How We Become RP3 Rowing
IT ALL STARTED IN THE PREVIOUS CENTURY
It was in the mid-eighties that Cas Rekers’ daughter Marjolein started to suffer from lower back pain, because of using the static indoor rowing machine, which was getting quite popular in that time.
After Cas heard about 65% of the athletes in the rowing community also had this injury problem, he started to investigate the movement on the static machine.Cas was a good rower himself and knew the problem of lower back pain wasn’t common rowing in a boat.
He found that the right way to train indoors is to mimic the same movement as in a boat, whereas you push away the weight and stay in a stable position, in stead of on a static indoor rower you push away yourself from a fixed structure.
After he had found what needed to be different, in 1988 he engineered the first dynamic indoor rower and called it: RowPerfect!
The first athlete that used this machine in his training was the dutchman Frans Göbel. During his study as medical doctor he worked in a hospital, he couldn’t train on the water to prepare for the World Championships in 1989. Frans trained only on the RP2 at home until 3 weeks for the races and became World Champion in the lightweight single sculls.
The next year, in 1990, Frans travelled to Australia for the next World Championships and took his RP2 to use on the hotel balconny. He prolongated his title as World Champion, again after only being about 2 weeks on the water in preparation to this winning race. Even during the last few days before the final he choose to do his workout on RP2 in stead of in the boat, because he was convinced it would help him better. And it worked!
In 1991 Cas teamed up with Jan Lammers, whose company Metalindustry Knobbe started up the serial production of the model RP2.Till 2004 the production and distribution were performed in the Netherlands and during the following years till 2009 the product was licensed for 5 years to Australia.
By the end of 2009, the production and engineering was brought back to the old team and the production of the new RP3 model S was started.After the introduction of the first RP3 machines Cas died in September 2010 during a rowing event at his old club Proteus Eretes in Delft.
Jan Lammers and his wife Annet bought the company and worked on keeping the legacy of Cas alive, and also started to introduce RP3 at all Elite rowing teams in the world.When in 2010 Concept2 stated that the best way of rowing is ‘dynamic’, with the introduction of there own version, they paved the way for RP3 as the orginal Dynamic Indoor rowing machine.
In 2013 the redesigned RP3 was introduced, which is still in production with some modifications. In 2019, the new RP3 model T was introduced. This model is the re-invention of dynamic indoor rowing.For the current digital age, the RP3 proposition is being transformed into the best tool available to row better and adapted or further developed for capabilities such as; self-coaching, online training and racing, crew functions, workout analysis and valuable support functions for indoor training and on-water rowing.
VISION, MISSION & AMBITION
Our vision is to establish a healthy, data based and self-coaching training for any desired rowing performance on any level!
Rowing is a wonderful sport! Being on the water has a beneficial effect for many people. Enjoying nature, the weather conditions, cold or warm, wind or quiet, waves or flat as mirror, alone or with your sports buddies. It should be clear that we love rowing!
Rowing is also a special sport. When rowing you use a large number of your muscles (85%) and at the same time have a very low susceptibility to injuries. It is one of the few sports that can be practiced until very old age.
It is a technical movement in a complex physical set up, in which the relative lightweight boat moves and at the same time a heavier mass (of the rowers) moves back and forth in opposite directions at a joint speed. The interplay of forces of the drive with blade in the water, the bending, force on the oar and rigger and connection with the footplate.
Our mission is to give the sporters a true rowing experience, which is healthy and fits in a lifetime way of exercising.RP3 Rowing is providing an indoor rower that simulates the real boat experience: this is the reason almost all top crews in the world, and more and more serious rowers on all levels and ages, did chose to become RP3 customer.
Rowing is a wonderful sport! Being on the water has a beneficial effect for many people. Enjoying nature, the weather conditions, cold or warm, wind or quiet, waves or flat as mirror, alone or with your sports buddies. It should be clear that we love rowing!
Rowing is also a special sport. When rowing you use a large number of your muscles (85%) and at the same time have a very low susceptibility to injuries. It is one of the few sports that can be practiced until very old age.
It is a technical movement in a complex physical set up, in which the relative lightweight boat moves and at the same time a heavier mass (of the rowers) moves back and forth in opposite directions at a joint speed. The interplay of forces of the drive with blade in the water, the bending, force on the oar and rigger and connection with the footplate.
Our mission is to give the sporters a true rowing experience, which is healthy and fits in a lifetime way of exercising.RP3 Rowing is providing an indoor rower that simulates the real boat experience: this is the reason almost all top crews in the world, and more and more serious rowers on all levels and ages, did chose to become RP3 customer.
We are very proud to be able to provide this True Rowing Experience! By receiving direct feedback while rowing, rowers can improve their own movement and see which adjustment in the stroke has an effect
on the result. The muscle strength of the rower, combined with the most effective rowing motion (including the mass movement), affects boat speed.
