Upgrade your Rowing Game with Shane Farmer founder of Dark Horse Rowing

Host Chad Mueller and Rowing Coach Millsy, sit down with Shane Farmer @darkhorserowing to talk tips and tricks to rowing like a beast! ​​​​​​​​

Shane is one of the top coaches within the CrossFit space for the past decade. Shane surrounded himself with the OG's of CrossFit and found an opportunity working with Concept2. Dark Horse Rowing has become the leader in the rowing industry for rowing programming and training. 
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The guys sit down and talk about the appeal of rowing to the masses, how to encourage more time on the rower and how endurance training can help you.

Of course we have to ask about damper settings and fueling in the CrossFit Games marathon row.

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Transcript

Chad (Host) [0:05 - 0:31]
Yeah, community of members, coaches and professionals working as a team of like minded individuals in constant pursuit, connecting this exclusive group with the tools and resources they require to live a high performance lifestyle, conquering what life has thrown at them. We are living the fit life. Mhm. Welcome to the Living the Headlight podcast, episode 52. I'm your host chad miller and today I'm hosted with scott mills subbing for coach a

Shane [0:31 - 0:32]
DJ. Hey

Chad (Host) [0:32 - 0:33]
scott, how's it going buddy?

Scott [0:33 - 0:35]
Great, great. Thanks for having me in,

Shane [0:36 - 0:36]
No problem.

Chad (Host) [0:36 - 0:43]
Yeah, and the reason why scott has joined us on the, on the pod today, he recently took part in the Dark Horse Academy coaching

Shane [0:43 - 0:44]
certificate,

Chad (Host) [0:44 - 1:00]
which is the sort of coaching certificate for indoor rowing and the concept to and I'm a huge fan of rowing, really excited to talk about that and I'm super excited to have another awesome guest on the show, founder and owner of Dark Horse Academy Shane Farmer, how's it going, Shane?

Shane [1:01 - 1:05]
Good chad, how are you man? Hey, wait, did I hear that? This is episode 52. Do you guys released weekly,

Chad (Host) [1:06 - 1:07]
every two weeks sort

Shane [1:07 - 1:13]
of, you know, I thought I was gonna get to be like the one year anniversary, Sorry

Chad (Host) [1:13 - 1:14]
dude, sorry,

Shane [1:14 - 1:17]
way to let me down early.

Chad (Host) [1:18 - 1:18]
Yeah,

Shane [1:18 - 1:20]
my bad, my bad

Chad (Host) [1:21 - 1:21]
and yeah,

Shane [1:21 - 1:23]
I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having

Chad (Host) [1:23 - 1:40]
awesome appreciate and yeah, if anybody is not familiar with Shane, he's the creator in the face of dark horse rowing, jump on Youtube and he's all over there. She is an avid rower, obviously you compete in the national championship for rowing. Um, then you've found sort of crossfit and you competed as a team at the games, right?

Shane [1:40 - 1:41]
Yeah, 10, 11, 12 and 13,

Chad (Host) [1:42 - 1:57]
awesome, awesome. So yeah, I'm super excited to sort of sit down, pick your brain on. Obviously the topic of growing, we have our communities filled with crossfit athletes, the weekend warriors, endurance folks. And so rowing is something that we actively do and I think it'll be really cool to jump in and

Shane [1:57 - 1:59]
just talk about the

Chad (Host) [1:59 - 2:04]
rowing in your background and how dark horses and what scott's gonna bring to our community. So yeah, I'm really excited.

Shane [2:05 - 2:07]
Cool. Well lead away man, I'm here for it.

Chad (Host) [2:08 - 2:19]
So yeah, so, um, obviously judgment your, your, your videos, your, your social accounts, so you're pretty fit individual as, as rowing always sort of been sort of the center of your fitness.

Shane [2:20 - 4:03]
Uh, no, no, it hasn't been. Um, I'm a very diverse sport background athletes. So you came out of, through high school, I played every sport I could get my hands on and um, it was a 12 season athlete in high school and middle school back in the day, but I'm from Minnesota. So for me it was football, baseball, track and field and alpine skiing. So I actually raced slalom for eight years. Um, and swapped baseball for track after my sophomore year. I was such a slow runner that I was like, well you could always tell when I was on the base paths because I ran like duck footed, My feet were pointed out so you could always see like my foot path on the on the dirt and I was so slow. I was like well I guess the only way to get faster is to run track, which was a miserable like I was like I know I'm gonna be miserable doing this because I'm a terrible runner and I'm gonna have to learn. Ah But that was the choice I made then. Uh So yeah, that was like my foundation of sport was just everything every ball sport I could get into and skiing and and all that and then went to college in Colorado for two years, played club baseball there. Uh huh. And then transferred to the University of SAn Diego and found growing once I got there. All right. I just happened to have a knack for endurance sports apparently. Uh And my body was built a little bit long and lanky and I have big thighs, which is kind of like the ideal for rowers body. So I'm 63. And I just kind of fell into it, fell in love with it. But Crossfit was our strength training while I was growing and so I was introduced, it was introduced to Crossfit in 2006, my second year of college at USd and um

Chad (Host) [4:03 - 4:04]
your NOg then.

Shane [4:04 - 6:02]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if you if you know the names Stephane Roche uh he is an O. G like before, he was the one of the original level and flow masters um and he was our S and C coach at USD and so he turned our our collegiate SNC facility into a crossfit gym before Crossfit was cool. So you know, we were all of probably 20 in the world at the time and um so we discovered it really early and we as like a team fell in love with crossfit. So I had this like early exposure to Crossfit plus I had growing then roll into like post collegiate life and I I was too small to be a heavyweight and too heavy to be a lightweight in the world of rowing. And so I moved into crossfit because I knew of it and found Invictus which just happened to be a great gym at the time um which I knew nothing about, It just happened to be the closest gym to me and then started moving into crossfit, started coaching in that world. So to answer your question, that was a very long winded way of getting at, like, the core of my fitness revolves around um I would say just the principles of human movement that I've learned throughout the years, I pride myself on being a coach first and a rowing coach second. So uh you know, well I've been become known as the rowing guy, I'm as comfortable coaching olympic weightlifting as I am coaching rowing because I I grew up in Invictus, Sage Cody and coach Bergner, we're all my olympic weightlifting coaches and like I've you know kelly Starrett was my mobility coach and Carl Polly was my gymnastics coach and oh Petey was dropping into Invictus all the time back in the day and I competed, competed at the first Op Tafel juan, which you probably don't know what that is, but before he became Opec's he was O P. T. And when he was O. P. T. He hosted the Op Tafel on which was like his, you know, determination of fitness. So

Chad (Host) [6:04 - 6:05]
yeah that's

Shane [6:05 - 6:09]
fitness is broad and diverse. Uh and rowing just happens to be a sliver of it.

Chad (Host) [6:10 - 6:15]
Yeah, no wonder why you're a great coach, those are some those are some awesome coaches that have in the space.

Shane [6:15 - 6:16]
I was very

Chad (Host) [6:16 - 6:17]
lucky some of the best.

Shane [6:17 - 7:36]
Yeah, it was an incredible um it was an incredible opportunity to just be brought up around some amazing coaches and you know, CJ martin to his credit, fostered an environment where he was bringing these specialists in because he had personal relationships with them and so these guys would just drop into our facility for a weekend and host seminars with justice coaches and every single coach had Invictus back in the day, had to have a specialty. So I hosted rowing and then we had you know Sage was coaching olympic weightlifting and we had a gymnastics coach and we had a nutrition coach and we had a power lifting coach, so every base was covered and we would teach each other as we went through and so you could do a six month cycle under, you know, Sage and learn as you went. And so it's just this, it fostered this really incredible um learning environment almost like liken it to an apprenticeship. Yeah, for probably two years, I couldn't put a program in front of a client without CJ looking it over first, asking me questions, why did you do this? Why did you put that before that? Did you think about the way that these things are paired together? So that, I mean that was the, the world that I came up in from coaching?

Chad (Host) [7:37 - 7:43]
Yeah, wow, that's, that's, that's cool. I didn't know that. That's really, really cool. Yeah. So then I guess

Shane [7:44 - 7:44]
I'm

Chad (Host) [7:44 - 7:47]
sure you've been asked this question, I knew you were kind of touching on it, but like

Shane [7:47 - 7:48]
how

Chad (Host) [7:48 - 7:55]
did, so when did you transition to dark horse rolling? Like how did that become a thing for you to jump into?

Shane [7:56 - 7:56]
Why did you

Chad (Host) [7:56 - 7:58]
decide that niche specifically?

