of rowing done before a piece that is going to be done at a hard or race pace. A person can warm up in ways other than rowing, however.
Warm down or warmdown is usually a piece of rowing (but it can be some activity other than rowing) which is done after a race, time trial or other hard or vigorous piece, to help the body gradually warm down and also to help keep circulation going, so the body can more efficiently do the extra internal housekeeping it must do after a person does some hard work. Another popular term which means the same thing is cool down, cooldown or CD.
WD is a frequent abbreviation in rowing chat rooms or forums for warm down.