Concept2 Forum

I read the back and forth about record breaking rows etc....<br /><br /><br />Would it be possible to have a strong rower pull a 2k while a "helper" opens and closes the vents.<br /><br />Let me be more specific. During the drive vents are being closed, on the recovery vents are opened and so on and so forth!<br /><br /><br />I had this idea since I keep explaining new rowers how the computer of the concept2 works.<br /><br />I remember James Martinez placing the rowing machine at the Newport Aquatic Center next to the wall thinking it was going to give him some advantage... I don't think that this had an effect however.<br /><br />Let the debate B E G I N !!!! YEeHAAAAAAW!!!!!!

Hello Xeno<br /><br />Unfortunately, with the C2 honor system there may well be cheats out there.<br /><br />I would guess that some people have found better ways of cheating the system then just moving the fan casing.<br />

Why go to so much trouble, when you can just enter a fake time in the rankings? It may not have the verification from C2, but you're still at the top of the rankings. I assume a cheater would find that satisfactory?

i think it depends what you mean by 'cheating'.<br /><br />in all sports i can think of cheating is considered a performance that is achieved with the aid of illegal substances ingested by the athlete or by the use of illegal equipment or by simply not abiding to the rules of the discipline.<br /><br />in any case, the performance has already been publicly observed.<br /><br />if the exceptional performance is just 'claimed', i strongly doubt that any sport organizing body would even bother with cheating matters.<br /><br />example:<br />if i were to claim a time faster than the present world record in the 100 m freestyle, a time that i supposedly swam at the local pool in front a few friends of mine, the national and international swimming organizations would not so much want to test my urine and blood ('cheating'), as they would simply ask me to swim where they could verify my claimed speed.<br />enter a race.<br /><br />cheating at a particular feat assumes that first you have actually done the feat.<br /><br />the times and distances entered in the concept 2 rankings may be the product of hard work and diligent training or simply somebody's wishful thinking.<br /><br />it has already been discussed in a different thread that the so-called 'verified' times are a long shot from reliable.<br /><br />supposedly a number of world records have already been broken in training session in many sports.<br />the athletes that have 'supposedly' broken these records are the same athletes that compete at events representing the best in their sports, performing at least close to the records even in public, which would make their claims somewhat believable.<br /><br />but to claim a world record performance while at the same time repeatedly failing to achieve even remotely close to such claim in a public event is as abstruse as it is absurd.<br /><br />

This method is probably very effective to inflate your performance.<br />I do sometimes open the vent to stop the fan more quickly before a time trial<br />and it does slow down the fan considerably.<br /><br />I would be interested in some real experiments of how much mileage you can get out of that method but unfortunately I have no one to operate the vent for me<br />while rowing.<br /><br />Maybe someone else can supply some data.<br />

<!--QuoteBegin-Xeno+Feb 7 2006, 07:04 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Xeno @ Feb 7 2006, 07:04 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I read the back and forth about record breaking rows etc....<br /><br />Would it be possible to have a strong rower pull a 2k while a "helper" opens and closes the vents.<br />...<br />Let the debate B E G I N !!!!   YEeHAAAAAAW!!!!!! <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Why would you cheat ? <br />I mean...what's to gain?

<!--QuoteBegin-jfo+Feb 7 2006, 07:20 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(jfo @ Feb 7 2006, 07:20 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Why would you cheat ?  <br />I mean...what's to gain? <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />For some I guess it comes down to kudos.<br /><br />

<!--QuoteBegin-jfo+Feb 7 2006, 01:20 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(jfo @ Feb 7 2006, 01:20 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-Xeno+Feb 7 2006, 07:04 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Xeno @ Feb 7 2006, 07:04 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I read the back and forth about record breaking rows etc....<br /><br />Would it be possible to have a strong rower pull a 2k while a "helper" opens and closes the vents.<br />...<br />Let the debate B E G I N !!!!   YEeHAAAAAAW!!!!!! <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Why would you cheat ? <br />I mean...what's to gain? <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br /><br />??? strange question. <br /><br />Some people do, that's a fact, why ? there can be al sorts off reasons, and once you have started it's not easy to stop. You have to go on to keep the lie alive

<!--QuoteBegin-hjs+Feb 7 2006, 03:41 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(hjs @ Feb 7 2006, 03:41 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><br />??? strange question. <br /><br />Some people do, that's a fact, why ? there can be al sorts off reasons,  and once you have started it's not easy to stop. You have to go on to keep the lie alive  <br /> </td></tr></table><br />Cheat the taxation authorities and you will gain money<br />Cheat at the cinema and you will get in for free<br />Cheat in poker and you will gain money<br />Cheat on your rowingmachine and you will be #1 on a list but that isn't<br />worth anything is it? Unless you can convince your self that you weren't cheating <br />

