What Is UT2 Training?

28 May

Bill Jackman’s Guide to Building the Rowing Engine

Why UT2 Matters

Most rowers understand hard work.

They know the feeling of a brutal interval session, the pressure of a 2k test, or the satisfaction of finishing a race piece completely spent.

But many rowers, especially masters rowers, struggle with a different question:

How do you train often enough to improve without constantly breaking yourself down?

That is where UT2 training comes in.

UT2 is steady aerobic training. It is not glamorous. It does not usually create dramatic Strava screenshots. It is not the session where you prove how tough you are.

But for Bill Jackman, who returned to rowing seriously around the age of 50 after years away from the sport, it became one of the foundations of a remarkable return to performance.

Bill’s story is not simply “do more steady state.”

It is a case study in consistency, heart-rate control, recovery, and long-term progress.

What UT2 Actually Is

Bill describes UT2, or zone two training, as training focused on:

“a heart rate that is a sustainable heart rate, where you can do longer cardio-focused sessions, but then still recover.”

That is the essential idea.

UT2 should be hard enough to develop the aerobic system, but easy enough that you can recover and train again.

For Bill, the appeal was not only fitness. It was rhythm and repeatability.

After a neck injury left him unable to run and limited in what he could do physically, he started using the erg again. At first, it was extremely modest:

“I started doing a thousand metres every day.”

His splits were nowhere near the level he would eventually reach. He described being barely able to pull properly:

“My splits were like 4:30.”

But he kept going.

That is one of the first lessons from Bill’s episode: aerobic training is not always about beginning from a position of strength. Sometimes it is how you rebuild.

From Injury to Routine

Bill had herniated a disc in his neck. It affected his right arm and stopped him running. He was doing physiotherapy, but not improving as quickly as he wanted.

He got on the erg almost as an experiment:

“I was in pain all the time anyway, so I was like, okay, I’m just going to get on this erg and see what happens.”

What happened was gradual improvement.

He moved from very light 1,000 metre rows to longer sessions. He then built rowing back into his life, joined his local club in Maine, and began increasing his erg mileage.

At first, he trained too hard quite often:

“It was always kind of fairly high heart rate stuff.”

He described many early sessions as “zone four-ish,” not maximum anaerobic work, but still fairly hard.

That is a very common rowing pattern. Many rowers sit in the grey zone: hard enough to create fatigue, not controlled enough to build volume.

Bill then became interested in UT2 because it offered a different model.

The Key: Train So You Can Train Again

Bill liked working out every day.

That forced him to think differently. If he wanted daily training, he could not destroy himself every session.

He explained:

“I like to have it just be expecting to do something every day.”

That simple sentence contains a lot of wisdom.

Many athletes think in terms of individual workouts. Bill thought in terms of a body that expects to train. That changes the purpose of each session.

The goal is not to win Monday.

The goal is to make Monday contribute to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and the next six months.

Bill put it clearly:

“I have to recover completely or fairly completely every day.”

That is why UT2 appealed to him. It was not easy because he lacked ambition. It was controlled because he wanted continuity.

What Bill’s UT2 Sessions Looked Like

Bill gradually settled on roughly an hour as a useful mental and physical target.

He said:

“I kind of quickly focused in on about an hour as being a reasonable… thing.”

Sometimes he set the erg for an hour. Sometimes he set it for 14,000 or 15,000 metres. The details varied, but the purpose was the same.

The important number was heart rate.

For Bill, UT2 was often:

“low to mid-130s beats per minute.”

At the beginning, that heart rate produced about:

“210 splits.”

That means he was rowing around 2:10 per 500 metres at his controlled UT2 heart rate.

Then, as he repeated the training, the pace improved.

He described the progression:

“In just a few months, I was doing like 2:06, 2:05 splits for the same heart rate.”

After a couple of years, the same heart-rate range produced:

“more like 2:02, 2:01 splits.”

This is the heart of the article.

Bill did not become fitter because he repeatedly tested himself. He became fitter because the same physiological cost produced more speed.

That is what UT2 can show you.

Not: how hard can I go today?

But: what pace can I produce at the same controlled effort?

The Strange Thing About Getting Fitter

Bill makes a subtle point that many rowers will recognise.

As his pace improved, the workouts became both harder and not harder.

He explained:

“You’re putting in more watts to go 2:02 than you are 2:10.”

In mechanical terms, the output is higher. The erg does not lie. More watts are being produced.

