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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A complete agenda for the erg.
Fundamentals & Setup
2Start safely, fit the machine to your body, and understand the monitor before the first stroke.
Technique & Biomechanics
10Build an efficient stroke by understanding sequence, posture, force, rhythm, and common faults.
Technique Drills
6Use focused drills to isolate each phase of the stroke and turn feedback into durable skill.
Workouts & Programming
15Choose sessions, assemble training weeks, and progress from a first row to ambitious goals.
Physiology & Performance
9Learn what the body is adapting to, how intensity works, and why performance changes.
Mobility & Strength
1Support the rowing stroke with practical mobility, stretching, and strength work.
Recovery & Nutrition
5Fuel training, recover between sessions, and make sustainable progress beyond the machine.
Racing & Testing
4Prepare for benchmark rows, pace race distances, and interpret results without guesswork.
Adaptive Rowing & Every Body
1Adapt indoor rowing for different bodies, abilities, ages, life stages, and access needs.
Coaching, Community & Culture
2Coach thoughtfully, speak rowing fluently, and explore the sport’s people, platforms, and history.
AI Coaching & Personalization
7How MyNextRow reads your Logbook, explains its choices, and earns your trust before, during, and after every session.
All briefs
Pick a useful next step.
Supplements and Indoor Rowing: A Sceptical Guide
A sceptical guide to supplements and indoor rowing: the strongest-evidence tier, the mixed-evidence tier, third-party testing, and the clinical handoff.
Training in Heat and Humidity
How to train on the indoor rower in heat and humidity: thermoregulation, fluid and sodium replacement, heat acclimation, pre-cooling, WBGT pull-policies, and heat-illness signs rowers must respect.
A 10-Minute Indoor Rowing Starter Workout
How to run a 10-minute indoor rowing starter workout — easy rowing, short comfortable efforts, a brief warm-up, and notes on how the body felt afterward.
Catch Position: Start Strong Without Collapsing
How to find a clean catch position on the indoor rower — balanced forward body angle, comfortable shins, gentle brace so the handle and seat begin together.
Common Technique Faults and Their First Fix
How to spot the most common indoor-rowing technique faults and apply one small first fix at a time — sequencing, posture, rate, and pressure across the stroke.
Drive Phase: Let the Legs Start the Stroke
How to run a clean drive phase on the indoor rower — push the footboard before opening the trunk, keep the shoulders connected without shrugging, and use pressure that preserves the next recovery.
Finish Position: Where Should the Handle End?
How to find a clean finish on the indoor rower — handle toward the lower ribs, wrists flat, elbows moving behind the body, and hands away before the knees rise.
How Handle Path Affects Efficiency
How handle path affects efficiency on the indoor rower — keeping the handle level through drive and recovery, smoothing the arc, and using a nearby visual reference until the path becomes automatic.
Planning Food for a Long Indoor Rowing Session
How to plan food for a long indoor rowing session — small familiar fuel choices, duration and sweat loss as the plan guide, and stopping when symptoms suggest a medical problem.
Posture on the Rower: Tall, Supported, and Mobile
How posture on the rower stays tall, supported, and mobile — long spine without rigid arching, pelvis supported by the seat, neck and ribs relaxed so breathing can move the trunk.
Short Intervals for Busy Days
How to run short intervals on busy days — clear work-to-recovery ratio, deliberate warm-up, and end the session while technique is still sound.
The 20-Minute Steady Row
How to run a 20-minute steady row — controlled breathing, moderate rate, even pressure, and a brief cooldown.
The Indoor Rowing Stroke in Four Simple Phases
How the indoor rowing stroke breaks into four simple phases — catch, drive, finish, recovery — and how sequencing across the four phases is the rower's anchor.
Weight Loss Goals and Rowing Responsibly
How to set a weight loss goal on the erg without crossing into Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, with sustainable energy availability, fuel timing, and the rower's stop-and-defer signs.
A Gentle 5K Progression
How to build a beginner-friendly 5K progression — gradual weekly distance, conversational pace, and a shorter benchmark before the full distance.
How to Build a Three-Day Rowing Week
How to build a beginner-friendly three-day rowing week — distinct session purposes, recovery-day discipline, and the multi-week trend.
