The Concept II rower - How to make it work for the Crossfit athlete

Since the CrossFit Open is starting in mid-February, and there is always a rowing portion, I want to take a few blog posts to talk about the rower.

As a former collegiate rower in Boston, our winter training was spent rowing on Concept II ergs while the river was frozen over. Right next to our ergs, was a large trash bin, which was typically used during the workout in a rather “unconventional” way. I contributed to the contents of that trash bin on a regular basis. As a result, there is a certain level of empathy I have for CrossFit athletes as they complete WODs that involve the rower.

How many Crossfit athletes dread the rower portion of the WOD?

Learning a bit more about the rowing stroke, and how to make it more efficient can improve your results. Note that I am not saying it’ll get easier. The rower always sucks, but the suck feels less bad when your times are improving.

  • For time - 4000m row, every 4 minutes perform 20 shoulder to overheads

  • 5 rounds for time - 400m row alternating with 15 overhead squats

  • 3 rounds for time - 30/25 calorie row - 30 wall balls

Here are 3 examples of a WOD that involve the rower:


Each of these are completely different from the other in how best to attack them, yet often there is no difference in how the athlete attacks the rowing portion of the workout.

 It can be helpful to know a bit more about the rowing stroke, and learn a few tips to make your workouts more efficient and more effective. There are two “parts'“ to the rowing stroke: The Drive, and The Recovery.

The drive:

This is the working part of the rowing stroke. It is what puts you into a pain cave. Through the drive, you press through your feet, and unwind your body, opening your back as your legs are nearly straight, and then pull the handle toward your chest. 

“Consider where your strength lies: is it in your legs, or your arms?”

There are many athletes who try to get maximal power at the end of the drive, when you are pulling your arms toward your chest. Consider where your strength lies: is it in your legs, or your arms? The first part of the drive is where you will get maximal power, your legs are coiled up and ready to explode against the foot plate. Once your legs are straight, it’s just maintaining that power output, not increasing it. Yanking really hard on the handle is not going to improve the power. All it does is make you really tired as the workout continues on.




TIP: use the force curve option on the computer

the recovery:

The recovery phase is as important as the drive. If this element is co-ordinated correctly it makes the drive phase instinctive. It is therefore this element that many rowers concentrate on during practice. The recovery is very similar to the drive phase but in reverse.

As I have worked with CrossFit athletes in rowing clinics that I have held, I have observed nearly every athlete zip up the Recovery as fast and sometimes even faster, than the drive. That is certainly not “recovery”!

Ideal technique  is that you spend more time on the recovery than the drive, this allows you to maintain your power over a longer period of time. That way to do this is to break down the recovery into 2 parts and move through them in sequence. 

  • The “reach.” This is the movement of your hands on the handle and the trunk reaching forward toward to the catch

  • The “slide” : Once your hands move back your knees, you start to move the seat closer to your feet.

    • This is where one learns how to “control” the recovery. You can zip right up the slide, or you can control the speed of the slide.

    • Besides control, another key to the slide is to maintain the reach that you have all the way up to the catch. This allows you to maintain length at the drive, and the longer the drive, the more power you can produce.

Tip: control the speed of the slide

If you combine the Drive and Recovery, think of it as a 3-count: 1 for the drive, 1 for the reach, and 1 for the slide. This way its a 2:1 ratio of Recovery to Drive.

Stay tuned…

Remember those workouts written above? The next post will break down how best to attack the rowing portion of each one.