How to Use Rowing In Your Fitness Business

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 14. Today I'm talking with Sarah Furman, owner of youf Canrow 2, all about how to use rowing in your fitness business. So if you're ready to take your skill to the next level in rowing, stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, coach? I'm super pumped that you're back for another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm really excited for today's interview. We have a very special guest. She is one of my dear friends and I've actually known her now for a while. We met way back in a mastermind, one of my first masterminds that I ever did and we have been friends ever since. She is the owner of you Can Row two. And her story, which she does share in this podcast, is really profound because like me, she was not one of those ex athletes that were really passionate about rowing. Getting into rowing, she found fitness later in her life and found that fitness and found specifically that rowing can transform your fitness without having the intense, without impact, which we talk a lot about that inside of our interview today. We also speak to the beliefs that people have about time and about whether or not they feel too late. We talk about comparison trap from starting your business, especially when it feels like the market is crowded. And we also talked a lot about how rowing can have a significant impact on your fitness business, whether you are doing it online, in home or in person. And we talked about the importance of certification and why it's important to be a certified trainer and how to really take the information and use it and how to really take the information and implement it. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview well. Hi Sarah. Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I am great, Beverly. I'm so excited to be here because I've been listening to the podcast and honestly, I subscribed right away because you're my friend, but I am listening to all the episodes because they are just so awesome. I am not going to lie. It is awesome. Love it.

That is so sweet. I did not even prompt her to say that. Thank you.

We didn't Talk about it at all. But it is true.

I really appreciate that. Well, I am really excited for today's episode. I think this is going to be really insightful for a lot of the trainers and physical therapists that listen. So can you just dive in, tell us a little bit about who you are and who you serve.

All right. Well, my name is Sarah Fuhrman and I am the owner of a company called you Can Row two. And what we do is we help people of all ages, shapes, sizes, abilities, income levels, and all the rest of it to get fit on the rowing machine, to find their inner athlete, unleash that person, and to take that from wherever they are to wherever they want to go with it. And with that is a very big element of our certified instructors, who are basically our soldiers out in the field who are helping spread our message of really good rowing and helping people really be successful with it.

And now rowing specifically, you're talking about on the machine, right?

Yeah, yes, absolutely. Talking about the rowing machine. Not on water rowing. A lot of us are on water rowers. But this is really about. Well, it used to be mostly about the gym environment. Now, thanks to Covid and the shutdown and everything, it's really a lot also too about taking that online and into people's homes. We've actually had a lot of our trainers get business over the course of the shutdown just because they were able to take their classes online. They found personal training clients online. There was a huge sale on rowing machines the minute the shutdown happened. And in fact, Concept two, which is the company that we're most closely affiliated with, they ran out of equipment. They're back ordered eight weeks. And so all these people who have machines at home now need people to help them learn how to use them and actually get benefit from them. So it's pretty great.

That's awesome. So I know we're gonna definitely get into that today, but I'm curious brought you to rowing. How'd you get into rowing? And how'd you get into youo can row too?

Oh, it's a kind of a. It's an interesting story. I am not the story of our master instructors who are all these huge veterans of the sport of most of them come from on water rowing. They've been doing it for decades. I came in the way I think most regular people do, which is I not this part because I moved to the middle of nowhere in Michigan and that's kind of how I got here. But not that part, but the part of walking into the door of a gym and getting hooked into working out and rowing. Because the owner of the gym, who later became my business partner, was a huge fan of it. So she ran a challenge every year. And I got pulled into that challenge and I got hooked basically, is what it comes down to. And the funny thing about it is, even though what you can row to does is our primary thing is certifying indoor rowing instructors and trainers and people like that to teach rowing. I got pulled into the facility because it was a certified spin facility. And I'm not a spinner, I never have been. But I figured if they were a certified spin facility, then probably I would be safe there and they wouldn't kill me. And that was, I'm not kidding, that was literally something I was worried about. I was worried that I was gonna get hurt. And I figured if they were certified in spin, then it would probably be okay, vote for getting certified.

