There are two versions of the 2000m plan. This, original version was the first plan I every made for RowAlong, and it is based around The Pete Plan – a very popular text based 2K plan found HERE.
I moulded the original Pete Plan into something more RowAlong friendly (the workouts need to be Time based, rather tahn distane based) using my experience rowing other plans, and designing my own training.
I do want to make it clear that this was done with with Pete’s permission, he was very supportive. Do visit his page for more context.
However, after going through this plan, I decided to re-create it in a way felt better to me. So for that, check out the 2000m “Redux” Plan.
| Day 1 |
LOW INTENSITY
|
| Day 2 |
Max Intensity (HiIT)
|
| Day 3 |
LOW INTENSITY
|
| Day 4 |
Max Intensity (POWER)
|
| Day 5 |
LOW INTENSITY
|
The Original Plan
This 2K plan is a PERFORMANCE PLAN, designed around a 3 tier system.
Bottom Tier / Low Intensity – Foundation / engine building rows
Mid Tier / Moderate Intensity – Hard efforts that take their toll, but with rest periods to let you recover
Top Tier / Max Intensity – The tough stuff. Sprints / Time trials – top end heart rate workouts.
IMPORTANT – these AREN’T “Ability”tiers. The tiers are for everyone to row. It’s about intensity of the workout, not about the experience of the rower.
The plan begins with a BASELINE 500m row, to set your current ability. It then ends with a 500m row, to reveal your improvements.
What follows is a workout order. Two things will be part of this, and it’s up to you how to do it.
- I will record a workout for each day of the 6 session Plan in order, covering a 4 week cycle. But that doesn’t mean YOU have to do 6 workouts a week. See below:
- In order to keep the training fresh, and able to go on a lot longer than 4 weeks, I’ve labelled ALL of the workouts on the channel, so you can substitute and pick what one you want to do that day. In other words, if the day you’re training says it’s a BOTTOM tier day – just go to the channel, and pick one of the workouts tagged as a BOTTOM TIER – it doesn’t have to be from the 2K plan.
| DAY | 6 session Plan | 5 session Plan | 4 session Plan | 3 session Plan |
| 1 | BOTTOM | MID | MID | MID |
| 2 | MID | BOTTOM | BOTTOM | BOTTOM |
| 3 | BOTTOM | TOP | TOP | TOP |
| 4 | TOP | BOTTOM | BOTTOM | REST |
| 5 | BOTTOM | MID | REST | REST |
| 6 | MID | REST | REST | REST |
| 7 | REST | REST | REST | REST |
IMPORTANT – REST DAYS SHOULD BE SPREAD THROUGH THE WEEK’S SESSIONS –
AND CAN BE DIFFERENT WEEK TO WEEK – FOR THE 6 SESSION PLAN – CHOOSE ANY DAY TO REST
Example Week with Rests
Here’s an example of how you may spread rest days through the first week of the plan:
| DAY | 6 session Plan | 5 session Plan | 4 session Plan | 3 session Plan |
| 1 | BOTTOM | MID | MID | MID |
| 2 | MID | BOTTOM | BOTTOM | REST |
| 3 | BOTTOM | REST | REST | BOTTOM |
| 4 | TOP | TOP | TOP | REST |
| 5 | BOTTOM | BOTTOM | REST | TOP |
| 6 | REST | MID | BOTTOM | REST |
| 7 | MID | REST | REST | REST |
You’ll notice that if you are following the specific RowAlong plan videos on YouTube and are not doing the 6 session plan, you should skip the first bottom session.
(W1S1 / W2S1 / W3S1 / W4S1) – Start on W1S2 / W2S2 / W3S2 / W4S2
The difference is Week 4 – which is test week. The TOP tier session that week is a 2K Time Trial – to see how you’ve improved over the weeks. If possible, try to take your rest day either the day before the test (Session 5), or take your rest day before Session 4 (which is a ‘prep’ row for the 2K test).
The Sessions
The full YouTube playlist for the RowAlong workouts is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8ookhrQKwvLEbjOccuyAK7E3lObaSW13
The TOP tier sessions will be either high intensity, fast, speed workouts to get your speed up on the machine and make you work hard, so you’re able to face into what you’ll be feeling during the 500 race – or they’ll be power sessions, all about wringing out every last watt of power from your body.
The BOTTOM tier sessions – this is where it gets interesting. They will always be steady state, longer rows. But the difference this time round is that as well as giving you a traditional pace guide (2K+18 etc) I will be rowing this based around the Maffetone system for controlling heart rate.
The MAF heart rate is calculated by subtracting your age from 180. Which in my case, means I don’t want to see my Heart Rate go over 135 (I’ll allow +/- 5 beats but always try to ease off / speed up to get to 135bpm.
An alternative to this is to keep your HR between 65 and 75% of your maximum (as I’m not in total harmony with the cookie cutter approach of 180-age).
But the key is to not go above this effort level in the BOTTOM tier sessions. Keep this as a general fitness, 02 building session, and make sure to go nowhere near the MID TIER workout. This will help build your foundation general fitness level – and then the TOP TIER workouts will be the ones where you can push and exhaust yourself. And if you do them right, you won’t have the energy or desire to push these BOTTOM tier workouts.
The Setup
You can do this on any rowing machine – but it may be that the pace guides I call out will be more accurate on a Concept 2 than on other machines. But as I give effort guides for all rows, you should be able to work out the range you need to row at for the monitor you have.
When setting up the monitor – if it’s an interval workout, I recommend setting the REST periods to UN-DEFINED on the Concept 2. Otherwise, we will end up out of sync. Ideally, you’d programme in the intervals, and have the full data to refer back to – but because of the delay, it’s better to choose undefined. And in the case of the sprint intervals, to lump the effort and rest together.
| Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Session 4 | Session 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 |
BASELINE TESTMax Intensity |
BOTTOM TIER4 x 9 min (1min rests) |
TOP TIER HIIT
8 x 20 sec MAX EFFORT |
BOTTOM TIER
30 mins at 20spm |
TOP TIER POWER
20 x 1min/1min at 20spm |
| Week 2 |
BOTTOM TIER
|
TOP TIER POWER4 x1, 4 x30s, 4 x15s |
BOTTOM TIER30 minutes at 18spm |
TOP TIER
|
BOTTOM TIER
|
| Week 3 |
Yoga10 am - 11 am Yoga10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
Cycling10 am - 11 am Cycling10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
Boxing10 am - 11 am Boxing10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
||
| Week 4 |
Gym10 am - 11 am Gym10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
Yoga10 am - 11 am Yoga10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
Yoga10 am - 11 am Yoga10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
||
| Week 5 |
Racing10 am - 11 am Racing10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
Cycling10 am - 11 am Cycling10 am - 11 am Zakila Russow |
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