Heavy 10's

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 2nd, 2004, 2:18 pm

Greetings fellow forumites. It's about that time of the month, where I report in on my progress in the strength training. This is the first time I'm using the new system and I'm not entirely thrilled with the new format, Personally I liked the old format better. Nevertheless, regarding my strength training. To review the situation, I'm a mediocre 38 year old lightweight with too much fat and not enough muscle so I took it on myself to increase my muscle mass between Feb 15th and June 10th. My goal was to increase my lean body mass by 13 lbs over that time solely by using the Concept2 in a strength training manner, to go from 146 to 159 lbs. of lean body mass. I confess that since February 15th I did do one heavy weight session - which actually was counterproductive with respect to my subsequent performance on the erg. So I did not entirely use the Concept 2 but about 98% of my workouts have been on the Concept2 since Feb 15th. My erg workouts have been heavy 10's at 12 spm. I started in February with an average 12 spm @ max intensity of interval of 172 watts. Last month I reported that I had hit a peak in mid April. Mid April, my first peak workout was a set of 10 stroke intervals @ 12 spm, with the following results. April 13th 203.5 watts high 200.7 watts ave. 201.2 watts mean 197.9 watts low The last time I reported at the end of April/early May, I had fallen off my peak because of interuptions in my workout schedule due to family obligations and because of injury ( that heavy weight session may have contributed). My average was was back down to low 190's. So through May I worked back up to my old peak and have recently gone through it to a new level of power: My latest workout: June 1st. 10 stroke intervals @12spm & max intensity: 210.5 watts high 206.5 watts ave. 206.5 watts mean 204.1 watts low My lean body mass has increased by about 10 lbs. according to the impedance body fat analyzer I own. I was shooting for 13 pounds of increased lean body mass and I was shooting for 222 watts by June 10th. Alas it does not seem that I will reach either goal - however, since February my ave power on these intervals has gone from 172 to 206 which is basically an increase in power of about 20%. I will do my last Heavy 10 workout on June 9th and then I'll do a 500m test on June 12th. I'll be shooting for sub 1:30. My previous best in 500m is 1:32.7 I believe. My muscle mass is the highest it's ever been and supposedly 500m time correlates best with muscle mass. Well see what happens. Jim Pisano

[old] TomR/the elder · Post by **[old] TomR/the elder** » June 2nd, 2004, 5:34 pm

Jim-- I'm impressed by your diligence. Thanx for keeping us up to date. I will be interested to see what times you post. Since 500 times aren't good indicators of 2k times especially for lightweights (at least according to stuff I've read), I am especially keen to see how your heavy-10 work translates to a 2k time later this year. Tom Rawls

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 2nd, 2004, 6:09 pm

Tom: Me too. I'm eager to translate this new power into some aerobic training. After the 500m test, I'll be doing about 8 weeks of 1 hour aerobic work 4 times per week with a slow but sure increase in the percentage of the hour @ 20 spm and 222 watts. 1 workout per week I'll do Heavy 10's. That will bring me to the first week of August, which is 6 months left until my 1 2k race per year. With 1 Heavy 10 workout per week, I believe I will continue to improve my power, which is what happened last year. I'll probably keep 1 Heavy 10 workout per week all the way until early November. Hopefully I'll finally hit my performance goal of 222 watt average interval somewhere along the way. Jim Pisano

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » June 2nd, 2004, 8:06 pm

Interesting experiment. I did a lot of 10 spm and 12 spm a year ago, and will be looking forward to see your results. A mistake that I made at that time was skipping faster aerobic training while working on the 12 spm. I kept doing distance rowing, but didn't do much of any faster longer rows. Better, I think, would have been to include the faster aerobic rowing, along with the 12 spm and rest of the program. Otherwise, and as happened, the aerobic capacity goes down and then takes time to build back up again.

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 3rd, 2004, 5:52 am

John: I agree with you. My aerobic capacity that I had in February has been lost. On the Peak Performance web site, there's an article about combining aerobic work and strength training and how it's possible to train both aerobic capacity and power during the same period. If I recall correctly, the bottom line involved aerobic training immediately before the strength work with plenty of rest. The end result for me would have looked like a really long workout every other day with the first part being aerobic work, the second part being strength work and then a day of rest for anabolism. Part of the reason for my project was to intentionally have a part of the year where I walk away from the machine - not very far, after all I'm on it every other day but I'm not on it nearly as much as I was when I was preparing for my race in February. I conciously wanted to not go full tilt all year round - so my part time project this year was to increase muscle mass. Jim Pisano

[old] Rocket Roy · Post by **[old] Rocket Roy** » June 3rd, 2004, 6:26 am

Jim, how important is it to have days off to allow for anabolism? How do pro athlete's get around this as they train twice a day for 28 out of 30 days?

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » June 3rd, 2004, 3:13 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>The end result for me would have looked like a really long workout every other day with the first part being aerobic work, the second part being strength work  </td></tr></table> I've done that type of workout quite a few times, which does make it somewhat longer, but find it just as effective and more interesting and refreshing to do the faster aerobic twice a week, and the strength type of rowing the other days.

