Rob Ewers: Although never having attempted to row on water, I am a keen ergo fan. I have an Indoor Rower at home and train regularly, and have recently approached a few keen rower friends for training programs. They suggest that the majority of rowers out of season training should be quite low intensity (55-70% of your maximum heart rate) for long durations (40-60 minutes). This may mean, for example sitting at 2:10 pace to develop a very strong general fitness level. They suggest you would only really tailor your fitness to the individual event you will be rowing a few months before the competition. I find it hard to believe that this will reap any benefit, as keeping my heart rate low like this simply does not seem difficult and if anything, induces boredom (and yes I have tried watching telly/listening to music and everything else other people have suggested.)I tend to think if your not crawling off the machine in agony it has not done any good. Simply because, as with bodybuilding, if you want your muscles to grow, you need to push them harder than what they are accustomed to. - I would assume that this is the same for any serious competitor trying to reach their natural limits.Terry O'Neill: There is an element of correctness in both positions. Rowing training theory is based on the following principles. The aerobic and anaerobic contribution to a 2,000 metre race is 70-80% aerobic and 20-30% anaerobic. From this they devise a programme that contains these ratios and that is why they spend so much time doing the low intensity training. The benefits from high intensity training are more immediate and so the high intensity work is left until the last couple of months before competition.A low intensity training programme requires far more hours of training than a high intensity programme therefore if you train once a day or less, the effects of a low intensity programme will be very small. At this point I think we need to differentiate between training for a specific event and regular exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. Regular exercise of a low intensity will maintain a healthy body but this should not be confused with training.If you train every day flat out, after about six weeks you will reach a plateau. Unfortunately the body works in waves and doesn't like plateaus so you will start to lose form. A lot of people refer to this as being stale. What has actually happened is that you have gone as far as you can on you existing aerobic and strength base and the only way to move on is to raise these basic levels. Unless you are a full time professional athlete, the most effective way to train is in a series of six week blocks and the order is very important. The first six weeks you focus on strength. The next six weeks you focus on endurance and because you are stronger the endurance sessions are at a higher intensity. The third six weeks you focus on power.The problem with spending too much time training in one area is that you lose fitness in another. Weeks and weeks of low intensity work will cause the loss of explosive strength and too much time spent on speed work will cause a loss of aerobic capacity.No training is 100% specific and so by rotating your training on a six week cycle you will not lose ground in the other areas. Also this is a far more interesting method of training which will involve you crawling of the machine occasionally, but not every time. ____________________________________________F E E D B A C KLike what you read? Dislike what you read? Ideas for future newsletters? Make sure to tell us at [email protected]_________________________________________________________