Comparing rankings on Concept2 to general fitness

[gcanyon]

So looking at rankings on Concept2, for example, you can tell how you compare to the universe of people who enter their C2 times online. For example, currently a time of 8:05.9 is at the 50th percentile for a 50-59 year-old heavyweight male. I'm wondering if anyone has given thought to how that generalizes to the population at large? Meaning that if you're at the 10th percentile on the C2 rankings, that might just be equivalent to the 10th percentile in the general population. But the 50th percentile is seems to me to be higher than 50th percentile among all 50-59 year-old heavyweight men. And the 90th percentile are obviously (again, to me) ridiculously fit compared to men in general. Or maybe you think it's directly equivalent to the general population?

[Carl Watts]

People will immediately argue the rankings don't have all the elite rowers, however the number of "Elite" rowers are insignificant to the number of people in the general population and obviously the older you get the less "Elite" rowers there are to start with.

You have to remember to even rank something you first have to get off the couch. IMO if your in the 90th percentile your probably in the top 1% of the "General Population". Certainly if your in the 50-59 age group and you can still row 8000m then your essentially "Elite" as far as the indoor rower is concerned.

What you do have to remember is that the rower is "Sports Specific", you could put many good runners and cyclists straight on the erg for the first time and they wouldn't perform very well, the same as I cannot run to save myself in comparison to the performance on the erg.

What has surprised me is Concept 2 have not developed the Erg as a tool for performing a fitness test on the PM monitor. I say that because the Erg is unique and self calibrating in the way it measures power so its ideal.

[hjs]

So looking at rankings on Concept2, for example, you can tell how you compare to the universe of people who enter their C2 times online. For example, currently a time of 8:05.9 is at the 50th percentile for a 50-59 year-old heavyweight male. I'm wondering if anyone has given thought to how that generalizes to the population at large? Meaning that if you're at the 10th percentile on the C2 rankings, that might just be equivalent to the 10th percentile in the general population. But the 50th percentile is seems to me to be higher than 50th percentile among all 50-59 year-old heavyweight men. And the 90th percentile are obviously (again, to me) ridiculously fit compared to men in general. Or maybe you think it's directly equivalent to the general population?

its limited, the erg does not see a lot. Say you have a 62kg male and a very tall 115 kg one. The taller will almost certain do a lot better, but the smaller one can be a lot fitter.
Thats just aspect, there are plenty of others, rowing is a very limited movement. A good rower is often a limited athlete in general. Can,t jump, can,t throw, can,t sprint, you name it.

Ps. https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/oneill_test

[maestroak]

Answer this question, would you rather have a fitness test against the psychos that rank here (I mean that in a good way), or against the pool of everyone else who doesn't? It's a no-brainer.

-Steve

[gcanyon]

Answer this question, would you rather have a fitness test against the psychos that rank here (I mean that in a good way), or against the pool of everyone else who doesn't? It's a no-brainer.

-Steve

I agree that it's a no-brainer that the people who rank here are in general more fit than average, I just wonder if anyone has thought about by how much.

[Carl Watts]

Answer this question, would you rather have a fitness test against the psychos that rank here (I mean that in a good way), or against the pool of everyone else who doesn't? It's a no-brainer.

-Steve

I agree that it's a no-brainer that the people who rank here are in general more fit than average, I just wonder if anyone has thought about by how much.

How do you rank a person if they only ever sit on the couch ?

I would go with Steve, clearly you think your effort is worth ranking in the first place and so I believe its generally the faster people, or the umm speed Psychos that tend to rank so if you can get anywhere near the top your well above just "average" fitness for your age.

[Carl Watts]

I think erging makes you fit for erging, and that is not directly transferable to general fitness. We do the same thing day in and day out, all year round. If you on the other hand combine the erging with lifting, and have a double bodyweight squat, and 2.5 bodyweight deadlift, and throw in some gymnastics and mobility work, then you come close to a good allround fitness, which prepares you for the daily obstacles in life Pretty much what CrossFit Inc. preaches.

Even with erging only you can train the body in different ways, depending on what your trying to achieve. Personally all my rowing these days is low rating, usually 17-18spm training rows at 1:58.0 average pace for the 30 minutes, this focuses more on the power side while still giving you an aerobic workout but doesn't promote "racing ratings" which should be in the 30's and getting the best times if you intention and focus is getting to the top of the rankings.

[PaulG]

I think erging makes you fit for erging, and that is not directly transferable to general fitness. We do the same thing day in and day out, all year round. .

I slightly disagree. I do think at age 60 erging has transferred into increased general fitness in every day life. Having lost about 15 pounds I feel that day to day activities are easier, especially on my lower body joints. Upper body not so much.

I originally got into erging so I could teach skiing on weekends without totally wrecking myself. The best thing that ever happened to my skiing is erging. I can go hard all day without much loss of form and economy of movement. Once you start to get tired your skiing goes straight ......downhill.

