Concept2 Forum

As I slowly build my weekly distance I am thinking about how I measure it 'intensity' wise so I dont increase the work load to much to soon.<br><br>Total distance is not a complete guide unless it was all rowed at the same pace, as a hard 10k can take much more out of you than an easy 15k when you are backing up the next day.<br><br>I thought about how many days off a week I have but then if I said I rowed 6 out of the seven then it is possible to row 12 days in a row depending on when I take a day of rest. For me I look at each day the same (including weekends) as I need to be flexible with work and family (things dont always go to plan).<br><br>I am thinking that a better measure of my efforts would be to look at 'continuous' days rowed ... dont know it is all a bit hard I think As to intesity I guess you could look at the average SPI of each row x distance and come up with a figure then add them up over 'contiuous' days to get a guage of how much 'stress' you have applied to the body and when it is time for a break.<br><br>I appreciate this is a load of drivel but it gives me something to think about while erging <br><br>- George

I think the best, easy way, to gauge your intensity is to use a HR moniter to measure calorie expenditure. You can get an idea of how hard your worked by the total number of calories burned. The best way period is to buy a lactate tester, ask xeno about this and he'll make your head spin.

Wouldn't calorie expenditure be roughly the same as total distance? As George said this can be misleading since the "intensity" is based on the overall work (measured in meters or calories) as well as on the power (measured in meters/second or watts). <br><br>This is just a quick thought that came to my mind and may be totally wrong but why not take the product of Work and Power that would be TotalDistance^2/TotalTime?

If it's recovery that you're worried about - start taking your morning heartrate. After a few days, you'll start to get a sense of where it should be, and if it deviates from that by more than 10BPM, you haven't recovered, take it easy or even take the day off. by doing this, you'll prevent overtraining.

only if you go by the calorie expenditure that erg gives you. Which is an avergae size person working at that intensity. A good HR moniter gives you an exact measure of how many calories burned. I have had differences of up to 200 calories between the erg and my HR monitor.

GD, interesting point, how to factor in Quality in considering the amount of work done so as to avoid overtraining. <br><br>However tho' we may feel subjectively that (as you say) a hard 10k is "worth" more than a slow 15, from an objective point of view in reaching or staying at fitness targets, could be that the slow 15k is more useful, or useful for something else.<br><br>We may remember hearing about "training different energy paths", "training bands" and so on, so that comparing AT work with UT2 would in any case be meaningless: we have to do them both and not bother the coach with any subversive nonsense.<br><br>So the first step would be to use a spreadsheet and get it to multiply Watts x minutes rowed - you only need to input the distance and the time once you've set up the formulae. This is an objective measure of work done and it avoids the distortion due to the cube law in erg paces and distances. Then when we move from distance work to shorter and sharper work to prepare for a race, we see the amount of work decrease - and nothing wrong with that.<br><br>If W x time is not good enough, we could use for example W^Q x time; where Q is our arbitrary Quality factor. If you think 20' @250W is identical to say 40' @200W, then a few sums show that Q = 3. <br><br>But this puts a premium on short sharp stuff at the expense of CV... so I think I'll stick to my steady plod or the Interactive. I only want to keep fit and all this number bashing is fun but won't help.

whoa whoa whoa professor <br><br>there is no need to do all that math. Sure you will get a measure on intensity by the watts, but GD is looking for how hard <u>his body</u> worked during any workout. Not just how hard the peice was. You are correct though, and a average watt figure is important to consider when doing a peice. So is a avg/500m.<br><br>If GD is looking for how his body handled the workout, a HR monitor with a personal calorie function will distribute an accurate readout of calories burned during any particular session. Like I said, this is the best "easy" way to gauge how intense someone approached a particular workout. A lactate test is best because it gives a readout of how much lactate is in your system and is thus better than calorie expenditure because it shows/measures how tired your body is. You could burn a lot of calories and still not be overworked and a small amount of calories burned could be enough to send you over the edge. Your HR will definitly show the fatigue though and thus, burn more calories in adjustment.