We're definitely gonna talk about that too, because I know that you and I have really. We share that. And I think that a lot of the listeners here, they are smart trainers. They are passionate about the science of training and care about getting better at their craft and being able to bring, you know, cutting edge information to their clients. I get that. We're definitely on the same page, which is probably why we connected in our first mastermind. We were so passionate about studying in the science of training.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think a lot of the people who come to rowing are a little bit older. My business partner used to say they've lived a life. And we get a lot of people who come to us from running, for example, their knees are blown out, they can't do it anymore. They still want that high intensity workout. They want something super efficient, but they can't run anymore. So rowing is an obvious next step, let's say. And people really want to know, I feel like, who they can trust in fitness. They want to know that they can trust their trainer. And we get a lot of younger people coming into this too. And they all say, well, how do I establish credibility? And I say, well, one way is get certified, not just in indoor rowing, but get a personal training certification, get a group fitness certification, get something that will give you a base level of knowledge. Because, for example, like I say, to work with our audience, which is primarily people, 40 plus, let's say, which parenthetically is a great audience to be working with now, because these are people who are going to want that community still to work with them, you really need to have a good base Level of knowledge to know how you're going to train them. Because like Roseanne, Roseanne and Dana used to say, it's always something. They were out riding their bike over the weekend and they tweaked their hamstring or something. They were shoveling snow, they threw out their back. Okay, That's a problem we have in the Upper Peninsula. Not everybody's got that problem. But the older we get, the more prone we are to getting all kinds of odd injuries that just pop in that are unexpected. And let me tell you, it takes forever to heal from them. I remember back when I was like 20 and I was completely fine the next day. It doesn't work that way anymore. So as trainers, we need to have a really big toolkit of adjustments that we can make on the fly to help people be their best and do their best and most importantly, not get hurt during a workout. And I really feel like that toolbox that you get from doing, that bigger certification, that personal training certification, group X, and in our case the rowing certification.

Is super important, 100%. So there are a couple of places that I definitely want to go, and we'll start here first, because one of the things that you said was that you went to rowing because you were looking for that high intensity feeling of working out without having the impact. And as someone who was training and coaching a lot of moms, both in person and also online, I was looking for that as well, because a lot of people are looking for that high intensity and that's what actually ultimately drew me to kettlebells. So I am very curious. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your thoughts behind using the rowing machine, really, at any age, and for that intensity level. And what are some of the common myths that trainers and clients believe when they look to the rowing machine?

So that's an awesome question. And I love hearing that you love kettlebells, because I do too. And actually, I would say one of the common myths that I see all the time is that, well, probably the biggest one is that rowing is boring. That all you're doing is sitting down on the machine and you're just slogging back and forth, pulling on the handle, push, pulling. And all you do is take stroke after stroke after stroke. And honestly, if you're using the rowing machine that way, you're doing it wrong, because that's just one facet of it. Can you do. Can you sit down and row for an hour or more? Yes, absolutely. I've done a 24 hour row. I've done 100,000 meters in a day, which is like eight or nine hours in row. I mean, I've done things where I'm doing that a lot. But what I really do now is. And I'm going to plug my book for a second. What we're most known for at you can row too actually is these interval workouts, right. Where you're on and off the machine and you do a minute or two or three of rowing, maybe a little bit more, but more like in that range, and then you get off and you do something else. Kettlebells are absolutely perfect. I love kettlebell swings and stuff like that. In between a rowing interval that kills that feeling that rowing is boring. It also is a great way to get people on the machine to try it. And I know I've talked to a lot of trainers who say the machine's just sitting over there in the corner. Number one, I don't really know how to use it. Number two, I can't necessarily figure out how to get my. And I feel like two ways to do that. And I know I'm getting off the question a little bit. Sorry, I'll come back. But one of the things to do is just start with a warm up on the rowing machine, a warm up or a cool down and then go do your other thing. But then if clients are resistant or even if the trainer is resistant, getting somebody on the machine for a minute or two, they'll do anything for a minute or two. And you can literally say to them, it's only a minute, you can do it. And then the fun thing is they find that they get on it. And if you can get them rowing well enough, right, to where their technique is pretty good at least. Right. And they're getting results, then they find that it's a lot of fun. Because the thing that's amazing about the rowing machine, and for me it was sort of a weight loss epiphany, I got on it, I got sucked into that challenge, like I said. And then I started rowing a lot. I got into the community of it and all of a sudden all this weight that I've been trying to lose for the longest time just started to melt away. And I think it was the total body aspect of it. I mean, rowing works 85% of your muscles on every single stroke. It's incredibly efficient. But also the fact that I wasn't pounding my knees the way I did on the treadmill and so I could row for a while and get off and be fine. Other myths that it's impossible to learn. And I'm not gonna lie, the basics of the technique are super simple and easy to get your arms around. That last piece. Getting really, really good is something that we as rowers work on for our entire lives. And I don't think that's unlike he. There's always a little tweak you can make. You can always get a little bit better. You can always help somebody get a little bit better. And I think that's one of the great things about it. You're never really done. It's like golf. We're always trying to get pursue that perfect stroke. We never quite get there, or we might have, like, one, and then the next one is trash. Right? So I think it's fun to have that constant challenge of something you can always work on. And I think it's fun for us as trainers to have that to give our clients as well.

