Rowing is probably the best full-body workout out there, and that’s not hyperbole—rowing engages 86 percent of your muscles. And the 2,000-meter row is the gold standard test for rowing athletes as the official distance used in rowing championships. It is also an excellent fitness barometer for novice rowers.
What is the significance of the 2,000 meter row?
“If you’re not familiar with rowing, or meters, it can seem like an arbitrary distance,” says CITYROW founding coach Annie Mulgrew. “But just 2,000 meters is enough to test someone’s cardiovascular, or aerobic, fitness level and their anaerobic fitness levels. It’s really an anaerobic threshold workout, adds Laura Simon, assistant coach of the women’s rowing team at Yale, which means. rate and leads to your maximum physical output.
“It’s also a true test of one’s lung capacity,” says Mulgrew. “It requires that someone not only be in heart shape, so they can breathe and sustain a high-intensity heart rate, but also that they’re able to push through the lactic acid that’s going to start building up throughout the body.” Lactic acid buildup, Simon explains, is the cause of muscle soreness and the accompanying emotional discomfort.
Plus, Mulgrew adds, because 86 percent of your body’s muscles must activate and coordinate with each stroke, it’s also demanding on the muscular system. “All In rowing, your core strength muscles are activated,” says Simon. “There’s a misconception that it’s just the arms, but the arms are the least used part, they’re used as levers, but they’re not actually used to produce power. It’s the rest of the core muscles in the body that are used to generate power—the core, the hips, the legs, the quads, those are all the big muscles that actually generate the motion in the boat.”
In fact, rowing is as much a strength sport as it is a speed sport, says Mulgrew. “You have to focus on a powerful leg drive,” she says. “You can think of it like deadlifting — if you’ve ever deadlifted, you know how taxing the body is, and rowing is essentially the same as a seated deadlift. Instead of adding weight to the barbell, you produce that effort, which works the stroke. pushes on the platform, which is called drive”.
In other words, one of the 2,000-meter rows the best How to test your fitness.
What is a good rowing speed?
What makes the 2,000m row particularly challenging is that there isn’t much pacing involved. “It’s considered sprint distance, so you should come out of the gate at 70 percent intensity and then be able to hold yourself at 80 percent until the last sprint or the last 500, at which point you want to ramp up to like. 90 or 100 percent,” says Mulgrew. “It’s physically and mentally challenging for people.”
For the average consumer (those of us who don’t compete on an actual team), it’s best to maintain split times of two minutes for men and 2.5 minutes for women, says NASM-certified personal trainer and director Kay Crawford. Education for Row House.
The average rowing split time also depends on the distance. The split times for the 500m row and the 2,000m row will be different. For this reason, Crawford says consistency is a good measure, meaning being consistent over time regardless of the length and timing of your splits.
What are the benefits of rowing exercise?
All that means a 2,000-meter row is one of the hardest and most effective workouts you can engage in; However, it’s also non-weight-bearing and low-impact, which means it’s a good choice for those looking to put less pressure on their skeleton and joints. “We rehabilitate a lot of people with bad knees,” says Mulgrew. “It’s good for pregnant women in all three trimesters because they’re sitting. They’re strengthening their legs and their hips and their stomach, but they’re not straining their body by standing on their knees.”
Rowing workouts also build full-body strength and help improve posture, core strength and mobility, Crawford says. And it’s a great alternative to running, if you’re debating between rowing vs. running.
What is a good finish time for a 2,000 meter row?
How fast you should be able to complete a 2,000-meter rowing workout depends on your size (height and weight), but Mulgrew provides a benchmark for rowers to work against. As a general rule, you want to complete each split—or 500 meters—in about two minutes.
“If you’re going to hold a two-minute split time continuously for 2,000 meters, you’re going to take about eight minutes to line it up,” says Mulgrew. “It’s very challenging because eight minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time when you’re thinking about holding yourself accountable for an endurance effort, it’s very taxing on the body because 85 percent of your muscles are active. So I want. Anywhere between eight and 10 minutes is good. will be solid, and for men it may be closer to seven to nine minutes.”
A “good” finish time will be different for everyone, depending on age, gender, and experience. Among beginners, the average finish time for a 35-year-old male is about eight minutes; The average expiration time for a 35-year-old woman is about 10 minutes. More advanced rowers should expect to finish under seven minutes and eight minutes, respectively.
How to absolutely crush a 2,000-meter row
Interested in challenging yourself to row 2,000 meters? Get training advice from the pros below.