I understood GD was looking for some universal work index thing that could be summed over several daily work-outs of different types, so that the number reached after X days says now take a break. <br><br>W x Time for CV work (>95% of total?) is probably enough to control this from an objective point of view, and is in addition to the personal feelings we all get and use in any case. The logic is OR I think: if tired OR at the set limit, take a rest, what else indeed. No need to wait for AND.<br><br>The kCal function on the PM2 is enough to control the amount of work too, being directly related to Watts. I've no idea what formula HR monitors use on the scarce data they can get. Here C2 is at an advantage, the monitor knows just what we've done and it doesn't listen when we say a WO is hard unless the numbers say so too. So we might as well use the C2 kCal system. Rest day every five to ten Megacal?<br><br><br>Whether any of us actually need this type of control a posteriori is another question. <br>We could a priori link this idea to training plans though - how do we or the coach or plan writer know we're not overloading ourselves or our victims? Experience only? We can't measure HR or lactate before the piece is done..<br>

A somewhat sophisticated HR moniter measures the amount of calories burned by entering age, hieght, weight, sex, activity level, Max HR, relaxation rate to get the number of calories burned. This is why it is much more effective than the PM. The number of times your heart beats in a given session when calculated with these factors gives a very accurate calorie expenditure. It is much much more effective than a reading which shows your objective power output. The erg cannot project how tired you are, only that it was a poor/good performance. <br><br>A resting HR can be done before a peice and if it is a certain number of beats (5+) above the normal resting HR you are unwell in some way i.e sick, fatigued<br><br>Same goes for lactate, a measurement taken before will show how much is in your system and if it is a certain percentage above normal, you are too tired.

Hi to all and thanks for the feedback and keep it coming. <br><br>What made me start to think about this was that I am beginning a phase of purely endurance rows, 20spm and 110df to work on my technique and these will be anywhere between 12 - 20k+.<br><br>I noted in my log (spreadsheet) that 'week two' was approx 10% more than 'week one' (distance wise), but I also know that some of those were at a higher 'work' rate (pace). I am aware that you should not increase the workload to quickly as the body needs time to adapt. I am also aware that I cannot keep increasing distance for to much longer due to time constraints but then I can maintain the distance and increase the intensity.<br><br>We are all faced with days when we just feel 'crap' but just as often once we get going we have a good row .... there are also times when we should rest but we dont for what ever reason. I am not looking to have my training regimented by numbers, but as I said to start with sometimes I need to be reminded to slow down.<br><br>- George

2k @ 6:20 = approx 408 watts - if erged at 33spm = 12.36SPI<br><br>If I row a 30 minute piece at 304 watts am I rowing at 75% of the effort, but at 20spm them my SPI is 15.2 which appears to be a harder effort.<br><br>Can I only gauge my effort (no heartrate monitor) by taking that 2k SPI and tagging to a stroke rate so that a 30 minute piece at 26spm is rowed at 321watts (same SPI) and a 75% effort would be 26spm at 241watts<br><br>- George

It must be my day for dragging out good stuff in the archives... but these are words of wisdom that can be linked to another post on hard and easy weeks. Getting structure to training that thinks about work intensity and includes principles of overload, rest and periodisation should mean PB's come easier?<br /><br />Tim

Tim, I think the subject is one of principles to be applied rather than specifics. So much is dependent on individual physiology that it is not a 'one size fits all' scenario.<br /><br />Training recovery is also very dependent on 'lifestyle' as well. Because of personal circumstances I am now having to get up just after 5am rather than 6am to train. It doesnt seem a lot different but as I am a light sleeper it actually means that I am struggling after a couple of days and 3 is about my max in a row during the week before I need to take a break (sleep) .... this then is an external factor that has a direct influence on my training.<br /><br />George