Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Rowing machine. I’ve tried Pelaoton and find their classes boring.
You think Peloton is boring but erging isn’t? Erging is hellishly hard and deadly dull.
I feel the same way about erging v bikes. Exercise bikes are boring and so repetitive and your body is cramped in an unnatural position. Erging is a much more natural full-body exercise, and you also have to think about it more so it's not as boring. It's not just grind, grind, grind around the pedals.
But the Peloton is not a bike in the way that a Concept 2 is an erg. The selling point of the Peloton is that it has coached workouts, which can last from 5 to 90 minutes, in any variety of styles, and coached by various personalities. All of that displays on the screen mounted to the bike.
The parallel would be if the erg had a giant screen and someone coxing you through each piece. But it doesn't, so the comparison doesn't hold. (Also, once you row long enough, you don't have to think about erging technique really at all.)
But physically, the exercise bike pushes your body into a track of repetitive motion, the way an Erg really doesn't. Your body has much more freedom to move, and you aren't hunched over in the same position the whole time. For the injury prone, erging is better IMO. And erg is also a full body workout, of course, unlike the bike. I can live without the coaching stuff.
So much; where to begin?
-Erging (and rowing) are, by nature, repetitive. Ask any rower who's had a repetitive motion injury (which is most of us). To say that an erg doesn't push your body onto a "track of repetitive motion" is laughable, since the seat *slides on a track*
-Proper cycling technique does not include "hunching," and the Peloton coaches I ride with most do a great job of cueing postural reminders multiple times per ride
-Erging involves more muscle groups, so there's more to injure. Also, the vast majority of people who erg but lack rowing experience aren't doing it properly. That sets them up well for injury
-That's great that you can live without the coaching stuff, but most people would get bored doing the machine, every single day, with zero coaching or stimulation other than numbers on a screen
Look, I rowed competitively for 8+ years. I get the utility of the erg and all the great things about it. But there are very, very few people who would choose their single piece of equipment to be an erg over a Peloton, and if they do, I'm frankly skeptical that they're erging correctly. Erging is supposed to suck.