Give Every Workout a Purpose
Easy work, hard intervals, and short power efforts have different jobs. Learn the four training focuses behind Row Forge workouts.
Ask what the session is for
The hardest workout is not always the most useful workout. A session has a job: build endurance, hold a strong pace, repeat hard efforts, or produce short bursts of power.
Row Forge groups these jobs into four training focuses. Your test results help show which focus needs attention. The workout's intervals, targets, and rest then help you train for that purpose.
Aerobic Capacity: build your base
This is steady, sustainable endurance work. It helps build the base that supports harder training. In the usual five-zone heart-rate system, it sits mainly in HR Zone 2.
The aim is to keep the effort under control. Making every easy session harder changes its purpose and adds to the recovery you need.
Aerobic Power: hold a strong effort
This is demanding work, often in longer intervals. You work near a hard pace you can hold, rather than sprinting from the first stroke. In the usual five-zone heart-rate system, it sits mainly in HR Zone 4.
Start at a pace that leaves the later intervals useful. One very fast opening interval does not make up for losing control of the rest.
Anaerobic Tolerance: repeat very hard work
This focus trains your ability to keep working through repeated, very hard efforts. The recovery between efforts is part of the session.
Think of it as an HR Zone 5 effort. Heart rate takes time to rise, though. Power, how hard it feels, and how well you hold the intervals are more useful guides than chasing a heart-rate number.
Anaerobic Production: make short power count
This focus uses very short, maximum-power efforts with ample recovery. The rest lets you keep the quality of each effort high.
It is also an HR Zone 5 effort, but power and how hard it feels guide these short bursts. Cutting the rest or adding extra repetitions can change the task. Follow the session's structure.
A training focus is not a heart-rate zone
Row Forge's four focuses describe the purpose of the work. Heart-rate zones describe a different signal. There is no simple one-to-one match between four focuses and five heart-rate zones.
Heart rate can also change with heat, sleep, stress, and other factors. Read it alongside your pace, watts, breathing, technique, and perceived effort.
HIIT and Signature Workouts are separate Row Forge workout categories. A HIIT session may serve different focuses based on its structure. It is not another name for an Anaerobic Production workout.
Your next step
Before your next Row Forge workout, read its training focus, target, intervals, and rest. Ask yourself what the session is meant to develop.
Then follow that purpose. Keep steady work steady. Give short power efforts their recovery. Choose the session to fit your current needs, available time, and readiness, rather than picking the hardest-looking option.