[sdr2017]

I think that the rowers who post on the ranking board are more fit than the general population, and I think most people are in agreement with this idea. There is an easy way to show this is true (probably--weight matters.)

Concept 2 has a nice page to convert your 2000 M rowing time and some other information to a VO2max rating. I am not sure about the accuracy of the algorithm, but it is based on real input data. For example, a 180 lb man, not highly trained (not an elite athlete) who times in at the 50 percentile rating for 50-59 year olds, 8:05, would have a VO2 max of 41.8 mL/(kg*min) . Now you can take that value and compare it to all sorts of other data about the population. According to the table on the same page, that would put the man solidly in the "good" category. You can find a lot of other tables for VO2max and fitness that are a bit different, but the VO2max value allows you to compare the fitness of the athlete to the population.

Here is the calculator:

http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/t ... calculator

Here is another comparison chart with slightly different values:

https://joinjj.com/vo2-max-chart-for-ra ... ess-level/

These values are per kg, so the little people finally have some correction factor when rowing against the behemoths who are found on the forum.

Scott

[mickyduck]

Just calculated my VO2 Max and comes out at 38, 85Kg, 62Y O M time of 8:18 for 2000m (yesterday evening)

I use "Golden Cheetah" to track my progress when cycling and manually enter my rowing... VO2 Max calculated in that is 31... I like the figure of 38 best but I guess in reality Im somewhere inbetween. Only re started using the ERG seriously this year for the January Challlenge and have done 1.3 million m.

Im fitter that most in the general population but way down compared to people on here. Just started a RowPro plan so see where that takes me...

Did the half marathon challenge 1:41:44..... nothing special except I have never rowed above an hour before, (no way I could mentally do the full marathon at the moment as all I can think about is my aching Arse )

[Carl Watts]

Good calculator, not that difficult to make Excellent so it would be really interesting to see what percentage of the population you would fall into.

They probably want an even higher group than excellent, maybe even two more, you could probably call the top one Elite depending on the percentages.

Always hard to get hard defined numbers, it will come one day with the technology as it simply requires the upload of the data from everyone using the rower.

If you had a massive sample you could not only compare yourself to others but more specifically to others your age, height and weight.

[Gammmmo]

I'm not so sure about that calculator. Mine's coming out around ~70. Knowing that pro cyclists are 75-92ish (even 85+ is fairly unusual) I can categorically say I am ALOT further away from that sort of ability that the calc would suggest....

[Gammmmo]

I'm not so sure about that calculator. Mine's coming out around ~70.

"Highly Trained" or "Not Highly Trained"?

My numbers were pretty much spot on with the numbers from my "real" VO2max test, approx. 51 (given my weight at my 2k PR).

Hi Remi. Surely your weight is going against you loads? I don't really think in terms of "equivalents" for other people on the forum with morphology very different from me, but I always figured we weren't *so* far apart but that vo2max difference is huge...

weight=71kg
2Ktime(est)=6:48 (admittedly I've not done a 2K for years but have gotten under 6:50 numerous times in the past, so was extrapolating from my 5K time, I've got lots of data to draw on)
male
highly trained

Vo2max=69.01 (seems high to me!)

[maestroak]

I think erging makes you fit for erging, and that is not directly transferable to general fitness. We do the same thing day in and day out, all year round. If you on the other hand combine the erging with lifting, and have a double bodyweight squat, and 2.5 bodyweight deadlift, and throw in some gymnastics and mobility work, then you come close to a good allround fitness, which prepares you for the daily obstacles in life Pretty much what CrossFit Inc. preaches.

I don't know what measure we're using for "general fitness" but I'm not sure it's the same as "allround" fitness. In any case, I've only been erging as exercise for the better part of five years and my physique, resting HR and overall health suggest very high general fitness. No doubt a CFer would be more adept at a variety of tasks but is that really being more fit? I know plenty of people who do CF regularly but less than I erg and I have no doubt a doctor would pronounce me more fit. Could probably tested fairly easy with something that doesn't require much skill like a stair climb.

-Steve

[gcanyon]

Maybe I'm on a fool's errand trying to compare erg-fitness to the general population (and by extension, other sport-participants' fitness). Two examples come to mind:

Netflix's Ultimate Beastmaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gwO4qX_tRg It's similar to American Ninja Warrior, but there are several challenges (including the final) that are so directly lifted from rock climbing that anyone outside that specialty is guaranteed to fail, no matter how fit they are otherwise.

YouTube's Strength Wars https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ahC6 ... 1TJX9Ig86A where sometimes (often?) the lift/motion is just at the edge of one competitor's ability, so when required to do it 15-20 times, they almost immediately fail.

In any case, it seems like the consensus is that people who log their erg times online are on average more fit than the average population, but no one has any data or conclusion about how much, with the possible exception of the VO2-max calculator.