But his heart rate remained controlled and his recovery stayed good.

“My heart rate stays low, and my recovery is still really good.”

That is exactly the goal.

You are not trying to make UT2 feel easier forever. You are trying to make the body capable of producing more work at the same sustainable effort.

For rowers who love numbers, this is deeply satisfying.

The split improves, but the session remains recoverable.

UT2 Is Not All Bill Did

It would be wrong to suggest Bill only did UT2.

He mixed in other training:

“I would do higher heart rate stuff… intervals or whatever.”

This matters. UT2 is the foundation, not the whole house.

A rower still needs:

strength
technique
race pace work
high intensity sessions
rest
water time

But for Bill, UT2 created the base that allowed everything else to sit on top.

He was not doing one heroic session followed by three tired days.

He was accumulating work.

The Mental Side of Long UT2

An hour on the erg is not physically impossible for many rowers. The bigger challenge is often mental.

Bill experimented with using slides.

He found they helped in two ways. First, they changed the feel of the erg and made it more interesting. Second, they changed the way his body moved.

On slides:

“The erg slides under you, back and forth, and your centre of mass stays in the same place.”

That helped him row longer.

Bill also found that the erg on slides reduced the slightly nauseating feeling he sometimes got when doing long rows while watching television.

This is a useful practical point. UT2 training succeeds when you make it repeatable. If slides, music, podcasts, rowing videos, Zwift-style cycling or structured intervals help you accumulate good aerobic work, use them.

The best training plan is the one you can actually repeat.

How Long Should UT2 Be?

Bill’s standard session became around an hour, but he also experimented with longer rows.

He described doing half-marathon type sessions:

“about an hour and a half, like 21k.”

At his improved fitness level, he could hold around 2:02–2:03 splits for that longer distance while keeping the heart rate controlled.

But he was also honest about limits. He had tried going longer and found the marathon distance more difficult:

“I’m not so sure my body really enjoys three hours of erging.”

That honesty is useful.

UT2 does not mean endless volume at any cost.

It means sustainable work.

For many masters rowers, one hour done consistently is far more valuable than occasional huge sessions that leave the body irritated for days.

The Role of Challenges and Social Motivation

Bill’s winter training was supported by various challenges and communities.

He mentions:

University of Washington alumni Strava challenges
the Concept2 Holiday Challenge
the January Team Challenge

These provided structure and motivation.

He noted that the University of Washington alumni challenge originally aimed for:

“100 hours of workout between Thanksgiving and March.”

But people began exceeding it because the group motivation worked.

This is an important lesson for clubs.

UT2 can be lonely. A shared challenge makes it social.

A squad might create:

a January metres challenge
a winter UT2 leaderboard
a 100-hour aerobic challenge
weekly shared erg sessions
paired steady-state rows

The goal is not to turn UT2 into competition every day. It is to make consistency feel communal.

What Club Rowers Should Take From Bill

Bill’s example gives a practical model.

1. Pick a sustainable heart rate

For Bill, this was often low to mid-130s.

Your number may be different.

The key is that the session should feel sustainable and recoverable.

2. Use pace as feedback, not ego

Bill’s pace improved from around 2:10 to around 2:02 at the same heart rate.

That is meaningful progress.

But he did not force the pace first. The pace came as adaptation arrived.

3. Repeat the work

One UT2 session changes very little.

Hundreds of UT2 sessions change the athlete.

4. Keep some intensity

Bill still mixed in harder sessions.

The point is not to avoid intensity. It is to stop making every session moderately hard.

5. Make it enjoyable enough to continue

Slides, challenges, Strava, targets and community all helped.

Sustainability matters.

A Practical UT2 Session Menu

Here are sessions inspired by Bill’s approach.

Standard Erg UT2

60 minutes continuous.

Keep heart rate controlled.

Do not chase the split.

Distance-Based UT2

14,000–15,000 metres.

Useful if you prefer distance goals.

Broken UT2

3 x 20 minutes, 2–3 minutes easy paddling between.

Good for athletes building up.

Long UT2

75–90 minutes.

Only if the body is adapting well.

Mixed Week

3–4 UT2 sessions
1–2 higher intensity sessions
1–2 strength or cross-training sessions

Adjust for age, recovery and rowing commitments.

The Biggest Mistake

The most common mistake is turning UT2 into “comfortably hard” training.

That may feel productive, but it undermines the point.

UT2 should be controlled enough that you can recover.

Bill’s line is the test: