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Have you any suggestions for making sessions more interesting, especially for juniors?
Ross Pyne: "I have been asked by a member of our rowing club about making the sessions that she does a little more interesting. She is training purely to keep fit and tests herself over 2,000 metres every other month (although she will not divulge her time). Do you have any suggestions
"Anything that will keep juniors interested for more than about 10 minutes would also be appreciated."
Terry O'Neill: Juniors may be a little easier. Put them in pairs with one on the machine and the other doing some other activity that takes around two minutes. This could be shuttle runs or a series of floor exercises or even some light weight exercises. The person on the machine has to row for as long as it takes the partner to complete the circuit and then they change over. Repeat as many times as you feel necessary to give a good workout. The pairs will be in competition with each other and the winning pair will be decided by who has the highest number when dividing the total metres rowed by total time in seconds.
As for the adult, a lot of people row to music or the TV but there is no reason why a similar circuit training approach would not work. One suggestion is to combine rowing with core stability exercises at different ends of the gym. You then row one minute followed by one minute stability exercises, return to the machine and do two minutes followed by two minutes exercises. Continue in this fashion with one minute increments until she is at her predicted 2,000 metre time. So, for example, if this is 7 minutes, the total workout time would be 56 minutes.
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