Monotony Meets Mastery: Indoor Rowing Through the Eyes of Olympic Rowers
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From Olli Zeidler to Georgie Brayshaw, the world’s best rowers train on the indoor rowing machine. But how do these elite athletes stay focused during the daily grind and how do they optimize their indoor rowing workouts to beat the Olympic competition? Read this article to find out how 4 professional rowers feel about their indoor training and discover their secrets to succes
From recreational rowing clubs to national teams, the indoor rowing machine is an indispensable training tool. While some rowers appreciate the discipline, strength, and accuracy needed to reach peak performances, others see it as pure torture.
It cannot just be about the results.
Even Dutch Olympian Niki van Sprang admits that the further you go in your rowing career, the more erging turns into a solo experience that you somehow need to make fun: “Steady-state erg training can be monotonous. Erging usually becomes more individual after university. Movies and music only help against boredom for so long.”
Having recently retired from professional rowing in the men’s pair for TeamNL, Niki looks back at what made the biggest difference for him: “In the end, a happy athlete is a fast athlete. If you want to keep doing it for a longer time, if you want to succeed and if you want to enjoy it, you have to make sure that the process is something that fits you. It cannot just be about the results.”
Indoor rowing is pretty important.
Claiming first place at the 2023 World Rowing Indoor Championships, Olympic champion Oliver Zeidler demonstrated the depth of his dedication to the rowing machine. In comparison to the multiple on-the-water world champion, the indoor rowing machine looks tiny. The German is more than 2 meters tall and almost reaches the ceiling of his home gym in Bavaria.
While his strong suit is the single scull, Oliver shares that harsh winter days often call for indoor rowing drills. To help him track and analyze his fitness, he relies on the expertise and insights of his father and coach, Heino Zeidler. Oliver explains: “Data are very important to track my performance and get a comparison to earlier records. When we do a test, for example, I always ask my dad about the kind of score I had the year before because I want to beat that score. So indoor rowing is pretty important.”
Indoor rowing is just as important as outdoor training for fitness.
The Olympian who seems to be enjoying indoor rowing the most is the British gold medalist Georgie Brayshaw . She is beaming as she talks about the indoor rowing records she’s holding at the British Rowing training facility: “I really flourish on the rowing machine. It’s just as important as outdoor training for fitness. We do testing on the rowing machine, like 2k, 5k, half an hour, things like that. It’s a big part of our routine.”
But as much joy as breaking records brings, Georgie admits that training on the ergometer can sometimes get very repetitive. In her latest interview with Junior Rowing News, Georgie reveals: “I have lost count of the number of times I did not achieve what I wanted in the moment. What matters is chipping away, bit by bit.”
To help her track even the slightest gains on the ergometer, Georgie uses the indoor rowing app EXR: “They have designed it so that you can find those marginal gains whilst enjoying the experience of being on an indoor rowing machine.”
To race is brilliant and quite fun!
As her teammate at British Rowing, Matthew Haywood spends countless hours on the indoor rowing machine. Together with Georgie, he represented the United Kingdom at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Even from home, training time means crush time on the ergometer. However, the social factor plays a big role in Matt’s performance and training motivation: “I always train best when I’m training with other people. And that’s not necessarily always possible. Sometimes you have to train from home.” To help Matt give it his all from his home gym, Matt uses EXR: “Being able to compete and see leaderboards and know where you're standing with other people is brilliant to me. To race is brilliant and quite fun.”
Train on the ergometer like an Olympian with EXR!
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