This guide was written primarily for lightweight male rowers, but may useful for others as well. C.f. the section below on assumptions, caveats, and prerequisites.
You’re reading this because you want to get fast. Clearly. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
What follows is a comprehensive guide on going from being a complete couch potato to an Olympic-level athlete in six months. How is this possible? After all, normally this would take several years. The secret is focusing on the fundamentals. Consider the following passage, written about Japanese baseball:
"In every confrontation with a real American professional team it seems that what we need to learn from them, besides their technique of course, is how uniformly faithful their players are to the fundamentals. Faithfulness to the fundamentals seems to be a common thread linking professionalism in all areas." –T. Kageyama
The interesting thing is that Kageyama was actually a professional go player, and the quote above comes from a book about go. But as it turns out, what’s good for baseball players and go players is good for rowers as well.
Here are the basic principles behind this guide:
- There are three components to fitness: cardio, strength, and flexibility. If you want to have the fastest 2k, then you need to have the most cardio, the most strength, and the most flexibility.
- Getting fast at rowing is a project, just like writing software or building a house. The best way to improve strength, cardio, and flexibility as fast as possible is to use the same research-based methodology behind all other project management.
- Each of the three components of fitness is broken into various subtasks. Each workout is designed to maximize the measurability of one’s progress in each subtask over time.
Most other training guides start out with a 2k or a series of max lifts, and then attempt to divine a new best workout each day based on initial performance. These top-down programs never work for two reasons:
- They don’t have you doing the most efficient workout on any given day.
- They fail to generate actionable data.
These ‘systems’ are mostly designed to keep the kids from getting bored, and to make the person who created them seem smart.
In contrast, by holding our workouts constant we can easily track our rate of progress and make data-driven decisions quickly. This allows us tweak our workouts to keep our rate of improvement in each exercise linear for as long as possible, rather than having it prematurely reaching the point of diminishing returns. I will follow up with several real world examples of this below, as well as some raw data from my own personal experience.
The ultimate goal is to go from your current level of fitness (or lack thereof) to being able to pull a sub-6:20 2k in six months. In order to break 6:20, here are the benchmarks you need:
Aerobic cardio: sub-1:55 for 2 x 45’ @ 75% of max HR / 19spm
Anaerobic cardio: >2900m avg. for 3 x 10’ @ 24spm (4 min), 26spm (3 min), 28spm (2 min), 30spm (1 min)
Squats: 320-360 lbs max
Pull-ups: 35
If you can achieve each of these goals then you are pretty much guaranteed to have a sub-6:20 2k. Notice how we are breaking the 2k down into its component fitness parts, each of which we can directly measure against the data generated from our daily workouts. This way there is never any guessing. Each day you know exactly how much progress you’ve made toward each goal, and exactly how many days it will take to reach each goal at your current rate of improvement.
So what does this actually look like in practice? It’s extremely simple. Here is the plan for the first three months:
Months 1 - 3
Monday – Saturday: Erg 2 x 45min @ 19spm, 75% max HR
Monday – Saturday: Stretching, core strength
Monday & Thursday: 6 x max pull-ups
Tuesday & Friday: 6 x 10 squats
Wednesday & Saturday: 4 x 10 back extension
Sunday: Rest
Erg
- 2 x 45 min @ 19spm, 75% max HR. For me this is around 155 HR, for you it may be wildly different. To figure out your max HR, you need to actually max out your HR by wearing your HR monitor on the erg. You can do this by doing something like 3 x 2' sprint, with 2 min active recovery in between. Do not use any of the purported formulas (e.g. 220 - age), they are not accurate and will lead to bad results.
- Take a water break every 15 minutes. (This shouldn't take more than 10 - 15 seconds.) The standard half-strength Gatorade advice is good here, i.e. one scoop of Gatorade powder for a 32 ounce Nalgene. Limit the water breaks to fifteen seconds so as not to mess up your numbers; this should be enough time to down at least 8 ounces of fluids.
- Between the two sets eat something like a banana or a power bar. This helps prevent chronic glycogen depletion, the cause of most overtraining syndrome.
- Take 15 or so min in between sets to through a full routine of stretches. After 45 min of erging your muscles will be nicely warmed up, so this is the ideal time to gain flexibility.