So it's really interesting that you actually bring that up as a myth, because I feel like, and this is totally my interpretation and opinion, so feel free to, you know, disagree. But I feel like it's the opposite in the sense that trainers think, oh, they just see someone rowing and then all of a sudden they think they know how to do it and they'll just put their client on the rowing machine without recognizing or realizing that there is actual technique that's involved and that it's more than just go warm up on the row machine for five minutes.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you certainly could just go sit down on the rowing machine for five minutes and do your thing. But are you really going to get a decent workout out of that? Are you really going to make progress? Are you going to build strength and burn fat and stuff like that? No. There is a lot involved in learning how to do it well, so you get the maximum benefit out of it. And the thing that I always worry about is that people are going to get hurt because. All right, if your listeners take one thing away about rowing from this podcast, I want them to stop putting the damper at 10, drop that damper down, put it between 3 and 5, and you will find that people do a lot better. They don't get off saying their backs hurt or, generally speaking, I don't know how this ever got started, that people think that the higher the damper, the better it is. It's like gearing on a bike. It's not better to be at the highest level because you can't sustain it and you are more likely to get hurt. If you are rowing at that higher level, it's just the way it is. Ask me a question again. I lost it. Sorry. Okay.

It's okay. You were talking about, you know, the common myth that trainers think that they can just see someone like the technique behind rowing and feeling like them not recognizing or realizing that there's actually technique behind there.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So if I'm a trainer, what I want to do is I want to learn how to help people be the best at this so that they can get the best results, so that they'll. And honestly, we want them to stay with us. Right. So that we can set ourselves apart a little bit. I think that's pretty important right now. The environment is increasingly competitive. We want to make our mark as the trainer who's a level above. And so, yeah, it's absolutely worth investing a little time in figuring out how you can help your clients be really effective and successful with the running machine. Because the other thing about it is too, because it's total body, because it works 85% of your muscles on every stroke, it's super efficient. So five minutes on the rowing machine is going to do so much more for you and get you so much more ready for your workout than five minutes of walking on the treadmill.

Well, so good. Such a good point. So do you find that trainers and also general population that they would struggle to find row machines in their gym? Because right now, you know, spin classes are pretty much available in all gyms across the country in the United States. I feel like in my gym there's no rowing class. So in order to get into the row, on the row, you need to do it yourself. Is that something that you see changing?

I do. It's growing really fast. Of course, it was growing faster before we all got shut down, but absolutely, there are studios popping up all over and not just the chains, you know, Row House and City Row and those companies. But I actually was just on the phone this weekend with a CrossFit box owner who's dropping that whole side of his business. And he's focusing exclusively on rowing now because his members love it and that's what they want. So he's gonna get more machines and really go all in with it. I think as gyms reopen, we are gonna find that people are, or as they have reopened, depending on when you're listening to this, that rowing is gonna be super popular also because for the next while we are gonna want sort of a separate self contained workout situation. Right. So you can have your one rowing machine that you use for the entire workout and then your couple of dumbbells or your couple of kettlebells or resistance bands or whatever it is off to the side and then you've got a whole training unit right there. You don't have to be for example, moving around from machine to machine, which I think is going to be challenging for quite a while. And as we're recording this, it's challenging right now and I think it will continue to be challenging over time, at least at certain times. So it's really great to have this sort of self contained unit that people can use and exercise safely.

I think that's such a good point. And I definitely want to go here too, because I'd love to talk about how you can row too, and how the rowing industry specifically is really moving through the impact of what this pandemic has done to the business and to gyms. Because I know that even though gyms are reopening across the our nation, it doesn't necessarily mean that people are coming into the gym. They don't feel safe to come into facility. I know for me, if my gym was open, I'd be there in two seconds. But I know that I'm also not like most people. So I'm curious, what do you see the future being for rowing and for at home rowing users?

