Row Daily, Breathe Deeper, Live Better

by D.P. Ordway

"Advance Praise for Row Daily

""This book has the potential to change and lengthen your active life.""

-Jo A. Hannafin, MD

"". . . shows the way to improve your fitness and quality of life through rowing.""

- Marlene Royle, OTR


""I use the principles in this book to help train people to become Navy SEALS; you can use them to improve your fitness at your own pace, whatever that may be.""
-Michael Caviston, MS (Kinesiology)

""A 'golden gateway' to the sport of rowing for those who know nothing about it and a demonstration of how easily you can find better health and a better life through rowing!""

-Victoria Draper, Founder/CEO, Rowbics"

Genres: Health

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 26, 2008

Reviews

[Chris Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to D.P. Ordway, our not doing anything physical is as much of a shock to our physiological and neurological systems as is running, cycling, and doing CrossFit; however, it’s the wrong sort of shock. D.P. believe that we all should have a baseline of activity every single day and that should be at least 45-minutes every single day on a Concept2 Indoor Rower.  I thought that was my idea but it’s not!

You all know how obsessed I am with slow jogging, right? I even fell in love with the book, Slow Jogging: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Have Fun with Science-Based, Natural Running, by Hiroaki Tanaka and Magdalena Jackowska.

Mr. Ordway has written two entire books on what I was calling Slow Rowing, Row Daily, Breathe Deeper, Live Better, which I am reading, and A Row a Day for a Year: Set a Goal—Track Your Progress which I just bought and placed into my Kindle queue.

Before I start I’ll address the elephant in the room: RDBDLB is a book for the elderly and I’m only 47. Slow Jogging is also for the elderly. Don’t let any of that get stuck in your craw because no matter your age, your weight, your health, your fitness, or your youth, the bottom line is that we all should slow row or slow jog for 45-minutes to an hour every single day for the rest of our lives even if we do other sports at other intensities a couple few times a week or really turn into a real racing warrior on the weekends. 

After reading Slow Jogging, I thought I would invent slow erging, slow indoor rowing, slow rowing. Nope, D.P. Ordway beat me to it with his elegant and generous book, Row Daily, Breathe Deeper, Live Better—it is the slow rowing book par excellence. I recommend it to everyone.  In summary, the entire book says:

“Row moderately for 45-minutes to an hour every day of your life, without fail.”

Now you don’t need to read the book, but I highly recommend that you do. You can also check out D.P. Orday on his site, ROWDAILY.COM. There’s an elegant and humiliating scoring system that’s very similar to those signs on construction sites that report the number of days since an accident?

Well, D.P. suggests we log the number of accrued days that we have rowed in a row. If you miss one, it resets back to zero: shame! And, in the next column? How many days you’ve missed. But that doesn’t ever reset. It’s a persistent, permanent, reminder of our flaws as humans in a human world.

This is how I set up the headers of my log. I will share as I go.

I grew up Irish Catholic so I am all over the shame method. 

The system doesn’t really care too much about stroke speed, meters, splits, or time, it really just cares about starting and never stopping.  So, I am off to do my time on the rower for today before I head out to have dinner with a friend.

[Krista Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really nice "intro" sport book that suggests, w/ decent science as backup, a way to approach starting a daily exercise routine. The book has some great suggestions for how to overcome various types of challenge new athletes face and basic drills for improving form (thus avoiding injury). It's also well written and edited.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information and direction for motivating want to be rower!

Easy read,factual and motivating . The author removes the many barriers one often convinces themself to not exercise.. strategies are offered and small achievement s encouraged to achieve the lifestyle change .

[Jessie]

Great book on beginning to row for Fitness

I just purchased an indoor rowing machine and this book inspired me how best to use it. There are stories, sample workouts and lots of useful health data.

[Bob Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information

Good reminders and great insights from a pro, who puts things in real, understandable terms that will make you a better rower.

[Tom Schmdit · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you love to row, this is the book for you. Explains why rowing everyday is important and not something to be shunned if you do it correctly.