I used to have a gym subscription and went there a few times. One of the things I did there was sit on a rowing machine. An employee even took the time to explain the movement to me, but looking back, nothing stuck and so it's no wonder that I associate rowing machines primarily with back pain. Thank goodness I was won over by the AUGLETICS Eight. The "Virtual Coach" now monitors every rowing movement and gives me feedback. This leads to a very conscious execution of every movement. I have already rowed distances of up to 50 km without getting back pain and in January 2021 I won a small competition with 6 marathons in 6 days. Rowing doesn't get boring if you work hard to keep the trainer rating above 90 %. For longer distances, I like to watch series on the side. I then have to switch the Virtual Coach from "hard" to "easy" to avoid getting frustrated. The easy coach is great for running a safety check for a healthy movement even without full concentration on rowing. However, if I set it to "hard", I really have to concentrate on rowing because the "hard coach" is very pedantic.

In March, I took advantage of an offer to row in a group via Zoom on two evenings. It was a nice experience, but not for my back: I tried to follow the trainer's instructions. I had never rowed that fast before. Afterwards, I saw a sub-par evaluation of my workout by the virtual coach - and had back pain for days.

For someone who, like me, didn't grow up with rowing, you really need someone to stand next to you and constantly give you advice. This is exactly the function of the Virtual Coach. It sounds a lot like supervision, but on the contrary, it's a lot of fun: a 100 from the "heavy coach" makes you very happy and your back will thank you in the long term.

You really do a lot for your health by rowing because you do both endurance and strength training. However, as you shouldn't pay for this benefit with your spinal discs, the Virtual Coach was the most important aspect for me in my decision to buy the Augletics Eight.