- Rowing for calories, we're finally going to settle
this question once and for all.
What is the right way and technique to use
when you're rowing for calories?
(upbeat music)
So probably the most commonly and repeated
over and over question that comes
when it is calories for rowing
is what damper setting do I use
in order to get the most calories while I'm rowing?
So I'm gonna answer that in a second,
but first let's get to the technique piece
because that's actually a really
critical discussion to have as well.
Ultimately, we need to answer,
what is the right technique to use
when calories is the unit of measurement du jour?
That means of the day,
for those that aren't familiar
with colloquialisms
or French, either of those.
Now, when it comes to technique, people get tripped up
because people around them are telling them
that they should be getting one calorie per pull.
First off, those of you that are here
know that that is wholly inappropriate
for one very specific reason, but number two,
they're also told they should take big strokes,
or big pulls, and finally,
maybe that they should take big long strokes
and then rest and relax.
All three of those are fallacies,
but let's discuss why, and then you can understand
and you can speak to it knowledgeably.
All right, the most important part is,
let's just dispel with the myth
of one calorie per stroke being the thing
that everybody should be striving to do.
Listen, if somebody can't squat 225,
we aren't going to tell them
that that's the thing they should be striving for,
because that's just an arbitrary unit
that doesn't actually benefit the person.
Trying to get a calorie per stroke
is not what you should be shooting for.
You should be shooting to get as many
continuous calories per hour as possible,
because by doing that, you are increasing
your efficiency and your ability to pace.
Calories is another unit of measurement, just like pace,
or stroke rate, or meters, whatever they are.
You just need to understand
that it's just another unit of measurement.
Trying to get one calorie per stroke,
that's not the unit of measure.
Because just because you can't get one calorie per stroke
doesn't mean that you aren't doing it right, right?
It's this arbitrary number that for some reason
we've loaded onto the shoulders of everybody
when we talk to them about calorie rowing.
It's a myth, there's nothing to that
or no reason to do that!
Your goal is to maximize your calories per hour
as a unit of measurement consistently across time,
because that will give you the most
effective outcome, of course!
A second is this myth of run that we need to talk about,
taking a big stroke and then
just sitting there and hanging out.
Now that may seem like a good idea
because you give it more time to churn over
or something, but think of it this way,
you're allowing the flywheel to slow all the way down.
That means every stroke,
you have to start that flywheel from the stop point,
and that becomes extremely inefficient over time.
You end up wasting a lot more energy in that fashion,
instead of keeping the flywheel moving
and chipping away as well as telling the machine
that your average is going to be higher
instead of start, stop, start, stop.
So keep the flywheel moving,
none of this starting and stopping thing.
And what is the technique that we should use?
It's just good technique, nothing,
the usual technique that we're always rowing with,
that's the technique you wanna use
when you get on to the machine for calories.
Because your goal is to create consistency and efficiency
as well as you're maximizing your ability
to put force into the machine every single stroke,
not just one, not two, not three,
but all of the strokes, every stroke ever,
your goal is to maximize it over the time span
in which you have to work.
And the thing that probably trips people up most
about calories and why it may be a bit confusing
is because for example, with meters or split,
you're seeing feedback every single stroke,
but with calories, because it needs
to calculate as you are moving,
you're not going to see input happening every stroke.
You have to understand that you are going
to aggregate those calories over time,
which is what's going to make you effective.
So you need to understand that while you may not
be seeing those calories tack up every single stroke,
it is constantly calculating,
and that is the important part,
and that's why looking at calories per hour
is more important than staring at the calories number.
All right, what this means at the end of the day
is focus on the important parts of the stroke.
A good catch, a good drive,
good body position, posture, for example,
and just consistently over time, I can't say this enough,
applying consistent force into the machine
and that's gonna give you the most bang for your buck.
Now, the damper setting question.
A quick run-through of what damper setting is and is not,
damper setting is simply the adjustment on the side
of the flywheel, it's something that you move up or down
and all that does is adjust the amount of air
that makes it into and out of the flywheel housing.
This determines neither whether you are strong or weak.
