4 ms·

Rowing machines are in my experience much more efficient. 200W is maintainable for an hour or more with some experience. (2 minute split, for any rowers out the

by jakear 6y ago

Rowing machines are in my experience much more efficient. 200W is maintainable for an hour or more with some experience. (2 minute split, for any rowers out there). 60W (3:00/500m) is genuinely difficult to pull - any effort at all will exceed that.

angrysaki 6y ago
Everything I have seen says cycling is generally more efficient. I think the 80w the author quoted is quite low. They may just be a small very person.
- jakear 6y ago
  That seems odd to me - sure in the water rowing is slower (friction is way higher), but in terms of muscle use and energy output, rowing uses way more muscles and gets better range of motion in the legs.
  - angrysaki 6y ago
    I think it's that the cycling movement is just more efficient for sustained efforts, possibly because it uses less muscles. For sustained efforts, I don't think being able to use more muscles is an advantage, since you're going to be limited by your cardiovascular system. If you created a bike that you could also generate power with your arms, i woudln't expect to be able to put out more power because muscles are the limiter. The muscle fiber distribution might be in favor of only using your legs as well (eg. fast vs slow twitch) I'm not much of a rower, but after your pull, pulling your body forward for the next row is all wasted effort as far as producing mechanical work. Cycling doesn't really have any wasted phase like this. Here's a bunch of rowers comparing their cycling/rowing watts: https://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=186612 https://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=186612 What I'm not sure is if you were to measure total energy expenditure at the human (as opposed to the spinning wheel), then cycling/rowing might be closer.
miahi 6y ago
80W seems low for somebody who bikes every day, I guess it's not actually FTP (what you describe by maintainable for an hour) but aerobic.
- rwbhn 6y ago
  I ride 3-4 mornings/wk. Strava estimates I averaged 89w over the course of my last ride (just under an hour).
  - jakear 6y ago
    Was this a leisurely pedal or were you going hard?
    - rwbhn 6y ago
      Moderate - not going all out, but definitely working my legs. To the sibling question - don't have a pulse meter, so no idea.
  - miahi 6y ago
    The question here is how hard do you ride (given by the heart rate). Do you ride at 120bpm or 160bpm? If it's 120bpm, you can probably increase the output with little training or just by accepting a higher heart rate. If it's 160bpm, something seems wrong.
  - creato 6y ago
    I wouldn't trust strava estimates. They are (or were, I haven't used it in a while) all over the place for me.
  - stouset 6y ago
    For a 160lb rider, that’s only somewhere in the range of 14mph sustained on flat ground. That is incredibly low for a regular cyclist. Frankly, that power is just far lower than what most people can put out. My assumption here is that Strava has very poor estimation for riders without power meters. Or your route has many stoplights and stop signs, which is difficult to account for when calculating average power. Regular recreational cyclists can generally put out 200-250W for well over an hour depending on weight.
iramiller 6y ago
Moderately well trained (based on 8-10hr/wk cycling specific training year round) older (40+) cyclist here... 260w average for an hour is pretty reasonable... 300w for an hour for hard a effort is possible for me when measured at the crank with a power meter. One thing to keep in mind about power numbers vs pro cyclists is that they can churn out these kinds of watts at significantly lower body weights than a recreational cyclist. For output into electricity though it doesn't matter if I’m 35lbs heavier than a pro because watts are watts. Regardless it seems to me that these levels of output using a full body motion of a rowing machine would be exceedingly difficult for a one hour period compared to cycling that leaves most of your muscle groups relaxed.
- jakear 6y ago
  The past paragraph is funny to me - in my experience the same wattage is much easier on a rowing machine exactly because it uses more muscles. Sure I’m primarily using my legs, but they get a slight rest each cycle when I’m at the tail end of the stroke and using arms/back.
  - jl2718 6y ago
    For 1 hour FTP in heavy trading training, I did about 250 watts rowing and 300 watts cycling. I did 250 watts on the bike for about 6 hours, and I don’t think I could have done 200 watts for 3 hours rowing for several reasons. I think the best multi-hour total energy yield efforts are from recumbent bicycles.