So in my case, I teach a class, women who are all 60 plus. And back in March we have our classes at a university fitness center. Back in March we shut down or they shut down for two weeks for a deep plane. We're not open yet. We're not opening until at least August. So what I did was right away I had everybody walk out with a rowing machine. I let them have their pick of whatever dumbbell or kettlebell or whatever they wanted. They took them home and we went to online classes very quickly. About half the class was all in for that out of the gate. And I've been teaching my classes on Zoom three days a week. Haven't missed a beat, haven't missed a day ever since that started. And so all of those people are including me as the instructor. We're all really accustomed to it, we're used to it, I'm not gonna lie, it is challenging and we can talk about that in a second. But for the most part everything has moved smoothly online. And now that we're beginning to talk about what it's going to be like going back, you know, the people who haven't been doing it on Zoom, I think are pretty excited to come back and get back into our workout space. But we already know our physical space is going to be limited. We're not going to be able to have the same number of people that we had in the class before. And so some of those people have already volunteered to continue working out at home because they don't feel safe too. And because we're going to be in a university environment where. Well, it's not that it's a university, but it's a public environment. Right. It's not like our little studio where people are going to be walking in and touching our equipment and we don't know. We're not necessarily going to be in control of who's got their hands on it. Obviously we will all be disinfecting our stuff. In our case, we'll all be doing it ourselves as we walk in. Because in my case of knowing my class, they'll all feel better knowing that they can take their own wipe, wipe down their machine and know that it's been done and it's ready for them. Other studios don't operate that way. I know, but anyway, it's going to be, I think from here out. I think what Covid has done is push something that was going to happen in the fitness industry anyway. It was already happening and this has just been a massive push forward. What I'm telling people is what's going to be the thing going forward is in person and online. It's not either or, it's both. And people are going to want to have that opportunity to continue to be in the class when they either can't be there or don't want to be there when there isn't room for them. In our case, we're in northern Michigan, so we have a lot of snowbirds. There's a great business opportunity here actually because it allows us to hold on to the people who leave for the winter. And I think that's true. I know some people in Arizona, for example, where the opposite is true. Right there their members leave in the summer when it's hot and they're able to hold on to them as well. They can still tune in for that 9am class and just do it virtually from home.

That's awesome.

It really is a great business opportunity if you choose to look at it this way. Right. And for example, one of our master instructors is a personal trainer and she has gotten a couple of clients just over the course of the shutdown from people who've gone looking for, who have bought rowing machines. They're training at home. They're getting a little stuck and they need some help and she's just training them on Zoom. It's working pretty well.

That's great. And so, you know, I'm curious, have you guys started thinking or talking about. Because you look at, you look at models, like peloton, right? They've got the bike in there and they also have the treadmill. Do you foresee something like that happening for rowing?

Oh, it's art. They already are coming out with rowing machine. It was postponed. What I heard was it was supposed to happen in the first quarter of this year and it got put off. But they also have, they have a competitor called Hydro that's very, very similar. So, yes, that's absolutely happening. And also Row House, for example, has a. Has an app called Row House Go that is at home workouts. Some of the other bigger online app, choose your workout kind of things have rowing workouts in them. It's absolutely coming. I think it's coming for pretty much everything. And I think, fortunately, the online pie is enormous. And I think people don't need to feel put off by the fact that like, so and so has already been out there for a long time and already has an enormous audience. And I haven't even started yet, and I don't even know what to do. And I think to some of us, it feels like we're really far down this road of online. But I think when we look back two years even, or, and certainly five or ten years, we're going to look back at this time and we're going to be like, oh, my gosh, that was just everything in its infancy. And what I don't want trainers to do is get two years down the road or even a year or six months down the road and look back to today and go, oh, if I had only started then, instead of worrying that I was too late, where would I be now? Right? Like, there's still plenty of time for everything. Everything is still getting sorted out and there's still plenty of time to, you know, do it the way you want. Find your audience and go after it. Do it.

No, I love that. And I definitely. It's a great segue because I definitely want to talk about that, because you actually had mentioned Paige a little bit earlier in our conversation. But it's funny because even when I think about my background as a musical theater performer from the age of 16, I was already saying, I'm too late, I'm too late, I'm too late. And it's just this perpetual cycle that I think a lot of people get into when they look out into the market and they see that, you know, they compare them learning to walk to someone who's already running. If children, when they're learning how to walk, looked at it like that and thought, oh, my mom knows how to walk, I better not walk, then we would all, you know, my mom's running, we wouldn't all get to where we are today. So I think that's a really important point. And to remember that when your business is in its infancy, you can't compare yourself to someone who's been running for years. And that doesn't mean that you can't. And I 100% agree that you're going to get into that. You know, you'll get into it, and then a year, you'll look back a year from now and be like, oh, man, I've learned and grown so much. Right. And it's just an interesting cycle that I think many people get into where they just think, I'm too late, I'm too late, I'm too late.