Shane [7:59 - 9:58]
Well, the rowing part came about very naturally. Um I came out of college, obviously I was really fresh out of college. I went and got a job with a suit and tie selling life insurance and hated my life. You've probably heard that, you know, I've told that story a million times. Um and I made it like nine months, but I had, I had done well enough in that nine months that I had like enough to live on for the next six months. So I was like, all right, well I'm miserable in my day job, but I was a member of this crossfit gym and I saw this gap of knowledge between a ton of rowing being used, but nobody was talking about it. Nobody, I mean, I wasn't seeing blog articles across that means I wasn't really talking about it concept to was kind of the only one putting out any kind of content. Um, and so I jumped without a parachute. I like quit my job and I was like, well, I guess I'd better figure it out what my next step is and very naturally ended up like going to CJ and saying, Hey, I'm seeing a ton of rowing, but nobody's doing it right, could I teach it to you guys? He made me teach to the coach's first, which was terrifying because I was, you know, 22 year old with no coaching background and so to like figure out how to break down the rowing stroke for a bunch of coaches who were professional coaches was terrifying. But I got it through and he gave me the check mark to like go ahead and start coaching to the gym. So I started doing that and that just kind of rolled into it. Um, I started coaching rowing six months later one of the coaches got pregnant so I started coaching crossfit. Um They sent me to get my level one and then it just kind of kept going from there. I started taking on clients and coaching group classes and ramping up the ruling class and then like the real breaker for me, I met my now wife, she was a member at the gym. Indeed for the record, I never once dated another member at the gym. She was the only one though I made good on my promise not to like you know, date the members.

Chad (Host) [9:58 - 10:00]
Uh

Shane [10:01 - 13:52]
Yeah, so I met my now wife and we long story short booked this trip to europe together after having known each other like just a couple of months, it was a real dangerous choice and it was like a make it or break it, you know what could what could possibly go wrong, we barely know each other, let's go to europe together. But so she was going and I couldn't afford it cause I was on a you know, measly coach's salary at the time. Um This is like before the advent of like coach is making a living wage, you know? And so I uh I was like well she paid I think she paid for my my plane ticket because she had student loans from she was in law school at the time so she was like I've got the money you know, loaned to her, but she, she buys my plane ticket and like, well I'd better figure out how to pay this back real quick. Uh and so I put together a one page pdf um remember who I was at the time, I was like talking to anybody and everybody who would have coffee with me about like figuring out how to kind of grow my career and somebody recommended, they're like, you can, you can be an expert, you just have to tell people you're the expert. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. So I use like apple pages I think was like the designer back then. So I put together this one page pdf. That was a rowing seminar, but I didn't even have the outline for the seminar. I just put together a like one day seminar and I emailed it to every single crossfit gym that I could find in europe at the time. And this is 2011 and that was all like, you know, 25 crossfit gyms across like mainland europe. And uh one jim picked it up. Crossfit Lamont in Switzerland. And so they, I said, yep, we'd love to have you. Um I was like, great, the price is exactly the price of my plane ticket. What a coincidence, huh? And so like that was how I really kicked things off. Um we got to europe, we took a trip and then we parted ways, I flew to Switzerland and hosted my first seminar. I wrote my outline on the plane from the south of France to Switzerland. Like I wrote the lesson plan as I was flying and then came back from that trip and concept to had somehow heard about it. And so when I got back to Invictus, there was a call waiting for me from concept to, and they said, hey, our head coaching position for crossfit rowing is open. Uh we haven't seen anybody else teaching this. Our head coach is retiring or she'd like to at the time it was Angela Hart and do you want the job? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And uh, and so then I went to work, head coach in the crossfit running program. Um, and then things just continue to go from there. And then if we reached a point where I was traveling so much for concept to, and I had opened a rowing facility in Houston. Um this is before rowhouse existed. We had this idea for a rowing studio and we did it, we opened it in Houston. These two guys had lined up investors and a business plan, but knew nothing about rowing. And so they brought me in as a partner, we opened it, which meant that I had to be in Houston a lot. So I left Invictus at the time and which was nice. It was an amicable parting. I just needed to either more often than I could support my clients and after that kind of played itself out. That experience was like, well, I mean I'm still here and I'm not just going to be working for concept to, and I needed to figure out how to put content out in a better way because I couldn't coach through blog articles anymore because we're evolving, you know, the world was blog article coaching back in the day and pictures and blocks and it just wasn't working. So I started creating videos and that really like when the videos started was when dark horse really started, that was 2020 15.

Chad (Host) [13:53 - 13:54]
Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. And

Shane [13:54 - 13:55]
like the

Chad (Host) [13:55 - 14:05]
ruling, like have you noticed the rowing community? Like, like how much has the rowing community really grown? Because I mean growing is not really, I wouldn't call it a new sport by any means.

Shane [14:06 - 14:06]
I guess

Chad (Host) [14:06 - 14:13]
concept has been around for quite a while. Like have you noticed that the roman community really grow over the past like 10, 20 years?

Shane [14:14 - 14:17]
It depends on how you classify the rowing community because indoor rowing, I

Chad (Host) [14:17 - 14:19]
guess indoor rowing versus outdoors, that's the two different.

Shane [14:19 - 15:48]
Yeah. Yeah. So on water rowing is uh, they are struggling. They're struggling to find their way and like really understand their relevance as a modern day sport with um, you know, attention span and how much of a viewership there is behind rowing because it's a tough sport to watch you stand on the shore for, you know, five minutes for a race to pass you by for 30 seconds and then they're gone. And so like it's not a super spectator friendly and um there's talk of like rowing being cut for the olympics and so it there there's a bit of like unsure really happening there in the on water rowing world. Indoor rowing, I mean it's exploded and I kind of sensed it coming, which is why I've stuck with it as long as I have. Um And that's just the advent of the number of connected rowing machines. I mean in my garage here alone behind me, I have six different rowing machines and that's not even all of the connected rowing machines in the space. But I have a hydro under God, a city row, a whipper Technogym concept to and there are still more that that I don't don't um indoor rowing has absolutely exploded. It was especially during the pandemic, it's an easy choice. You know, I want one piece of equipment that's going to do it all for me. Well, it's a compound movement that requires the majority of your body in order to execute the movement properly. So it's a pretty easy choice. Um And in the machine,

Chad (Host) [15:48 - 15:50]
I was gonna ask you about that. Um

Shane [15:51 - 15:51]
because

Chad (Host) [15:51 - 16:02]
obviously, yes, you're right during covid peloton hydro assault bikes, like road bikes, all these sort of individual machines sort of exploded when people were trying to get you know fitness in their home.

Shane [16:03 - 16:03]
Yeah,

Chad (Host) [16:03 - 16:05]
how would you compare

Shane [16:06 - 16:06]
and in a

Chad (Host) [16:06 - 16:12]
row or versus those other things that really the full body sort of workout. That's your really that's how you would compare the difference to any of those other machines.

Shane [16:13 - 16:26]
Yeah, I mean if you let's compare it to like any kind of cycling activity right? We can even throw in any kind of air bike in there. So assault or um ah what's the original? I'm blanking on them.

Chad (Host) [16:26 - 16:28]
I think it's called a runner, isn't it? No.

Shane [16:28 - 17:06]
Yeah. So you know any kind of air bike we can throw that in there like for the most part it guides you through the movement, You added an assault component and Well, alright, you at least get like a push pull of the upper body but there's very little complexity to your kinesthetic awareness required on the machine. So it's a very passive machine in that sense and it becomes completely a suck factor machine. Like there there is no skill involved other than just your ability to maintain high heart rate, high respiratory rate. That's essentially your limiter. Right? What kind of what's your rpm can you

Scott [17:06 - 17:06]
control your

Shane [17:07 - 18:22]
Right? Yeah. I mean like the real test is just how much suffering are you willing to undergo? Right? Which is great. I'm not faulting them for that. But if we talk about if we're talking about like the complexity of the movement itself, you look at something like a skier or a rower. Well now there's a high requirement for skill involved. So there is a mental connection. You have to create this mind, body connection to the movement and the machine can push back. But there are also variables that you're able to control. So, like an assault bike, you can basically just scale intensity from 0 to 100 up and down, That's all you get. Whereas with throwing, you can vary intensity in different ways. You can control strokes that you can control, output. Um You can work on power. Like these variables are usable when we get to, let's call it skier and rower. So, um I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that rowing is like, you know, the end all be all of fitness, right? But it's a pretty damn good form of fitness, right? Like if you had to select one machine, he's probably pretty good. Yeah. For that to accomplish a lot of different things.