All it does is make the flywheel feel heavy or light.
That's going to depend and change
based off of what type of athlete you are
and whether or not you're fast-twitch or slow-twitch.
The important part is that you spend time
with damper setting understanding which is right for you,
not being told by somebody else that a 10
makes you strong and a one makes you weak.
In fact, it's often the inverse of what people typically
expect which is that a lower damper setting
might be more advantageous to a fast-twitch athlete,
who might be stronger, and a high damper setting
may be more advantageous to a more endurance-based athlete,
who is more slow-twitch, and therefore needs
a little bit heavier damper setting or flywheel feel
in order to connect to the machine.
Wow, all right, (chuckles) so with that being said,
the important part to note is that
as you are moving with the machine,
you should be simply using the drag factor
that is optimal for you.
Going outside of that range,
for example, using a 10 because you're told
that you need to row at a 10 for calorie purposes
or that it's gonna give you more calories is totally false.
In fact, moving outside of the range
in which you normally work on the machine
is in fact going to be a detriment to your performance
because it's going to mean you won't be able
to achieve the same calories per hour, again,
the pacing unit, the one that matters,
over a prolonged period of time!
And where that really ends up hurting you is that
you're in the middle of a piece in which you are trying
to really get the most out of the machine
and because you are at this damper setting
that's not normal for you,
nor is it best for your performance,
you end up suffering early and quickly,
and the performance piece just does this,
you just start to tank because you get exhausted.
Whether it's exhausted because you reach
muscular fatigue much faster than you used to
or your heart rate climbs a lot higher
and you're breathing faster than you are comfortable with,
you find yourself in a place where you can't perform,
and yet you still have all of these calories to go.
Now, it's important to note that the tough part can be
that the slower your overall pacing,
the more meters you'll actually need to row
to accomplish the same number of calories
as somebody next to you.
For example, I row at 1,500 calories per hour
and the person next to me rows at 1,000 calories per hour.
Not only will they have to row longer
to achieve the same number of calories,
but on a not quite exponential
but definitely a sloping curve,
they're going to have to row a lot more meters
to get the same number of calories as I am.
Therefore, it behooves you to maintain
the highest possible average for yourself
instead of getting thrown out of your normal comfort zone.
So the answer is,
use the damper setting that makes the most sense for you.
You're gonna be happier,
the machine's gonna respond better,
and overall, you're going to end up with
a faster and more beneficial workout.
And one final important note,
and this has to do with that sloping curve
that I was telling you about on performance
and whether or not your output is as high as possible,
if you have a single-calorie piece that is low enough,
I would say 20 to 30 calories, maybe 40 to 50
depending on your endurance and your capacity,
is that because the machine rewards you
for a higher overall performance,
if you hit it hard upfront at a pace that you can sustain,
understand, because you end up rowing less meters,
it will front-load you with calories, and therefore,
you can be rewarded for hitting it hard early,
not for any purposes of trick,
you're not doing anything funny with the machine,
all you're doing is setting the bar
artificially high with something like that.
So this is only something to use if, for example,
you're doing a 20-calorie piece once.
If you have to do it over and over and over,
this method isn't going to work
because you will tire yourself out so much
in that one piece, it doesn't become usable
and you just (whistles) throw it out.
But if it's a single piece,
know that you can essentially tell the monitor,
hey, I'm gonna work really hard and high for you,
and it's gonna reward you early
with a lot of calories up front, which will then give you
kind of an artificial bump on your performance.
All right, that should definitively
answer the question of how to row for calories.
The technique is the same, the damper setting is the same,
the strategy may be slightly different, but that's it,
it's only a strategy difference, not anything else,
not anything of substance.
If I missed something,
leave me a question in the comments below,
because I would love to answer it, and I will do my best
to try and respond in the comments and give you guys
all the complete answers that I perhaps missed,
but I'm hoping, I'm hoping,
that this just puts to rest all of the 10s
and big pulls and send-its.
- I dunno, I just woke up from a little nap,
it's a little dark, but-- (engine revving)
Just gonna send it!
(machine thumps)
- That exist out there.
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(upbeat music)
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