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Rowing indoors to prepare for the water experience

Chloe Zwiacher, Lauren Ayers, Mary Foster, and Hillary Saeger rowed indoors at Riverside Boat Club in Cambridge.Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff/Globe Staff

Kelsey Stergiou understands the harsh, inescapable reality of rowing indoors. A senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the 22-year-old Stergiou competes outdoors for the Engineers during the fall and spring.

Winter is the “offseason,” set aside for voluntary practices and the cold, unfeeling company of the Concept2 ergometer rowing machine.

“As one of my teammates says, ‘Rowing indoors is a workout; rowing outdoors is an experience,’ ” said Stergiou, a Manchester, N.H., resident.

“It would be nearly impossible to go through indoor training without being surrounded by like-minded, determined athletes that continue to push you to be your best every practice,” she said. “You align the ergs in practice, so you can always tell where you are ranked when you look at your neighbors’ screens.”

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There is no hiding from the numbers on those screens, said Natasha Strom, a 47-year-old Arlington resident who is a member of the board of directors for the upcoming CRASH-B Sprints. “I row indoors specifically as a training tool for on-the-water rowing. There is something very mental about it that I like.”

Strom, who is also active with the Cambridge Boat Club, added that it is “me against the machine.”

“You have the monitor staring back at you, and the numbers it shows do not lie. In a boat, there are many things that can affect speed — technique, conditions, etc. On a rowing machine, I am the only thing that can make me faster.”

The CRASH-B Sprints, also known as the World Indoor Rowing Championships, will be held March 1 at Boston University’s Agganis Arena.

For many, the Sprints are the culmination of endless hours of training, often in solitude.

“The biggest challenge to rowing indoors is that you don’t go anywhere,” said Wendy Wilbur, an East Bridgewater native who rowed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is on the CRASH-B board. “When you row outdoors, the scenery is always changing around you. You can feel that the boat is moving underneath you. And in racing, you can see how you are doing against the competition.

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Indoor rowing is different, she said.

“It taxes you both physically and mentally, but the individual feedback on the monitor is a valuable training tool,” she said.

There’s also the convenience factor, especially if you have your own rowing machine.

Ellen Minzner, a two-time world champion residing in Watertown, said: “Indoor rowing gives the best workout for the time I can put into training.

“There’s very little to set up,” the 48-year-old Minzner said. “I have an erg in my spare room, and even if I only have 30 minutes, I can still get a good overall workout done.”

The beauty of indoor rowing, Wilbur said, is that it can provide both an aerobic and anaerobic workout, while exercising a wide range of muscle groups, for people of all ages, including those returning from impact sport injuries.

Athletes can track their improvements by recording workout results, “because the monitor is always displaying the real number associated with your effort on each stroke,” Wilbur said.

As Stergiou noted, “You always know if you’re on target with your pace, or if you’re slacking.”

Those numbers provide both encouragement and a sense of accomplishment. An iPod with a thumping playlist and a nice set of headphones can also help take the edge off what can be a strenuous workout. But the greatest motivation, said rowing enthusiasts, usually comes from other rowers, including friends and teammates.

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“Some of my hardest-fought races were against my own teammates on the indoor rowing machine,” Wilbur said.

Rowing does have its share of misconceptions, such as that it only targets the back and arms.

But done correctly, rowing will also tax the legs and core, or midsection, as well as the cardiovascular system.

“Like any exercise regimen, you want to start slowly and build intensity and duration as you get more comfortable,” said Peter Morelli of Cambridge, a member of the Riverside Boat Club who is a CRASH-B board member.

He added that “it is helpful to get some instruction on the correct muscle group sequencing during the stroke from a coach, or even from YouTube.”

Rowing indoors, Stergiou said, also allows her and her teammates to “go through the body transformation of being fall rowers to spring rowers.”

“Fall rowing is like running cross-country, whereas spring is about sprints,” she said. “We need to train our bodies to relearn the quick-twitch muscles that will get us to the rapid, powerful races in the spring from the longer, endurance-based races in the fall.”

That requires an almost Spartan commitment.

“It is the most mental sport I have ever encountered, and it also takes up most of my life,” said Stergiou. “There really isn’t an in-between — you either love it or hate it. And if you love it, you’ll row the rest of your life and gain friendships that last the same.”

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Brion O’Connor can be reached at brionoc@verizon.net.