Chad (Host) [18:23 - 18:24]
And

Scott [18:24 - 18:25]
and and you know what? Low

Shane [18:25 - 18:28]
injury? Yeah. Right? Very low risk, very low

Chad (Host) [18:28 - 18:29]
risk,

Shane [18:30 - 19:07]
you even get less repetitive stress because you are required to move your body through space and time on the machine. Whereas, like if you set up your bike improperly or if your seat is too far forward on an assault bike, like, you may end up with a repetitive stress injury because your knees are in poor position, You've put yourself too far forward and so you create just this repetitive stress on that one joint over and over and over. Was with growing, you are learning and feeling and adapting as you go. And so there are adjustments that happen that usually helps to stay away from more of those repetitive stress injuries, not saying they don't occur, but I think the likelihood is less.

Chad (Host) [19:09 - 19:17]
Yeah. And how do you, so how do you, so you do across, like, how do you fit rolling into your fitness routine on a weekly basis? Are you? It's

Shane [19:17 - 22:01]
a great question rarely, uh because you know, when, when something becomes your, like, your life, my entire businesses built and it's like, I, I've urged enough in my life that I am, you imagine like loving running, but everybody gets to know you because you're like the treadmill guy, you know, I love rowing the sport for, I just was in uh I competed in the regatta, I don't know, a month and a half ago now. Um so I was in a boat, we were training leading up to it. So I had about three months where I was getting on the year, two times a week, three times a week, I was still choosing to ride my bike er a lot and I was preferring that for just getting my aerobic fitness up, but at a certain point you do have to just get in running shape. Um So I love rowing the sport on water. It's beautiful, it's harmonious, it's peaceful, it's intense and it's very rewarding. You go out for these early morning rose, you get to watch the sunrise, you feel the wind in your hair like water splashing. It's very visceral. Um There's this like beautiful, there's so many sounds that come with roan that are so satisfying to hear on the water that it's hard not to love the poetry of the motion. And so it's very complex in that sense, urging for me. I've done enough of it and and I can find fitness in a million different ways. I don't need to sit on the same machine and do the same thing over and over and over because I know I can come back to it if I need it. I prefer to explore my fitness. So for example, in not this weekend, but next weekend I'm doing a 16 mile ruck race um up in the hills above um Malibu. So that's a massive undertaking. So I've been spending a ton of time on my feet lately. I've been getting 3 to 4 runs a weekend varying with my ruck weights and and not so like friday I had a nine miles, 1700 ft gain trail run by myself with a 25 it was probably 30 plus pounds after all was said and done. Um So like that was my training that day. Okay prior to that I was doing a ton of unilateral leg strength work. Um, so I was on almost exclusively. I was doing a four or five day week program with Ryan fisher's programming. Um so it really just varies throughout the year. It depends on what I want to work on. Sometimes I'll use bodybuilding programs. Sometimes I will spend a ton of time on the biker just because I'm loving the experience on there. It really varies.

Chad (Host) [22:02 - 22:05]
Cool, cool. So you're, you're a guy that likes kind of dipping into a lot of

Shane [22:05 - 22:05]
different

Chad (Host) [22:06 - 22:08]
methodologies and variety and keeping variety is sort of

Shane [22:09 - 23:13]
a priority. Yeah. Because because I appreciate the wonder of the human body. Mm hmm mm hmm. I love the exploration of it. And so it's not a, like I jump from thing to thing because I mean I do get bored but like I love the like what is my body capable of, what can I spin up and learn how to do and um what can I accomplish? So in june early june like I'm going back to run. Um I think they say it's like north America's first trail race. The dipsy if you've not um, it's a 7.2 mile double peak 2000 ft elevation gain race and I ran it for the first time last year. It's up in marin county in northern California and I qualified last year. So I earned a spot into the invitational division this year. So I'll be doing that again. Um just because I want to see? Like I have no expectations of how I'm going to perform, but I do love to go out there and just test myself and see what's what's possible.

Chad (Host) [23:14 - 23:25]
No, I I totally relate to that. I just finished a hypertrophy program. I wasn't doing crossfit before that and and it did hypertrophy, which is kind of fun now jumping back to the crossfit. And I think our community,

Shane [23:25 - 23:26]
you know, we have a

Chad (Host) [23:26 - 23:27]
lot of individuals that are sort of

Shane [23:27 - 23:28]
multi sport

Chad (Host) [23:28 - 23:34]
fitness athletes. So if you want to call them their endurance athletes in the summer and then they do center Crossfit and, and so keeping that sort of,

Shane [23:35 - 23:35]
you

Chad (Host) [23:35 - 23:42]
know, testing your fitness is definitely something I can relate to for sure because it is cool trying different types of protocols.

Shane [23:43 - 24:03]
Yeah. And you you learn stuff about yourself and you learn the mentality behind other coaches, programming and their thinking and you can sit there when you're in it and you're like, why did they do that? And you can, you know, come to your own conclusions about it. And instead of just following a program blindly, you're like, oh, that's interesting. I've never thought of pairing two things that way

Chad (Host) [24:03 - 24:04]
or, you know,

Shane [24:04 - 24:08]
aligning those elements. Cool. I

Chad (Host) [24:08 - 24:17]
did want to dive into more about dark horse and sort of the program itself. Like how how would you explain sort of the foundations of the program? Like who's the target too?

Shane [24:18 - 24:19]
Like what is

Chad (Host) [24:20 - 24:21]
the rowing program that you put together?

Shane [24:22 - 27:20]
So we target the we'll call them the new to social rower. Okay. They're a new mover or they are new to the rower. We there's nobody in the world that can get you more comfortable on the rower faster than we can hands down. That's the one thing in this world that I can say for sure I get. You know, if if I had you one on one in 45 minutes, I could have you to a comfortable place where you're like, okay, like there's still plenty of practice that has to come, but like through movement and just that work together, I can very confidently get you there. Uh and then from there we so that person kind of comes in the form of like you've chosen to have a singular machine at home. So you bought a rower, I don't care what brand it is, We're pretty agnostic in that sense. And that roller lives in your spare bedroom, your garage, your hallway, your basement, wherever it may be. And you explore fitness in that way at home. Um, likelihood that you also have some kind of external fitness, whether it's a crossfit gym or 24 hour global gym or whatever it may be. We also have a decent amount of injured athletes that come to us to use the rower as a result of no longer being able to do their chosen sport at least for a period of time or perhaps forever. Um, so that's kind of who we serve and once you reach the point of like competitiveness, currently we don't serve that audience once you reach a level were like, hmm, I really want to dig in. Ah, you, most people will at that point go through our academy, which scott, that's what, what you've gone through. So, um, that's the like, alright, deep dive time where I'm good at this socially. Like I get it, I'm decently fit. I don't have the same questions that I used to, or just like the basics, how do I learn? What's my next step? Well, that's generally when somebody moves into the academy and from there, um, we're actually working on building, uh, what that next stage looks like for somebody. So scott, you can get excited because there, there will be more to come beyond the academy, uh, because we've spent so much time really building the foundation for those new learners to come in. Now it's time for us to show that, you know, we have the depth of knowledge, like we are, we can take you full scale in this world. Um, you know, like we, we coached the, for the last three years, my head coach has coached the world champion gig growers. So, you know, what gig growing is? It's a british based rowing sport that's like old wooden boats with, like they're, they're huge. Um and the guys that have won the last three years running, we've been coaching them. So like programming wise, we've got the scale right and we can go up and down that scale as needed. Cool.

Chad (Host) [27:20 - 27:30]
And so like for, for that person, the newest person, uh, you know, maybe they're new to crossfit and they jump in and they, there's a mechanism that got rolling and they sit on the road and they just, they just start pulling their

Shane [27:30 - 27:31]
like this

Chad (Host) [27:31 - 27:41]
was fun, but I don't know what I'm doing. How do I guess is do you guys think about how do you fit growing into a person's routine? Maybe they go to the gym like

Shane [27:42 - 27:43]
three times a week for some strength

Chad (Host) [27:44 - 27:55]
based stuff and then they kind of have a machine at home or they want to go into their box and kind of just sit on the road for a bit. Like do you guys sort of prescribed like how many times to sit on the road or do you do long short, do you guys

Shane [27:55 - 27:56]
have that, like

Chad (Host) [27:56 - 28:00]
you have sort of a preferred sort of thought for that sort of jewish person?

