Rowing Fitness

Lactic acid gets some pretty bad press, but it doesn’t exist in the body for more than a few seconds. It is quickly converted into lactate and hydrogen ions and it is these little guys that drop the pH in the muscles making them acidic and painful. This article from World Rowing explains more..

Lactic acid has been cast in the role of nemesis, as the necessary evil to higher athletic performance; not just in rowing, but in many sports over the years. The scientific knowledge, however, has advanced in recent decades and lactic acid seems to play a more complex role than is often assumed.

“First of all,” explains Dr Trent Stellingwerff, lead of Innovation and Research at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, “we should call what we are measuring lactate and not lactic acid. Within the muscle, 99 per cent of the lactic acid (LaH) separates immediately into lactate (La-) and hydrogen ions (H+). It is the H+ that is the problem.”

“Lactate is both fuel and metabolic waste product,” says Alex Hutchinson, author of the Sweat Science articles for runnersworld.com. “The body has different ways of mobilising its fuel stores and it all depends on when you need the fuel.”

“When you are performing over your V0₂ max (maximal aerobic capacity),” says Stellingwerff, “you have to draw on anaerobic metabolism to provide the required energy. A 2000m rowing race is done at 98 to 110 per cent of power at V0₂ max. This is why rowers produce so much lactate.”

“Professional marathoners, by comparison, run at 85-90% of V0₂ max and would probably never have a lactate measurement over 4 mmol (millimoles),” he says, “but in rowers it can be around 15-18 mmol and sometimes even a bit higher.”

Measuring lactate, however, is an indirect measure, since it is not the lactate itself that causes the acidosis (or drop in pH inside the muscles). The hydrogen ions (H+) produced with the lactate cause the drop in the muscle’s pH. Normal pH in the body is 7.2, but can drop as low as 6.6 if it were to be measured in rowers after a race, according to Stellingwerff.

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YOU MAY HAVE noticed a rowing machine, otherwise known as an ergometer or “erg,” gathering dust in the corner of your neighborhood gym or as Frank and Claire Underwood’s workout of choice in House of Cards. If you’re a CrossFitter, there’s a good chance you’ve probably even used one in a workout before.

There’s also a good chance you’re using it all wrong.

While the rowing machine is an incredibly efficient, full-body workout that allows the athlete to build aerobic endurance and muscular strength at the same time, a lack of proper technique and training is common among gym-goers and can lead to injuries and misuse. So we asked experts from the number one collegiate men’s crew team in the country at the University of California – Berkeley—Head Coach Mike Teti and Associate Head Coach Scott Frandsen—to give you the lowdown on everything you need to know about the rowing machine. Both are Olympic medalists (Teti is both a medalist as an athlete and a coach) who know exactly what it takes, in the gym and on the water, to get in gold medal-winning shape.

In order to get the most out of your time on the rowing machine you should:

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In previous years, spinning was the workout craze. Today, It’s been upgraded to rowing. You don’t want to miss out.

Rowing machines have long been poo-pooed as too much work. However, today, the lowly rowing machine has seen a new surge in popularity. With upgrades in their technology and upgrades in style, the lowly rowing machine has finally found its niche in the exercise world. With water tanks added to give it a more realistic appearance when compared to the real true crewing conditions, the rowing machine is back with a mission. That mission, to give you the rock hard body of the Hollywood icons that you’ve long drooled over. Yes, you too can row your way to a great body all at an affordable cost. Today that lowly rowing machine is the new “spinning” and it’s working wonders on cardio and sculpting bodies.

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At first glance, rowing seems to belong to the well-heeled and faintly evil. In House of Cards the Underwoods stoically row their way into the right fitness level for world domination. The Winklevosses, those large adult twins, rowed big boats at the real Harvard and at the thinly fictionalized Harvard of the The Social Network. Before their time, way back in 1852, Harvard raced Yale in the U.S. first-ever intercollegiate sporting event. Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie built a 262-acre manmade lake in Princeton, New Jersey just so the university’s varsity crew team could have a less crowded place to train.

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This is a great article written by the British newspaper The Telegraph just before this year’s Oxford vs Cambridge University boat race. There are a number of ways you can improve your performance on the Rowing Machine  and they’re not just about fitness… although that certainly helps!!

 

The Oxford and Cambridge crews will have to contend with currents, winds and the capricious British weather when they compete in the 161st edition of the Boat Race on the River Thames this weekend, but most people’s personal experience of rowing comes only from the whizz and creak of the humble indoor rowing machine.

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