What do the UT2, UT1, AT, TR and AN labels mean inside a US training week?

They are the five intensity bands US coaches lean on to organize a weekly plan, lifted from the FISA development pathway and threaded through USRowing high-performance materials. UT2 is the steady aerobic floor, 18 to 20 strokes per minute on the PM5, conversational with the freshman two seats up. UT1 is firmer, 22 to 24, focused breathing. AT (anaerobic threshold) is the lactate-clearing band, 26 to 28, hard but repeatable across reps. TR (transport) is 2k race pace itself, 30 to 34. AN is sharper than 2k, 36 and up, pure power. A varsity 1V week in a fall HOCR build will live mostly in UT2 and UT1, sprinkle AT through the middle of the week, and reserve AN for short, late-block sharpening pieces.

How does the calculator derive each zone split from my 2k?

Each band has a published /500m offset off your 2k anchor. UT2 sits 12 to 16 seconds slower per 500m. UT1 sits 6 to 10 seconds slower. AT sits 3 to 5 seconds slower. TR is the 2k pace itself. AN drops 3 to 5 seconds below 2k. Type the anchor in once, the tool returns a target band for every zone, then stamps a stroke-rate window and an approximate watt figure alongside, so a coach can sanity-check a practice on the PM5 before pulling the start handle. The framework matches what USRowing and most IRA-grade programs run year-round.

What does a typical UT2 practice actually look like on the erg?

Common UT2 prescriptions: 60 to 90 minutes continuous at 18-20 spm, 5 x 12 minutes with 1 minute rest, 4 x 20 minutes with 2 minutes rest, or 8 x 10 minutes with 1 minute rest. Pick the format that fits the practice slot. The figure that matters is the split, not the structure. If your /500m split drifts more than two seconds across the piece, you pushed off too hot. UT2 is the band where aerobic horsepower is built, so most weeks across the fall and winter should carry at least 60 minutes of it, even on race-build cycles into Eastern Sprints or the IRA.

Do the same zone offsets apply to lightweights and masters athletes?

Yes. The offsets are relative to your own 2k anchor, so the zones scale with the athlete. A 7:00 2k rower lands UT2 around 1:57-2:01. A 6:30 2k rower runs UT2 at 1:50-1:54. A masters athlete with a 7:30 2k sits UT2 around 2:09-2:13. The bands are pegged to physiology (aerobic, threshold, anaerobic) which is the same across body weight, age and gender. Only the absolute splits move. The same logic carries onto the water at Mercer Lake, the Schuylkill, the Cooper or the Charles: swap 2k erg pace for the crew's 2k boat pace and the offsets hold.

Rowing Training Pace Calculator: UT2 / UT1 / AT / TR / AN Splits from Your 2k

Practice-board output, built for US programs

Rowing Training Pace Calculator

Plug your /500m 2k anchor off the PM5 into the box and the tool spits out target splits, rate windows and watt approximations for all five US training bands (UT2, UT1, AT, TR, AN), plus a stack of interval recipes ready to copy straight onto the practice whiteboard.

How to turn a 2k erg score into a full week of training splits

Drop your current 2k into the box. The calculator works backward through the USRowing zone offsets to return a /500m split, a PM5 rate window and an approximate watt figure for UT2 base meters, UT1 build, AT threshold, TR race pace and AN sharpening. Coaches use it to scaffold a fall HOCR build, a winter IRA progression or a spring Eastern Sprints taper in the time it takes to fill a coffee mug, instead of digging back through last year's logbook.

Your current 2k anchor

: min : sec

Print this for the coach

Hit Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on a Mac) and export the page as a PDF. Or copy the splits straight onto the boathouse whiteboard. The math is identical to what runs inside Row HQ when a coach programs a practice for the squad.

The five US training bands, one band at a time

UT2: steady aerobic base

The volume floor. UT2 sits 12 to 16 seconds slower per 500m than your 2k anchor, with the PM5 rate parked between 18 and 20 strokes per minute. Heart rate runs around 65 to 75 percent of max. Conversational pace, you should be able to chat with the JV freshman in the next erg without gasping. Almost every weekly meter at a serious US program lands in this band. UT2 builds the aerobic engine that AT and 2k power sit on top of. Practice formats are usually 60 to 90 minutes continuous, or long blocks of 12 to 20 minutes with short transitions, programmed across the fall and winter at Princeton, Yale, Washington, Cal, Stanford, Brown and Harvard.

