The lever on the erg flywheel, usually 1 to 10. It only regulates airflow — a gearbox, not a throttle. For getting started: setting 3–5.
The quickest win available on your next erg session: turn the damper down from 10 to somewhere between 3 and 5. Almost every beginner cranks it up because \"harder\" feels like \"better\". In reality the lever only regulates how much air enters the flywheel — it works like a gearbox, not a throttle. You generate the actual resistance yourself, through how hard you pull. A high damper fatigues the muscles before the aerobic benefit arrives and tempts you into yanking with a rounded back, which is exactly the pattern behind rowing's back problems. Keep two other numbers apart: the drag factor measures how strongly the flywheel really decelerates and is therefore comparable across machines, while the damper number is not, because it drifts with the machine and how dusty it is. And the split is your pace: the time for 500 metres.