Buy spares for your Rowperfect classic indoor rowing machine or your RP3 Rowperfect (built since 2012).
Rowperfect Spare parts listed in the store:
Download the spare parts list for the Rowperfect Classic here Rowperfect Component List
The Rational Fitness blog has written a detailed review of Oartec Slider, Rowperfect Indoor Sculler, Concept 2 Slides and the Concept 2 Dyanmic ergo.
The Author writes in the comments below the article
In-so-far as technique goes, I think the Rowperfect is the best machine. There are a lot of good programs now using the C2 dynamic with their rowers. I would think that if technique was a huge shortcoming with that machine they wouldn’t be using it. I just think it feels a little different than the other offerings. Xeno Muller is an olympic gold medal winner, he likes the C2 dynamic. For a contrasting view search Carlos Dinares on youtube. He talks a lot about the C2 dynamic and compares it to the Rowperfect RP3. Keep in mind he sells the RP3 so take it with a grain of salt.
To summarise his findings:
Alan recently went to Rio to check out the Olympic rowing facilities ably assisted by Pedro Paulo Da Silva Soares from the Institute of Sport and his brand new Rowperfect RP3.
Here are some photos of the trip.
Alan Campbell Training on RP3 in Brazil
Alan Campbell pulls the numbers on RP3
Olympic venue for Rio 2016 Rowing Course
Did you miss #RowingChat this week?
We’ve shared it so you can download and listen. RowingChat with Carlos Dinares
Go to Rowperfect’s SoundCloud Channel and bookmark or follow us with a SoundCloud account
Apologies but the introduction cut off so it starts 5 minutes into the interview.
If you are sick of ergo scores biased to bigger people (Concept 2 gives scores that align to heavyweight mens coxless fours). Fixed head ergos by their very design are biased against smaller athletes – the Rowperfect takes the “level playing field” to new limits.
Rowperfect adjusts actual time on-water for:
This assists crew selection, race planning and optimising the stroke rate to achieve certain boat speed over the length of the race.
Using the Rowperfect interface, in addition to the standard information, such as time, stroke rate, power and energy, Rowperfect shows the estimated 500-metre time, corrected for body weight and class of boat.
Therefore in comparing results, it does not automatically favour the slow heavyweight at the expense of the more agile lightweight, and thus is a better tool to select the real “boat movers”.
Tests for the single scull mode with top class female and male rowers, ranging in weight from 59 to 95 kgs, have shown that the times calculated by Rowperfect over a 2000 metre course are generally within a margin of a couple of seconds of the actual times rowed in the boat under ideal conditions with near to perfect technique.
For rowers whose blade technique is less than optimal, the 500m split time is an excellent goal—it represents what they are capable of doing if their bladework was perfect.
This provides extra motivation to get in the boat and do it better!
Selecting a crew from physically dissimilar athletes is the norm in most rowing clubs. How do you find out whether the big girl is as effeective and efficient a rower as her lighter crew mate? Using Rowperfect, the scores are adjusted.
Take watts or Joules – both measures of energy and power. These do not change with athlete weight. They are actual measures of how much energy you are putting into turning the fly wheel.
What changes are the calculated or derived measures like
Rowperfect measures 25 separate data variables.
After completing a session, the analysis window shows the totals for the whole session e.g. how far you rowed, total energy, time. But the real interest comes in the detailed, stroke by stroke analysis.
Here’s a graph of a session involving three lots of stepped rating pieces each lasting 6 minutes (3 mins at 20, 2 mins at 22, 1 min at 24)
Rowperfect software session summary graph
More interesting still is the ability to scroll through EVERY SINGLE STROKE in the training session and see exactly what your scores on a range of measures were for that stroke. So in the screen shot below you can see the actual force curve of that stroke and on the right side the range of data points recorded:
BUT Any and ALL these cells can be changed to any other recorded data point so what you see for each stroke is what you need…. maybe peak force is important to you or perhaps the heart rate pulse of the athlete.
I make my athletes watch the fast-forward playback of their session while they do a warm-down. A 30 minute training session takes about 5-6 minutes to playback and it’s about the right time for a warm down paddle. It concentrates the athletes’ minds as they study what they’ve just done and they see and learn from their inconsistencies for the next session.
Rowperfect software session data including force curve
Verification of Rowperfect weight correction software. Rowperfect software (RP3W and earlier versions) all allow the user to input their weight in kilogrammes and to choose a boat class. These adjust the score (500m split) to reflect the speed you would do on the water given perfect weather and no current.
Recently I did another check to test the validity of my calculation method for conversion of boat speeds from one boat type to another. The weight adjustment factor in Rowperfect software is based on the known relationship between variations in displacement of particular boat types and the resulting variation in wetted surface area.
In the calculations, the ratio of wetted surface area of a given boat type at different displacements is approximated considering the boat as a semi-cylinder of a given length. To further validate this approximation I made a comparison between a coxed (2+) and a coxless (2-) pair with the same calculation procedure, and comparing the outcome to actual results.