Power Intervals Without Losing Technique
How to run high-pressure interval work without losing the stroke quality that makes the work count — the technique-preservation rule, the rate-cap diagnostic, and the four-stop signs.
Progress Without Going Harder: The One-Variable Rule
Why changing one variable at a time is the only safe way to make progress, and which variable to change when — pace last, duration first.
Rate-Capped Endurance Sessions
How to run endurance sessions with a deliberate rate cap so pacing is physiology-driven, technique is held under fatigue, and the multi-week trend is readable.
The 4 x 500 Metre Workout Explained
How to run the 4 x 500 metre workout — set a realistic opening pace, use the recovery to reset, and read the consistency across reps.
Using the Pete Plan Responsibly
How to apply the Pete Plan responsibly — the three-week repeating structure, the weekly rest day, and the per-rower scaling that turns a published plan into a workable one.
Questions to Ask Any Coach or App (Including Us)
A research-grade checklist for evaluating any coaching relationship, whether the coach is a person, a static plan, or an AI, anchored in motivation theory and sport-psychology evidence.
A 5K Result: Endurance, Drift, and What Comes Next
A research-grade synthesis of the 5K rowing ergometer test — what the result measures, cardiovascular drift, pacing strategy, energy-system share, and what comes next in the training progression.
A First 1K Benchmark: Reading the Result, Not the Verdict
A research-grade synthesis of the 1K rowing ergometer test — the result measures, anaerobic-glycolytic dominance, peak power, stroke rate, lactate kinetics, and how to read the split, not the verdict.
Adaptive Indoor Rowing: Start With the Person
A research-grade synthesis of adaptive indoor rowing — classification, physiology, cognitive accessibility, equipment, and the case for starting with the person rather than the protocol.
Sleep and Indoor Rowing Progress — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of sleep and indoor rowing — neuroendocrine recovery, sleep debt kinetics, early training schedules, nocturnal HRV, and practical templates.
Rate Caps: Holding Rhythm So Pace Can Drift
The case for capping stroke rate on endurance sessions so technique does the work that force would otherwise do, and so the pace on the monitor reflects physiology rather than rhythm drift.
Rate Ladders: Finding a Pace You Can Repeat
Rate ladders teach the rate-to-power relationship — what changes when stroke rate climbs and what does not.
Reading the Force Curve: What Repeatability Looks Like
The PM5 force curve as a feedback signal — what repeatability looks like, what shapes are diagnostic, and what to ignore.
Strength Circuits: Lower Impact, Higher Purpose
Why a strength circuit earns its place in a rowing week — and the design rules that keep it lower impact and higher purpose.
The Three-Day Week: A Scaffold, Not a Rule
Why three sessions a week is the standard scaffold, when four or five is right, and when two is the right answer.
Video Feedback: Filming One Question at a Time
Video feedback works when it answers one question at a time — and when the filming setup captures the answer.
What a Starter Session Should Teach You
Why the first sessions on the rower are setup, not training — and what they should leave you able to repeat next week.
When a Drill Fix Should Wait Until Tomorrow
Not every fault is the right fault to fix in the current session — the timing of a drill fix matters as much as the drill itself.
When a Published Plan Is the Right Tool
When the Pete Plan or another published programme is the right starting structure, where it ends, and how the AI coach bridges the boundary.
When AI Feedback Gets It Wrong — and What To Do
How to recognise when AI coaching feedback is wrong for your body, and a three-step protocol for correcting it without losing the coach's value.
Why Static Plans Fail — and When They Are Still Useful
Static plans work only as well as the rower's week matches the plan's dose. Training-load research explains when and why they fail, and what to read instead of the calendar.
Why Short Intervals Keep Appearing in Plans: A Research-Grade Synthesis
Short work-and-easy intervals show up across beginner, intermediate, and competitive plans because the format teaches three lessons at once. The format is the constant; the target is the variable.
Why Short Intervals Repeat Across Plans: A Research-Grade Synthesis
The 4 x 500 m piece repeats across plans because the structure is robust. What changes is the target, the ratio, and the rest — not the format.
Breathing With the Stroke on the Indoor Rower — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of breathing on the indoor rower — breath-holding, the diaphragm as a postural muscle, and the breath as a real-time intensity signal.