- Keep the drag factor around 100 for the 90 minute pieces.
- While spending 20 minutes between sets probably isn’t ideal from a purely cardio point of view, taking the time to properly stretch, eat, and hydrate goes a long way toward preventing repetitive strain injuries. And since pretty much the only thing that will keep you from breaking 6:20 if you follow this plan is injury, this is time well spent in the long run.
- I'd recommend taking one extra day off from the 90 minute erg pieces every other week, and then cross training for one day during the weeks that you're not taking an extra day off. This means that you should be doing your 90 minute erg pieces 22 days out of the 30, with an additional two 90 minute pieces per month of cross training. However, don't erg any less than 22 days per month or else your cardio will take a dramatic hit.
- Never skip a strength workout. Even one missed day will set you back at least a week. In economics terms, the bulk of the improvement comes from the marginal effort you put in near the end. That is, the first 80% of the effort gets you only 20% of the benefits.
- Similarly, never skip a workout for an erg test. I’ve seen way too many rowers try to cheat the system this way, which makes no sense. By training through every piece you ensure that even if you’re a little slower in fall, you’ll be miles ahead in spring. This takes a certain amount of self-confidence and assuredness in your ability to make the boat, but the dividends here are enormous. Go easy the day before your last 2k of the season, but train through everything right up until then.
Pull-ups
- 6 sets of as many pull-ups as you can do.
- Record how many you get on each set in your notebook, but in excel record only the number you get on the first set and the total for all six sets.
Squats
- Start with the maximum amount of weight you know you can safely do for 6 sets of ten reps. Each time you can successfully completely the 6 x 10 two workouts in a row for a given weight, increase the weight by 10 lbs for the next session. Always use a squat belt.
- If you complete the lift just barely both times then keep with that weight for another session or two, especially as the weight gets heavier. Again, if you follow this workout plan then pretty much the only thing that can stop you from pulling a 6:20 is getting injured, so don’t fucking get injured. If there is ever a question about safety then immediately reduce the weight.
- All squats should be full squats, i.e. the Olympic-style squats described here.
- It generally helps to put a 5 or 10lb plate under each heal. This lets you push with your entire foot while keeping good form.
- Once the squats start getting very heavy it’s good to lie on the ground between sets, and with your legs on elevated (e.g. resting on a chair or on the erg) do crossovers with 5 or 10lb weights. Start with your arms lying on the ground completely extended, as if you were making a snow angel. Then slowly bring each arm across to the other side of your chest with the weight in each hand. The point of this isn’t to get a workout, it’s just to help drain the lactate and other cruft out of your legs. Doing this for a minute or so between sets dramatically improves recovery.
The method of lifting described above is extremely taxing. Especially as you get better, it’s not uncommon for your heart rate to be close to its maximum after each set. Because of this it’s ok to wait a few minutes between sets, especially in hot weather. Remember, the reason we lift this way is that it’s the fastest way to improve our strength. Don’t try to rush through the lifts to gain cardio; this vastly slows down one’s rate of strength improvement, a tradeoff that makes little sense considering that strength takes so much longer to gain than cardio. Even worse, rushing through lifts gives only a nominal additional cardio benefit if you’re already doing the 2 x 45 ergs, resulting in a huge overall net loss in rate of improvement.
Similarly, the best way to complete these workouts is to do the lifts before the cardio. The thinking is that even if you can’t erg as fast at 75% of your max HR after lifting, you’ll still be getting roughly the same cardio benefit. Whereas if you’re lifting less weight each week because you’re lifting after cardio, then ultimately it’s going to take much longer to gain strength.
Experiment with doing cardio directly after strength training, and doing strength in the morning and cardio in the evenings. I have a suspicion that splitting these sessions up may result in lower average and peak inflammation levels, meaning less stress on the kidneys and possibly slightly faster rates of improvement. But this is fairly speculative, and whatever benefits there may be (if any) could easily be overshadowed be the increased risk of missing a cardio session entirely.
