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Comment by ADominic | Hacker News Reader

also a former rower - I don't think we're the target market. If you've never touched an erg, it might not really matter whether you start on a C2 or not. And I'd guess controlling the hardware also gives them more control over the entire user experience + their own costs.

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fwiw i'm actually not a former rower and I just purchased a C2 after some very light research. It's the industry standard, it's relatively cheap, and ALL of the apps are specifically designed or have have seamless integration with the C2.

It is a great machine - I have one too :)

sweet. If you develop an app that integrates with the C2, I will be your first paying user to try it.

You won't be our first paying user (there are thousands of them) but we'd love you to download asensei which connect seamlessly with your Concept2 and lets you follow programs and workouts from 4x Olympians to Studio Rowing instructors.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/asensei/id1335539383

You can try a free trial with Eric Murray (one half of the famous KiwiPair) before committing to a purchase.

If anyone wants to purchase an annual membership, the code HN20 is good for 20% off until the end of the weekend.

And when you're ready to get coaching on your form/technique, or mix in strength, TRX and mobility training alongside your rowing, our new smart (app)arel coaching will give you real-time feedback on your technique and form as you're guided through structured training programs.

Our personal coaching program opened last week here: https://asensei.com/products/personal-coaching-apparel

And you can see what the coaching experience will be in the video at the foot of this page here: https://coaching.asensei.com/

Good luck to the team at Aviron with the launch. When you're ready to bring form and technique coaching to the product to ensure people are rowing safely and correctly, feel free to reach out to me to understand how you can incorporate asensei Connected Coaching in your product for your customers!

Best,

Steven CEO, asensei

I see this as an insanely dangerous game. IME most non-rowers won't touch an erg without significant instruction/encouragement as they're technique dependent. Any that do will quickly figure out from anyone who has rowed that C2 is the standard and everything else on the market is flaming garbage.

Add to this that I could recreate this business using the C2 API in a couple weeks and suddenly have a market of everyone who owns a C2 (all the people in this thread complaining that it doesn't support their machine) along with a literal potential customer list available through C2.

You make a good point re: the C2 market. I mentioned up top that a huge part of our experience is the electronically controlled resistance that adds up to 100+ lbs of force. Our high-intensity games and strength content, which differentiates us, requires this and the reason why we opted to build our own rower. Thanks for the feedback.

Edited my comment when I saw this. This is exceedingly dangerous. Ask any rower that's worked with people on C2 machines. Everyone will instinctively throw the damper to setting 10, then throw their back due to bad posture.

> Everyone will instinctively throw the damper to setting 10, then throw their back due to bad posture.

The people who do that normally only row for a few minutes at a time, and aren't really at any significant risk of injury. The only class of people who seem to consistently develop back problems from rowing machines are people who train on them for hours a day in high school and never lift weights.

All the other back injuries in rowing are usually from either sweep rowing or from lifting.

The standard rowing machines (sit on sliding seat, feet stationary) can actually be pretty abusive to the spine, worse than scull or sweep. I've seen inexperienced people actually hurt themselves. It's mostly an issue of shock at the catch and finish. Dynamic machines such as those made by C2, Row perfect, etc are a bit better in this regard and might be a better fit for this market.

Good point. We do our best to educate users with intro rowing videos that can be found on the touchscreen. Any any time the resistance is at a high level, we use little animations that show proper form and technique.

This is a kind of thing that needs a lot of direct coaching to achieve...

There are two major rowing postures you'll find people tend to use, hips rotated forward and hips back (spine slightly arched forward/convex). Neither is really wrong but for high resistance you need to be in the hips forward position (back slightly concave) as is the technique for weight lifting in the seated row. IME most people don't actually comprehend which position they're in but using the wrong one can be catastrophic. You typically have to spend a few hours with someone ensuring they stay in the correct orientation before they really get it.

I'm a little confused by your harsh comments AWildC182. Obviously you're a fan of the C2, but isn't the point of this rower to open up a fitness experience for both new and pro users alike that's different from what's already been tried and tested in the market? I get the whole "don't fix what ain't broke" mindset, but the whole point of innovation is to broaden horizons and our experience with fitness. Plus, I saw that they have instruction videos on how to row, and just like any product, they've recommended starting on the easy levels and working your way up. Anyone that tosses themselves into the most difficult setting on anything without warming up is asking for an injury, and this goes beyond rowing.

Did you create this account for this purpose?

I don't have any stake in C2, I just want to make clear that they are the standard that this will be measured against and that they are said standard for a reason. Anything advertised lesser should be viewed with suspicion, particularly for safety critical products.

