Intervals.Row - A Workout Player for Concept2 Rowers
Hey all,
I’ve been building something I want to share with the community, and I’m curious how many of you might find it useful - it’s a simple, lightweight, structured workout player for rowers using PM5 Ergs.
The idea: Intervals.icu handles the planning and analysis. This app handles execution - it connects to your PM5 via Bluetooth, pulls your workouts from Intervals.icu, guides you through with real-time power/HR targets, and uploads the FIT file when you’re done.
No accounts, no servers, no extra platforms. Your data lives on your phone and syncs directly to Intervals.icu. That’s the whole pipeline.
Why I’m Building This
I rowed as a junior, got injured in my late teens, and couldn’t row again. I coached rowing for a while but I really wanted to compete, so I moved to cycling. I raced domestically at a high level, got deep into the training side, and watched the sport embrace structured workouts, power-based plans, and proper fatigue management.
Years later, I came back to rowing as a volunteer coach. And it’s a little sad. The sport has barely moved. We’re still writing workouts on whiteboards and hoping athletes interpret “hard” the same way we do. Cyclists have had structured workout apps for over a decade. Rowers are still manually punching distance intervals into PM5s and just going for it.
Intervals.icu already solves the planning and analysis side brilliantly - the workout syntax, the training load tracking, the athlete management. What’s missing in the sport is workout execution. The PM5 can’t load a structured workout and manually inputting them is nasty work. ErgData can record but can’t guide. Managing this as a coach without a platform like Intervals to handle FTP, power based workouts, etc… is very difficult so I see why many don’t try.
Why This Matters for Coaches
The resistance to structured, power-based training in rowing is both cultural and technical. The cultural side - getting coaches to think differently about training - is its own challenge. But the technical side is solvable.
Right now, if you want to give an athlete a proper over-under workout or a Ronstadt interval session, you’re looking at 80+ intervals - and the PM5 only accepts 50. Even if it could handle more, nobody’s going to spend 20 minutes button-pressing before they start. So coaches don’t bother. They stick to old faithfuls, athletes go as hard as boathouse culture demands and their bodies can handle, and we lose the benefits of structured training.
I’m just working the technical end. Having the execution piece - workouts that load instantly, targets that update in real-time, data that syncs automatically - removes that barrier. It makes it practical for coaches who want to work this way to actually do it.
Well I’m hoping to change that a bit:
How It Works
- Plan in Intervals.icu - Create workouts, build training plans, manage your athletes (nothing changes here)
- Execute with Intervals.Row - Open the app, see today’s workout (or pick one from your workout library instead), connect to PM5, follow the workout
- Analyse in Intervals.icu - FIT file uploads automatically, review performance, adjust the plan
The app pulls your athlete settings (FTP, HR zones, W’) directly from Intervals.icu. One source of truth, no duplicate configuration.
Something Fun and Unique: W’ Health Bar
Rowing can be a very anaerobic sport - much more than cycling at least. So the feature I’ve had the most fun with is kind of silly but I like it: live W’ balance during your workout - your anaerobic fuel gauge, calculated using the same differential model as Intervals.icu uses in post-workout analysis.
Think of it like a fighting game health bar. Go above threshold and watch it drain. The bar shows a countdown: “1m 32s remaining” until you’re empty at current power. Recover below threshold and watch it refill. I’ve not seen this implemented anywhere before but it’s been quite fun watching people use it as another source of motivation. It just uses your W’ from your sport setting to calculate everything - so accuracy is dependent on how well you manage that number on Intervals.icu of course.
Where Things Stand
The app 90% works. HRM support, interval tracking, instant FIT export to Intervals.icu. It’s deliberately minimal: your data stays between you and Intervals.icu, and the app does one thing well. I’m just debugging the PM5 connection as much as possible, tidying up the UI, and covering some fail states (ie. what happens to your workout/data if your phone runs out of battery/crashes.)
But getting it on the App Store and Google Play costs money. I’m gauging interest before I commit to that.
If this sounds useful, let me know below. If there’s enough demand, I’ll look into donations to cover the listing fees since I don’t want to charge for this app. For athletes on iPhones especially, there aren’t great options for Bluetooth-based apps if an app isn’t in the App Store.
If there’s not much interest I can just push the app out via Testflight to my rowers and see how it goes but it would be nice to know if there’s other coaches out there desperate for something like this in rowing.
