Rowing plan workflow

Hi, I’ve just set-up a 6 week train to maintain rowing plan. This will be a mental refresh after a couple of years bike only, and to try and unwind the postural impact of that time on the bike.

Can anyone recommend a workflow for getting their athletica planned workout into a Concept 2 rowing machine and then getting the resultant actual workout back into athletica?

I intend using Concept 2 logbook and ErgData app but not stuck on that. In my athletica connections Concept 2 is connected:

but planned workouts in athletica don’t have an obvious way to send to Concept 2. Using “send to Garmin” for bike workout as a reference.
This is what I see:

1 Like

Hi @PhilB thanks for this question. Our rowing plans are still quite new and as you know, Concept 2, while an amazing piece of equipment, has a terrible software interface that is stuck in the 1990s!

When I use my C2, I also use ErgData on my phone and connect it to the PM5 “wirelessly” :wink: I generally the workout steps in my mind or on a piece of paper and run through it that way. I have manually programmed the workout into ErgData, but that is time consuming.

I don’t think we (or anyone else) can send structured workouts to the PM5 directly or to ErgData at the moment, but if you or anyone else knows of a solution, please let us know.

I have just reached out to C2 to see if they have any way for us to send Athletica workouts directly to the PM5 or at least ErgData. I’ll let you know if we make any progress.

1 Like

Appreciate the feedback Mark. It’s been some years since I’ve rowed so have no real expectations around the software environment. And therefore my starting premise was following a workout in analogue mode.

I’ve had a play with loading a workout into ErgData and can see that would get tedious pretty quickly.

I’d be keen to hear if a solution, either from C2 or elsewhere, does come up so please keep us posted. I’ll do some digging and post back here if I come up with something.

2 Likes

Really odd, this, given how long the C2 and RP3 platforms have maintained a digital component.

I’m on an RP3 now and I was looking for a method there, too, with their homegrown app. Nada.

But there is EXR, to which I might switch back (have to replace my bluetooth device on the erg). The workouts are .json, but the semantics seem straightforward enough.

EXR also seems to record at 1sec intervals, versus the RP3s 2-3 seconds. Much better data over the shorter intervals

There’s a cost, of course. ~$80 on the annual plan. But the tech is pretty cool.

1 Like

The ErgZone app allows you to build workouts with more controls than the C2 ErgData app. Works similarly by connecting to your PM5 via Bluetooth and you can run the workouts using the app w/audio prompts, custom display, etc. Not associated, just found this recently when looking for ways to build workouts for rowing (ErgData is pretty limited).

Their premium version gives you a web interface to do it, otherwise you’re stuck creating them on your phone. Attaching an example…it has a bit of a learning curve but once you build a couple to use as templates you can duplicate/modify new ones pretty easily.

1 Like

I believe ergzone, trainerday & exr send the workout to the pm5 unit over Bluetooth. I don’t think there is an api to push the workout to the logbook

1 Like

Just learned that this app can connect to the RP3 as well! In the process of replacing the bluetooth device, but will try once it arrives. Thanks for the mention, @shiehb

2 Likes