Aerobic Versus Anaerobic Effort on the Erg — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A synthesis of aerobic versus anaerobic effort on the indoor rower, how each energy system contributes across duration and intensity, and what the monitor and the rower's sensations reveal.
Recovery Sequence on the Indoor Rower: Why Patience Makes You Faster — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade review of the recovery phase on the indoor rower — why rushing the slide loses power, and how the hands → body → legs sequence produces more watts per minute than the hurried version.
The 5K Erg Test: A Research-Grade Pacing Synthesis
A research-grade review of 5K erg test pacing — why the even-split strategy wins, how the start-middle-finish rate pattern works, and what the result tells the coach about the next session.
What Indoor Rowing Trains: A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of what the indoor rower actually trains — energy systems, musculature, motor coordination, and the cardiovascular adaptations from weeks of consistent work.
Heart Rate Zones: Useful Guide, Not a Verdict — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of what heart rate zones measure on an indoor rower, why the same number can mean very different things on different days, and how to read the monitor as a useful guide r...
How Long Should a Beginner Row — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of how long a beginner should row, the physiological reasons short work-and-easy intervals work best, and a progression plan for the first weeks.
What Makes a Test Repeatable — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of what makes a rowing ergometer test repeatable, why single-result noise is the rule not the exception, and how to design sessions, conditions, and expectations so a 2K...
Why Fitness Can Feel Worse Before It Feels Better — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of the rowing fitness-fatigue model, why new training blocks feel worse before they feel better, and how to read early signals without over-reacting to a single bad session.
Lactate and the Feeling of a Hard Sustainable Pace — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of what lactate threshold is, how it relates to the feeling of a hard sustainable pace on the indoor rowing ergometer, and what the AI coach can read from it.
Negative Splits and Other Pacing Strategies — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of pacing strategy for indoor rowing time trials — what the evidence says about even, negative, controlled-positive, and reverse-J pacing, and which fits which rower.
Drill Selection: Start From the Fault, Not the Tool — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade review of why drill selection should start with the fault, not the drill — and what the motor-learning, constraint-led, and differential-learning literatures defend.
How MyNextRow Reads Your Logbook to Choose a Workout: A Research-Grade Synthesis
How the AI coach turns Concept2 Logbook history, onboarding goal, and chat preferences into a single today's session — and what it deliberately leaves to you.
What a 2K Result Actually Tells You — A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade synthesis of what a 2K rowing ergometer score measures — what it says, what it doesn't, and how it anchors your reference pace.
Stroke Rate Versus Power on the Indoor Rower: A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade review of how stroke rate affects mechanical power, efficiency, and work per stroke on a rowing ergometer — for the indoor rower choosing between a longer pull and a faster cadence.
CTL, ATL, TSB, and ACWR in Plain English: A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade review of the four load numbers MyNextRow's coach uses — what they measure, where they came from, what the evidence supports, and where the literature has begun to push back.
Polarized vs Pyramidal Endurance Training: A Review of the Evidence
Polarized training — roughly 80% easy, 20% hard — is the best-supported intensity distribution in elite endurance sport, but the evidence is thinner for indoor rowers.
Reference Pace and Confidence: Why Your Target May Change
Describes how a reference pace is anchored, why it tightens as sessions accumulate, and when it widens instead.
Understanding VO2max on a Rowing Machine: A Research-Grade Synthesis
A research-grade review of VO2max on the rowing erg: what it is, how it is measured, how training moves it, and why the AI coach anchors reference pace to a VO2max-derived test.
Concept2 OAuth, Data Privacy, and Retention
Explains what is and is not stored, why OAuth is preferred to credentials, and how to revoke access.
How to Read and Act on a MyNextRow Recommendation
Walks through a generated session: the structure, the target split, the rate cap, and the one-click ErgData handoff.
What the AI Coach Can and Cannot See
A candid list of what the model has access to, what it cannot infer, and why sleep, soreness, HR, and life stress are part of the question.
How to Set Up an Indoor Rower for Your First Session
A practical guide to how to set up an indoor rower for your first session, with clear indoor-rowing cues, decisions, and next steps.