The MyNextRow library

Learn indoor rowing.

A practical, research-aware agenda for setting up your rower, moving well, training with purpose, and staying in the sport for the long run.

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Workouts & Programming11 min

How Long Should a Beginner Row?

Ten to fifteen minutes on most days of the week, at an effort you could talk at, building up by about ten per cent a week — and a stroke that repeats from the first stroke to the fiftieth.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming12 min

A Published Plan Is a Draft: Six Conditions That Decide Whether It Fits

A published plan encodes assumptions about training age, weekly hours and what you already know. Six conditions tell you when one fits your problem, and when it will not.

IntermediateRead brief →
Workouts & Programming12 min

Rate-Capped Sessions: Cap the Rate, Not the Effort

What a stroke-rate cap actually does, why a rate is not an intensity, and what the rowing research can and cannot tell you about holding one.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

Short Intervals for Busy Days: Keep the Ratio, Cut the Pieces

A compressed-day interval session has one built-in check: the recovery. Fix the work-to-recovery ratio first, cut the number of pieces to fit, and read the recovery to see whether you got it right.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

The 10-Minute Starter Row: A Practice Session, Not a Smaller Workout

Ten minutes is too short to be a dose of training and long enough to practise a stroke. What a ten-minute row can actually build, and how to stop it turning into a sprint.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming10 min

The 20-Minute Steady Row: Small Enough to Repeat, Not Enough on Its Own

Twenty minutes is the smallest block of aerobic work most people can repeat. It is a session, not a week, and the intensity is a decision rather than a threshold.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming10 min

The 4 x 500 Metre Workout: A Training Session, Not a Test

The 4 x 500 is a training session, not a validated test. The consistency you are told to read is often smaller than the error in the number you read it from, and the rest interval is the real dose.

IntermediateRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

The First Sessions Are Setup, Not Training: What They Should Teach You

Your first sessions are setup, not training. The three lessons they should leave you with, and where the evidence behind them is thinner than it looks.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

Three Times a Week: A Practice Schedule, Not a Prescription

Where the three-session week comes from, why the beginner plans disagree about it, and what the evidence does and does not settle about how often to row.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming12 min

Using the Pete Plan Responsibly: Take the Shape, Write Your Own Numbers

The Pete Plan is one rower's training, published for others to use. Its weekly arrangement is the durable part; its splits are numbers each rower generates for themselves.

IntermediateRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

Why Short Intervals Repeat Across Plans: Same Shape, Different Session

Two plans can both prescribe four by five hundred and mean two different sessions. The shape is a container: the target, what you hold constant, and what the rest is doing decide what it trains.

All levelsRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

A Gentle 5K Progression: What It Can Lean On, and What It Cannot

A gentle 5K progression is sensible practice assembled from findings that hold, not a protocol with a trial behind it. Here is which is which, and how to tell when the plan is actually working.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming12 min

Building a Three-Day Rowing Week: What the Evidence Decides

A three-day rowing week is a sensible shape, but the research sets the volume in minutes rather than in sessions. Here is what the evidence does decide, and what it leaves to you.

BeginnerRead brief →
Workouts & Programming10 min

Power Intervals Without Losing Technique: What the Ergometer Can Actually Tell You

The ergometer reports force, rate and per-stroke timing, not catch timing or finish shape. The technique cues belong to a coach; the stop signal belongs to the power trace.

IntermediateRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

Progress Without Going Harder: The One-Variable Rule

The one-variable rule is sound. The two-week window usually bolted onto it is not: no source establishes that number, and your ergometer has a measurable error you can look up instead.

All levelsRead brief →
Workouts & Programming11 min

Why Short Intervals Keep Appearing in Plans: The Format Is the Template

Short intervals recur because they are an easy template to hand someone. The format is not what makes them work, and three numbers usually quoted for them are not in the papers they are credited to.

All levelsRead brief →