Yeah, I think people get into a cycle, too, of thinking, I'm too late to work out. So what I like to tell people is, you know, just as you're just starting to move into online fitness, that's you on one side, right? And then on the other side, there's the person who's just. There's the client who's waiting for you because they're just starting to think about getting healthy. Like, again, we're recording this right now. While Covid is a really big deal, and there are plenty of people out there who are just beginning to think, oh, man, I've neglected my health all these years, and now I am staring at the possibility, you know, we all are, right. Of getting sick with something really, really serious. A lot of people are starting to get serious about their fitness. So it's very possible that as you're moving into your lane as a trainer, there's that your perfect client is also just beginning to think about, oh, I need to get serious about this. I need to serious about my fitness. And so you guys are going to come right together on the road, right? Your perfect person may just be getting started just like you are, so you are never too late. And also, what else are you going to do? Are you going to look behind you and say, well, there went that opportunity. I might as well just sit around and wait to die? I mean, you know, I am going to be 58 next month. Right. I am certainly no spring chicken. And Definitely no spring chicken in fitness. But I am one of the people who came to it late. I have had a career as a journalist. I've worked in corporate public relations. I've done a ton of other things. Well, not late. I came to it later. I mean, I've been doing this for. Since I was in my 40s, so not that late. But, you know, that's the other thing, too, is I have conversations with a lot of people who are interested in getting into indoor rowing and then personal training and group exercise and stuff at a later age. And I say the same thing to them. You are not too late. What is the point of looking behind? That's gone. And in any case, you need to get on it because, you know, for those of us who are probably on the second half of our lives versus the first half, it's true, the clock's ticking, but it's not ticking that fast. And your opportunity to make an impact is out there no matter what. And I think that's the biggest thing. And I'm guilty of this myself. I'm not gonna lie. I have my days where I go. It's really hard, which it is. Some days I am feeling really overwhelmed, and I really don't know quite what next step to take. And sometimes I just feel like, let's just bag it. But then I think about the person who's out there waiting for me, like. Like I said, that person who's maybe just starting on their journey, or in my case, that person who's, I don't know, 50 plus, let's say, who's feeling like they really want to. They really want to level up their fitness. They want to go into their. Into their next decade feeling as strong and being as strong as they possibly can. You know, how that person is waiting for me to come and help them, and they don't care how old I am. Right. It's about the skill set that I have that I can use uniquely to help them uniquely. And that's really what it's all about.

So true. I mean, it kind of brings up two things for me. And I actually was just talking about this on my Instagram the other day, which is. Jim Porton, one of my mentors, says that is our greatest teacher, and we had lost someone in the Broadway community due to Covid. It was unexpected, and it just had this significant impact on me where I thought, you know, we're waiting that moment of like, you don't need to be waiting. And on the flip side, so when someone gets that inclination of like, oh, yes, I'm ready. I'm gonna go after it. On the flip side, they feel like. And I know that I've felt this intimately is I'm too late. I can't, you know, I can't get started. And. And it's just this, like, vicious cycle that I feel like we get into. And so I'm curious too, because you had brought this up, that a lot of people that have come to you for that were interested in rowing, you said that they were typically people that were over 40. And so I'm interested when you look out in the industry now, and I think specifically, and this is just my opinion, but I think what happens is that it looks like when you're looking at social media that, oh, fitness is a young industry and all the trainers that are good are like in their 20s. And I know for me, when I was working with trainers a lot, they'd be like, I don't want to be 40 and I don't want to be personal training at 40. Right. And you think you're going to be.

40 unless you're not around.

So, yeah, you think about, get over it.

Why?

Yeah, you know, and I think that part of that just comes that we're just so used to looking at social media and thinking, oh, it's a young person. And I put young in quotations for those who are listening. Young person games. It's not really a matter of age. It's just that's the demographic that's hanging out on Instagram right now. Like, that's really what's happening. And it has nothing to with age specifically. I think it's just that's who's hanging out on Instagram. So what would you say to someone who's perhaps, you know, where we were when we decided that we were going to jump into this? Like, what would you say to them for their fears about their age and fitness? Both, like, getting fit and also, you know, leading.