All that said, there are opportunities to improve, but those opportunities mainly exist in the software space. Focusing on hardware solely to create a moat isn't innovation, it's making landfill fodder.

Finally, I have significant experience in this area, both as an athlete and a coach. Enough that I would unmask myself very quickly if I mentioned any details. I don't coach anymore and don't have any financial interest in that either. Teaching people to use these devices safely isn't an "instructional videos" and "warm up" ordeal. This will sound silly but people generally don't know what their body is doing without tight feedback loops and their perception breaks down under stress/over the duration of a workout. We frequently had people row in front of mirrors to get things to click (another business opportunity in the computer vision space). It's painfully obvious when you go anywhere that has mixed classically trained and self trained rowers who is who.

I only raise questions because the move-fast-break-things approach is dangerous when you're breaking people. I couldn't care less about the VCs getting fleeced by this.

> Did you create this account for this purpose?

That breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to (1) assume good faith, and (2) not to post insinuations of astroturfing or shilling but rather to email hn@ycombinator.com if you're worried about abuse. You can easily make your substantive points while sticking to these rules.

Most new users are legit and it's the wrong cultural tradeoff for this place to allow established users to harass them. I certainly appreciate your wish to protect the integrity of the threads but it needs to be done while remaining an open, welcoming community. That last thing we want is to incentivize legit new users to leave just as soon as they arrive here, and we put up with a lot of downside in order not to punish the innocent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it's also pretty nasty to say that VCs are "getting fleeced by this" in a launch thread where you're personally interacting with the founder. It's clear that you're an expert on rowing—that's fabulous! It's fine that you have a safety critique to make about this product—you've repeated it half a dozen times now. But it's not in keeping with the spirit of this site to accuse someone of outright corruption.

If you had strong evidence of ill intent or something, it would maybe be different, but all you've got is a difference of opinion. Your opinion is an informed one, but not the only one, and please let's not do the internet slide-down where differences of opinion turn into accusations of malfeasance. That leads to the hell we're trying to avoid on this site. Users who are posting here owe the community better than that, no matter how well informed they are.

I'm a former rower as well, I disagree that sitting on a rower is dangerous for getting back injury. Considering that pretty much every gym I know just puts them in some corner without anyone around who knows how to row, I believe this is not an issue.

I know of no one who has injured themselves rowing (on a machine or outside).

This is going to come down to experience but I'd say the majority of those I trained with had dealt with an injury at one point or another. Most women, particularly the lightweight class experienced broken ribs from strain across the core and most of the guys had lower back issues at one point or another.

I'm not saying these things are death machines or anything, but the concept of adding essentially seated row to a rowing machine is fairly dangerous. Throwing an air damper up to 10 and ripping on it for a couple minutes will leave you quite sore the next morning but adding high weight can start pulling muscles or slipping discs.

Most high-level rowers develop back problems, but these aren't primarily from the rowing machine, and your chances of developing the same kinds of problems while casually working out to meet your daily fitness goals are basically zero.

E.g. almost all high-level swimmers have shoulder problems, but no one who just goes for a swim a few times a week is going to injure their shoulders. Almost all baseball players have ankle problems, but no one who plays baseball with friends after work is at risk of this.

The reason rowers get back problems is basically a combination of overuse, the asymmetric load-bearing motion of sweep, and underdeveloped antagonistic muscles. Given the device and the target market, none of these issues are really at play here.

Interesting I rowed more than 13 years on national level up to u21 and never had any back problems until I hit a car cycling and fracturing my t6. I also don't know of any of my former friends who developed back pain. I actually always put this done to having very good core strength from rowing.

In contrast or my cycling friends (which I took up after) have back problems, in particular the ones who started when young.

Mind you this was more than 20 years ago so maybe the training regime has changed.

That makes sense, the issues I saw were mostly at the post collegiate/open level. There were some issues in U23s but that was somewhat rare, at least compared to alcohol inflicted injuries :)

I tend to agree, everyone knows how to ride a bike and learning to row without injuring yourself, even on a machine, takes time. I wonder what % of people with rowing machines at home, c2 or otherwise, are current/former rowers vs crossfit, regular gym goers, etc

This. As a former rower I'm biased, but also I have a C2 that sits around unused, mainly because as I've gotten older, I care less about the competitive/fitness optimization aspect of working out and more about fun.

Having tried several of the third party apps for C2, they've all suffered from 2 problems: pretty sub-par development/bugginess & wrong (or bad) content for the mass market. So much training oriented content and little on the fun/gamification side. I would pay $ for the right app, but not for a new rower. Ergatta is cool but again I wouldn't go out and buy one. When you think about the hundreds of thousands of C2s, it is a nice opportunity.

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