Can I Go The SPEED Of The World's Fastest Rower?

A huge thanks to James Hall for his time and patience with me!
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[MarkLewisfitness]

What’s the fastest split time you’ve seen on your rower? 💪

[eamonryan]

James is such a good coach. No sugarcoating without being a jerk. No words wasted

[CarbonSolutions]

After rowing competitively and coaching for 20 years, the best advice I’ve ever heard is to do a lot of your training without ever bending your arms. It’s the best way to feel the power from the hip hinge. Then we you add your arms back in, the monitor makes it clear that your arms are AT MOST 10% of your power if you’re rowing well.

[lozrocks]

This is the first time I’ve seen someone who doesn’t look like a rower / probably has never been a rower absolutely nail rowing technique. Hats off to this guy.

[DUBBLARON]

Awesome! Essentially a 15 minute masterclass from James. I appreciate not only his accomplishments, but his no BS way of breaking down the requirements to generate power, & his generosity to share his knowledge with us. Thanks Mark for bringing this to us & suffering along the way!

[FitLawyerK]

Can’t wait for the Eddie Hall collab how fast can he run 400ms 😂

[thedd-ot]

I really appreciate your willingness to suffer physical pain to entertain us.

[bredwar]

Love it! As someone who does rowing as a sport in school, I've still learnt some things from this! My lowest split so fast is 1 minute, 33 seconds at ( 5 foot 6) and 16 years old, I don't think it's good but hey, still wotking on it!

[CameronBuchan]

Interesting to see what we discussed a couple of years ago for your video still getting worked on now. Like you said in this video, and something we discussed way back then, the changes don't happen overnight unfortunately. Keep up the good work. Hopefully in another two years the technique has improved again 💪

Been rowing for 2 years now and yes, that's exactly what my instructor taught me first... only thing to add is breathing, you should inhale in the resting phase and exhale in the arm pulling step. In order to train this technique, we do warm ups 1minute only arms, then 1 minute hip flex and arms, then 1 minute same but now 40% leg, then 1 minute 60% leg, then 1 last minute all the way; it's 5 minutes, do this twice as a warm up, and that's a good way to build muscle memory for indoor rowing.

[adohmnail]

James is outstanding. It is impressive what he has done. The strength and fitness are outstanding. It doesn't matter that he could never row on water. What is amazing is the pace and fitness. Great work

[robbeason]

Glad to see the form improvement. I was a college rower and this video was a real treat to watch! Thanks, Mark!

[GraemeCunningham]

Power is proportional to speed cubed. To give you idea of what some of the splits discussed equate to in terms of power.
200W is 02:00 split
300W is 1:45
400W is 1:35
500W is 1:29
600W is 1:23.6
700W is 1:19.4

Over shorter distances it's probably better to think in terms of Watts. For example if you were rowing for say 20 minutes at a 2:30 split (103W) and then decided to increase by 10s that's only going to mean 25W more.
But if you are at 1:30 and you try and go 10s faster then you need to go from 480W to 683W

[DaveNeve]

I watch and learned how to row with RowAlong (John Stevenson) who has been criticized by faster rowers for his [unwelcome] advice. The thing is it's hard to take advice from someone you can row faster than. But rowing is not just technique, but build, and nature makes some people stronger than others. We tend to receive advice more readily from those who row faster than us rather than slower
Yet the advice that James Hall gives here is no different from the advice you get on RowAlong. John Stevenson is a truly excellent rower for his size and body weight. He knows what he's talking about, even if he can't row as fast as the really big guys. All he wants to do is help others and improve indoor rowing for everyone (beginners to advanced). He is worth listening to in my (not so) humble opinion.

[SleepySteve]

I thought I knew how to row but boy was I wrong.. That short but exellent explaination of James could use a short all on it's own and I would put that thing on repeat the rest of the year.

[BernhardKohli]

One of my all time favorites - THANK you for this one! 1s off my best 250m and 16m more on the 9 by 1:40/20" - two PRs on a Friday evening after work... You and James rock 👏

[jef.hutchby]

Loved it! Been using the C2 for nearly 20 years and still learned something new AND was greatly entertained into the bargain.

[montyswoodworkscrafts]

One of the best and most informative videos on the RowErg I’ve watched so thanks for making.
Followed the advice, made some tweaks to how I row and already see a difference. At 51 I row a sub 20sec 100mtr and 1m 58s 500mtr though improving all the time.
What I struggle with on sprints is getting up to speed and need to work on that initial power uptake.

[choochoo]

YAY! I can't believe I'm first. I was just thinking about you on my morning run...I, too, have gained weight and let myself go - a little (10 lbs, ugh) and while I was runnnin' I was thinkin', "I gotta go back to Marks channel and watch EVERYTHING again." You worked WONDERS on me last year, if you'll recall. (little old lady from America)

Hope you're well over there in England, hello to Jenn.

[zimmejoc]

My old rowing instructor broke it into the same three movements: leg, hips, arms. You want to lean as far forward as you can and stay forward until your legs are expended, then hinge the hip, then pull with the arms. We'd work on each movement separately, really focusing on each movement individually and then we slowly put them together. I was, by far, the tallest and oldest person in the class, eventually I was also the fastest. Height is a big advantage. Then we'd take the boats out on the lake and have to work in unison...