Months 3 – 4.5
Monday – Saturday: Erg 2 x 45min @ 19spm, 77.5% max HR
Monday – Saturday: Stretching, core strength
Monday & Thursday: 6 x max pull-ups
Tuesday & Friday: 6 x 8 squats
Wednesday & Saturday: 4 x 10 back extension
Sunday: Rest
Monday & Thursday: 3 x 10’ @ 22spm (4 min), 24spm (3 min), 26spm (2 min), 28spm
Tuesday & Friday: 2 x 1250m @ 32spm
Tuesday & Friday: Extra 45 min of cross training cardio.
Wednesday & Saturday: Varies
I’d recommend the lifts and 2 x 45 erg in the morning, and then the harder stuff in the afternoons. Do the Thursday and Saturday pieces on the erg. The rest of the hard pieces should be done on the water, unless your goal is purely to get a fast erg time. Do at least 30 min cardio during the warm up with a few power 10s or 20s, and do an active recovery between pieces.
Wednesday and Saturday is your choice of anaerobic cardio. Good options are 2 x 30’, 3 x 20’, 10k, 5k, etc. The point is to do at least one hard piece every day. After all, once you know how to pull hard, being in shape is just icing on the cake.
The cross training should be done on the elliptical, the bike, or running. Do elliptical at the same heart rate you would erg at for the 2 x 45, do the bike at 10bpm lower, and for running do 10bpm higher.
Months 4.5 - 6
Monday – Saturday: Erg 2 x 45min @ 19spm, 77.5% max HR
Monday – Saturday: Stretching, core strength
Monday & Thursday: 6 x max pull-ups
Tuesday & Friday: 6 x 6 squats; superset each with 3 jumpies
Wednesday & Saturday: 4 x 10 back extension
Sunday: Rest
Monday & Thursday: 3 x 10’ @ 24spm (4 min), 26spm (3 min), 28spm (2 min), 30spm
Tuesday & Friday: 2 x 1250m @ 34spm
Tuesday & Friday: Extra 45 min of cross training cardio.
Wednesday & Saturday: Varies
At the end of the six months you should be easily hitting the goals outlined at the beginning. If so, then you either should be able to break 6:20 on pure cardio, or else be very close. If you’re hitting the goals but you’re not quite there yet, then here is what to do:
Months 6 – 7.5
Monday – Saturday: Erg 2 x 45min @ 19spm, 77.5% max HR (around 160)
Monday – Saturday: Stretching, core strength
Monday & Thursday: 6 x max pull-ups
Tuesday & Friday: Plyometrics for legs (i.e. jumpies)
Wednesday & Saturday: 4 x 10 back extension
Sunday: Rest
Monday: 3 x 10’ @ 24spm (4 min), 26spm (3 min), 28spm (2 min), 30spm
Tuesday & Friday: 2 x 1250m @ 34spm
Tuesday & Friday: Extra 45 min of cross training cardio.
Wednesday, Thursday & Saturday: Varies
For the plyometrics, the simplest program is to work your way up to 3 x 100 jumpies. For example, start with something like 6 x 20 your first week, and then slowly work your way up.
On Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, do shorter anaerobic sprint pieces. Good examples are 5 x 2000, 5 x 5’, and 6 x 2’.
Complete at least two 8 x 500 ergs before your next 2k. Do the pieces at the following stroke rates: 26, 28, 30, 32, 29, 31, open, open. Rest for 1:45 after each piece, and 8 minutes after the fourth. If you can break a 1:35 average for all eight pieces then you should now be able to break 6:20 on the 2k.
(Alternate version: 6 x 500m open. Rest for 1 min after each piece. Drop the fastest, drop the slowest, and the average of the middle four is your 2k split.)
The most important thing to remember here is never skip the 2 x 45’ in favor of the sprint pieces. Approximately 70% of your 2k speed comes from base cardio, and the sprint workouts contribute only a small fraction to the remaining 30%. At the elite level about 100k per week is the break-even point. That is, if you’re doing more than 100k per week you’re gaining cardio, and if you’re doing less than 100k per week you’re losing cardio. That’s not to say that doing sprint work isn’t extremely important, but as it gets closer to sprint season a lot of people start doing less cardio and only focus on the sprint pieces. This is a huge mistake. Never do sprint workouts unless you’re already doing at least 100k per week.
Assumptions, caveats, and prerequisites
- You are a lightweight male between the ages of 16 and 38. If not you can always modify goals and workouts as long as they remain consistent with the principles outlined above.