In Luzern at the 2001 World Championships racing conditions were very stable. The coxed and the coxless pair were both won by Cracknell and Pinsent (UK) in very tight races. Their times in these two races were: 6:49.33 for the coxed pair and 6:27,57 for the coxless pair respectively. In their coxed pair race, Pinsent and Cracknell visibly eased-up a couple of strokes before the finish, which I estimate, may have slowed them down by one or two seconds.
Assuming Pinsent & Cracknell’s weight at average 100 kgs each (pretty close to their published weights at Henley Royal Regatta), the weight corrected speed ratio between the coxless and the coxed pair for this crew, I calculated from the above input at 1.0505.
From this one can make the following comparison, using the time of the coxed pair as a base, and calculating the theoretical time of the coxless boat, based on wetted area/ weight correction factor as used in Rowperfect.
Rowperfect software algorithm verification
Even without the “easing up ” correction, I think this is as close as one would wish, and demonstrates clearly the validity of the “wetted surface” based weight correction factor.
With the “easing up” correction of 2 seconds to bring the time for the coxed pair to 6.47.3 this would result in a calculated time for the coxless pair of 6.27,75 which is spot on.
The Rowperfect is a dynamic or floating head rowing machine. The Concept2 is a fixed head rowing machine. Adding sliders was a product design decision taken by the Dreissigaker brothers to make a machine more like the Rowperfect.
We get asked about the force curve on a Rowperfect and what the ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ curve should look like.
Read these slides from the Applying British Rowing Technique tour – Rebecca Caroe delivered a paper on force curves from the Rowperfect in which the ideal force curve is discussed on slide 4.
Knowing the shape you want your athletes to drive towards is the first step.
It depends on the amount of practice they put in and how many strokes they take on a Rowperfect.
But reinforcing an improved curve by getting your athletes to practice the same feel of power and a body movement that is identical when they are in the boat means you can double, triple, quadruple the amount of practice time.
If your club has two Rowperfects, you can get every person in an 8 to do 5 minutes warm up on the RPs before going onto the water – they can see and check their force curve and then try to match that in the outing and check again when they come off the water.
Plus, on ergo nights, you can rotate the crew through the RPs so each one does 15 minutes on RP and the rest of the session on C2. It works well.
Look at this one, the Green line is January 2012, Blue is November and Red is December. Each one increases the area under the curve (total Joules energy) and the blue line shows significant gain in stroke length (x-axis) while red line shows gains in peak power (y-axis).
Rowperfect force curve 70kg lightweight man
Rowperfect force curve Heavyweight man 85 kg
The other two show a lightweight and heavyweight man – In each the blue line is the more recent. One smooths out the force curve filling in the ‘bumps’ and adding to the area under the curve and the heavyweight adds around 15cms to the stroke length. That has to be a heap of gain in boat speed!
We have a free tutorial called :”How to coach using Rowperfect” Sign up on this page and receive emails with each lesson.
Read articles from the Rowperfect news archive
Harry Mahon’s Rowperfect force curves - includes downloadable file of template curves you can use that suit everyone from young children to Olympians.
Rowperfect force curves – download and use Mahe Drysdales curve, Greg Searle, Vaclav Chalupa and other top rowers – men and women, light and heavy. Note these files work on all versions of the Rowperfect software.
Watch videos explaining the Rowperfect power curve software and the difference between Watts and Joules
Learn how Olympic Gold medal winning crew coaches used Rowperfect – and read what an athlete recalls of his training.
Today we start a series comparing the Rowperfect RP3 indoor rowing simulator with other dynamic rowing machines.
The Rowperfect original rowing machine was developed in late 1990s by Casper Rekers. Responding to his daughter’s injuries to her knees and back caused by indoor rowers, he put his engineering mind to work to make an indoor rowing machine that simulated rowing, that more closely resembled on-water sculling.
Rowperfect Original Classic
Rowperfect RP3
Plastic discs to change flywheel resistance
Find out more
Knowing how hard to race in rowing is a very particular skill. if you have done lots of races you know the amount of power you have to deliver into every stroke in order to win. But many crews do not yet have that depth of knowledge and experience.
Let’s start with how to find out the target to teach.
Juri Janssen is the best example of this – He used targets to set a boat speed prognostic for the Athens Olympic Games where he raced the single scull. Rowperfect reviewed Juri’s “Setting a 2k target time” strategy. And its companion article Juri Janssen training on Rowperfect.
You must also know what the gold medal winning time was on water for your event. Most big regattas have recent winners and records available for you to consult. Here are some for you
Review our blog posts about Prognostic Times part 1, part 2 and part 3. They will help you understand using the course record or “Gold Medal” time in your calculations.
Find out what splits you need to achieve in order to win at the age/boat class / category you are competing.
Carlos Dinares has set out a detailed video in which he explains exactly how he calculates the energy each athlete delivers into a rowing stroke during a 2k test or race. His description of the ‘mountain’ and the force and the stroke length are the axes and the area under the curve are the joules per stroke.
Every stroke you do has a force curve mountain – regardless of the rating or boat speed. If you see 1000 joules recorded, the area under the force curve represents that amount of energy.
Training with joules is independent of stroke rate, boat class or time. It’s a number that you get each stroke and does not vary if you change the rate or the boat class.