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 4th, 2004, 9:34 pm

Roy: It depends on what professional athletes you're talking about. Most professional athletic training isn't so much interested in anabolism as in skills and drills to train the neuromuscular circuitry for sport specific movements. To get absolute muscle mass enhancement, one needs workouts with high loads, low reps ( up to 12), relatively short (about 1 hour) maximally intense workouts with short rests built in the workout between sets ( 1 to 2 minutes) and lots of rest between workouts( a day of complete rest between bouts of stressing the body part) and a good diet with lots of protein. The above paragraph is a succinct distillation of the body building literature. Because the work on the erg basically hits nearly the whole body, then it ends up a day of complete rest between Heavy 10 workouts. Body builders are the ultimate anabolists. That's nearly their entire sport. I think for lots of sports, there can be a part of the year devoted entirely to muscle building. Then the body building ideas can be useful for that phase. Even with a day of complete rest between bouts of stressing body parts, a good muscle building regimen can be designed where there is 6 days per week when some sort of power workout is performed. Like I said in the case of Heavy 10's on the rowing machine, because it's a whole body workout, complete rest every other day seems necessary for the best muscle building. Of course, you could break the movement down into parts and work with weights on specific muscle groups on different days and end up with a 6 day per week strength training regimen; however, I believe that you would lose the unique specificity of training the movements involved in rowing. Jim Pisano

[old] otherside · Post by **[old] otherside** » June 5th, 2004, 6:26 am

Jim... thanks for all these ideas. At 51 I've just started with this obsession/sport and have realised very quickly that I lack power (being a lightweight with a running/martial arts background), and also have a body fat percentage to improve (currently around 16%). Just want to make sure I've got this right: have you been doing your strength training routine every other day? And have you been doing one-hour sessions with plenty of rest between "sets"? Simon. PS: The thing to remember with professional athletes is that when they are not training all they have to do is rest -- which in the cae of pro football (soccer) players seems to consist of lying around watching daytime children's tv programmes, according to a recent tv documentary here in England

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 5th, 2004, 9:17 am

Simon: Regarding the details of my Heavy 10 workouts: First of all, I do an adequate warmup. Then I do intervals @ 12 spm. I've built up from February when I started out with: 9 intervals @max intensity and @ 12spm ( i.e. a stroke every 5 seconds) for 36 seconds on 1:24 off. Set the work time for 36 seconds and the rest time for 1:24 and then pull a stroke at 36 seconds, 31,26,21,16,11,6 and 1 second left. (By the way, that's 8 strokes) I worked up from there at 9 intervals of this type to 25 intervals like this. I just added 1 interval per workout. From there I progressed to 9 strokes per interval by setting the clock to 41 seconds on and pulling every 5 seconds. I'm up to 10 strokes per interval. I was doing 1:14 rest but a little more rest won't hurt. I actually did one workout of 11 stoke intervals with 1:09 rest and I basically had the withers. I just kept getting weaker and weaker. So I've backed off to 10 stroke intervals with 46 seconds on: 1:24 off. Dr. Stephen Sielor (?spelling) advocates 15 spm heavy 10's in his article regarding the subject on the Rower's World website. I've done both 12 spm and 15 spm Heavy 10's. The 12 spm Heavy 10's is quite a load. Obviously, you want to have a heavy load so you want to set the drag factor as high as possible. I have a Model B Concept 2 so I can get my Drag Factor up to 230 or so. A workout like this is very much like lifting weights and you'll get similar types of muscular soarness from this type of workout as you'll get from lifting weights. Also I believe there is a higher chance of injury from this workout then most other types of workouts on the erg. In the end, muscle mass is important but increasing aerobic capacity is probably the most effective way of improving one's 2k. Jim Pisano

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » June 5th, 2004, 2:56 pm

I agree 12 spm is better for strength development than 15 spm. I did quite a few at 10 spm too, but there's a 6 second glitch in the monitor that gives a faulty reading sometimes, so 12 spm seems to work the best. Is your 230 df on the small or the large sproket? If it's the large sprocket then that's the equivalent resistance of 187 on the model C. If it's the small sprocket than that's the equivalent resistance of 287 on the model C.

[old] otherside · Post by **[old] otherside** » June 5th, 2004, 3:18 pm

Thanks for the details, Jim. Simon.

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 7th, 2004, 6:42 am

John: I use the small sprocket on the Model B with the airvent all the way open. That gives me a df of 230. It is quite a load. Jim Pisano

[old] John Rupp · Post by **[old] John Rupp** » June 7th, 2004, 1:42 pm

Jim, That's equivalent resistance to a drag factor of 287 on the model C. Quite a load indeed.

[old] jjpisano · Post by **[old] jjpisano** » June 8th, 2004, 9:07 am

So this AM, I did my last Heavy 10 session during my pure power training phase. I noticed that I'm off my peak again by about 5%. My peak was an average interval of around 206 watts. I did a bunch of Heavy 10 intervals where the average was mid 190's. Despite being off my peak, I can generate 15% more watts during the Heavy 10 intervals than I could when I first started in February. I think that I'm off my peak because I have bilateral pulled intercostal muscles. It's hard to connect the legs,back and arms effectively. I'll rest until Saturday and pull a 500m personal best attempt then. I've done no speed work just pure power work since mid-February. I believe that I will beat my previous personal best which is 1:32.7. I think I can go below 1:30 for 500m. My next phase of training will be 20 spm 60% intensity LSD 4 workouts per week and with Heavy 10's 1 time per week. When I see my Heavy 10's power return to my previous peak of around 206w, I'll try another 500m personal best attempt. I've been working with a drag factor of around 230 and I'll be trying for a 500m personal best attempt with a drag factor of around 150. Should be interesting. I wonder if the lack of speed work and the great difference in drag factor will be trouble. Time will tell. Jim Pisano

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