by jakear 6y ago

angrysaki 6y ago

Everything I have seen says cycling is generally more efficient. I think the 80w the author quoted is quite low. They may just be a small very person.

jakear 6y ago
That seems odd to me - sure in the water rowing is slower (friction is way higher), but in terms of muscle use and energy output, rowing uses way more muscles and gets better range of motion in the legs.
- angrysaki 6y ago
  I think it's that the cycling movement is just more efficient for sustained efforts, possibly because it uses less muscles. For sustained efforts, I don't think being able to use more muscles is an advantage, since you're going to be limited by your cardiovascular system. If you created a bike that you could also generate power with your arms, i woudln't expect to be able to put out more power because muscles are the limiter. The muscle fiber distribution might be in favor of only using your legs as well (eg. fast vs slow twitch) I'm not much of a rower, but after your pull, pulling your body forward for the next row is all wasted effort as far as producing mechanical work. Cycling doesn't really have any wasted phase like this. Here's a bunch of rowers comparing their cycling/rowing watts: https://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=186612 https://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=186612 What I'm not sure is if you were to measure total energy expenditure at the human (as opposed to the spinning wheel), then cycling/rowing might be closer.

miahi 6y ago

80W seems low for somebody who bikes every day, I guess it's not actually FTP (what you describe by maintainable for an hour) but aerobic.

rwbhn 6y ago
I ride 3-4 mornings/wk. Strava estimates I averaged 89w over the course of my last ride (just under an hour).
- jakear 6y ago
  Was this a leisurely pedal or were you going hard?
  - rwbhn 6y ago
    Moderate - not going all out, but definitely working my legs. To the sibling question - don't have a pulse meter, so no idea.
- miahi 6y ago
  The question here is how hard do you ride (given by the heart rate). Do you ride at 120bpm or 160bpm? If it's 120bpm, you can probably increase the output with little training or just by accepting a higher heart rate. If it's 160bpm, something seems wrong.
- creato 6y ago
  I wouldn't trust strava estimates. They are (or were, I haven't used it in a while) all over the place for me.
- stouset 6y ago
  For a 160lb rider, that’s only somewhere in the range of 14mph sustained on flat ground. That is incredibly low for a regular cyclist. Frankly, that power is just far lower than what most people can put out. My assumption here is that Strava has very poor estimation for riders without power meters. Or your route has many stoplights and stop signs, which is difficult to account for when calculating average power. Regular recreational cyclists can generally put out 200-250W for well over an hour depending on weight.

iramiller 6y ago

Moderately well trained (based on 8-10hr/wk cycling specific training year round) older (40+) cyclist here... 260w average for an hour is pretty reasonable... 300w for an hour for hard a effort is possible for me when measured at the crank with a power meter. One thing to keep in mind about power numbers vs pro cyclists is that they can churn out these kinds of watts at significantly lower body weights than a recreational cyclist. For output into electricity though it doesn't matter if I’m 35lbs heavier than a pro because watts are watts. Regardless it seems to me that these levels of output using a full body motion of a rowing machine would be exceedingly difficult for a one hour period compared to cycling that leaves most of your muscle groups relaxed.

jakear 6y ago
The past paragraph is funny to me - in my experience the same wattage is much easier on a rowing machine exactly because it uses more muscles. Sure I’m primarily using my legs, but they get a slight rest each cycle when I’m at the tail end of the stroke and using arms/back.
- jl2718 6y ago
  For 1 hour FTP in heavy trading training, I did about 250 watts rowing and 300 watts cycling. I did 250 watts on the bike for about 6 hours, and I don’t think I could have done 200 watts for 3 hours rowing for several reasons. I think the best multi-hour total energy yield efforts are from recumbent bicycles.