- If you have a 2K test coming up,
or you want to do your first one,
or it's your 30th, I don't, however many.
If you have a 2K test coming up, are you thinking
about the way that you're going to warm up?
Because if you're not, you could be setting yourself up
for a massive, just horrific 2K disaster.
(explosion)
Or done right, you could potentially
see an incredible victory,
(crowd cheering)
and a huge new PR.
Which do you want?
Today we're going to take you through
the best warm up for a 2K
that you can ever possibly imagine, just ever.
If this is your first time here, welcome.
I'm Shane Farmer.
This is Dark Horse Rowing,
where we build better humans through rowing
so that you can build the life that you would like to live.
If you are looking for the absolute best 2K warm up
that you could implement in your training plan
before you get your 2K test on,
listen up, pay attention, 'cause this is the video for you.
The 2K test is up there
with the physical human performance.
Up in the ranks of like,
impressively watching somebody snatch
and clean and jerk at the Olympics,
or running a mile sub five, or juggling chainsaws.
It's just an incredible thing that the human body can do
and if you're considering taking it on yourself,
it's a really wicked test of fitness and mental fortitude.
Pre 1894, rowing racing distances varied wildly
and it really was predicated upon
the distance given at any city.
So you may have a river that had 1800 meters
or you had a lake that had 5000 meters
and that really determined the distance of the race
and there was no uniform distance.
2000 meters was not a designated thing.
Then in 1894, when FISA,
Federation Internationale des Societies d'Aviron,
the governing body of world rowing, which, of course
is a French governing body, decided to step in
and start trying to figure out,
what is the right distance for us.
Eventually they landed on 2000 meters.
Mostly because of a particular race in Macron, France,
which just happened to have a 2000 meter course.
And that kind of started the trend towards
using 2000 meters as a uniform distance.
After that it started to get more and more involved.
However, you still saw collegiate racing
in the United States also dependent
upon the distance that they had.
And basically after 1948 we saw all Olympic
racing distances adopt 2000 meters
and that continued with collegiate distances
starting to vary a little bit.
But almost globally saw 2000 meters
becoming the predominant racing distance.
Then in the '80s when CRASH-Bs,
which is probably the longest running
indoor rowing race around,
they varied in distance as well.
And then in the mid '90s,
they adopted 2000 meters as their given distance.
And after that, it was pretty much over.
There was really no more decision,
2000 meters became the testing distance
both on the water and on the machine.
So taking that history, it's kinda cool to understand
why you're going to be doing the 2000 meter test.
Now, let's get into the actual warmup piece of it.
It's really critical and almost impossible
to overstate how important
a good warm up can be for a 2K test.
You have to have your body primed to get the most out of it.
There's a reason that every professional athlete
spends a ton of time warming up for the event.
Nobody just shows up and competes.
People take practice rep,
after practice rep, after practice rep.
And this warm up is going to get you ready to go.
First up in the warm up,
is getting your body stretched and mobilized
and ready for the movement that is to come.
With that being said, the things that you're looking for
are your hamstrings and your lower back, your shoulders,
making sure they are primed and ready to go.
That will often wrap in a little bit of midline,
turning that on.
You also want to make sure
that you have your ankles mobilized ready to go,
'cause you do have some flexion requirements
out of the ankles, and your hips,
is really critical that the hips are ready to go,
so that they can easily hinge back and forth.
So your legs, your shoulders, your hips and your ankles.
Weird, all of your major joints.
So for the hamstrings and lower back,
we're looking at a seated forward fold,
that's a very easy one to start with.
And the seated forward fold,
it's just sitting on the floor in a draped over position,
leg straight out in front of you,
allowing that hamstring and lower back
to release a little bit as you drape into a position.
Then to get a little bit more active with it,
you're going to go into banded hip distraction.
Now, banded hip distraction
requires a little bit of equipment, which is just a band,
pretty much of any kind and an anchored surface.
From there, you're going to wrap that band
around one leg and draw the band high up into the hip.
You'll then face away from the surface
that that band is anchored to.
You're going to put all your weight
into the leg that has the band on it.
You'll then fold in half, bringing your hands to the floor.
Put your weight into that leg.
And the other leg is just there to give you some balance
not to actually putting any weight in that foot.
You'll bend the knee
so that you're just easily resting in the leg.
Then you will straighten knee,
pushing your hips to the ceiling.
Then try and bring your nose to your knees,
keeping your hands on the ground.
You'll repeat that about 15 times on each side.
Next for the shoulders, a good way to start
is with banded distraction here as well.
So you can take that same band,
but anchor to a high point,
and then you're just going to give
some nice good distraction to the joint.
That being you tension the band
and relax the shoulder and allow the band
to pull the shoulder out in a very gentle movement.
So you just relax everything.
And then just take some rolling movement
through the body and allow the shoulder
to find some ranges of motion
with that distraction happening at the same time.
Next, you're going to go into some scat push ups.
This is a bit of the activation piece.
So in a push up position,
you're going to brace through the midline.
Keep the elbows straight, hands underneath the shoulders,
and then you're just going to let
your shoulder blades come together
and then press the shoulder blades back apart,
without pressing through the elbow or doing a push up.
