I'm 45, overweight and out of shape. I like to ride offroad on the weekends with my buddies and the occasional offroad race (Enduro). I used the heartrate monitor to baseline my riding. Over an hour of average riding, I average 138 HR with a 172 peak (must of scared myself somewhere)... The main thing I would like to improve is recovery from the harder stuff like picking the bike up or dragging it up a hill. Once this happens my HR goes through the roof and I feel bad for the rest of the ride.
Should I be doing long 30-50 minute sessions on the ERG or shorter higher HR stuff. I've only had the ERG for 3 weeks. Been trying to do it 5 days per week about 25 minutes at a time. I usually increase my HR 10 beats every 5 minutes trying to get up into the 150's-160's at the end. I do try and take a few minutes to cool down at the end. Any Idea's to increase general fitness and recovery.
Thanks
Bill
Getting in shape for dirt bike riding
The best thing you can do is lose the weight. Weight matters much more bike riding then erging.
To improve recovery, do short intervals on the erg with short recovery time. On the bike one has to go hard often with out enough time to fully recover from the previous effort. Also on the bike the efforts are often very short. This is in contrast to rowing races.
You only want to do two interval workouts a week. However your weekend bike rides may may be too hard to do two days of intervals on the erg.
Don't just do the same time on the erg each day. Mix it up--some days 20 minutes some days 40-50 or more. Actually 25 minutes on the erg is not very much if you warm up and cool down properly. A 10 minute warm and a 5 min cool down are minimal, so that leaves 10 minutes for the main body of work.
To improve recovery, do short intervals on the erg with short recovery time. On the bike one has to go hard often with out enough time to fully recover from the previous effort. Also on the bike the efforts are often very short. This is in contrast to rowing races.
You only want to do two interval workouts a week. However your weekend bike rides may may be too hard to do two days of intervals on the erg.
Don't just do the same time on the erg each day. Mix it up--some days 20 minutes some days 40-50 or more. Actually 25 minutes on the erg is not very much if you warm up and cool down properly. A 10 minute warm and a 5 min cool down are minimal, so that leaves 10 minutes for the main body of work.
This guy's a trainer and specializes in moto specific workouts. He incorporates the Concept 2 and is part of the Moto team here. Tell em I sent ya, so I can get my discount. 
http://web.mac.com/stevenbubel/iWeb/mxc ... /Home.html
http://web.mac.com/stevenbubel/iWeb/mxc ... /Home.html
51, 5'11", 183lbs and going down slowly
Hopefully it will clear up when you get more used to the erg, but don't let that get chronic! You may find taking a break for a minute or so a couple of times during the row to walk and stretch helps.Billgear wrote:The tendon that runs under my rear end starts to hurt at the end of the rows, think I need to stretch better.
Bill