Below are my two cents as a former high school and collegiate rower, an occasional assistant coach since then, and someone who hopes to continue to erg until they dump my ashes unceremoniously in some river, lake, pond or even bog.
Hopefully a couple tips that may be helpful for beginners:
- If you can set up a mirror or some other way to watch yourself row, do it. It's not a natural motion for beginners and what it feels like you're doing can be very different than how it actually looks. Good rowing vs beginning rowing can be like watching a professional golfer or baseball player swing vs someone who has picked up a club or bat for the first time. It's fluid, controlled, and powerful vs awkward, jerky, and underpowered. It takes time, patience and persistence.
- Rowing is mostly legs and it's an endurance sport. If you're doing longer workouts at lower strokes per minute, it might not feel like you're doing a whole lot until deeper into a workout. Your legs are effectively your strongest muscles. Guys especially have a tendency to try to use their upper body more, and frequently break their arms right away at the catch. Breaking the arms early is counterproductive because it weakens the leg drive. Let those arms hang on the handle and let the legs do most of the pressing. Think deadlift / hang cling. Legs do most of the work, upper body and arms finish what the legs started.
- Don't squeeze the handle. You can even put your thumbs on top like a pull-up to help you get used to hanging on the handle with the upper body.
- There should be an approximately 2:1 ratio between the recovery (the time you're moving up the slide to the catch and compressing your body) and the drive (when you're pressing with your legs and then opening up with your body - the part where you're doing the hard work). So at 20 strokes per minute that's a 2 second recovery, 1 second drive. That ratio is important whether you're rowing at 20 SPM or 40+ SPM. There's a tendency for newer rowers to go at more of a 1:1 ratio, which is inefficient. It's similar to being in the right gear on a bike.
- On the recovery, the handle should come into the catch at roughly the same height it comes out during the drive. When coaching, we would sometimes put water bottles between a rower's feet on the erg so that they wouldn't let the handle/chain drop too far and knock the water bottle over. You'll get a stronger, more effective drive with a good catch.
- On the recovery, don't break your legs until after the handle gets over your knees. So really let yourself stretch out of the finish. This is especially important as you get tired. If you break your knees before the handle clears, you tend to have to lift the handle and then it will drop after it's over the knees and you'll likely have a bad catch.
- If you're on a Concept 2, don't set the fan at a 10. I've trained with Olympic rowers and have never heard of anyone going over 6. In the 3-5 range is perfectly fine. There is no glory saying you row at a 7+.
- When I erg now, I watch soccer (45 mins with no commercial interruptions) or train POV videos on Youtube, and I use Airpods to listen to music.
- And for what it's worth, I don't think I've ever heard of any HS or collegiate program using anything other than Concept 2 ergs. I've hopped on other rowing machines at gyms, but found they felt awkward and less fluid. I don't know what some of the newer, higher-end machines feel like. They could be great.