Two thousand meters on the SkiErg, for time. It’s the upper-body counterpart to the 2K Row — and the athletes who do best on it aren’t the ones with the biggest arms. They’re the ones who pull with their whole body and pace it like a plan.
Score: total time for 2,000 meters. Every level skis the same distance — what changes between Rx, Scaled, and Beginner is the pacing plan, not the work.
The 2K Ski is 2,000 meters on a Concept2 SkiErg for time — the upper-body counterpart to the 2K Row. Same distance, same split-per-500m monitor, same pacing problem. For most people it’s roughly 7–11 minutes of sustained hard work: too long to sprint, too short to settle in and cruise.
The trap is that it looks like an arm exercise. It isn’t. Power comes from the hip hinge and your body weight dropping onto the handles, not from the arms. Arms that try to do the work fade in the first 500m; a hinge that does the work holds pace to the finish.
Pick a damper and keep it the same every time you test. Concept2 recommends a damper setting between 3 and 5 on the SkiErg, adjusted to preference as you progress. A higher damper isn’t “harder” or “more Rx” — set it too high and your arms and shoulders tire before your engine does. Changing it between tests makes your results harder to compare.
Damper guidance: Concept2, Getting Started With The SkiErg.
These bands come straight from Concept2’s published percentiles for the 2,000m SkiErg rankings — every athlete who logged a ranked 2K on the SkiErg over a full season.
| Ranking | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% | < 7:04.9 | < 8:08.6 |
| Top 25% | 7:04.9–7:33.3 | 8:08.6–8:49.0 |
| Top 50% | 7:33.3–8:16.0 | 8:49.0–9:26.4 |
| Below median | > 8:16.0 | > 9:26.4 |
Source: Concept2 2000m SkiErg Rankings, 2026 season (May 1, 2025 – April 30, 2026), all ages, as published October 2026 — men (726 ranked), women (103 ranked). Percentile cut-offs (90th / 75th / 50th / 25th): men 7:04.9 / 7:33.3 / 8:16.0 / 8:58.3; women 8:08.6 / 8:49.0 / 9:26.4 / 10:31.4. Concept2’s rankings can be filtered by age for a closer comparison.
Read these with the right population in mind. Concept2’s rankings are people who chose to log a 2K Ski — mostly athletes who train on the SkiErg regularly, and far fewer of them than on the rower (the women’s table rests on 103 results). Landing below median here still puts you in the company of people who train on the machine, and a first 2K Ski over 10 or 11 minutes is completely normal. The benchmark that matters most is your own last time.
The 2K Ski doesn’t scale by changing the distance or the movement — every level skis 2,000m. It scales by how aggressively you pace it. Pick the plan that matches where you are with the SkiErg, not where you’d like to be.
Your monitor shows pace per 500m. To hit a goal time, hold an average split of the goal time divided by four. If you have a previous 2K Ski, its average split is your starting point for the first 1,500m.
| Goal 2K time | Average 500m split |
|---|---|
| 7:00 | 1:45.0 |
| 7:30 | 1:52.5 |
| 8:00 | 2:00.0 |
| 8:30 | 2:07.5 |
| 9:00 | 2:15.0 |
| 10:00 | 2:30.0 |
| 11:00 | 2:45.0 |
Every pull is the same two sequences. The pull drops your body weight onto the handles through a hip hinge and an ab crunch; the recovery stands you back up tall so you arrive overhead ready for the next one.
Body weight, not arms. Your arms only connect your body to the handles. Each pull should feel like you’re dropping your weight onto them with a hinge and a crunch — if your arms are burning in the first 500m, they’re doing the hinge’s job.
This is the same warm-up FITL gives you in the app before a 2K Ski.
Finish the warm-up 2–3 minutes before the test so you start fresh but warm. Set the monitor to a 2,000m piece so it counts down — and check your damper setting is where you had it last time.
Retest the 2K Ski every 6–8 weeks — long enough for training to show up in the result. Keep the variables fixed: same damper, similar time of day, same warm-up. A 2K skied at 6am after a bad night’s sleep and one skied at 5pm fully fed aren’t the same test.
Your 2K Ski results track on the Ski Erg page in the FITL app, alongside any 2Ks you’ve logged manually — so every test lands on the same chart, wherever you skied it.
Get the 2K Ski — and every benchmark WOD — with a pacing plan for your level, and watch your times build on one chart.