Shane [28:01 - 29:26]
Yeah. And because, I mean you're, I feel like I fed you that question um because of my background with coaching, Like I was so into crossfit for so long when I started writing programs. My assumption was that nobody was gonna want to be on a rowing program five days a week. Right? People don't like this machine. Right? I'm very open about that. Like I don't expect you to love it. And frankly, I'm not trying to convince you to love it. Like I get to be the rowing guy for people who hate rowing. And so under the assumption that you hate rowing, how can I get you to the point of comfort without making you feel like you're losing that sense of the things that you do enjoy doing. So all of our, every single one of our programs was written with a two day a week mindset intended to be complementary to whatever your primary program was and not to overcome that program. So if you go into any of our programs, we have a library and then we also have daily workouts, you know, which is pretty common nowadays that include rowing plus body weight and we tell you what to do on your recovery days and we take you through, you know, stretching routines and whatnot. Um, but in all of our programs, they were all written as two day a week programs. We've since added the three other days, but those are optional. So I know that if you follow my two K program and though and do those two workouts a week for eight weeks, you will get faster at your to

Chad (Host) [29:27 - 29:28]
guarantee

Shane [29:28 - 29:39]
it if you do five, well you'll get even faster. Um, but if you do like if it's minimum dosage to a week, we'll get you there. And so yes, we programmed with that in mind.

Scott [29:40 - 29:59]
I don't know if you know it's like you say you hate the machine. People hate the machine in the gym. What I see is people take a look at the rower in a wad and it's like the rest station. I think they want to take it easy for X. Number of K. As opposed to people choosing that machine if they really want to, you know, get some pain.

Shane [30:00 - 30:09]
It's true. Mhm. And that's because of the like black hole understanding of what of what happens in the growing

Scott [30:09 - 30:10]
movement.

Shane [30:11 - 30:46]
So you you're either like indifferent to it or you detest it because you're like, well get on this machine. Something happens, stuff comes out. I don't know what the something happens pieces. And so because I don't know what's happening there, you like have to make a snap judgment like this is my rest station because I don't understand how to work hard on it or my body can work hard, but I don't understand why I'm getting old. So I'm getting. And so you're like, I hate this thing because it's just it sucks everything from me, but I don't understand why.

Chad (Host) [30:46 - 30:51]
Yeah, that I guess I have to ask this question. And I mean scott you can answer it too.

Shane [30:52 - 30:52]
Like

Chad (Host) [30:52 - 31:00]
what is what is the one biggest thing someone should know to be proficient on the roller Because it's like if you do know ruling and you break it down, there are

Shane [31:00 - 31:01]
a lot of

Chad (Host) [31:01 - 31:07]
it is very technical, just like anything like running is technical, anything anything can be technical if you so choose to dive

Shane [31:07 - 31:07]
into it

Chad (Host) [31:08 - 31:09]
with growing

Shane [31:09 - 31:10]
for that

Chad (Host) [31:10 - 31:14]
person that jumps into the crossfit water and they have to row 1000 m.

Shane [31:14 - 31:15]
Like

Chad (Host) [31:15 - 31:19]
what is the one thing that you would tell that person the first time they're using for the first five times they're using it

Shane [31:20 - 31:23]
scott I want, I want to hear your answer.

Scott [31:24 - 32:08]
So I'll tell you what my aha moment was on the roller was when I really got my head around the fact that rowing is a pushing motion, not a pulling motion. And and the idea that my job is trying to push that machine away from me as opposed to pulling the handle and where it really made a connection for me was comparing it to a dead lift. So if you, if you think about a dead lift, you know, you need a flat foot, you know, you need to push off that uh you're not going to try and pull that dead lift with your hands, you know, or with your, your, your back muscles. And so when people can figure out that it is a pushing exercise first, I think once you get that little piece, I think the rest are easier to get people to understand,

Shane [32:10 - 33:19]
I would agree with that. I think that that because we we talked about that in the course as I mean if you can make that singular paradigm shift with somebody you can at least have some ah ha moments for people or they're like wait I've been trying to pull and I mean chad what does every coach in your gym scream at somebody when they want them to go faster on the rower pull harder, pull harder, harder, right? You're like we're planting the wrong seed in people's brains because just ken aesthetically when you think pull, you almost always think pull with your arms. So if I say pull harder, I'm already ruining somebody's potential to understand the mechanics of the stroke, how how to get better at this thing. Instead if we can teach somebody like push that machine away from you with your legs put like push like your life depends on it. Try to push that rower across the room if that's the way that we could get coaches. I mean if we could just make that one coaching change, you know, crossfit wide. Ah I think we'd see a lot of adaptation started happening.

Scott [33:19 - 33:39]
You know, you even you even see it during a wad when you know the coach will acknowledge perceived effort, right? That they they walk by and they see what you're doing and they think you're working hard. Someone else can be really slow and slow and efficient. They think they're slacking off when really it's only the machine that will tell you how hard that person's working.

Shane [33:40 - 34:04]
100%. Yeah. Because if we like the, the feedback that I consistently get when you dropped me into any crossfit gym and like I love to drop into group classes. Just, it's fun. You know, I love to go get exposure and just be be an athlete. Sometimes. I, I love it frankly when I get to drop into across the gym that where I don't know anybody because I just get to drift to the background, nobody's like, you

Scott [34:04 - 34:05]
know, like let's put rowing

Shane [34:05 - 34:15]
into today's workout so we can talk to Shane about him like, no, please don't. But if rowing happens to be in there, there's always this like inevitably there's a comment like

Scott [34:15 - 34:17]
you hardly looked like you were working like how did you get

Shane [34:17 - 34:37]
done so quick? It's like, well, because you don't have to look like you're working hard. Like if you understand how, how again the mechanics of how this thing works, you can create a very fast output with a lot less effort. It doesn't have to look hard. You can make it look smooth and still be going fast.

Scott [34:38 - 34:58]
If I'll just keep going here for a second. I like I like that in the gym part. I remember my first day at the gym. Um, you know, I had an orientation session, we didn't really talk about the rowing machine, you know, in the orientation and that's not a criticism because there's only so much you can

Shane [34:58 - 34:59]
cover.

Scott [34:59 - 35:19]
But I'm thinking that's an opportunity for the gym owner. I just don't know how to apply it is, how do you get the broad membership, you know, to understand that piece of equipment? Because I think, you know, it might only be in for 20 calories, you know, you know, on the wad one day and I just don't know if it gets the time and attention.

Shane [35:21 - 36:59]
I believe the solution comes in number one in those onboarding sessions, right? If we, if we have an on ramp class, which almost every crossfit gym does um, through an on ramp, if you can, if you can bring the point to the front of the education that we believe in understanding human movement and skill rowing falls under that you don't have to like teach rowing in the first two weeks, you can accomplish it at a later point, but by emphasizing that we are a high skilled gym, we believe in learning how the human body moves. Therefore, there will be times where other movements are brought to the forefront and used as a primary for, you know, a certain program. Hey, for the next eight weeks in our general programming, we're going to be emphasizing rolling and then you get a two week window where every coach, although that requires that every coach understands how to move on the machine, right opportunities for coaches to come through the academy because that teaches them how to use it as a coach. Not as a as a student but more so as a coach. Um But that's an opportunity to get touch points every single day in small ways without overwhelming a client. So 15 minutes of work, 10 minutes of work can produce significant results. You just have to know what that minimum effective dose is and what your path should be. What's the thing we need to focus on today? Well let's make the warmup of today's group workout a two minute catch hold drill times two.

Scott [37:00 - 37:00]
You're

Shane [37:00 - 37:11]
gonna have some very unhappy members but they're gonna be warm and you're gonna get a lot of knowledge that happened that occurs from that right? It's like scott you've been through the two minute catch hold like it's not fun.

Scott [37:12 - 37:29]
Actually. I did that with the group I'm coaching two weeks ago. Uh It was a very uncomfortable two minutes. There was lots of shaking going on. I of course just observed. I didn't have to do it. So

Shane [37:29 - 37:58]
although it's so it's it's that like I think that's how you get it through into a system like that and then you offer new offerings. I think a lot of crossfit gyms like well we're a crossfit gym. And so that's our offerings. Like but why why not offer an endurance class, a separate endurance offering that where you do use rowing for a quarter and then you switch to running and then you switch to bikes and then you switched whatever equipment the facility has.

Scott [37:58 - 38:17]
And I think that it's it's that's again a challenge for the for the affiliate owner where you know rowing usually is you know it's it's how quick can you grow you know 400 m in the middle of the water. How quick can you bang out you know 30 calories You know in that 45 to 50 minute class. They don't get a chance to

Shane [38:17 - 38:18]
explore.

