Rowing is one of those movements that most people hate to do. This is one of the biggest r is exactly why you should want to do more of it, especially if you are training to compete. Those of you who have rowed hard intervals or had rowing as just a portion of your workout know how hard it is on you mentally and metabolically. About 1 minute in and you are feeling like you just want to stop; with your legs burning, heart rate high, and breathing heavily. However, when is the last time you got sore from rowing? Most likely you only got sore from rowing on your first time doing it and not much after that. This is exactly why you should row more. Rowing allows you to take a break from 'beating up' your body with other movements such as box jumps, kipping pull-ups, weightlifting, running, etc. without sacrificing your conditioning. Rowing is easy on the joints and body. BUT, if you look at the movement of rowing, it is basically a dead-lift type movement pattern (or even a clean movement pattern depending on how your technique is). This means that with every stroke on the the rower, you are getting extra reps of what is similar to deadlifts/cleans/squats variations. These are extra reps equivalents without the tax on your central nervous system. If you are doing sprint intervals on the rower where you are pulling as hard as you can with each stroke with the damper high, these strong pulls are similar to lifting heavy weight on the barbell can transfer over to your deadlifts, cleans, and even squats. Do a longer interval session on the rower and this can supplement workouts that have high-rep barbell movements at lower weights. All at the same time you are improving your metabolic conditioning and wont feel beat up the next day from it. So, if you are planning on increasing your volume in training, add a bunch of rowing to that increased volume and you will most likely not feel more beat up compared to if you had increased volume on deadlifts, squats, pull-ups, cleans, etc. Also, rather than taking a complete rest day, jump on the rower and just start rowing for about 30 minutes straight or do long intervals at lower intensity. Your body will still benefit from the 'rest day' but you will increase your conditioning at the same time. This is what I have found out over the past 2 years and notice good results when I implement it. On the flip side I also noticed my conditioning go down whenever I stopped this practice. From this day forward I am going to add rowing intervals to my training and add it to more workouts now that competition season is coming up. With that said, here is my workout from today that includes rowing in it.
Tuesday WORKLOAD
8 Rounds:
2 minutes rowing
1 minute rest
*keep average pace 1:45-1:48/500m
**row your hardest on the 8th interval
4 Sets:
1 power clean + 1 Clean @250#
5 Sets:
5x3 Snatch Balance @95#
Muscle Snatch
1x5 @135
1x4 @145
1x3 @155
Power Snatch EMOM:
3 minutes: 5 Touch and go @155#
4 minutes: 3 touch and go @185#
5 Minutes: 1 every 30 seconds @185#
5 minute EMOM:
5 strict chest to bars + 10 ring dips every minute
5 rounds without rest:
30 seconds superman hold
30 second hollow rock hold
20 minutes mobility
