Category: Members’ experiences

Why tub trips?: Outings in Teal (”the tub”) provide stress and pressure free rowing in a very stable boat, with the added bonus of coffee and biscuits at Cow Tower or wherever we stop. Could summarize the benefits as ”fun, fitness and friendship”.

Maybe change the stress free bit what with us getting a bit too close to the ferries! Incidentally we also picked some blackberries and helped in the rescue of a lady and two kids who had capsized their Pub and Paddle canoe by Colman’s.

There is no getting away from it. Whether you grind out 50k or more a week or just jump on it every now and again for a 20-minute blast, the indoor rower is a cruel mistress.
Many will understand the agony of still having hundreds of metres to row when your body is
screaming for you to stop. But many will also know the ecstasy of finishing a timed piece with a PB, which somehow makes all that pain worth it.

I am fortunate enough to have an erg at home and I try to spend at least some time on it most days.
As variation is one of the keys to motivation, I try to differ my workouts with a mixture of interval training, long low-intensity rows and timed pieces.
Personally, I love the Concept 2 Workout of the Day which arrives as an email early each morning with a choice of either a short, medium or long session, all of which are more than enough to get the blood pumping.
British Rowing also has a good selection of training plans on its site and YouTube is full of row-along workouts with which to join in.
We all know about the benefits of training on a rowing machine. It delivers a full-body workout, activating the legs, arms, back and core all within a single stroke. It is low impact exercise and as a tool for improving fitness, strength and endurance it is hard to beat. (Also, unlike water-based training you don’t get wet when you fall off!)
However, for me, the honesty of the erg is key. Although many hours of staring at numbers on a small, monochrome screen is probably a sure-fire route to madness, it is this very data that allow us to track the consistency of our workouts. On the water, variables such as wind, tide and river traffic all have an impact on how quick we are on any given day. Sometimes, our feelings about an outing may differ from the reality. The erg, however, will always tell us the truth.
As we blink away the tears during a workout, it displays in real time the 500m split pace, the number of metres left to cover, stroke count and the expected finish time. Over a timed piece, such as a 2k or 5k, just a small change in the average 500m split can have a huge impact, knocking seconds or even minutes off the final time.
There are a whole host of other measures displayed, including power output in watts, calories
burned or heart rate (with an ANT+ or Bluetooth chest strap). If the machine’s Performance Monitor is paired with the Ergdata smartphone app, other data points such as stroke length and drag factor are also available to see during the row.
All of this information is collated on the Concept 2 Online Logbook where you can see how your workout compares to your own previous efforts and to others of a similar age across the world. We can also link with friends as ‘training partners’ to compare workouts. Powerfully, it allows us to evaluate our progress over a long period of time.
To keep us motivated, Concept 2 has a calendar of challenges throughout each season (May-April) with downloadable certificates and pin-badge prizes for those who take part. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to receive my free T-shirt for completing my first ‘one million metres’ on the machine.
I do not think the indoor rower can replace the joy of being in a real boat either in a single or with friends. Time on the water is good for learning technique and filling our souls. But land training on the erg over the past few years has had a very positive impact on my own fitness and real-life boat speed. I do not think I would have been able to make these gains through water-sessions alone.
At Yare Boat Club, we are lucky enough to have a number of ergs for members to use. So if you have a few minutes to spare, why not strap those feet in, grit your teeth and give it a go. You never know, you might fall under the erg’s spell too!

Mark

I learned to scull at YBC when I was 7 surrounded by an experienced older generation who insisted that everything was done properly. Even paddling the ferry (great big thing just like now) the sculling over the stern had to be done properly and that technique has proved so useful many times since. I taught my son to scull at YBC also when he was 7 and like me, he has enjoyed winning elite races all over the country and such was that beneficial grounding we both went on to win events at Henley Royal Regatta and also represent GB. Thank you YBC for helping to start lifetime interests in rowing. Marcus now lives in Switzerland and we thoroughly enjoy double sculling together on Lake Geneva. We have also taught three of the grandchildren to scull at YBC and hope one day when the novelty of school sports wears off they might enjoy sculling once again. The technique is never forgotten and after 70 years I still thoroughly enjoy it.

Some lucky club members have enjoyed recreational  rowing abroad. A four day rowing trip on the river Douro in Portugal was great fun; 80km in mixed international crews.

The trip was organised by a Portuguese sports club, with comfy hotels, pools and good food, to rest and recover from rowing in the sun much of the day. It wasn’t all just rowing – we managed a glorious evening at a port wine vineyard!
Sharing stories with rowers from other countries and events in other countries is inspirational and a great way to meet some lovely people

I have never been a particularly sporty person. Actually, I’m not sporty at all. I managed – through taking an extra class in O level statistics (which I failed) and woefully inadequate safeguarding policies in the 1980s – to avoid games completely at my high school for two years. Rowing was not an option at my ‘bog standard comprehensive’ and I wasn’t really interested in healthy hobbies whilst at university. I had my first taste of rowing whilst working in a temporary admin role at a solicitors in Norwich; they had access to a wonderful, sturdy old four which was kept at what was then the Norwich Union Boathouse off the Yarmouth Road. I turned up, they gave me an oar and off we went. And, much to my great surprise, I could sort of do it. A few years later, having moved to Kingston-upon-Thames to start my teaching career, I saw a learn to row course advertised. I needed something other than lesson preparation, parents’ evenings, marking and worrying about pupils in my life. I became hooked and rowed in a coxed four, an eight and on a few occasions, a quad. Sweep rowing was definitely my thing in those days.

On returning to Norwich, the same desire to get out on the water caught up with me again. I signed up to a ‘get back into’ course at Broadland Rowing Club and that was that. Hooked all over again. Rowing is a wonderful sport for body and soul. Spotting the swan sitting patiently on her nest, the kingfisher zipping along the shoreline, the heron crouched on one leg watching its lunch, the hawk hovering overhead, the bemused head of a seal popping up out of the water – all of these earn me jealous looks from friends and colleagues back on land. Apart, that is, from the many friends I have met and made through rowing and have shared these experiences with. When you find yourself in that perfect rhythm together, the perfect ‘click’ of everyone moving together, that’s pretty special. So, too, are the times spent sat on the water sharing anecdotes and stories and laughs. These days, I’m very much a recreational rower – I was always a somewhat reluctant racing one even in my ‘heyday’. I’m still not really a particularly sporty person. Just someone who loves rowing.