According to my own philosophy, I have been cheating for the last six months, that is to say, I have been <b>training</b> for erg competitions. Initially, the erg was designed as a training device for rowers who couldn't always get out on the water to do the real thing. Competition (e.g. CRASHB) got started only as a measure to relieve the absolute boredom of erging during winter months in those areas where OTW was impractical (or impossible). In previous seasons, I just "walked in off the street" to local satellite regattas and competed. My training, if it could be called that, consisted of 10' easy wakeup up pieces (1900 +/- 1 m), averaging about 5 days a week, and doing a few kilometers 2 or 3 days a week, preferably on the water, but on the erg if the weather was lousy.<br /><br />Obviously, things have changed a bit. And it is also obvious to me now that a daily training program can make a huge difference. Until last August, it had been my habit to alternate workout days with a day of rest. Three days a week was plenty. Also, I rarely did more than 40 minutes and that included warmup and cool down. Other exercises consisted of the same 40 minutes walking on a treadmill and about an hour of (light) weight work, also never more than 2 or 3 times a week. Another (and preferred) alternative was moderately paced hiking, from one to several hours, on the local trails. I was off the erg completely from May through July last summer, when the garage was just too blooming hot. It was still too hot in August, but membership in the USIRT Development Squad gave me the incentive to get up early enough to avoid the heat.<br /><br />Since this Forum category is entitled "Training, Indoor Rowing," it is no doubt stupid of me to refer to erg training as <i>cheating</i>, but, in my book, that is where it stood.<br /><br />No, I am not trolling with this message - just confessing.<br /><br />Bob S.

Yes of course you could artificially inflate your time by changing the damper setting during a piece. There are many other ways too:<br /><br />Lift the front of the erg slightly so that gravity aids your drive;<br />Row a 30r20 piece in 614 strokes rather than 600;<br />etc<br /><br />The problem is once you start doing this there is no real way back. I don't know about anyone else, but I get a buzz from improving my times or distances. It feels great to pull a new pb at whatever distance. If you cheat [yourself] once, and artificially inflate your times because of it, you risk not being able to come close to that doing it properly.<br /><br />Take the 30r20 piece as an example. We did that as a CTC challenge over the UK forum, with the rule that your average rate had to be 20 on the monitor. Some people, quite within the rules, did the first 16mins at 20, then the last 14 at 21. So really you're averaging about 20.4spm. But if you do this, how will you ever come close to that distance if doing it properly at 20spm (ie 600 strokes)? You won't without getting a lot better, so you'll always then have to do it in 614strokes instead.

<!--QuoteBegin-Xeno+Feb 7 2006, 12:04 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Xeno @ Feb 7 2006, 12:04 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I read the back and forth about record breaking rows etc....<br /><br />Would it be possible to have a strong rower pull a 2k while a "helper" opens and closes the vents.<br /><br />Let me be more specific.  During the drive vents are being closed, on the recovery vents are opened and so on and so forth!<br /><br /><br />I had this idea since I keep explaining new rowers how the computer of the concept2 works.<br /><br />I remember James Martinez placing the rowing machine at the Newport Aquatic Center next to the wall thinking it was going to give him some advantage...  I don't think that this had an effect however.<br /><br />Let the debate B E G I N !!!!  YEeHAAAAAAW!!!!!! <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />I rowed for UC Santa Barbara in the mid 80's and we would do 10 mile pieces in the fall every 2 weeks or so on Model A's (10 miles was the distance on the Model A odometer; this is equivalent to 5K on the susequent PM's) Usually we would do these pieces one at a time with our teammates watching and cheering us on. One time we did the pieces two at a time with the ergs side by side in a small room and a wind tunnel seemed to be created. All of our times went from 17 plus minutes down to around 16 minutes; some were even in the 15:30 range! This was completely unintentional and obviously inaccurate so we thereafter put an end to the "wind Tunnel" advantage. As most of you know, the Model A erg had an uncovered wheel with flaps on it to create the resistance. As far as I know, this "advantage" cannot be replicated with any of the subsequent Concept 2 models.<br /><br />JM<br /><br />

<!--QuoteBegin-jfo+Feb 7 2006, 03:17 PM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(jfo @ Feb 7 2006, 03:17 PM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><br />Cheat the taxation authorities and you will gain money  yes but mabye you get a fine <br />Cheat at the cinema and you will get in for free.  yes but maybe you will get caughed and are forbidden to come back.<br />Cheat in poker and you will gain money. Hmm tricky and dangerouse I think  <br />Cheat on your rowingmachine and you will be #1 on a list but that isn't  You can set youreself high in the rankings and get lots of pets on yout virtueel shoulders<br />worth anything is it? Unless you can convince your self that you weren't cheating <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />If you cheat in a sportsgame and it won't get noticed you may win. You know you cheated. It happens al the time.<br /><br /><br />If the online list didn't mean anything why bother and place your results, if you rank anything you care and if you care the place your are ranked has a mening. <br />Do you rank rank your results? if so why? and if not why not?<br /><br /><br />

<!--QuoteBegin-Pete Marston+Feb 7 2006, 08:04 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Pete Marston @ Feb 7 2006, 08:04 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Lift the front of the erg slightly so that gravity aids your drive; </td></tr></table><br />That doesn't make the time faster, as the recovery then becomes harder.<br /><br />When I leveled the railing, there was no difference it any of my times whatsoever.<br /><br />Paul Flack did extensive testing with the railing at different level. He lowered the back railing a full 6 inches, which resulted in his bettering all of his times.<br /><br />Then he put the railing back to it's regular position sloped to the front.<br /><br />He again bettered all of his times.<br /><br />The slope of the railing makes no difference to the times you get on the erg.

In most parts the online rankings does not mean anything. I could post any time I wished and beat the system if I so choose, this is why I do not rank times as, IND, IND_V etc.<br />The only rows I take as "real" are the "RACE" ones.<br /><br />I want to prove I am the best by beating the best. The way to do this is to race. I would however log a “RACE” time on the rankings, as that is all the proof anyone would need, as I mentioned above.<br />