Episode 62: Alfred Campenaerts, Salty Lemon, EXR and the future of training

To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.

 

This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories! 

 

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Welcome back to Broken Oars podcast - the world's leading rowing podcast and self-publicists.

 

Today we're joined by Alfred Campenaerts, CEO of Salty Lemon Entertainment, creators of the EXR rowing app.

 

For those who don't know, EXR is the world's leading multi-platform rowing and training virtual arena - a place where you can, on any rowing machine, choose to row down the Henley Reach, take on the Head of the Charles course, or sprint across Lake Bled - whether by yourself, with your crewmates or against others in the virtual world.

 

We've tried it, and we're both converts. It's an intuitive, encompassing experience supported by training logs and programmes that's are easy to use, fun and immersive.

 

Alfred takes us through the genesis and evolution of EXR and explains the rationale behind EXR - wanting to make people row more together. Being Broken Oars we ask why Belgium - a flat country with lots of rivers tends to produce cyclists rather than rowers (culture, apparently ... ), before deep diving into why EXR is the leading app for rowers, indoor rowers and gym-goers who want to expand their training experience, get fit and have fun doing it.

 

Being tech nerds (well, the Southern One is. He's designed a widget, you know ... ) we talk about the difficulties of synching up the power output measurements of the world's varied rowing machines to the virtual representations of your stroke (power meters, PM5's, cables and bluetooth interruptions ... ), and look at where EXR might go next given it's an app that appears designed for clubs and crews who want to train on the water they'll be competing on - whether that's Head of the River, Henley or the latest Olympic or World Championships course.

 

This leads us into a chat about things as varied as real time stroke rate readouts for boats you compete against in EXR, special Henley Week maps, the ability to compete in real time against boats on the Henley reach as the events unfold, crew races, seat racing matrices ... and the elephant in the room: making sure that cheats can't 'game the game' by dropping their weight to take advantage of weight-adjusted split outputs.

 

And oh yeah, we've said the best to last:

 

With Christmas coming, and land training ramping up even as we start thinking about New Year Resolutions we've wangled a discount for anyone wanting to give the app a spin. Trust us, it's as easy as logging in and sitting on your rowing machine. So give it a go, go to EXR and use the code BROKENOARS for 10% off your subscription.

 

Full crew, from backstops. Get some!

 

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