Scott [38:18 - 38:33]
You know doing a two K. We're doing a two K. Three K. Split where you know it's the five K. But also we're going to score your three K. In the middle. Um And so there's a whole piece of I think of growing that the average member will never get to benefit from,

Shane [38:34 - 38:45]
yep. Yeah it's very hard to improve if the only time you're ever on the machine you're asked to give 100% nothing less. That's not a coachable environment. Yeah

Scott [38:46 - 38:56]
so um chad you mind if I keep going here. So so Wednesday night we're going to do the damper the the damper setting, you know

Shane [38:56 - 38:57]
test

Scott [38:57 - 39:27]
and and so pretty much and I actually overheard this in the gym a few weeks ago when a member was saying you know what damper should I put it on? Another member said well 10 is harder. Um And I think that's the perception um right, 10 is harder than most machines, you know, as you go move the peg down, it gets heavier. Um So I'm I'm wondering what what would you say to the people who aren't going to take the ruling class when it comes to damper setting?

Chad (Host) [39:27 - 39:29]
This is probably the biggest question you get.

Shane [39:30 - 39:50]
It has to be. Yes, it is damper. Well, the thing is like damper setting is a myth. Uh It's it's simply an adjustment of whether the machine feels light or heavy. However, the amount of the amount of work that's put into a machine is completely determined by the athletes themselves. Case in point I can grow very easy at a 10.

Chad (Host) [39:51 - 39:51]
So just

Shane [39:51 - 41:23]
because I'm at a 10, I can row a three minute split at a 10. I can also roll a 1 30 split that right there is the answer to why a damper setting is not the determinant of work. Mhm. It's so personally, I love the answer of well how hard are you willing to work? Okay, what damper settings should I use? Well, I'm gonna put it at five. You tell me how hard you're willing to work because that's the thing that's gonna show us whether or not you're willing to put in the effort or not because you can cruise at a 10. You don't have to work hard. Um essentially the short answer to it though is that attend simply allows more air into the flywheel and therefore it spins slower. It takes more effort to get the flywheel up, but so it creates a bit more of a muscular fatigue versus anaerobic anaerobic strain. You put it down to a one, there's less muscular fatigue, but there's higher aerobic stream and you also have to adjust the way that your body is reacting. So you take it down to a one. You also need to have a high demand for that fast switch environment. You take it up to attend. It's very slow twitch. Endurance athletes love a 10 on the roar because there's no requirement on their body to have to have that quick stimulus in that fire. Sorry, that pop was really loud in the, in the microphone. But the point being endurance athletes tend to gravitate to attend your like de conditioned athletes who don't know how to have that like explosive, really quick poppy movement will attend because it's very forgiving.

Chad (Host) [41:24 - 41:24]
Yeah,

Shane [41:25 - 42:12]
right. Whereas when the better a rower gets, if you look at the world of rowing, the better rowers get, the lower the damper setting comes because they don't want to have to like grind every stroke. They'd rather be able to finesse every stroke. So the better you get, it's very natural that you're you're damper setting just comes down because you understand how to have a fast twitch catch, how to lock your body in quickly, you're not searching for positions. You're not, you know, it's it's like jump roping for example, the better you get at jump roping, the shortage your cable gets because there's less room for error, there's less weight to carry on the jump rope and so you get really efficient and all of a sudden you understand how to lock your elbows into your side and how to snap at the wrists as opposed to like these big forearm based movements for jump roping, you spend less effort, you can do more without having to.

Chad (Host) [42:12 - 42:30]
I found the technique, I found the technique to like oftentimes when you jump in the river, like I like like a three or four and I'm always pushing it down, I'm 65, so I'm a decent rower by nature and it's always at eight or nine. And I find that the technique of someone that's rolling at eight or nine is usually

Shane [42:31 - 42:32]
they probably,

Chad (Host) [42:33 - 42:35]
they just don't look like it's easy, right? It just looks like

Shane [42:36 - 42:36]
again

Chad (Host) [42:36 - 42:38]
going back to pushing versus pulling right?

Shane [42:39 - 42:39]
The damper

Chad (Host) [42:39 - 42:41]
kind of makes it feel like pulling is the

Shane [42:41 - 42:42]
answer. And

Chad (Host) [42:42 - 42:44]
so I'm just pulling heavier so I'm going further

Shane [42:45 - 43:08]
or getting more energy. And usually if you watch that stroke, it's usually led by a knock back of the head is the first initiation of the movement followed by the shoulders. You get this like falling stroke, which if you put that person vertically and you put a PVC pipe into their hands and told them to do the same thing, they would just be falling backwards, there would be no actual strength put into, you know, what would be a PVC pipe dead lift

Chad (Host) [43:08 - 43:09]
because

Shane [43:09 - 44:08]
they don't they're they essentially are forgetting that there is this requirement for your midline to actually stabilize against the weight. Usually there's a lack of understanding can aesthetically how to create resistance on the handle. And so that that's why 10 is so satisfying for somebody's, because you can get resistance without having to create it and so you can lead with your head, you can lean your head back, you can throw your shoulders back first and it just gives you resistance, You don't have to actually work for it. The problem is that those are incorrect mechanics and so you can get work done without risk of injury. However, could you be getting more work done? Absolutely. If I sat next to you, I'd probably getting more work done with less effort. And so it's very forgiving up to 10 as well. Yeah,

Scott [44:09 - 44:11]
What, what I I have a note here that I made for myself

Shane [44:11 - 44:12]
is,

Scott [44:12 - 44:28]
you know, we look at a lot of the movements in a in a typical crossfit gym and and you can apply them outside of the gym, you don't need a piece of equipment and I'm wondering if you agree with this that, you know, some people won't take the rowing maybe as serious

Shane [44:28 - 44:28]
because it's

Scott [44:28 - 44:31]
the only time they do that

Shane [44:31 - 44:31]
movement

Scott [44:31 - 44:52]
where it's like an exercise bike. They could go for a bike on the weekend with their kids. You know, if it's running base, they could go for a run if they're, you know, lifting weights, but I'm wondering what your common, is that what I'm wondering is how do I get members to get more interested in mastering rowing, even though it's likely the only time they're going to use it

Shane [44:53 - 44:53]
is at

Scott [44:53 - 44:56]
the gym. If it's programmed into the wad

Shane [44:56 - 46:00]
God, a good way to address that, is that it's a it's a no risk option for improving your aerobic capacity. Do you want to be able to improve your aerobic capacity so that you can go on bike rides, go on long heights, walk with your family, be able to do whatever you want without having to risk injury. Rowing is a great option for that. Yeah, of course, you're never going to go wrong. The other piece of that is try not to tell them that they're they need to love rowing. You know, it doesn't have to be a growing class, make it an endurance class, just that the syntax of that alone improve somebody's capacity to be able to say, okay, yeah, I'll come to that, it's an endurance class. Well, yeah, it is an endurance class. You just happen to use rowing as the tool to improve endurance. If I say, come join the rowing club, people are like, no thanks, I don't need growing, you're like, come join the endurance club. People are like, no, no thanks, I don't need endurance, right? Like that's a that's a much easier, like that's an easier challenge to overcome somebody's like, I don't even like really,

Chad (Host) [46:01 - 46:03]
That's that's that's awesome.

Shane [46:03 - 46:06]
Let's talk about your the need for endurance. That's

Chad (Host) [46:06 - 46:14]
awesome. Because we have a lot of endurance athletes out there in our community. We have an endurance club. And I mean when we say endurance club, we have Ironman triathlon runners,

Shane [46:15 - 46:15]
Ultra

Chad (Host) [46:15 - 46:16]
marathon runners.

Shane [46:17 - 46:17]
I

Chad (Host) [46:17 - 46:21]
mean, I guess during the wintertime, I know they do their bikes and their indoor runs, but

Shane [46:21 - 46:22]
like, I

Chad (Host) [46:22 - 46:26]
think that's a that's a cool point of just jumping on the road and just continue building that aerobic capacity,

Shane [46:26 - 47:28]
right? Just because you're using growing doesn't mean that it's a rowing club because you can pro you can program using ftp, you can program using heart rate zones, you can program off of splits and pace. I mean, you have the world is your oyster when it comes to programming you just need a tool that's going to facilitate it. Well, the road is very good at that. I mean if everybody comes in with their own heart rate monitor, great, you can use heart rate training in your endurance class. But if you're like rowing club, people are like, well, I hate rowing, so why would I take that, you know, like, and this is this is time tested. Like I used to host a rowing club and Invictus, it was a very hard sell and it wasn't until I started meeting people where they were and saying I get it, you hate rowing. Let's stop calling it that. Let's not say that we are learning to row because you will never care about the sport of rowing. You have no reason to, you have no connection to it unless you're gonna go start rolling on the water, which you know, hey, some people will and they'll find their way to it at that point. Let them fall in love with rock while they're using the rowing machines.

