RowCraft: Structured Rowing Workouts for the Concept2

I cycled seriously for about two years. Got into structured training, bought a $2K bike, did a 100-mile race. It was great. But every ride required a production: bib shorts, sunglasses, helmet, checking weather, dealing with traffic. The activation energy kept going up. Eventually I stopped riding and the bike sat in the garage.

I switched to rowing. A heart rate monitor and I’m on the erg in under a minute. No weather dependency, no gear ritual, no route planning. But I’d come from cycling where structured, power-based training is the default. TrainerRoad, Zwift, and years of FTP-based training culture. I wanted the same thing for rowing.

The rowing apps I tried were either paid subscriptions or missing FTP-based workouts entirely. What I wanted was simple: workouts with power zones, coaching cues, and a real-time connection to the PM5 (Concept2’s performance monitor).

So I built RowCraft.

FTP-based training

The key idea is the same one cycling has used for years. Your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) is the highest average watts you can sustain for about 20 minutes. Once you know yours, every workout becomes a percentage of it. Zone 1 recovery might be 55% of FTP. Zone 4 threshold is 95%. Zone 5 VO2max pushes above 106%.

This removes guesswork. Instead of “row at a moderate pace,” the workout says “row at 78% FTP for 8 minutes at 24 strokes per minute.” You either hit the target or you don’t.

The approach translates to rowing well. The Concept2’s power measurement is more consistent than most cycling power meters, so the zones are reliable.

The workout library

There are 168+ workouts across ten categories:

• Tests and benchmarks: 2K, 5K, 6K, and FTP tests with proper warm-up and cool-down protocols
• Pete Plan: The most popular free rowing program, structured as a six-week block with zone targets
• Wolverine Plan: A high-volume program from the University of Michigan rowing team
• British Rowing: Adapted from British Rowing’s training level system
• Zone-based sessions: Recovery, aerobic base, tempo, threshold, and VO2max workouts
• Workouts of the day: Varied sessions for when you want something different

Every workout specifies duration or distance, target zone with exact FTP percentage, stroke rate, rest periods, and coaching cues. The cues matter more than I expected. During a hard interval, the app tells you things like “settle into your rhythm, strong drive phase” or “last 500 meters, leave nothing.” Small thing, but it makes a difference when you’re deep in a VO2max piece and your brain is looking for any excuse to stop.

Bluetooth

Connecting to the PM5 over Bluetooth was one of the more interesting technical problems. The PM5 broadcasts real-time data through characteristic notifications: watts, pace, stroke rate, distance, and heart rate.

One quirk I discovered: you should never read from the PM5’s characteristics directly. When you do, it returns junk data. The correct approach is to subscribe to notifications and let the monitor push data to you. This isn’t documented anywhere obvious. I found it through trial and error.

Current state

The web version at rowcraft.app lets you browse the full workout library and build custom workouts. Bluetooth features are mobile-only, currently Android. On the health data side, I’m building Plexo to tie sleep, recovery, and nutrition together with training load.