- This guide is written for people trying to go from anywhere under 7:00 to just under 6:20. It's not intended for beginners trying to go from 9:00 to 7:00, nor is it meant for those trying to go from 6:18 to 6:08.
- At least 3+ years of general fitness, including basic experience with strength training, cardio, stretching, and competition. You don’t need to currently be in great shape, but you do need to know what you’re doing and have some basic muscle memory in place.
- Getting fast is either the first or second most important thing in your life. Meaning that if your number one priority is school/work, then training has to take priority over hanging out with friends and significant others, partying, staying out late, surfing the web, etc. This system will only work if you have a love of sport and a strong intrinsic motivation to be the best.
- You know how to erg, row, and lift weights safely. If not visit Row2K to find a learn-to-row program in your area.
- This guide assumes you have at least a minimum of non rowing-specific strength. You don’t need the perfect beach body by any means, but you should hopefully be able to do 20 dips and bench 155. If not then spend six weeks or so working on this before you get started, perhaps concurrently with a longer version of the two-week cardio plan outlined below. The reason is that for the next six months you’ll be focusing almost exclusively on rowing muscles, so you want to make sure your antagonistic muscles (pecs, triceps, hamstrings) are strong enough that you don’t injure yourself. Some of the book recommendations below may be highly useful for creating an appropriate program.
- Similarly, you'll want to go back to training your antagonistic muscles, as well as doing core and cross training, for 2.5 - 3 months once this program is over before repeating this program next year. Otherwise you won't have enough base strength in your non-rowing muscles to avoid injury.
- If you’re completely out of shape when starting this, then you might want to take at least two weeks to ease into the erging. Try something like 15 minutes the first day, 25 minutes for the next two days, 35 minutes for the next three days, 45 minutes the next four days, and 2 x 35 min for 5 days. Hopefully you are steady stating at least under 2:30 by the time you start the full workout plan.
- The biggest caveat here is with the pull-ups. For me I found that I gained strength very quickly using this method, but then eventually topped out around 35. While this is really all you need to break 6:20, I feel like there are probably ways to improve upon this component after the first three months. Again, the reason you are plotting your progress in excel is so you can see if your improvement is starting to level off. If it does, figure out why and modify the workouts as needed.
Suggested variations
- Consider substituting some of the pull-ups for bench pull after the first three months, especially if you are already close to hitting your pull-ups goal. The only reason I didn’t include this in the standard plan is that most people don’t have access to the necessary equipment. Basically the suggested workout would become:
Monday: 6 x max weighted pull-ups
Thursday: 6 x 20 bench pull
Once you’re able to do over 30 pull-ups on your first set without weight, add 10 lbs using a dip belt. Then add another 5lbs every time you’re able to do 20 or more on your first set for two workouts in a row.
- Start on plyometrics early if you’re already close to hitting your goal for squats after the first three months.
- If you reach a point where you’re no longer making acceptable improvements in your cardio, trying alternating light and heavy weeks. I find that doing over 144k per week on average is unsustainable, but if you’re already pushing this limit and struggling to improve then try alternating between doing 185k one week and then only 100k the next. This seems to work well, but I’d recommend against doing it more than two cycles in a row.
Stretching
If you want to be the fastest then you need to have the most strength, the most cardio, and the most flexibility. Unfortunately all too often stretching takes the back seat behind the other two components of fitness even though it’s equally important. Therefore I’m taking the position that the best stretching routine is the one that you do every day. And the best way to do this is to create a routine that you actually enjoy because it feels good. To that end I’d recommend doing the stretches below in the order listed. Doing the wrong stretches or doing them in the wrong order can be really tedious. The idea here is to create something that’s aesthetically appealing while at the same time hitting all the muscle groups required to keep you safe and maximize your 2k.
I’d recommend stretching between the 2 x 45’ erg pieces. This helps keep your muscles operating at their peak going into the second piece and may also offer some protection against injury. Hold each position for at least 30 seconds. If you want to add in any dynamic stretches then do them after the static ones. I’d also recommend stretching again after the 2nd 45’ piece.
If it’s a lifting day then warm up for at least ten minutes and stretch out fully before lifting. I find that for that quad stretch flexibility gains tend to be limited after the first couple months, but it’s still important to always do this before and after squats so that your muscles fibers don’t shorten up as they heal.
