Like many other athletes, triathletes find rowing is a good way of building swim fitness, as the rower works both the lower and upper major muscles of the body. When a body of water is unavailable, i find a rower suffices. Typically in season i can only swim once a week, so rely on a rowing machine at my local gym to maintain some swimming strength.
Interestingly a common rowing test distance is 2000m, similar to a 70.3 swim distance. Although, there is no comparable effort between swimming and rowing, Zwift could appeal to both rowers, swimmers and kayakers. iâm sure a a rower/kayaker wouldnât mind using a swim avatar or a swimmer using a rowing/kayak avatar over a 2000/3000m lake.
From reading other parts of the Zwift forums, the connectivity and power metrics from popular rowing machines, such as the Concept 2, is not too difficult to achieve. And there are people already rowing using their bike avatar.
Iâve gone to the rowing feature request pages and up voted these feature requests, as i believe it is a good option for having a complete triathlon based training on Zwift. This would also boost use of triathlon plans and may give support for more plans and a commitment by Zwift to promote and have further market penetration of their Tri academy. Not to mention, a lot of cyclists would also benefit from rowing.
I already run and ride on Zwift and iâm considering buying a rowing machine to complete my indoor experience. However, before making this investment, iâd be interested in seeing if Zwift has any partnerships with rowing equipment brands.
What does everyone think? iâd be interested in hearing from people who have rowers or have an opinion on how Zwift can make best use of rowers in-game. Personally, i feel tick-toc is a great place for a full triathlon setup with a transition, lake, bike TT and run path - it could be Zwiftâs very own Tri academy for us age groupers who canât make Zwiftâs AG grade IRL.
I for one have been waiting for rowing support for a few years. In fact, I first heard of Zwift from the Concept 2 forums. Good thing Iâm very patient.
Great idea! I contacted the Zwift support desk to inform about the rowing option added to the game.
I prefer to run outside. During wintertime biking inside keeps me in shape. In order to train als the upper body I use the Concept2 rowing with PM5.
Would be very nice if Zwift adds this feature. A bit like LiveRowing or Kinomap.
Unfortunately, despite rowing being announced for a July/August 2020 release, Zwift then changed their mind âto focus on the core productâ i.e. cycling.
I am actually not so much interested in rowing, but rather in the integration of a swim ergometer into ZWIFT for triathletes, e.g. the SwimErg from Vasa that is already fitting with ANT+ Power Meter. Are there any plans by ZWIFT to make that possible?
I guess I wasnât thinking less about the connection, but more about a separate âswimmingâ option next to running and cycling that allows you to swim within the app⊠in the ocean, a pool⊠tracking wattage, stroke, heat rate etc.
Zwift has said recently that they have ditched rowing to focus more on the core of the app, cycling. Running barely gets any development now too. I wouldnât hold your breath waiting for swimming to be integrated⊠see what I did there
I kinda think this would be almost to rowing what running is to cycling - where both sports can train in the same virtual worlds and once rowing is created, adding swimming might not create too much complexity.
But as I think there are way less people with a swim machine than a rowing machine, weâre unlikely to see that added to Zwift for many years, and as EXR has already launched in rowing, they might bring it in sooner.
The best I think youâre likely to manage on Zwfit in the near future is some kind of hack the way some people with rowing machines have managed to get their rowers to âcycleâ on Zwift:
I have the new vasa swim erg. The connection is the issue for me. Iâve contacted casa support to see if they can make a bluetooth driver compatible with rowing software out there.
I see no reason why zwift canât make a competing virtual experience like âswelldoneâ which is an open-world (ocean). They have gates in the ocean you swim under, basic left/right steering, and multi-player races. They even have a swimming avatar with a buoy which does freestyle. Again, I have connectivity issues since the vasa doesnât connect like a normal pm5 rower. I tried everything to make it work but my coding skill is limited to html.
Are there other triathletes that would like to see this as a feature? Watopia is an island surrounded by an ocean with waves of possibilities. Iâd beg zwift if it helped. Please zwift⊠?
