Start Training for the Gotcha4Life 24 Hour Row

It’s 3am and the gym lights are on. The rower in the corner has been moving since yesterday morning, and in a few minutes it’s your turn to keep it that way.

That’s Rowing NSW and Gotcha4Life’s 24 Hour Row: a national fundraiser we’re proud to partner on, where crews in gyms, surf clubs, schools and workplaces take turns on the erg for a full day to raise funds for suicide prevention programmes. And because showing up ready beats showing up hopeful, there’s a free six-week training plan for the event inside the Row Nation app, starting from 5 August.

Train for your part, not the whole

Nobody rows for 24 hours. The erg keeps moving because people take turns, which means your job isn’t to become superhuman by the big weekend. It’s to arrive able to row your stints with rhythm, then back them up after a rest.

The plan asks for three guided sessions a week:

• Hero Rows build rhythm and the confidence that comes with it.
• Steady Builders grow your aerobic engine: the steady, repeatable effort that lets you row long without blowing up.
• Move Better sessions cover the mobility and recovery work that keeps your body happy between rows.

Open the app, tap start, follow along. That’s the whole method.

Six weeks, stacked in blocks

Endurance isn’t built in one heroic session. It stacks. Weeks 1 and 2 settle your rhythm and lay the foundation. Weeks 3 and 4 stretch it with longer, steady blocks of work. Week 5 teaches pacing: holding control when fatigue starts arguing. Week 6 is confidence rows that feel like the event itself, so nothing on the day surprises you.

You don’t have to train every day. Three sessions a week is the whole ask.

The loneliest machine, for once, isn’t

Here’s the part that gets us. The erg is usually the most solitary machine in the gym: one seat, one screen, one person in a private battle with a number. For one weekend the pattern flips. The handle passes between teammates and strangers, every crew in the country shares a single national Zoom feed, and no experience is required to join. Private effort becomes public momentum, and every stint raises money for Gotcha4Life’s mental fitness and suicide prevention work.

So if your slot lands at 3am in a quiet gym, or on a machine in your own living room, you won’t be rowing alone and you won’t be rowing unprepared. You’ll be one seat in a crew that stretches across the country, and we’re honoured to help you fill it.

Start the free six-week plan in the app →