Scott [47:28 - 47:30]
Just help them facilitate

Shane [47:30 - 47:36]
better performance. Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm. So that's the easy way to it. That's

Scott [47:36 - 47:43]
a great answer. What you may agree to disagree with this one child. You can comment too is I've said for the people that compete in

Shane [47:43 - 47:44]
crossfit, I

Scott [47:44 - 47:50]
don't think you're ever gonna win the workout on the rower but you can sure as heck lose it on the

Shane [47:50 - 47:50]
rower.

Scott [47:51 - 47:57]
And for for those folks, that's what I said. If you want to get better at the rest of the workout, you'd better get good at the rower.

Shane [47:58 - 47:59]
Yeah. Yeah,

Chad (Host) [47:59 - 48:00]
I agree with that,

Shane [48:00 - 48:11]
yep. Sure. I mean look at look at Jackie. Yeah. Right. You can, you're not gonna win that workout on the row because if you blow yourself up, those thrusters are going to be

Chad (Host) [48:11 - 48:13]
miserable.

Shane [48:13 - 49:32]
But if you slack it on the row, you can lose enough time that somebody's going to outpace you on the thrusters and pull ups. So you have to stay competitive. Like you have to stay within striking distance and wouldn't you rather come off the rower feeling more rested, having been able to keep up without having to give everything right? That's whenever I see Jackie, I'm like, I know that I can sit there and put out 75% and be totally on par with everybody. I know I'm going to get 50 de conditioned. You put a bar bill in my hands, I can do 50 unbroken thrusters, of course de conditioned. I can jump on a pull up bar and do 30 pull ups unbroken right after 50 thrusters, it's just going to happen. Like I know my body well enough, I know I can do that. Is it gonna hurt? Yeah, absolutely. But like I can do that, especially knowing that my role is only gonna take 75% from me, not 95%. If you're putting in 95% on the row, it's a razor's edge as to what's going to happen on the thrusters and pull ups. If you're, you know, let's say you're like a low to mid level competitive athlete. That sounded really egotistical and like the way that that came out, but that like that's just the point, like if you're a beginning competitor, you know?

Chad (Host) [49:33 - 49:45]
Yeah, again, you're creating efficiencies. Another movement to give you better chance of recovering and better chance of being able to move through that movement, not at the peak pace. So it makes no sense. The

Shane [49:45 - 51:25]
way the way that I've always kind of framed it is in if rowing shows up in your workout and rowing, so, Jackie is kind of the perfect example, right? Because it's kind of like the one crossfit workout where like everybody knows. So for those of you who don't know, Jackie is 1000 m row, 50 thrusters with an empty bar bell and 30 pull ups per time. So if we take Jackie and we run it through the right way, rowing is the first thing and then you have thrusters and then you have pull ups, I will generally taper the last 10% of the row in order to prepare for the next thing. If there are other things that come after the row and the distance is 1000 m or under. So if it's, let's say we took Jackie, but we made it, you know, a 500 m row instead, I would take for the final 50 m and Jackie, I taper the final 100 m because I know that the amount of time somebody's gonna make up on me in the final 100 m, like I'm still ticking away meters, but I'm recovering that time. So in that time I'm trying to bring my heart rate down, I'm bringing my respiratory rate down. I'm making sure that when I put the handle down, finally, I'm stepping off the machine and there is no break. I'm stepping off picking up the barbell and going right into thrusters without having to stand in front of it, put my hands on my hips and you know, get myself ready to go. So that's if that's if we take Jackie straight through, then let's say we take Jackie and we split it in half and make it a two round workout. Mm hmm. So now it's 500 m, 25 thrusters, 15 pull ups, two rounds through which fun little experiment. It's fun to throw that at your gym sometimes because people like no Jackie, but all of a sudden you make it a two round workout. People like

Scott [51:25 - 51:25]
what?

Shane [51:26 - 52:22]
Um You know, I'm gonna come out hot on the row in round one, but settle, I'm not gonna explode through it. I'm gonna taper the final 10%. 50 m. I'm gonna go do my thing. I'm gonna come back to the rower, same thing, gonna settle in. I'm gonna take the last 50 m and I'm gonna finish strong in my final thrusters and pull ups if you've got extra in the tank after round one, like maybe I can nudge the needle a little bit on the second row, let's say I take Jackie and I flip it and reverse another fun one to throw at your gym. You do three days of Jackie, you could do Jackie forwards, Jackie grounds and you can do Jackie and reverse the third day. So now you go 30 pull ups, 50 thrusters, 1000 m row. Well now I can win the workout on the rower, right? So now I have a jam on it in the final 300 m. So if rowing is the last thing, you can win the workout on the rower, but that's the only instance really in which you can, or if it's the only thing then that's the only way you can win it on the rower. Yeah. Cool.

Chad (Host) [52:23 - 52:41]
No, that's cool. That's cool. I know I want to be conscious of your time. I did have one question I wanted to ask you about two questions about nutrition recovery. Um I guess just remember the marathon row at the crossfit games. Remember you put a video saying like, this isn't something you just go and do, which I think is good advice?

Shane [52:41 - 52:42]
Yeah,

Chad (Host) [52:43 - 52:58]
I guess in regards to rowing and nutrition, like do you have anything specific from a nutrition protocol with the roar or do you sort of just look at it from just an endurance perspective? Right? It's just another endurance sport, you just have to fuel up, just know differently. Like if you're gonna go do a marathon runner

Shane [52:58 - 54:53]
nutritionally. I would just treat it the same as an endurance event. Yeah. you gotta, you just have to make sure you're getting calories and you have to make sure that you're keeping hydration going. The things that change. However, usually when it comes to a large endurance event, half marathon marathon on the rower are more so you're like body care conditions. Those are the things that change because you have to think about like a marathon run, will you at least get wind so you create evaporation? Whereas like you're sitting in a box or your garage or whatever, doing a marathon run, you don't really get the benefit of evaporation, you're not going anywhere. So sweat gets become sweat management becomes a really high priority. So you should have like multiple changes of hats. I love like this old school baseball, like three inch forearm wristband sweatbands. Like those three inch sweatbands will be your best friend on a long road because you have to think like a lot of sweat begins at the armpit it and your hands are in a downward position. That means that you're that sweat sweat is going to trickle down your arms into your hands. The instant your hands get damp is when you start to get blisters. Yeah, and you know, it's a it's a repetitive friction movements. So you get, you're gonna get blisters on your hands. Um so the sweat management becomes high priority as well as seat management because if you don't have great posture, you don't have the spinal endurance to be able to maintain upright posture and so you end up with a poster pelvic tilt, which tends to grind the tailbone down into the seat. Now we're talking about the potential for like a really bad raspberry on your tailbone, which a raspberry sucks, but like an open wound raspberry is an absolute killer, right? So seat management make you know, the the chief solution has always been like you just do a couple of rolls of bubble wrap and just put them on the seat just so that you have some air underneath you. Um those things become high

Chad (Host) [54:53 - 54:55]
priority,

Shane [54:56 - 54:56]
let's

Chad (Host) [54:56 - 55:04]
go. And then my last question was like more like how do you use rowing as a recovery tool or do you use rolling as a recovery tool?

Shane [55:04 - 56:52]
Yeah, I mean the same way that you do any endurance activity that allows you to keep intensity low. You know, if you're in the heart rate and your, you know spending time in like zone two and keep that heart rate controlled and I'm a fan of heart rate as a way of capping your activity. It's very easy. Like if you're if you're pretty conditioned, you get, especially from crossfit, you get very conditioned to be okay with like zone three, zone four heart rate and you're like I just live in this forever, but that's not really a great place to live for recovery if you're truly trying to get in like a recovery activity. So I like using heart rate as a way of of mitigating our comprehension of what a recovery activity is. Um You're gonna need the mechanics to go behind it though to ensure that you are getting efficient movement and otherwise, you know, you can start to get some deterioration of movement quality when that starts to happen, then, you know, we're reinforcing bad habits. So the way that I've always framed it is uh it takes about 1000 strokes to fix a bad habit and that's roughly 10,000 m. So for every 10,000 m you put in, you get to work on one bad habit and correcting it. That goes both ways though. That's a two way door, right? You put in 10,000 m with poor rowing and zero focus on on what you're doing. Well now you can reinforce some pretty bad habits. Um So I like it from a perspective of it's very low impact, There's no risk. You know, you're not going to trip and fall on a rock going for a recovery run whatever trip on a curb or a shoelace or um you can keep your metrics within control, you just have to make sure you have an intention behind what you're doing as well. Awesome.

