Eduardo Vs Davide

Over the past week i was updating my "RCC Client Rowing Challenge" table. Those who know me, know i love the concept 2 rower as a great general fitness tool and way to test your combined stamina and strength.

There are 3 distances (500m, 1000m and 2000m)

With 3 weight categories (LW under 75kg, MW 75-85kg & HW 85kg+)

I sometimes use this list to get 'something extra' from certain people and this week i noticed the perfect opportunity to stir up some bad feeling/competitiveness between 2 of my clients...

The story of Eduardo and Davide

I have used different alias' not to expose the identity of these two gym titans; oddly, they both asked to have their 'spanish dancing' stage names over anything else. Weird?

"The Beast" - Try it, you might just hate it.

I noticed that Eduardo and Davide (good friends, similar height, weight category) had identical times on the 500m row so i sent the following email:

"Good morning gents,

I have just updated the rowing rankings and thought you may be interested? Please pay particular attention to 500m ranks 5 & 6. As Davide posted the time most recently he rightly takes the higher rank. I leave on the 5th august so will expect you to want to put up a better time. I hope this email provides some friendly banter for your get-together tonight!"

What followed was a brilliant exchange of emails (all done on company time i might add) and it went something like this:

D: Not bad for a fat ginger bloke who hasn't spent the last three years in a constant state of 'training for marathons.'

NW: Great point Dave… Eduardo, that’s got to sting the ego a bit? The fact that Davide has matched you without even stepping up the gears! The next few weeks should be interesting

E: Fair play to the big lad for putting in a decent time for the ‘gayboy’ category……….… can’t see his name on the 2,000m or ‘man’s category’ yet though………………

It went on...

E: Until Saturday afternoon then big fella………….. I’ll post a time in my session and then you do one in your session. To keep it fair, we’ll do a 2 minute warm up on the cross trainer, then straight into it.

D: Nah why wait? Why not tonight on your new (rowing) machine after dinner and some wine (Nathan - obviously I won't be having anything more than some quinoi and slightly chilled water), no warm up just straight in??

It went on... but you get the picture?

In one carefully placed email, I had started a gym war.

On to Saturday afternoon...

In the heat of battle, E & D still helped each other warm up

Eduardo storms in first, secretly wanting to take his initial assessment time in December '09 (1.37.4) down under the mythical 1.30mins mark. He blasts out 1.28.3 - awesome effort.

Davide comes in the very next hour, they pair clash and need to be seperated... tempers are high as Eduardo claims "You've got a job on... I wouldn't row another 500m now for 10,000 quid".

Davide hits the rower hard... and hangs on for an impressive 1.31.8 - taking 6 seconds off the week before (if any of you know your rowing, thats a massive 500m improvement for 1 week)

After a great row time, Davide felt refreshed back at the office

The moral of the story

...is that competition in the gym is good. It can bring the best out in some people. I knew that sending that email to my 2 clients who are good friends (and generally 'that kind of client' who get inspired by targets/goals/competition) would spark a battle that would take them to the next level in one of the hardest gym tests.

E: 1.37.4 - 1.28.3 = reduction of  9.1 seconds

D: 1.37.4 - 1.31.8 = reduction of 5.6 seconds

Our gym records in 2010 (focus has been mainly on 500m):

Lightweight 500 - 1.30.9

Lightweight 1000 - 3.31.5

Lightweight 2000 - 7.22.3

Heavyweight 500 - 1.28.3

Heavyweight 1000 - 3.29.5

Heavyweight 2000 - 7.36.5

Female 500 - 1.53.4

Female 1000 - 4.16.0

Have you got a Concept 2 challenege at your gym?

What are your best times?

Im interested to see what the standards are, but i think my clients are doing just fine.