Right, right. So the first thing I would say back to our certification discussion, actually, is if you're afraid that you don't have enough credibility to get into the business, you don't have enough credibility to be able to teach this stuff. That's one of the reasons I recommend getting a certification, because it gives you a toolbox to work with, number one, and number two, it gives you some credibility. If you don't feel like you have the credibility based on your other experience or whatever it is, then be able to say, I'm a certified personal trainer. I'm a certified Rowing instructor. It matters. It matters to your potential customers because really, what is the biggest fear? And Beverly, feel free to disagree with me. But what I see is the biggest fear among people who are out there looking for fitness and to get to workout and whatever their fitness goals are. Their biggest fear is they're going to get hurt, that they're going to overdo it, that they're going to do something wrong, that they're going to get some kind of injury that they can't come back from, or that's going to set them back. That's number one. The second thing I think people are afraid of is failure. They're afraid that it won't work, they won't lose the weight, they won't get the pr, they won't have the body they want, whatever that looks like. They won't be able to do the hike that they have planned, or in the case of some of my clients, it's. They won't be able to, like, get down on the floor and play with their grandchildren and get back up again on a regular basis. Just little things like that. In both cases, I think getting some knowledge underneath you that will give you that confidence and that toolbox, both of those things is super important. And then the other thing is what I always tell people, like, if you're feeling really overwhelmed or if you're feeling like you can't do it, you know, if it's too much for me, I don't know enough, I'm not good enough. All these things that we're so good at saying to ourselves, right? Those are all internally focused. And I think the minute you. The way to pop out of that is to say is to stop looking in, also stop looking forward and backward. Because that's the other thing that's happening. When you're saying that to yourself, you're either looking back at how many years have gone by that I haven't worked out or that I haven't gotten into fitness. Right? Or you're looking ahead and you're saying, I only have another 20, 30, 40 good years left in me or something, and somehow viewing that as being a short amount of time. Those negative feelings come from not being present in the moment and from looking around too much because we haven't talked about comparison trap yet. But that's the other thing. If you're looking around and you're looking at Joe Trainor over here, who's got a 50,000 subscriber following on YouTube and is reportedly racking up millions of dollars a year in revenue by the way, you don't know that unless you've actually seen their tax return. Let's be clear about that. But anyway, if you're looking at other people and you're feeling less than as a result, it's because again, you're looking in the wrong place. You need to stay right here, focused on who you are, what you do and how you can help. And that takes all of that away. Forget about age. There is somebody out there right now who is looking for somebody who is 50 plus, for example, who understands who they are and the struggles they've gone through to help them meet their goals. There is somebody out there who is looking for a trainer who has had five pregnancies and will understand what their struggle in trying to get their body back after all those babies. There is someone out there who is looking for menopausal trainer who understands the difficulties of weight loss and menopause. I certainly do. It's hard and they want that person who can empathize. Right? That's what we're looking for. We're looking for somebody we can really connect with who's going to give us the program we need. But let's be honest, that program is out there. It's not rocket science. The program that will work. You could go out and buy it right now online. That's not really what you're looking for. I don't think in a trainer or a group X instructor, you're looking for somebody to partner with you who really understands your situation, understands your struggles and will connect with you in a way that will help you feel support to move forward and hit those goals. I don't know if you resonate with that at all.

I do agree. That was just so good. You had so many amazing nuggets in there. I really, that was just really was really good. And it's so true. You know, I want to also just ask, I'm curious because you did say this, and I know that I've been saying that I'm going to get back to this, but here I am, finally got it full circle. Which is what causes people to get into rowing later.

