Rowing

A quick note

I have long held an affinity for rowing. Not rowing as a sport, and not rowing as a warm up but rowing to find out who truly one is. The main difference between rowing and running as cardiovascular exercise is that attached to the rowing machine is a monitor. This monitor politely tells you when you are speeding up and when you are slowing down. In other words, when going for max effort, it tells you if you got it or you don't; quitting or fighting. Inside my affinity is the effort of the 2k row; 2,000 meters for time. It is not a sprint nor is it an endurance event. I like it because much anyone can do it. It is the ultimate power-endurance event. You have to pull hard, and the amount of pulls is enough to classify it as endurance-esque.  The monitor gives you an 'average pace' for every 500m you are rowing. It constantly updates and what the avg. 500m pace means is however fast you are rowing in the current event is what you would finish at if you were rowing that speed for 500m. A 1:45 pace is a 7:00 2k, too me that is an average 2k. 

I think olympic rowers can row a 2k in 5:45/5:55. My best time is 6:39, and I am in decent shape for rowing and that time domain. To beat me by an entire minute is incredibly impressive, but also know what is impressive, the guy who rows a 6:30. Only 9" faster than me, but the amount of pain, and mental fortitude it takes to row 9" faster on that 2k is tremendous. This is where the strong, the average, and the weak classify themselves. 

The name of the game in all athletics is consistency. How consistent can I be at the highest level over the entirety of the event/game. Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretsky, and Rich Fronning (for you CF freaks) are great because they are consistent. Rowing is exactly the same. Someone who rows a fast 2k does not do so because they change paces the whole time, or go really hard when they feel and then have some shitty ass pulls for 30''. They have a set pace and hold that for as long as possible till maybe about 600-500m left, then at that time they either know they will kick it up a notch, or fight to hold on which usually leads to the notion that their original pace was too hot out the gate, which is fine! We only know our true potential till we fail, those people will get better. It is the folk who think 7' of rowing isn't hard because they ran your local bull shit 10k and walked part of it., which is fine too! But that doesn't illicit any psychological change in their life. The real g's are the ones that set their minds to a certain pace and hit for those 7 minutes, for those that have the same pace pull for 7 whole minutes. Being consistent is hard, real hard. As one of my remote clients said 'If I don't know the feeling of a consistent pull I don't know what consistency even feels like in life, which means I actually have to pay attention to it" And as James Fitzgerald said "If a client of mine walks in and sees an all out effort 500m row on the board and they have a response of 'that's it', then those are the people who don't know shit, and lack any type of work ethic desired"

Rowing is a love hate relationship like the barbell, however it is different because it takes a different type of focus/pain/and humility. The monitor tells you when you are slowing down, when you making excuses for yourself. All you can do it sit on that seat, and pull and see your time dropping, see your 'hard work' isn't really hard work. If one can accept the humility, the road to improvement and self-enlightenment starts there. It is easy to lie to yourself when none is looking, but you can never be lied to by the rower.