Often it’s said that cardio is a small man’s game. While this is certainly the way most activities trend there are some exceptions.
Rowing is a big one.
Go look up Concept2 erg times, the heavyweights consistently post better times than the lightweights.
That’s all aside the point. If you’re big you should definitely spend some time on a rower.
You can treat it as a sprint. You can do intervals. Any cardio protocol is possible, but where it shines most is during distance work.
Nothing works as well for distance running like cardio stimuli for the big man as rowing does. (Nor is jump rope a bad choice.)
While weighing heavy, running will fatigue you earlier than you’d expect, particularly if at a smaller weight you ran. This isn’t always a cardio issue. It can be a knee thing, a shin thing, or often enough just fatigue around small stabilizers.
Rowing levels this playing field.
You can test your heart without the running drawbacks, build your ticker without pounding the pavement.
Plus on a long row you can visualize being a Viking in a longship rowing to pillage a French village, this technique can not be overstated for the enjoyment of the activity, nor does any visualized target work as well as imaginary French villages.
Rowing times should be faster than the equivalent distance run times, though you’ll be a ok shooting for rowing respectable run times. While not by any means elite aim for a 6 minute mile pace, and try to keep a respectable sub 20:00 5k as far as distance work. For sprints reps done as fast as possible at the 300m distance or for the max distance in 60 seconds are good. Intervals can be played with also.
Like all things experiment, and have fun with it.
-J