Ranger's training thread

[mikvan52]

Evening has fallen in Ann Arbor...
another day, another lie.

What will tomorrow bring?................. Nothin'
What will these last two months of the C2 year show for ranger?...................Nothin'

The man-batt's retired gents.

tonight, tomorrow, forever...
He doesn't even say "6:16" or "unprecedented" anymore... What a sad state of affairs..

All we get now is "you go first and then I won't go at all" smothered with meaningless psycho-philoso-babble.
Impenetrable bull.
I wonder what's left at this point?

I am getting bored into a catatonic state hearing about non-existent "distance trials" and "learning to row". I hope the old coot can come up with something to enliven what looks to be a grim and boring spring on this thread.

[NavigationHazard]

Can I play too?



The image quality is poor on account of multiple format conversions. But the general gist comes through....

I also found this one, from last October:



The final title is wrong - it's 42.8 seconds/ 1:25.6 pace r35 for 250m at DF 118. The force curve's clearer as the lighting in the erg room was a lot better....

[aharmer]

Thought I'd add another note to the consistency topic. On the road tonight and went to the gym aiming to do some power cleans, dips and treadmill jogging to cool down. Walked in and saw three ergs...hmmm. Took about 2 seconds to sit down and start a brief warmup before a 8x500 session. Unfortunately I didn't have a video camera with me. I did have my phone for a screenshot, but when I hit Memory nothing happened. Not sure what the settings were, but it didn't matter because what I was testing was stroke consistency, not results. Would be happy to videotape the session next time I do it at home.

I don't really erg that much at all, and when I do, it's rarely at these paces and rates. I set off with the goal of 1:38-1:39 pace and whatever rate it took to keep me there. I knew going in that was a little hot but I wanted to be going pretty hard in order to be sure it wasn't a breeze to make the monitor say whatever I wanted. For this reason I only got to 5x500, 2'r before I pooped out and decided to stop. Averaged 1:38.7/r27.

Other than the three strokes it took to get to 1:38, almost every stroke of every rep was 1:38 or 1:39, and every stroke after the initial three was dead set on 27 the entire workout. Actually, the rate jumped to 28 and 29 the final 100m of rep 5 as I pushed to get finished. Had I been going on, the rate would have been dead set on 27 the entire time.

For somebody that ergs as little as I do, it was surprisingly easy to sit on exact rates and paces. Even unfamiliar ones. I'll let the experts hash out what, if anything, this means as it relates to today's conversation.

[Byron Drachman]

I don't believe for one second that you completed the 500m 1:34/32 this morning.

Ok, children, let's vote.

Who here thinks ranger is lying again?



Well, it seems he's still popular with the ladies...
Perhaps he should train to be a female lightweight?
A few hormones and presto! =>man-boobs avec comb-over

I love the photo. That looks very much like the classroom I was in as a youngster. I remember desks with inkwells like that. Naughty boys like me would dip the pigtails of girls seated ahead in the inkwells. So we did get something useful in our hero's thread today--some nice nostalgia. I did notice that one girl has her hand raised.

For somebody that ergs as little as I do, it was surprisingly easy to sit on exact rates and paces.

I suspect the RWB's means our intrepid hero did not develop the ability to hold a steady pace and rate. Oh-0h, now he will never show us the video of his 500m row that we all believe he did today.

Dang, those are impressive videos from Nav.

[mikvan52]

Here's a "goody"

12 spi rowing:

I was tooling around with ultra low rate, attempting to get rid of my arm grabbing at the catch.
I finished the session with 15 minutes of very easy rowing:

15:00 - 3127m - 2:23.9 avg. - 13 spm avg (on slides/ 108 df)

but here's the kicker... the last 3:00 segment was recorded as follows w/o "tricks"

2:07.8 / 14 spm..... watts/spm = 11.98

as I was barely moving on the recovery, this was easy...
a far cry from trying to hit such a queer number at 40 spm! (12 spi would require 1:30 pace so.... 3' of that would mean I would cover 1k 16 seconds faster than my personal best!)
More proof as to the uselessness of such a quotient ! Magnitudes are meant to mean something after all!

[ranger]

but here's the kicker... the last 3:00 segment was recorded as follows w/o "tricks"

2:07.8 / 14 spm..... watts/spm = 11.98

as I was barely moving on the recovery, this was easy...
a far cry from trying to hit such a queer number at 40 spm! (12 spi would require 1:30 pace so.... 3' of that would mean I would cover 1k 16 seconds faster than my personal best!)
More proof as to the uselessness of such a quotient ! Magnitudes are meant to mean something after all!

You just said very precisely what it means.

If you trained yourself to row 12 SPI with your natural rowing motion--automatically, habitually, unconsciously, inevitably--and if you could also train yourself to hold 40 spm for 1K, your potential over the distance would rise dramatically, four seconds per 500m.

This is just the sort of thing you do in your OTW training in order to improve your 1K time.

Given this, it is puzzling in the extreme that you consider these things irrelevant to your work OTErg.

I suspect the reason is that the erg lets you break down your technique in milder efforts and, without any training whatsoever, go faster because of it.

From this momentary experience, then, out of context, you reason, erroneously, that breaking down your technique is better than holding it firm, and that not doing anything to train your technique is better than doing something to improve and solidify it.

Any five-year-old can see through the fallacies in these rationalizations.

These rationalizations are flattering; they focus away from the fact that you are slow because you are rowing badly.

And these rationalizations make it so that you don't have to consider doing the hard work, and only significant training, really, of improving your weaknesses, rather than just parading your strengths.

If you can improve your technique and get used to a better technique, you can go faster.

But you can't do this by just rowing badly and claiming that there is no other alternative.

It also makes little sense to claim that if you can't do something immediately, without training for it, you can never do it.