Focus on speed and endurance
One of the biggest mistakes Simon sees novice athletes make is going out really fast and then going slower and slower down the row when — as Mulgrew points out — it should actually be progressing in the opposite direction.
If you’re trying to get into your splits or your 2,000-meter sprint at full speed, Simon recommends doing 80 percent of your work in your steady state zone, where your heart rate is between 145 and 160. Stay grounded, able to maintain your fitness in the third and fourth 500,” she says.
And Mulgrew recommends knowing what your split times are before you set out to complete a 2,000-meter rowing workout. “The worst thing you can do is sit arbitrarily for those eight to 10 minutes,” she says. “Not only will it take you a long time, but it will feel terrifying mentally and physically.”
If you go with a game plan, on the other hand – knowing what your split times are/should be – you’ll be mentally better engaged. “To be physically efficient you have to have focus and the ability to make your mind and body work together so that when the body gets tired, the brain can override it and be like, ‘No, we have to keep going,'” says Mulgrew.
Simon notes that everyone hits this wall 2,000 meters in a row, but at different points. “As you become a more experienced athlete, you know exactly when you’re going to hit a wall and you know how to manage yourself through it,” she says. “And once you get to the other side of it, you’re home free, so to speak.”
Practice proper technique
The most serious error Mulgrew sees is novice rowers not working on technique before attempting a 2,000-meter row. “Good technique means your stroke is efficient,” she says. “If your stroke isn’t efficient, your split times will reflect that — you’ll have consistently slower split times because the body isn’t moving in an efficient way.”
Practice makes perfect, but watch this video to get a better idea of proper form:
Put in hard work and perseverance
A 2,000-meter row isn’t really a “straight-off-the-couch” workout, Simon says, but rather something you need to work on over time. ““You’re not going to have someone who’s never run a half marathon before with no knowledge — they’re going to have to train,” Mulgrew said. agree “You really know what your split times need to be at the 500-, 1,000-, 1,500-, and then the 2,000-meter mark, and that comes from riding a lot earlier.”
The appeal of rowing, she says, is that it looks easy when anything. “It’s this beautiful, flowing movement, but if you’ve never done it before, you’ll realize very quickly that you’re actually working hard at it, to make it look effortless,” says Mulgrew.
He advises people to train, practice and try the 2,000m row for the first time. She says, ‘This is not a challenge. “Maybe it’s every quarter or something like that to check in and see how you’re doing. Remind yourself that any time you’re doing a challenge like this, it’s really just to see what the body can do. Yes – and there should be. Mad respect for the body even when it tries.”
The key to improvement, like all things, is consistency. To achieve this, Crawford recommends regular rowing workouts. And what is considered a “good rowing workout” will vary depending on the individual, their goals and the workout. “You can get a lot out of anaerobic interval training where you’re rowing a ton of meters but the intensity is short bursts of hard effort,” she says. “You can also go for more endurance/aerobic training and get more meters at a more sustained effort. In our classes at Row House, which range from recovery to HIIT to endurance, our members typically reach 3,000-10,000. [meters] in a 45-minute class.”
Invest in a rowing machine
If you’re really serious about improving your rowing skills, perhaps you’re interested in investing in your own rowing machine for home use. If so, Crawford recommends the Concept2 Model D Rower ($900), which is a machine used by Olympic-level athletes to train, but works for people of all fitness levels. “It’s very easy to maintain and lasts a very long time,” she says. “Concept2 Help Support is also great. We outfit all our studios with them and they are amazing.
For a gamified experience on a really cool rowing machine, you might want to check out the Ergata ($2,199), which allows you to compete against other rowers. And if you’re looking for a more budget-friendly option, there are some great rowing machines under $500. Don’t have much space at home? Get yourself a foldable rowing machine.
Make it fun
Finally, Crawford says rowing requires a lot of self-motivation. And one way to get you pumped for rowing is to make it as fun and enjoyable as possible. Crawford suggests checking out on-demand and live virtual rowing classes through Xponential Plus or Row House. If you own the aforementioned Concept2, Crawford suggests checking out the Concept2 Logbook online community, which hosts challenges to keep everyone engaged and motivated.
For personal motivation, Crawford suggests attending a rowing-based fitness studio. Bonus points if they play live music and combine it with resistance training. And, if you’re tired or bored of rowing and want to mix things up, there are other ways to get in a good workout using your rowing machine, such as single-leg Bulgarian split squats and lateral lunges.