O'Neil Test and Video of Better Rowing Form

Location: Woodcock Sports Centre, Aston University
Day: Sunday - 19th September - 10.45 am

O'Neill Test (4 minutes on rowing machine) - 1086 metres

Nutrition:

20 minutes before: 10g BCAA

Lunch at 12.30 pm - fresh crab, avocado, beetroot, onion, cucumber, tomato, olive oil, lemon

Dinner at 6.40 pm - crab/onion/carrot soup + wild duck, tuna, roast butternut squash, marrow & leek, steamed kale

I was not sure whether this counted as an intense workout or not (according to my Leangains experiment.) I took BCAA beforehand anyway, but since this was a Sunday and I had the luxury of training late morning, the next food was lunch.

The O'Neil was painful. I have been doing only weights and distance running in the last 4-6 weeks, which means the god of pain has been absent from my life. Took 30 mins for the burning throat to subside.

Rowing was the obvious choice for a weekend workout because my feet are still ragged from two consecutive monster mountain races (this, then this) but I wanted to do something for my fitness, especially give the recent absence of the above deity.

A while back I posted a video of me doing a rowing Tabata, which drew some constructive criticism from Chris on my technique. He 'd posted this video on his blog before, showing how effortless rowing can look.

So I took a video of this session to see whether I could improve the form. I think it's better. Since a 4-minute row is less intense than a 20-second Tabata interval, it is perhaps a better time to work on form anyway.

There is still room for improvement though, and I am looking forward to any comments Chris or others have. I suspect I am compressing my body and pausing for too long at the front (i.e. bending my legs too much and leaning too far forward) especially towards the end as I got tired.

1086 metres is slightly more than my previous best, and I could have worked a little harder.