If it’s a race day then warm up as usual but only stretch lightly. This is because heavy stretching makes your muscles significantly weaker for the next few hours. This has only a minimal effect on your steady state cardio, but it makes a big difference when it comes to racing.
Core Strength
Core strength is popularly believed to prevent chronic use injuries. While the scientific evidence is somewhat equivocal I think it’s safe to assume that at least a solid baseline level of fitness here is necessary, if not a p90x beach body physique. Here are three exercises below:
- Pillar bridges – Get into pushup position. Hold for 10 seconds. Raise and extend right arm. Hold for 10 seconds. Switch arms. Hold for 10 seconds. Raise and extend right leg. Hold for 10 seconds. Switch Legs. Hold for 10 seconds. Raise and extend right leg and left arm. Hold for 10 seconds. Switch arms and legs. Hold for ten seconds. Hold pushup position for 10 seconds.
The way you get better than this is by increasing the amount of time you can hold each position. Try to get to the point where you can hold each position for 25 seconds. Be careful not to let your lower back sag because this can cause damage.
- Cherry Pickers - Remember, the goal isn’t just to move your arms back and forth, but rather to isolate your core muscles and use them to twist your entire trunk from side to side.
- Leg Lifts - Lie flat on back with head and shoulder blades off ground. Lift both legs so heels are six inches off the ground and knees are straight. Hold for one minute.
This above shouldn’t be taken as a complete routine, but rather as just a few exercises to get started. You should supplement the above by layering in other core exercises as necessary.
Food
I’d recommend picking up Nancy Clark’s book on sports nutrition. This book is invaluable, especially when cutting weight for race season. No special diet is needed to complete these workouts, just remember to eat something in between 45-minute pieces to prevent chronic glycogen depletion.
My only other tip is to try the Seth Godin breakfast. It’s healthy, low calorie, and delicious. Try it with cilantro, sprouts, and grape tomatoes.
Learning to pull hard
Knowing how to pull hard is the most important thing in rowing. However it’s also something this particular guide doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on. If this is something you need to work on then try adding in the following sprint workouts:
- Erg: 2 sets of 8 min @ 14 spm
- Erg or Water: 4 sets of 10 on 10 off 10 times. If you do this in the boat try dragging the bucket on the first and third set.
- Gamut: 1min on, 1min off, 1 min on. The original gamut erg is an excellent tool for learning how to pull hard because there is a lot of resistance at the catch and very little at the finish. Because of this it rewards the out-of-control energy that makes the 8+ win championships.
- Erg: 100 meter sprints
- Erg or water: 500m sprints. (Or quarter mile sprints if rowing the 1x.)
Gimmicky Ideas
None of the stuff below is necessary, but here is a list of ideas for if you have some extra time and want to experiment.
- Supplements - The only supplements I'd recommend are the ones that are generally recommended anyway for health reasons: a basic multivitamin like this or this, Omega-3, and Co Q10. That said, if you want to try something crazy, try drinking a Red Bull and a couple teaspoons of honey 30-45 minutes before a big erg test. It sounds disgusting, and it kind of is, but the raw energy surge and pulling aggression you get from this is completely ineffable. (But don’t have more than one because WADA and the NCAA have strict limits on acceptable caffeine use.)
- Hypoxic tent – This is a low oxygen tent that you sleep in to increase your red blood cell count. This allows your blood to hold more oxygen, which improves athletic performance.
- Power Lung – Supposedly strengthens lung strength. The claim is that A) the feeling of gasping for breath you get at the end of the race happens because your lung muscles are exhausted, not because you’re not getting enough air. And B) that gasping for breath wastes an enormous amount of energy that should be going into your rowing.
- Jump training - If you’re more ambitious with your plyometrics you can purchase one of the vertical jump workouts designed for basketball. There are several readily available that you can find via a simple Google search, although I can’t personally vouch for the safety or efficacy of any individual program.
- Logging workouts - In addition to keeping a journal with all of my workout data, I also like logging my workouts in more creative ways as a more visceral reminder of how much I’ve accomplished. One example of this is eating one power bar for every 90-minute piece you do, and then saving the empty boxes. The greatest idea I ever came up with was switching showers after each cardio workout. The gym where I went to college had 72 showerheads, so with an average of roughly 22,000 meters per 90-minute piece it took well over 1.5 million meters to work my way around the facility.