With the frequent repetition of the correct optimized movement, within the rowers physical limits, the muscle memory and parasympathetic nervous system are trained. In this way, even with increasing fatigue, the desired movement can still be made and the available force and power can be applied. Direct feedback is usually not present in the boat. Although modern technical possibilities offer more and more applications for it.
During the race it is hardly possible to adjust the ingrained movement, the fatigue and acidification amplify the effect.In addition, indoor rowing is also beneficial as training for other sports performances, precisely because rowing is a one of the best physically effective movements.
Our ambition is to become your digital coach as well on the RP3 indoors as in the boat on the water!With direct data-based feedback during training, in the broadest sense, both during land training workout on RP3 and in the boat, the rower and his crewmates get the best experience and the greatest result in rowing. The chance of achieving the result is greatly enlarged: get the True Rowing Experience!
With the frequent repetition of the correct optimized movement, within the rowers physical limits, the muscle memory and parasympathetic nervous system are trained. In this way, even with increasing fatigue, the desired movement can still be made and the available force and power can be applied. Direct feedback is usually not present in the boat. Although modern technical possibilities offer more and more applications for it.
During the race it is hardly possible to adjust the ingrained movement, the fatigue and acidification amplify the effect.In addition, indoor rowing is also beneficial as training for other sports performances, precisely because rowing is a one of the best physically effective movements.
Our ambition is to become your digital coach as well on the RP3 indoors as in the boat on the water!With direct data-based feedback during training, in the broadest sense, both during land training workout on RP3 and in the boat, the rower and his crewmates get the best experience and the greatest result in rowing. The chance of achieving the result is greatly enlarged: get the True Rowing Experience!
TEAM MEMBERS
Jan Lammers
CEO RP3 ROWING
Annet Lammers
OPERATIONS & BACK OFFICE.png)
RP3 Production team
PRODUCTION
Stephan Bon
HEAD OF DIGITAL
Stef Scheffers
SERVICE & MAINTENANCE
Dolf Rutten
ONLINE MARKETING & CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
Stef Broenink
PROPOSITION DEVELOPMENTHISTORY
So from the 1980s it became quite common and logical that indoor rowing should be a regular part of a rowers training program. Ergometer training made you stronger and fitter, and as a rower it simply
made you row faster.
Yet it was also clear that indoor rowing on a static machine, where you yourself drive back and forth on the rail, is indeed a rowing movement, but very different from rowing in a boat.
Cas Rekers from Delft, a former rower himself, and well acquainted with the physical dynamics of the rowing movement, designed a rowing machine that approached 'real rowing' much more closely. Initially to help his daughter with rehabilitation from a persistent lower back injury.
Very soon, demand came from the market and the RowPerfect became a commercial product. However, it remained a niche product for a niche of the rowing market for almost 20 years.
About the same time as the market introduction of the Concept2 Dynamic in 2009, with the promise to provide a indoor rower which was simulating real rowing better, the production of the RP3 model started, with Jan Lammers (the current CEO of RP3 Rowing) responsible for production for Cas Rekers as a contractor.
Yet it was also clear that indoor rowing on a static machine, where you yourself drive back and forth on the rail, is indeed a rowing movement, but very different from rowing in a boat.
Cas Rekers from Delft, a former rower himself, and well acquainted with the physical dynamics of the rowing movement, designed a rowing machine that approached 'real rowing' much more closely. Initially to help his daughter with rehabilitation from a persistent lower back injury.
Very soon, demand came from the market and the RowPerfect became a commercial product. However, it remained a niche product for a niche of the rowing market for almost 20 years.
About the same time as the market introduction of the Concept2 Dynamic in 2009, with the promise to provide a indoor rower which was simulating real rowing better, the production of the RP3 model started, with Jan Lammers (the current CEO of RP3 Rowing) responsible for production for Cas Rekers as a contractor.
After the death of Cas Rekers (fall 2010), Jan and Annet Lammers decided to take over RP3 Rowing from the Rekers family and from 2011 they ensured the start of the new phase of the company. The famous
"Original" Model S was launched in 2013.
From approx. 2019 the company has entered the next phase, since the majority of the Rowing Federations of the biggest & best rowing countries in the world have chosen RP3 as their standard indoor rower! The new RP3 Model T was launched and many Club rowers, juniors and specially masters rowers from all over the world are discovering the benefits and fun of Dynamic Indoor Rowing on RP3 and improving themselves again after being educated in the former 'static era of erging', which they often hated much.....
Currently RP3 Rowing is transforming towards a more digital company with extending its proposition to provide rowers & non-rowing athletes a True Rowing Experience !
From approx. 2019 the company has entered the next phase, since the majority of the Rowing Federations of the biggest & best rowing countries in the world have chosen RP3 as their standard indoor rower! The new RP3 Model T was launched and many Club rowers, juniors and specially masters rowers from all over the world are discovering the benefits and fun of Dynamic Indoor Rowing on RP3 and improving themselves again after being educated in the former 'static era of erging', which they often hated much.....
Currently RP3 Rowing is transforming towards a more digital company with extending its proposition to provide rowers & non-rowing athletes a True Rowing Experience !