Torquemada Would Be Proud

Around 25 years ago, two brothers set up shop in Vermont to make an indoor rowing machine from bicycle parts. Today that has evolved into the Concept2 Rower which is one of the best tools available for those on a quest to achieve fitness. Rowing is kind of like cross-country skiing in the way that it works so many parts of your body. It's perfect for doing a series of intervals, or a sustained effort. They come with a computer that has severl workouts pre-programmed or you can devise your own. If you don't believe rowing is taxing, watch the competitors at the end of a race during this summer's olympics. It is truly the path for discovering what the Gym Jones guys call "The Art of Suffering." I once wrote on a cycling forum many years ago that I was convinced that indoor cycling was actually invented by Torquemada for use during the Spanish Inquisition. Well, no cycling machine will hold up to the C2 as a torture device!!

The C2 folks have a lot of information on their website including a place online to record your training. A few years ago, I wrote them an email asking if they had any literature on rowing form. I told them in that email that I didn't own one of their machines but used one at a gym. They sent me an instruction video tape and to this day I still get their magazine that has training articles and results of rowing competitions. If I were equiping a home gym, this would be the first thing I'd buy.

Try it!!!