What Is UT2 Training?
Listen to the conversation: #2 UT2 Training - Bill Jackman
#64 The Science of Training - Dr Paul Laursen
UT2 is the term rowers commonly use for lower-intensity aerobic training: sustained work that develops endurance while leaving enough capacity to recover and train again. The challenge is often keeping it controlled when the monitor invites you to go faster.
In our conversation, masters rower Bill Jackman describes how this approach became a foundation of his training. His experience makes the idea tangible: he tracked what pace he could produce at a similar heart rate, rather than trying to beat yesterday's split every day.
What Bill's example tells us
Bill describes sessions of around an hour, sometimes set as time and sometimes as distance. His personal heart-rate range was in the low to mid-130s. Over time, his pace at that effort improved from roughly 2:10 towards 2:02 per 500 metres on good days.
Those are Bill's numbers, not targets for everyone. Age, fitness, individual physiology and the way training zones are defined all affect what an appropriate intensity looks like. UT2 and “zone two” are also used within different zone systems; check what your coach means rather than assuming the labels are interchangeable.
The useful comparison is with yourself under reasonably similar conditions. Can you produce more work at a comparable effort? Can you finish the session and recover well enough for the rest of your programme?
Listen to Bill explain how his training developed. The conversation shows the gradual progression behind the numbers.
Give the session a clear purpose
In the training-science conversation, Paul Laursen emphasises consistency. A demanding session has a cost as well as a benefit, and that cost matters if it undermines the following days.
For a planned easy aerobic session, the practical implication is to resist turning the final part into an unplanned test. A faster split is not automatically a better result if it changes the purpose of the work.
Use the intensity guidance agreed with your coach, alongside how the session feels. Notice changes in breathing, technique and fatigue. Heart rate can be useful feedback, but it should be interpreted in context rather than treated as an infallible instruction.
Build a routine you can repeat
Bill found motivation in shared training challenges and recording his sessions. These made sustained work part of his routine.
Your routine may look different. A shorter continuous row or a session broken into manageable blocks may fit your present capacity and available time better than an hour. Progress from what you can currently do consistently; Bill's eventual training volume is not a starting requirement.
Record the session's duration, intensity and how you felt afterwards. Over several weeks, those notes can help explain changes in performance more usefully than a single impressive workout.
Keep the rest of rowing in the programme
Bill also included harder work. His story is not an argument for doing nothing but UT2.
Technique, strength, more intense sessions and race-specific practice still need a place. UT2 provides one part of that programme: an opportunity to accumulate useful work without making every outing a competition.
Before your next steady session, decide what it is for and what will count as doing it well. Keeping that promise to yourself is often the hardest part.