Well, for one thing, it's getting a lot more visibility now, so it's more on their radar screen. It has been that those one or two maybe machines that are kind of over in a corner of the gym floor and you don't really know how to use it. Right? You don't really know what it's for. There's nobody to really show you how to use it. That's the mission that I'm on is to get, for example, I want all those trainers who are out there walking the gym floor helping, just doing that general helping people work, building up their own businesses. I want them to all know how to use the rowing machine well because it's transformative. And I think, you know, there are these articles coming out now of talking about how rowing is the new spinning. That's been out there for a while, but it's really happening now in a much more concrete way. And interestingly, I'm starting to see rowing in places where it's not even like commercials and things like that. You just randomly will see somebody rowing as part of a commercial that has nothing to do with any fitness product or anything else. It's just kind of out there. So it's definitely gaining some visibility. Our population is aging and boomers and Gen X, we're all reaching that 50ish age or older where we're looking for something that's lower impact. And so there's that. I think it's a combination of things. I'd like to think that after one of my 11 years in this business, I'm in my 11th year of this business. I like to think that maybe all the work that we've been doing and you know, Concept two and everybody else in the rowing world has been doing to just kind of get the word out about it is finally starting to hit at some level in the ether where it's just kind of out there as a fitness option. But again, I think it's partly that the fact of us just getting older and looking for something that's a little easier on the body but also maintains that high intensity that you, a lot of people want. And I should say too, we talk a lot about high intensity and rowing, especially with CrossFit. CrossFit had a lot to do with popularization of rowing. It's a lot about these high intensity workouts. But the thing I one of the things I love about it actually is that it also can be a very Zen experience, very low impact. So we have a trainer who is a cancer recovery specialist and she uses it with her cancer clients just as a way to de stress. And she calls it taking your rowing machine for a walk. It's a very Zen thing where you can zero in on the sound of the flywheel or watch the meters ticking by on the monitor and just kind of get out of your head for a while and just do something that just feels good. And you know, I feel like that's something that's kind of getting lost in fitness lately is everybody's been so focused on everything's got to be hard, everything's got to be high intensity, everything is just push, push, push. But we are living in a world right now that is pushing back so hard. I feel like we have to remember that fitness, our workout, whatever we are doing, movement is also an opportunity to just get back to ourselves, to de stress, to release all of that. And the rowing machine is a really great place to do that because it is there and ready whenever you are.

I think that you bring up such a huge point that so many people miss is that it's stress management and that people are often like, not that stress is not important, it is, but you need to have the other side of it in order to like the work is in the rest.

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I think we don't, we're not taking into account enough too that given the environment and how stressful our general environment is outside of the gym, that's playing into our ability to put in a good workout too. And so if we're not sleeping, if we're sort of living in a state of high anxiety, our workouts, we may not be able to put in this massive weight moving, heart pounding kind of thing. And that might not even be the right thing to do. I actually just put up on my Instagram yesterday a thing about overtraining. I think we have to be really, really careful about that because I think we're all kind of predisposed right now to like I say, this sort of state of high anxiety and the risks of that. Like it's just a lot easier to get injured if you're living in that kind of constant state. We need to be careful about that and we need to be thinking about our self care, balancing our workouts and taking all of that into consideration and not expecting ourselves to be necessarily the people we were before our general environment got really hard and be okay with that. It's alright.

You know, you bring something up about that rowing machine that I had never taken into consideration or really thought about before, which is the fact that I've always associated the row machine as something to intensify my workout. It's something that I use to make it hard without impact, which is an important part of a working out. But I never had really considered that the row machine could be something that would activate my parasympathetic nervous system because I always associate walking. Oh, you just need to walk. And that's going to do that. But you could actually accomplish the same thing on the row machine, 100%.

Especially because I always like to say it meets you where you are and takes you as far as you want to go. Because it's an ergometer. It's totally powered by you. Right. It responds to how hard you push and pull. So you can push and pull very lightly. And it will just feel like. Like a walk. It'll feel like bobbing around in a swimming pool or something like that. Something very relaxing. If you want more intensity, it's easy to adjust it to that. But I don't think people give it the credit that it deserves for being something that can actually just hit that off button for you, too. There's actually a trainer in Michigan who has a thing he calls Zen row, where he does. For anybody who does row, it's 12 strokes a minute, which is insanely slow. He does it with yoga spa music behind, and he does it with one foot on the floor. So it's nothing to do with sweating. Nothing. But it's all about, like you said, parasympathetic response and just chilling out. And how do I just get my everything back to center? It's really, really cool.

That's cool. I never had even thought about that. And I was trying to think as you were talking, like, what are some of the other machines out there that would do that? And I guess, like, sure, you got the dread impact right, and sure, you could do the bike, but the bike isn't, you know, And I'm sure that I got some spinners on here that might be, like, that's not true, but it just. It's not a total body experience in the same way as a row machine or a treadmill. And it's. Frankly, it hurts me when I sit on the bike. So it's not one of my favorite things. So that's really, you know, such a good point. So I definitely want to be mindful of your time, so I'm going to leave you with full circle, Full circle question here.

Bring it on back.

Yeah. Which is a lot of trainers think, I can do it. I know that I'll set the damper down. I know how to do that. What would you say to a trainer that was maybe on the fence or wasn't sure if they should get certified?

Well, I mean, I guess I would just direct them to all the things that we've had trainers say back to us about what it's like to get certified and take the training they say that it has. Well, for one thing, they say they're making more money after being certified because they are now listed in a directory of certified rowing instructors. And they get people coming to them specifically for rowing, and then they're able to work that into other personal training packages. So it's not like they. They're just the rowing instructor, but it is something that people are out there looking for right now. And like I said, people know that they don't want to get hurt. They know that, or they feel like Rowan technique is daunting. And so they want to be sure they're doing it well or they've tried it. I see this literally every day. They've tried it. And they're, you know, they say, my back hurts. I can't get my times where I want them. In some way or another, I'm not where I want to be. I need help. Right. So I would say that you really want to learn how to do it well, and you want to have that Good Housekeeping seal of approval, right, of being a certified trainer. But the biggest thing is, as trainers, what do we want? We really want people to get results. We want people to be successful. And the way to be successful is to really, really take a deep dive and learn how to do it from the pros. Could you acquire all of that knowledge over time by watching a million YouTube videos? Yes. But here's the problem. How do you know which YouTube video is good? There are 100 billion million. It's a real number. I just made it up. Videos out there on fitness, on rowing, online. There's all this stuff. There's too much stuff. You cannot know what's really good and what you can trust, what you as a trainer can trust to teach you to teach other people just based on what you see online. So I highly recommend same for personal training. Exact same for personal training. Go to a reputable organization that is approved by a bigger one. Like, you know, for example, we give acs with our certification. Go to one of those organizations that's already been checked out for you and just take the deep dive. Go in, really take the time to learn. Because here's the other thing. How many courses have you signed up for? And I don't mean just like fitness certifications, but courses of any kind. And they're just sitting in your course graveyard, right? You got a couple modules in, you lost track, you got bored, you didn't finish them. Dedicate the time. Like our, for example, our training is. We're offering it online now over two half days. Give us a weekend. We're gonna teach you everything you need to learn to actually go in on Monday and be a better trainer. For me, that's super appealing. Whatever the training is, I want to be efficient with my time. I want to get it done and I want to know that I've learned how to do it right because that'll just change the way I communicate about it to other people. I'll be a lot more authoritative. I'll have that air of confidence that people are looking for when they're looking for a trainer.

That's so true. And you bring up a good point. Right. I know that we talk about it all the time, which is information is not implementation. It's not the same thing. You can't learn how to swim by reading a book on swimming. The rubber needs to meet the road. I say that a lot. All the time, right.

And we hear from our trainers all the time that they love, for example, in our training, they had a chance, a chance to get coached by our master instructors who are the ultimate experts in the field. And they learn. Not only do they learn how to teach, but they get their own technique corrected and they learn what they've been doing wrong. And frankly, let's just say it, there's a lot to get fixed, usually in a rowing stroke, but there are little tweaks that once you know what they are, you immediately can make massive progress. And we love also passing that on to trainers so that they can do that with their clients. It's all about progress, incremental progress.

So good. So where can my home users find you? Where can my trainers find you? Where the best place to learn more about you canrow too.

You can find us at ucanrow2u c a n r o w and the number two everywhere, pretty much LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, that's our website, YouTube, all of it.

Awesome.

A little resistant on TikTok, but I'll.

Probably eventually people are asking me and I'm like, I don't know. Tell us more about your book. You started to share with us about your book, but can you tell us a little bit more about your new book?

Yeah. So this is a topic for another day, but I need to write up a whole thing about the experience of actually publishing a book. I was contacted a year and a half ago by a publisher called Hatherly Press. They are a fitness publisher and speaking of rowing growing, they were interested in putting out a book of rowing workouts. They found us online and they said, would you guys be interested in putting together a book of your 101 best rowing workouts. So I said of course and got to work pouring through the hundreds of workouts that I have in a file at my house that are mine and my former business partners. And then I also got to pull in all of our master instructors into giving me their favorite workouts. So it's a great book. It's got 10 chapters, 10 workouts. In each chapter there are different lengths of workouts, different types of workouts, different goals of workouts. Like there are weight loss workouts and stuff like that. If you can't find one rowing workout that you would want to try either for yourself or with one of your clients, then in this book then honestly, I don't think rowing's for you on Amazon and everywhere else. Cool.

Link that up in the show notes. So thanks so much Sarah for joining me today.

Oh thank you. It was the best. I had so much fun.

Great.

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