Chad (Host) [56:53 - 57:02]
Well, thanks for all the insight. I really do appreciate it. I mean it's been great talking to you. Great. Learning about rowing. Yeah, thank you very much for your time.

Shane [57:02 - 57:04]
Yeah. Happy to chat. Thanks for picking the brain.

Scott [57:05 - 57:07]
Thanks for putting the program together to.

Shane [57:07 - 57:23]
Yeah, of course. Of course. I thought this is what I love doing. I mean coaching is like I see myself as a, as a coach first and that's the beauty of this. I get to my job is coaching. So thank you. Thanks for having

Chad (Host) [57:24 - 57:27]
No problem man. Well, thanks again. I appreciate it. Um,

Shane [57:28 - 57:28]
and

Chad (Host) [57:28 - 57:30]
yeah, I'm super excited to

Shane [57:30 - 57:31]
have the listeners

Chad (Host) [57:31 - 57:32]
listen to this thing.

Shane [57:33 - 57:34]
Cool,

Chad (Host) [57:35 - 57:37]
awesome Shane. Really appreciate it man. Thank you.

Shane [57:37 - 57:38]
So you got it.

Chad (Host) [57:38 - 57:39]
All right. Take it easy.

Shane [57:39 - 57:40]
See ya.

Chad (Host) [57:41 - 57:46]
Alright. How often was that? A Scots. Super intelligent. Super insightful. And you can tell he definitely has a

Shane [57:46 - 57:46]
coach.

Scott [57:47 - 57:56]
Yeah, well and super super down to earth to write like you could see he could talk to anybody whether you're brand new or super experienced and uh, and cover all the

Shane [57:56 - 57:56]
bases.

Chad (Host) [57:57 - 58:10]
Yeah. Yeah. It's always, it's always fun talking to these awesome guests and you kind of wish she had like, you know, three hours to the town and chat with them. I guess we haven't reached the level of joe Rogan yet. I guess we're still working up. We're still working up. But it's been

Shane [58:10 - 58:11]
awesome.

Chad (Host) [58:12 - 58:13]
I

Scott [58:13 - 58:17]
wouldn't, I wouldn't mind a bit of time in the gym with him to, to uh,

Chad (Host) [58:17 - 58:19]
yeah, that would be pretty awesome.

Shane [58:20 - 58:21]
Everybody awesome.

Chad (Host) [58:21 - 58:25]
But I did want to sit down and chat with you obviously.

Shane [58:25 - 58:26]
Uh,

Chad (Host) [58:26 - 58:28]
this has been more directed to our community but um

Shane [58:29 - 58:29]
you

Chad (Host) [58:30 - 58:44]
you took part in in what we talked about the dark horse academy. You're now sort of supporting the L. P. Community with sort of rowing. Like maybe can you give just a brief sort of intro sort of idea

Shane [58:44 - 58:45]
of what what

Chad (Host) [58:45 - 58:47]
you're offering to LP or or the community

Shane [58:47 - 58:48]
here?

Scott [58:48 - 58:56]
Yeah so so as as a part of the you know the you know that what they called the road club, you know we're getting together you know once a

Shane [58:56 - 58:57]
week

Scott [58:57 - 59:04]
and the general you know program involves usually you know a little bit of theory to explain,

Shane [59:04 - 59:05]
right? So we're going

Scott [59:05 - 59:32]
to explain what it is that we want to learn or what we want to work on, we then usually will take a look at some specific drills. You know, again something that'll really help make the whether it's a new movement whether or not it's a specific technique, you know put it in the program and then put it in place and then we actually go for a row and and what's important about that is usually we're going to do something that they don't get a chance to do in the

Shane [59:32 - 59:32]
gym.

Scott [59:33 - 60:05]
You know. So you heard you heard Shane say, you know it's 1000 strokes to fix a bad habit and so if there is an opportunity to improve someone's rowing stroke and there is really the only way you're going to be able to fix that is to one, identify it with someone who's got a, you know, a clinical I and then be able to prescribe as a very specific strategy to fix that. So if I had 10 people rowing in front of me, all 10 of them are going to have an opportunity to improve usually in 2 to 3 key areas,

Shane [60:06 - 60:06]
but

Scott [60:06 - 60:08]
probably every one of them is gonna have a different set of three.

Shane [60:09 - 60:10]
Right? So

Scott [60:10 - 60:23]
it's also a chance where you don't sit in with a group of people and everybody gets told fix the same problem. It's, you know, everybody's gonna identify based on where you're at your body type, you're growing, strike your experience, we're going to find something that will improve for you,

Shane [60:24 - 60:25]
right? Yeah.

Chad (Host) [60:25 - 60:28]
Makes total sense. I could, I feel like the misconception, I mean I hear it a lot

Shane [60:29 - 60:29]
um

Chad (Host) [60:30 - 60:34]
you know, everyone thinks I'm a good really because I'm I got the sort of the body type for a roller.

Shane [60:34 - 60:35]
But you

Chad (Host) [60:35 - 60:48]
would say anybody with any type of body type, whether you're whether you're short or tall, you can make significant improvements on the rower to make it look efficient to make it look easy to make it feel easy easier.

Shane [60:48 - 60:48]
Sorry.

Scott [60:49 - 61:05]
So yeah, so you'll you'll hear it, it's kind of like um you know wall balls where they'll say like that the taller athlete has the advantage, right? And so they'll say that, you know, with rowing, the taller athlete has the advantage. And I would say if you had a tall

Shane [61:05 - 61:05]
athlete

Scott [61:06 - 61:20]
in a moderately tall athlete and they had the exact same technique, you know, I'll give points to the taller athlete, but you know, as we talked about actually on our last row, club session was gaining length through

Shane [61:20 - 61:21]
compression

Scott [61:21 - 61:32]
and so you can actually get a much better rowing stroke with good technique that no matter how tall you are, you're not going to be able to make up what good technique can fix for you.

Shane [61:33 - 61:33]
Yeah,

Chad (Host) [61:34 - 61:38]
which is really good to hear because I think a lot of people think that I'm short,

Shane [61:38 - 61:38]
the

Chad (Host) [61:38 - 61:42]
rower is really tough, I can't pull, I can't get the same output.

Shane [61:42 - 61:43]
But I think a lot of

Chad (Host) [61:44 - 61:54]
the reasons why people struggle the roller is because from a technical perspective it's just a bit harder to fully understand unless you're spending the time, like you're saying learning, learning that

Shane [61:54 - 61:54]
technique

Scott [61:55 - 62:30]
for sure and so you'll you'll see, you'll see people in the gym one that they set the damper at 10, the king 10 equals equals hard. Um and then they go super long, like you'll see them flailing their backs, you know all the way back, they're bringing the the handle up to their chins, which one won't won't produce success, but it also becomes uncomfortable and really exhausting. Um And so I think, you know, some proper understanding of how to row will make people, it'll make it suck less if that makes,

Chad (Host) [62:30 - 62:32]
which is the goal,

Scott [62:32 - 62:33]
it'll just suck

Chad (Host) [62:33 - 62:43]
less. So like who, I guess I was asking Shane this about, you know, who he,

Shane [62:44 - 62:45]
who's the

Chad (Host) [62:45 - 62:54]
target audience for dark horse, right? And he was saying the newest shore for our community, who should sort of consider joining this, this uh, this club or this class.

Scott [62:54 - 63:02]
So the easy answer is every is everybody in the sense that everyone can benefit from it. So, you know, I remember talking to

Shane [63:02 - 63:03]
Adam

Scott [63:03 - 63:06]
about his rowing technique and you know, I, you know,

Shane [63:07 - 63:08]
yeah, I remember that

Scott [63:09 - 64:08]
he's pretty successful, like he, you know, he he did pretty well, but so you get Adam who's a very successful competitive athlete, you know, had some fundamental flaws in his rowing stroke, which which he fixed, right? But to me, rowing is one of those movements in the gym. That's a great leveler, right? So, you know, you can have people that can lift a whole lot of weight, you know, they can uh you know, do things like that, but everybody can do the rowing peace. And so when I think some people and I would bet some of the members look around the gym and they say, you know, how can I be competitive in this today's workout, That's something that every single person in the gym, you can get really, really good at growing and you'll always be really successful at that element of the workout. And you won't look at the watch and say, oh I'm gonna choose the bike today or I'm gonna choose the skier today or I'm gonna choose to run laps today. You'll look at it and say I actually have an opportunity to do my best work on the rower and that could be a mind shift change for a lot of people. Mm

Shane [64:08 - 64:09]
hmm.