- Positive visualization - There are several books about applying positive visualization to sports. Brad Alan Lewis's book Assault On Lake Casitas actually has a whole chapter about this.
Other training guides
Although I haven’t actually talked much about project management explicitly, hopefully it should be clear how this program was inspired by and designed to be compatible with project management tools like iterative development, total quality management, PERT, critical path method, etc. If not, try diffing this guide against some of the other popular training methods below:
I actually think reading through these guides would be hugely beneficial to anyone willing to take the time, but I wouldn't actually follow any of them outright for the reasons outlined in the introduction.
Books and movies about rowing:
Sports training books and heart rate monitors
Hacker News user PaulHoule has an excellent set of book recommendations for sports training:
"I'm skeptical of anybody who claims to have a simple answer to success at weight training. The more I learn about weight training, the more ignorant I feel.
A few books I've enjoyed lately are 'Starting Strength' by Rippetoe and Killgore and Brookfield's 'Mastery of Hand Strength'. The latter book is a real eye-opener: every page is stuffed with information that makes sense, but you never would have thought of. (Hand development, of course, is important for computer keyboardists.)
Although it's not a complete weightlifting manual, I like the attitude of Bruce Lee's 'Art of Expressing the Human Body', which turned me on to circuit training. Some other good books which are more focused on bodyweight training are Cook's 'Athletic Body in Balance' and Boyle's 'Functional Training For Sports'."
Men's Health has a similar set of book recommendations. It's important to note though that these books aren't specific for rowing, so many are geared toward training entirely different muscular aptitudes. Rowers are generally trying to maximize their average power per unit muscle mass over a 240 stroke race, so it would be an enormous mistake to simply follow a training guide designed to bulk you up as fast as possible.
As far as heart rate monitors go, you don't need anything fancy. You just need something that will be able to display your current heart rate, as well as your average heart rate at the end of your workout. Currently the two best heart rate monitors that fulfill these needs seem to be the Polar FS3C and the Timex T5G971.
My personal data
As promised, I want to share some of my personal data about how this program worked for me. When I started this program I had already rowed previously for many years at a reasonably high level, before taking a 1.5 year hiatus. During this time I was almost completely sedentary, except for things like walking around campus between classes. As such, I was completely out of shape when I started training again and could barely keep my erg avereage below 2:30 at a 155 heart rate. I took 2 - 3 weeks to work my way into the program, as described above, and then followed the program diligently for the next 4 months.
At this point I unfortunately had to take 2.5 months off due to a medical problem that was being exacerbated by training. After these 2.5 months I trained lightly again for a month, attending team practices but not erging or lifting at all on my own. After these few weeks back I was able to pull a 6:23.3 on the erg, even though I was nowhere near in the physical shape I had been before. Thus it stands to reason that even if I wasn't in good enough shape to have broken 6:20 before this break, I probably would have come very very close.
More importantly, I had easily achieved my training targets for pull-ups and squats, and was less than a month away from achieving the erg targets as well. So, as it stands, while I'm not the fastest collegiate lightweight rower ever to have rowed, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who got to my level of fitness faster than I did. Not only this, but the data suggests that I still had a ton of potential left as my rate of improvement hadn't yet started to significantly decrease. But don't take my word for it, download my workout data for the first four months and see for yourself.
Final thoughts
If you make it through the above then you should have little difficulty in ultimately breaking 6:20. The real trick is staying motivated.
So far as I can tell there are really only two ways to go about this. The first is to regularly visualize yourself winning and achieving your goals. The idea here is to motivate yourself by the thought of getting to go out and fuck up someone else’s day. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys this then it’s theoretically possible to make it work almost indefinitely.
However, the better longterm strategy I think is to adopt what Hinduism calls the sanyasa-tyaga mindset. That is, take the right actions, but then renounce the consequences. If you can learn to enjoy the process for its own sake then this is the true path to sustainable fastness.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to make changes. But only make changes that are based on data, and that will generate more actionable data. Good decisions are based on patterns, so plan ahead and create workouts that make these patterns easy to spot. As Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
