Intro

[efdavila]

New to the forum. I've rowed at the gym off and on for a number of years. Mainly to warm up before weight lifting, sometimes as an aerobic exercise for 10-15 minutes. I've been lurking the forum for a couple of weeks which motivated me to start rowing more seriously.

This week I rowed on Monday and Friday (30 minutes of elliptical on Wed.). Monday's workout consisted of 25 minutes at a split time of 2:30 with the damper set to 6. Felt a little beat the next day. Today I did two 10 minute sets with 3 minutes of light rowing in between. The first 10 I did at a split of 2:25, the second at 2:30, and both at a damper of 5. Will repeat this for a few weeks and will then start bringing my split time down. Comments welcome and appreciated.

Anyway, this is an intro of sorts. I'm 65.

[Dangerscouse]

Welcome to the forum, and they are solid efforts for a 65 year old.

Rather than using a specific damper setting you should check the drag factor, as the drag will vary depending on how dirty or clean the rower is (dust accumulates on the flywheel which affects the drag the dustier it gets).

If you're male I'd suggest a drag of 115-130 and for a female it's better at 100-120. There's no need to go any higher, and you might like it lower so have a play around and find what feels right for you.

The only other thing to do is to focus on good technique and not entrenching bad habits. Lots of good videos out there on YouTube for you to watch.

Best of luck with it all

[efdavila]

Thanks! Reading up on the topic now.

[lindsayh]

Welcome and best of luck - it is a great training and fitness tool
I agree - getting from damper setting to drag factor is really useful and important to understand
There is a huge amount of information in the training threads
This one is widely seen as a the most helpful recently:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=185257

[efdavila]

Thanks, Lindsay. Good info!