It's just the shoulders that are going to move here.
So you'll find it's a shorter range of motion than normal.
And finally, I like this exercise.
It's called wall climbs.
You're basically just standing, hands on a wall.
Feet slightly away
so that you're at a bit of a forward angle.
And then with the hands,
you're just going to, palm by palm,
walk your way up the wall, keeping the hands together,
and you're going to move them about one hand width down
each time as you walk up and down the wall.
Do that five times, and you can do maybe two sets of that.
So you get 10 total reps, up and down the wall.
Next, let's get your hips ready to move.
With the hips a good way to start,
I'm a big fan of Dragon pose.
This is essentially a lunge on the floor,
where you just hanging into that back leg
and you feel a really good stretch
on the hip flexor of the rear leg.
You can you can even stabilize yourself on another surface.
From there, a reverse lunge with a twist.
Here's a bit more activation with some stretching as well.
So you'll step into a reverse lunge,
keeping the back knee off the floor.
And then you'll twist up and over the front knee
to get another stretch through that midline
as well as into that hip flexor again.
And finally a squat matrix.
I'm just a big fan of this one.
Open up the hips, give yourself some clearance in the hips.
So that you get comfortable in a squat position,
which are going to be doing a lot of when you're on the row,
and making sure those hips open up,
give you some movement and clearance.
So that when you get into the row,
the legs are moving pretty freely.
And finally, the ankles opened up.
A good way to start, basic kneeling position,
kind of like a yoga pose.
You're going to just kneel on to your feet and ankles.
If you can't feel free to place a pillow under your butt
and stack up those pillows as necessary to make it possible.
And that's going to give you some
plantar flexion of the ankle,
which is just a nice, gentle passive flexion.
From there, move into banded ankle distraction.
You're noticing this distraction theme
coming up quite a bit.
So band around the ankle, anchor the foot,
and then you're just going to guide that knee
through range of motion
that allows the ankle to have a little bit of dissociation
from its normal tight position.
And you're just going to give it
some gentle range of motion.
Follow that with a calf raise.
And then when you come down,
take the toes up into a heel lift.
And this is just a nice ecentric concentric movement
that you're going to help to warm up the calf,
the achilles and all the muscles in the foot as well.
Getting that ankle just ready to go.
Okay, it's time to actually move on to the machine.
The thing you're going to use for the test.
And start to get your body hot and sweaty.
You're not trying to get any level of fatigue here.
What you're trying to get is breathing heavy,
heart rate elevated, body warm and a rolling sweat going.
But you don't want to experience a level of fatigue
where you start to suck off of the energy
that you need to get into that test.
My favorite way to kick this off
is with the 10 minute build.
Of course.
If you've watched our videos before,
you know I recommend this one.
Because I just, I love it, for the sake that I love it.
It starts easy and ramps up in intensity
but the damper is all the way down at a one.
So trust me if you do this at a damper one.
You follow along with me in the video.
It's a 16 up to a 30, damper one.
And by the time you're done, yeah, you're breathing heavy,
you're hot, you're sweaty, but you are not fatigued.
So let's start there.
Use that for your first 10 minutes.
And here comes the final piece of the warm up.
This is where you actually feel your pacing for the day.
This is six minutes.
So you're going to set six minutes on your machine.
From there it's just an easy paddle.
Meaning, basically no pressure.
You're just focusing on mechanics.
Again because you mobilized and activated.
Take the time to feel the way
your body is moving on the machine.
You'll be hot and sweaty now from the 10 minute build.
Then as you lead into it, every two minutes,
you are going to take a power 20.
A power 20 is just 20 hard strokes.
And those 20 hard strokes
should be building to your goal pace.
So if your goal pace is a 150 split
for the 2000 meters,
a 150 pace.
Let's say that your first power 20,
you're going to maybe row that pace plus four seconds,
so a 154.
For the next 20, you're going to go plus two seconds.
So 152.
And the final 20, you'll hit that 150 pacing
that you're expecting out of yourself for the day.
When you get done, you will have felt exactly
what you're supposed to do,
right before you take your final break
and get ready to hit the test.
Okay, you've got yourself warmed up.
This part is really critical actually.
Do not take too much time away from the machine
and away from your warm up.
You just spent a healthy amount of time
getting warm and ready to go.
Do not step away for more than five minutes
and go do other things.
You wanna take that heat that you've built up.
You wanna take that feeling you've built up,
and apply it to your 2K test.
So no more than five minutes off the machine.
Then come back, get your mind right,
and get ready to go.
Yeah, what, what are you still?
This is the, that, put the 2000 meters on the screen.
Go do the thing.
And if it's not that time, then bookmark this video.
Make sure that you have subscribed to our channel
and bookmark this video.
So that when it's time for the test, pull this back up,
use it, walk through it, get yourself hot and ready.
And then when you get back to this point when
I'm like doing the thing.
Go do the thing.
Hit the 2K test.
You're going to do great.
Well if you've walked your way through this warm up
and you feel like you want to
follow along with me through a 2K.
Check out this playlist of videos
where I've rowed a 2K at different paces,
so you can have a guide to follow along with.
And don't forget to subscribe
so that you can get alerted
whenever we come out with a new video.