UT1: firm aerobic build

A gear above the base. UT1 sits 6 to 10 seconds slower per 500 than 2k pace, rate window 22 to 24. Heart rate sits around 75 to 83 percent of max. Conversation stops being easy but you can still string a sentence together between strokes. UT1 is the workhorse of the IRA-build phase and the go-to for scholastic athletes whose practice slots are too short to chase a full UT2 dose. Common recipes include 4 x 10 minutes off 2 minutes, 3 x 20 minutes off 3 minutes, and 2 x 30 minutes off 4 minutes.

AT: anaerobic threshold

The blood-lactate ceiling. AT sits 3 to 5 seconds slower per 500 than 2k pace, rate 26 to 28. Heart rate runs 85 to 90 percent of max. Hard but repeatable, rep 6 should land within a second of rep 1. Sessions like 4 x 10 minutes off 4, 6 x 4 minutes off 2, or 8 x 4 minutes off 2 are standard. Athletes who plateau on their 2k for two consecutive trials almost always need more AT, not more red-line work. Across most US programs the bottleneck is volume of correctly-paced AT, not a shortage of all-out efforts.

TR: transport (2k race pace)

Pure 2k race pace. PM5 rate climbs into the 30 to 34 band, heart rate hits 90 to 95 percent of max from rep 2 onwards. Recipes like 6 x 500m off 4 minutes, 4 x 750m off 5 minutes, 3 x 1000m off 6 minutes. The rest interval matters as much as the work. Cut it short and the next rep falls apart. Stretch it too long and you slide out of 2k-specific endurance into creatine-phosphate recovery work, which is a different stimulus altogether. TR is where a Stotesbury or USRowing Youth Nationals heat plan gets practiced under real fatigue.

AN: anaerobic sharpening

Sharper than 2k. AN sits 3 to 5 seconds below 2k pace, rate above 36. Reserved for power and rate development, usually in the late block. Sessions like 8 x 250m off 3 minutes, 10 x 1 minute off 2 minutes, or 30 seconds on 30 seconds off times 16. AN is fragile. A nervous system already cooked by a heavy AT week will not adapt to AN stimulus, it will just bury the athlete. Race-build phases into the IRA or Eastern Sprints typically taper AN volume in the final two weeks while still holding TR.

Programming a week off the calculator

A base-phase week for a varsity 1V rower lands somewhere around 60 percent UT2, 25 percent UT1, 10 percent AT and 5 percent TR or AN. Race-prep weeks shift the balance toward UT1, AT and TR, with UT2 still anchoring the long Saturday or Sunday piece. Scholastic and freshman squads usually push UT2 toward 70 to 80 percent of weekly meters because aerobic adaptation scales most reliably off low-intensity volume. The Row HQ guide to running practice data across a season walks through how those ratios get logged, audited and adjusted across a fall HOCR cycle and a winter IRA build.

Whiteboard math handles one practice. A varsity season needs a database.

Knowing the zones is the easy half. The harder half is auditing which zones the squad has actually trained in across the last twelve weeks. Row HQ writes every athlete's practice pace against the zone framework automatically, so the head coach can spot the rower who has parked in UT1 since October when she should have been pushing AT, or the freshman boat missing AN volume two weeks out from the C.R.A.S.H.-B trial. See it inside the coach toolkit, the practice tracking features, and how Oundle Town RC runs zone distribution across their senior squad without a coach typing a single split into a spreadsheet or a GroupMe thread.

Book a Walkthrough Browse the full free toolkit

Companion tools in the US ergometer suite

Concept2 Erg Pace Tool

Convert /500m split into watts, kcal/hr and projected splits across every standard US test distance.

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Drop a score onto a percentile band with bodyweight and Concept2 age-grading factored in.

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Single-screen pace lookup, color-banded by intensity zone for fall and winter trials.

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Stroke Rate Calculator

Calculate distance per stroke from rate and split, with training-zone references for rate discipline.

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