Concept2 Forum

Newbie here. I've been rowing for about 6 months, and am currently in the last two weeks of the BPP. If age matters, I'm 67 years old. If pace matters, I've never tried for a PB at any distance or time, but I'd guess that my 2k PB pace would be in the 2:05-2:08 range. I'm much more interested in training for overall health and fitness than I am PBs, rankings, and such.

Warm up - everyday training

SS rows - for sessions like 10k, I never warm up. I may start at a pace 1 or 2s slower than planned, and slowly increase my pace, but it seems kinda crazy to warm up for something like this. The whole darn session is relatively slow in terms of pace, not too demanding in terms of effort, and rowed at a low rate of 19-22spm, so I don't see much point in warming up for 5-10 minutes. I just sort of ease into these sessions, thinking of them as base building exercises, putting in the Z1/Z2 or UT2/UT1 meters, with maybe a bit of AT near the end as my heart rate drifts up.

Intervals - for both long (2k or 10/15min) and short (500m) I do a quick 5 minute warmup. 1 minute easy, 1 minute near pace, 1 minute easy, 1 minute near pace, 1 minute easy. I then rest for roughly 1-2 minutes and get on with the task at hand. I want my heart rate to come down, but not too far. And no, I haven't tried to quantify that.

Warm up - PB attempts

Do you warm up or cool down differently than you do for everyday training sessions? I would think that most people would warm up more before a PB in order to get the heart and lungs and blood flow moving faster, but not too high.

Cool down

I never cool down, which is probably to my detriment, but I'm not sure that I work hard enough to have a ton of lactic acid or anything else that needs flushing, although as mentioned above, I've never tried for a PB. My legs may feel a little weak for a minute or two, especially walking back up the stairs, but this quickly wears off, at least for training sessions.

I'm sure that there are multiple schools of thought on this, and at least a few will conflict, but I'd be interested in hearing them, especially the reasoning behind them, whether anecdotal, scientific, or other.

impact of warmup on performance (large, positive), optimum amount of warmup (surprisingly small, temperature dependent and dependent on the activity you are doing after your warmup) --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtzMYFaZeIc

impact of warmup on Injury Risk. Warm up most likely reduces injury risk, but might not... "Five studies, all of high quality (7-9 (mean=8) out of 11) reported sufficient data (quality score>7) on the effects of warming up on reducing injury risk in humans. Three of the studies found that performing a warm-up prior to performance significantly reduced the injury risk, and the other two studies found that warming up was not effective in significantly reducing the number of injuries." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16679062/

My net: Get warm before hard intervals (injury risk avoidance). Starting cold is fine for long/slow. On a PB attempt only warm up enough to get muscles up to temp (get warm with minimal impact on your glycogen reserves).

I do a warm up for "hard" sessions only. I typically train every day but just do two hard sessions per week. Hard sessions are sprint intervals, long intervals and TTs all of which I try to do at around my SB/PB pace for that piece. I don't warm up for any SS or grey zone training.

I've tried different WUs over the years but currently favour 3x500m on 2min rests. They are paced ca 2k +15; +10; +5 and also I pull 5 hard strokes (say 2k -1; -6; -11) at the 270m point. Some advocate long WUs particularly for sprints - they are deffo not for me!

I do cool down on the hard sessions. Often just 500m at around 2k+25. On other sessions I often just go slower over the last minute or two as a psuedo cool down.

I never did WU or CD for several years. But...I was persuaded by my own performance/RPE. For intervals without WU I found the 2nd and 3rd intervals much easier and less tiring that the first. Doing the warm up removes that toughness from the first interval. On cool downs I started after getting a bit too achey the next day after a hard session. Just a gentle 500m is enough to stop that happening.

Hard to answer as everyone is different. I believe it’s quite psychological aswell as physiologically important. I never used to warm up but I guess age finally caught up with me and I find I need to!

In my experience, if I attempt a 2k best effort with no warm up it’s utterly horrendous and I get no where near the time expect same with hard intervals training. Conversely, I’ve spent 90 minutes out in a single doing technical work then hopped on the erg because I felt good and wanted a blow out, and pb 2k by 2 seconds. This was enough to convince me to always warm up for hard sessions. Like most, for steady state, I’ll just start slow and grow into it, working to the level I feel is right for me that day.

For a 2k test I’ll warm up for 25 mins (steady state 2k +20, with a 15 stroke blast every 5 mins at target pace). Do some dynamic stretches for 5 minutes, final setups then go for it.

I don't see much point in warming up for 5-10 minutes. I just sort of ease into these sessions

That is warmup; it can't be avoided. But strictly speaking, when training for rowing we always use our stroke. Which is a long and hard but relaxed stroke that can't be done cold.

