With the start of the new football season we've had a boatload full of questions this week asking how indoor rowing can help with playing the sport. Here's a sort of general guide then.Terry O'Neill: There are two ways you can use the rowing machine in association with football. One way is after a match; rowing at a steady state for about 30 minutes will help clear any debris from muscles caused by impact during the game. This will mean that the day following the match you will have less problems with stiffness and be able to train more effectively.Rowers have the highest anaerobic threshold of all athletes and although football is a far more complex game than rowing, this physical attribute would also be an advantage to footballers. Therefore the training programme followed by rowers for 2,000 metre competition would also be useful to a footballer. The only difference is that rowing is a winter sport and rowing is a summer sport and so the periodisation would have to be reversed. Also the football season is longer than the rowing season and so the different periods of training would need to be compressed to reflect this. You can download the 2,000 metre training programme from our website www.therowingcompany.com/v4/training_prog.htm