That's just childish, too.

All adults know otherwise.

ranger

[ranger]

Mike--

Rowing well OTErg is exactly the same as rowing well OTW.

It doesn't have anything to do with sprinting your guts out at 40 spm with bad technique, rowing like shit, but busting your balls.

It has to do with going prettry darn quickly, but effortlessly, for hours and hours, at a pretty low rate, like 22 spm, hardly breathing, sweating lightly, whistling Dixie as you go.

It has to do, then, with how much effortless work you get done per stroke.

It has to do with your technical and skeletal-motor effectiveness and efficiency while rowing.

The difference between 9.5 SPI and 12.5 SPI is 10 seconds per 500m when you are rowing along with a UT2 HR at 22 spm.

If you want to be faster OTErg, the only way to do it for someone like you (or me) is to improve your UT2 pace.

Keep working on your technique until you can do an effortless stroke at 12.5 SPI rather than 9.5 SPI.

For this, you will have to get about 120 kg.F. of peak force each time you tap dance on the footplate and flick out your legs.

That's the challenge!

I now do this automatically.

So I now just rowing along, 1:48 @ 22 spm (12. 5 SPI), with a UT2 (or perhaps low UT1) HR.

In just a short while, I will row a FM @ 1:48.

The major dilemma in this advice, though, is a pretty large one.

No training plans for rowing say anything at all about how you might train yourself to get from 1:58 for a FM to 1:48 for a FM, without any changes in your fitness, just by improving your technique.

Why?

Because the basic training plans for rowing have nothing to say about technique at all, much less how to iimprove it.

All the basic training plans for rowing just concentrate on fitness, as though technique were irrelevant.

IMO, that is a _gigantic_ mistake.

Even OTErg, a good rowing stroke is a pretty complicated affair.

If you don't think so, just try to row well for any period of time.

Rowing well for a lightweight is 13 SPI.

Rowing well for a heavyweight is 16 SPI.

The trick to rowing well is to learn how to do this kind of work effortlessly.

The solution to the dilemma is technical, learning how to do a good rowing stroke.

ranger

[Citroen]

It has to do, then, with how much effortless work [sic] you get done per stroke.

Lovely nonsense.

The only source of energy input to a boat or an ergo is from the pillock sitting on the seat.

SINCE Work = energy * distance,
therefore all work needs energy, all energy transfer into the system needs effort from the pillock on the seat.

Or does it not work that way in Rangerland with Rangerphysics?

[ranger]

all energy transfer into the system needs effort from the pillock on the seat

And how well you row depends on the work you do each time you put that quantity of energy into the system, how effective and efficient you are as a worker while rowing.

SPI

For example, pace/watts at 22 spm and UT2.

1:58 @ 22 spm is 9.5 SPI.

1:48 @ 22 spm is 12.5 SPI.

I can swing a racket _very_ hard at a tennis ball.

But for some puzzling reason, I never get a 135 MPH serve.

Why?

I don't play tennis very well.

The reason I don't play tennis very well has nothing to do with how hard I am swinging at the ball.

It has to do with the quality of the work I get done when serving.

Sure, I put a lot of energy into the system, but playing badly, I don't get much productive work done for my efforts.

ranger

[ranger]

Mike--

You can read your 2K right off your UT2 pace.

UT2 @ 22 spm is done at 2K + 15.

So, if your 2K is 1:43, as yours is, your UT2 pace is 1:58.

Most people who have done a lot of endurance sports, as you have, and who have also rowed a lot, as you have, can do a FM at UT2.

UT2, or FM pace, is the most normal level of effort that most endurance athletes like work at during training.

ranger

[ranger]

This is shocking, I think:

None of the basic training plans for rowing tell you anything about how you can get better.

They only tell you how hard you can work to get worse and worse.

ranger

[stroke]

I can swing a racket _very_ hard at a tennis ball.

But for some puzzling reason, I never get a 135 MPH serve.

Why?"

Simple You are not swinging it hard enough

If there is life anywhere else in the universe I hope first contact is not through this forum
Whats that ..... Damn

[macroth]

I can swing a racket _very_ hard at a tennis ball.

But for some puzzling reason, I never get a 135 MPH serve.

Why?

Simple You are not swinging it hard enough

A better mental image is "fast" enough. Tennis is infinitely more technical then erging, anyway.

[ranger]

Back in 2002-2003, even though my fitness was pretty much the same, I couldn't row 1:48 @ 22 spm, steady state, at all.

Rowing 1:48 @ 22 spm, my HR just continued to rise until it hit max at about 5K and I had to stop.

I now row 1:48 @ 22 spm, steady state, at 155 bpm.

In a short while, I'll row a FM @ 1:48.

Back in 2002-2003, my FM pb was 1:54.

This improvement, despite the fact I am now a decade older, has had nothing to do with improving my fitness.

It has had to do with the quality of work I get done while rowing.

It has had to do with becoming a better rower.

If I still rowed as badly as I did back in 2002-2003, the prediction now, ten years later, is that I would row a FM like Mike VB, at 1:58.

The normal decline with age among veterans is about four seconds per 500m per decade.

The training I have done to secure this massive improvement has had nothing to do with the basic training plans for rowing.

Even the 60s _heavyweight_ FM WR is 1:54 pace.

The 60s lwt FM WR is 2:00 pace.

I am now 60.

I have done a couple of dozen successful lightweight 2Ks as a veteran:

6:28, 6:29, 6:30, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:33, 6:36, etc.

ranger

[macroth]

Rowing 1:48 @ 22 spm, my HR just continued to rise until it hit max at about 5K and I had to stop.

I now row 1:48 @ 22 spm, steady state, at 155 bpm.

But you stop and take breaks every what, 1500m or so? You haven't even tried rowing 5k non-stop yet.