Chad (Host) [64:10 - 64:11]
Yeah, totally.

Shane [64:11 - 64:12]
So it

Scott [64:12 - 64:21]
doesn't matter how strong you are, it doesn't matter how old you are. Um anybody that says I want to get better and frankly if you want to get better at some other

Shane [64:21 - 64:22]
movements,

Scott [64:22 - 64:34]
right? So I say if you want to get better at other movements within a workout um if you can really understand how your body moves through a rowing stroke, I thank you. There's a lot of ah ha movements

Shane [64:34 - 64:34]
for

Scott [64:35 - 64:38]
other movements that maybe aren't going as smoothly as you wish they

Shane [64:38 - 64:38]
were.

Chad (Host) [64:39 - 64:40]
Mhm.

Shane [64:41 - 64:41]
That's

Chad (Host) [64:41 - 64:42]
great. And

Shane [64:43 - 64:43]
I had a

Chad (Host) [64:43 - 64:51]
quick few questions that I was gonna ask. Um But yeah, I guess I guess, I mean I think

Shane [64:52 - 64:53]
the same for you. Like

Chad (Host) [64:53 - 64:57]
do you have an opinion on like um

Shane [64:58 - 64:58]
I guess what

Chad (Host) [64:59 - 65:06]
I'll start here when you went through sort of the course or whatever you wanna call it. Um

Shane [65:07 - 65:07]
What

Chad (Host) [65:07 - 65:09]
did you learn most

Shane [65:09 - 65:09]
for

Chad (Host) [65:09 - 65:11]
yourself? Because I mean I know you wrote a lot

Shane [65:11 - 65:11]
before

Chad (Host) [65:12 - 65:21]
um Obviously probably had a lot during the course, like what were some of the things that you learned most about sort of your owing technique and areas that you need to like that really helped you

Shane [65:22 - 65:23]
become a better rower.

Scott [65:23 - 66:00]
So I I took the I I think I decided to take that course by the way it was after we did one of the road royalties. And by the way, I love the road warriors. Again, you're getting exposed to work that you never get and the ones that usually look the easiest hurt the worst. But I was trying I was trying to figure out how you could, I'm looking around the group of us at the time and you've got different ages, different body types, different lengths yet, you know, some people were outperforming others and I'm just like, you know, how did that happen? So a few things I learned one is

Shane [66:00 - 66:01]
I

Scott [66:01 - 66:02]
had really poor

Shane [66:02 - 66:03]
ankle

Scott [66:03 - 66:20]
mobility. Uh and I never realized how much ankle mobility was affecting me until I started really trying to fix my rolling stroke. And by fixing that, by the way, my squat came a long way as far as achieving depth.

Chad (Host) [66:20 - 66:22]
Interesting, interesting that the ankle

Shane [66:22 - 66:23]
mobility,

Chad (Host) [66:23 - 66:26]
it was a big thing because I wouldn't have thought that right

Shane [66:26 - 66:26]
away.

Scott [66:27 - 66:52]
Yeah, and and and I didn't either. Right until I really, you know, because you know when you when you think about people trying to reach, you know to to squeeze up and get that handle closer to the machine, you know, they'll they'll reach it with their arms and their shoulders, they'll reach it with their back, but you know those don't keep you in very good position and then so it was hips and in my case ankle. So one of those, I learned what my limiting factor

Shane [66:52 - 66:53]
was and

Scott [66:53 - 66:54]
then I learned how to address it

Shane [66:55 - 66:55]
cool,

Scott [66:55 - 67:33]
which was a good one and then really was the understanding that I was trying to pulp and so you know, I had the death grip on the handle, right? And so when you see people with their forearms getting fatigued and they start getting blisters, you know, they're they're squeezing that handle, like how much if I squeeze this handle harder, it will help. Um So I realized it was it was a pulling exercise and that I had to engage the bigger parts of my body which was which was legs and I thought that it was a chance for me to be more successful at least you know that element of of the gym routine for me.

Shane [67:33 - 67:34]
Mhm.

Chad (Host) [67:34 - 67:42]
No, I hear you. I think when I first started growing my common issue was like my quads were just like the lactic acid in my quads were just like

Shane [67:42 - 67:42]
just

Chad (Host) [67:42 - 68:11]
drive me wild and as I learned more and I think it was I learned more and then I also talked to you but more like I started realizing it goes to the same thing right, keeping your heels down and now I don't want to say I have two different types of rowing strokes but I kind of have to different, I know two different ways of growing like if I want to go fast or long and slow I can do this if I want to go faster so I can do this and that's in sort of competition mode, right? Like you might

Shane [68:11 - 68:12]
toss

Chad (Host) [68:12 - 68:17]
out the perfect growing form just to win a competition but it is kind of crazy

Shane [68:17 - 68:18]
how very,

Chad (Host) [68:18 - 68:20]
very small changes in the rower.

Shane [68:20 - 68:21]
I'm probably

Chad (Host) [68:21 - 68:33]
sure, I'm probably sure that all these endurance athletes are all kind of saying in their head like yeah this is the same as biking, this is the same as swimming, this is the same as running. Like I understand that like I think all sports have a technical side to them, people don't just

Shane [68:33 - 68:34]
realize right away,

Chad (Host) [68:34 - 68:35]
like it's just like yeah, I can go out

Shane [68:35 - 68:36]
running, I

Chad (Host) [68:36 - 68:48]
can go and take a bike, but there are so many things to learn if you really want to dive into that and I think this is just kind of like we're really sort of diving deep into the rowing but it is interesting how much you learn after you wrote a long time and you

Shane [68:48 - 68:49]
start

Chad (Host) [68:49 - 69:06]
either watching Shane's videos or you talk to a resource like yourself, so I'm super excited to have someone like yourself in our community because I think there is a ton of people that can learn a lot, even just small things, right, that will just improve your own and just like you said, it

Shane [69:06 - 69:07]
just becomes more

Chad (Host) [69:07 - 69:08]
enjoyable.

Shane [69:09 - 69:09]
So

Scott [69:09 - 69:28]
I think you get to, you know, apply it and so I said to one of the folks I was working with a couple weeks ago, you know, you know, the idea of keeping the heels down, uh and that's a big thing in rolling, keep your heels down because if you're going to be pushing away you want to push from the heels and I tried to, you know, I was trying to make a, you know, a connection that would

Shane [69:28 - 69:29]
make sense

Scott [69:29 - 69:35]
and I used the dead lift as an example, you know, a lot, and I said, now just imagine trying to do a dead lift, a heavy dead

Shane [69:35 - 69:36]
lift,

Scott [69:36 - 70:19]
but you're standing on your toes and they're like, well, you know, it can't happen, like you can visualize yourself trying to do it and like just falling flat on your, on your face, I said, and so that's the exact same thing you've got to think about from a rowing stroke and so it might mean that you don't go in as far, you may not compress as much in the catch, you're better off to keep your heels down, but be further away from the machine and learn how to squeeze without losing, you know, the good form and then, you know, and then that calm stroke when I get on and I have an eco bike, it's beside me here and you see people doing the eco bike and they're and they're flailing and then you start to realize and I

Shane [70:19 - 70:20]
full

Scott [70:20 - 70:43]
disclosure that would have been me is realizing how much that affects your ability to breathe that flailing. And again, if you want to have a successful run on that you realize that there's a calmness that you can actually apply to the assault bike or the aqua bike too. And so once you start making these connections, you realize, boy, there's transferable skills in each direction.

Shane [70:44 - 70:44]
Yeah,

Chad (Host) [70:45 - 70:57]
100% 100%. Now this has been great. I really, I'm glad. Um finally we got to talk about rolling on the podcast. It's been 52 episodes. I'm surprised it took this long to be honest with you. All

Scott [70:57 - 71:02]
right, well, I mean you got a great you've got a great guest with Shane. I mean that guy knows what he's talking about.

Chad (Host) [71:03 - 71:34]
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah, get the best of the best. For sure. And it's great having you in the community So I'm super excited to see how that pans out was for everyone. Um Yeah, thanks for joining. I hope everyone enjoys this. Thanks for listening. I'm really excited to get another great guest on like Shane. Another great guest from our community scott. So thank you for joining, appreciate it. Happy to be here. Thank you. Alright, everyone. Thanks for listening. We will catch you next time, Yeah.