I can only pull a 5.5W' stroke nowadays, so warmup doesn't take long. A 10W' stroke or more, is different.

I had way more back issues when I didn't warm-up on the rower. Now I do a 1k with a hard 10 at 750. Slowly increase the pace throughout.

I warm up for every piece these days, whether it's 20k or 2k. Five minutes for distance pieces, 15-20 mins for interval pieces dependant on the session. Warming up for long pieces is a fairly new approach, I would always ease in to them which as jamesg says, is a warm up;

jamesg wrote: ↑

May 14th, 2025, 5:26 pm

I don't see much point in warming up for 5-10 minutes. I just sort of ease into these sessions

That is warmup; it can't be avoided.

For long steady I go straight into it on target pace (ca. 2:01-2:04), as this would typically be my warmup pace anyway (or is even slower).
For all other stuff I warmup. Typically 10-15min depending on length and expected intensity. First minutes low rate with increasing stroke power, then rating up a bit, but below target rate. Last few mins some bursts at target rate and pace to see how it feels.

I don't warm up for HM+ or SS, but do for other sessions. Slowly increase pace and rating with bursts of 30S - 1min with similar "recoveries" between. Try and get up to bursts above target pace. For 500 or shorter I do a few 100 r1' intervals at increasing pace afterwards. I have always been told that we should be sweating freely after the warm up. ALways do 5 min or so slow rowing after the harder work and 5-10 min afterwards before I start if time allows. I think that as well as warming muscles it is important to get your aerobic system into gear as this can take 3' so at threshold or above efforts we will have accumulated oxygen debt at the start that will make the remainder harder. Re depleting glycogen, I have never known this for anything below a FM, although muscle glycogen will be exhausted, liver glycogen stores are significant. It is possible that shifting to these does require more effort that might explain HR rises upto 10 min in.

Re cooldown I find less PEMS if I do them so do after all sessions for at least 5min sometimes 20 after more intense work. I slowly decrease the pace of these, starting at UT1 pace if I have cooled from the work.

I never used to warm up until about a few years ago, now I do for harder sessions, but, like Mike, nothing at all for steady or grey sessions.

I cool down when I've gone really hard, but that's also time dependent, and only added in recent years.

I don't do a warm up for anything grey/easy regardless of the distance - but I do notice that it takes me at least 3 mins (sometimes longer) to loosen up and get into the grove.

for sprints it's a little tricky - I am at my "best" in terms of zip without pushing the legs hard in warm-up and rarely get close to max output on a second attempt (but often a lower output but better paced = better result).

I'll do a CD if I feel my legs are a bit wobbly afterwards - only really after a 500m for me as I'm normally cardio side limited in my erging.

If it's intended to be an aerobic session on the erg (ie. UT2), I don't warm up; I just hop into the pace / power I think I am good for and let things roll from there. Most of the time, I slowly negative split the session. Same with other modalities like walking, rucking, or running; I generally just hop into pace if it's meant to be aerobic.

If it's intended to be a harder session, I will generally do a ~10 - 15 mins warm up and cool down at an aerobic / UT2 pace just to get moving. Unless I am doing something like a true sprint effort, once my warm up is over, I go straight into the intervals. On actual sprint sessions, a lot of times I will do 2-3 "intervals" where I gradually increase the pace / power / effort from easy / aerobic to target; this is especially true on the rare occasion I do something like hill sprinting, as the last thing I want or need is a blown hammy.

The first ramp I go up when walking in local woods is quite steep, about 10%, and about two hundred steps (150m). I use a pair of long XC ski sticks. When I get to the top I have aches and pains all over and blow like a walrus; so stop and rest for a minute or two. When I restart, it all disappears and I can go fast up and down for another hour or so. I call it warmup; but as Shakes noted, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I do some sort of warmup for everything. Everything starts with a 500m no power piece. Then it depends on the main session.
For time trials I follow Eric Murray's suggestions:
e.g 2K main set, warmup:
10 mins slowly working up to UT1 pace, then
5 x 45 secs with 1:15 active rest (i.e. start every 2 minutes), spm 24/26/28/30/32
The idea is that the last interval hits a pace faster than targeted at the main set.
Then 2 x 4mins (rest 5 mins) at 30 minute pace or slightly faster.
Then 10-15 mins break to mains set.

For a 5K main set this would be reduced to spm 22/24/26/28/30 on the intervals and only one 4 minute piece.

Before that I followed a recommendation by Professor Hagerman: after some preliminary warmup a 2K at 5K pace (2K+5),
then 20 minutes to main set.
This may seem excessive but either way has always worked for me.

After 1k idling, did todays WOD: 2323232' + 1'Rest.

Watts were 123 123 127 126 137 132 149.

Quite warm at the end (HR 150+). It began to feel doable after the first 3' interval, at HR around 130.