Training plan - combine rowing and strength - suggestions

[MartinSH4321]

I Started this week with a new Training schedule as I finally got some of my ordered weights.

I used Alex Viada's ideas on how to train both strength and endurance at the same time as a base (for example, see https://completehumanperformance.com/20 ... es-part-1/, although I think it's a bit harder to combine rowing and strength than bike or running and strength as rowing already uses most big muscles.

General conditions for my training week were:
- 4x weights (back, legs, chest, shoulders each 2x/week, no arms, core work in between)
- 1x erg sprints (like 8x100m/4x250m/rate capped sprints)
- 1x erg hard workout (middle/short interval or fast 5k/30')
- as much UT2 work as I can fit in and can recover from, both bike and rower

Special conditions:
- Monday rest day as I have no HomeOffice from time to time
- Friday is my day off from work, more time to train
- lower back is my weakest link, so no hard rowing + back strength training on one day

At the moment, my plan looks like this:

MO: rest
TUE:
AM hard row
PM weights - legs, chest

WED:
AM UT2 bike
PM weights - Back, shoulders

THU:
UT2 row

FR:
AM sprint row
PM weights - legs, chest

SAT:
AM UT2 bike
PM weights - Back, shoulders

SO:
longer UT2 (both row and bike)

Any ideas for improvement, suggestions?

After the first half week I can see that I lost about 30-40% of max strength I had before I started rowing, so there should be some easy gains at the beginning which will hopefully lead to significantly faster sprint times in short time.

Cheers Martin

[hjs]

A lot of work Martin. Make sure to keep your back healthy. You will pick up strenght rapid again.

Have a look this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoQiYW5dFc. About strenghttraining versus bodybuilding kind of stuff.

[MartinSH4321]

A lot of work Martin. Make sure to keep your back healthy. You will pick up strenght rapid again.

Have a look this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoQiYW5dFc. About strenghttraining versus bodybuilding kind of stuff.

Thanks for the link Henry, very interesting!

Back health is #1 priority for me, so my plan is to do exercises like sprint rows and DL very carefully and avoid stressful exercises if there's a good alternative (for example, I'll do front squats and no normal squats, bench rows instead of bend over rows).
Doing the hard rows on the same day as legs should help not to overstress myself, 4 hard training days and 3 low intensity or rest days.

These first 2 days felt pretty good, of course too early to know how it will feel for longer periods. A lot of training sessions like you said, but UT2 will be as easy as possible (HR cap 125 for rows and 115 for bike), and hard rows not too close to max.
Getting strength back I already had before always went very fast, now propably a bit slower with the UT2 stuff.

[KeithT]

Looks like some serious work, as long as you can recover and stay healthy should work. I know we both have battled the strength/weights vs. rowing/endurance training before. I have just decided I am OK with not being as strong but still try to maintain decent levels of strength. The older you get the harder I think it is to balance. Anyway, anxious to see how you come along with this.

[MartinSH4321]

Looks like some serious work, as long as you can recover and stay healthy should work. I know we both have battled the strength/weights vs. rowing/endurance training before. I have just decided I am OK with not being as strong but still try to maintain decent levels of strength. The older you get the harder I think it is to balance. Anyway, anxious to see how you come along with this.

Thank you!
Yeah, hard to find the right balance. I'm sure I won't get close to my strength PBs but I'm OK with that too, still big improvement possible.
It's also a nice experiment, curious to see how strong strength increase influences the sprint results, I'll do a rate capped 1' max effort tomorrow to have a base for both weights and sprints, maybe it's interesting for others here too

[btlifter]

Looks good to me, Maritn. But then, I'm awfully biased!

Your layout resembles my owm. While some of the details are different - the principles behind your schedule appear to be nearly identical to the ones behind mine.

However, I don't agree that it's more difficult to combine rowing with strength training than it is to combine running with strength training. At least not for me. While I see your point about the additional muscles required for rowing, it is simply so much easier on my body than running is that my joints and lower body musculature is much better prepared to lift, than if I were running similar amounts.

[MartinSH4321]

Looks good to me, Maritn. But then, I'm awfully biased!

Your layout resembles my owm. While some of the details are different - the principles behind your schedule appear to be nearly identical to the ones behind mine.

However, I don't agree that it's more difficult to combine rowing with strength training than it is to combine running with strength training. At least not for me. While I see your point about the additional muscles required for rowing, it is simply so much easier on my body than running is that my joints and lower body musculature is much better prepared to lift, than if I were running similar amounts.

Thanks for your feedback Cam, great to hear that your schedule is so close to mine!

You're right of course, for heavyweights like us running is much more demanding than for middle or lightweights. I think that, when well adapted to running, it could be easier even for heavier athletes, but it will depend on the athlete's characteristics, and the heavier the athlete the more likely rowing will be easier.

[Dangerscouse]

You're right of course, for heavyweights like us running is much more demanding than for middle or lightweights. I think that, when well adapted to running, it could be easier even for heavier athletes, but it will depend on the athlete's characteristics, and the heavier the athlete the more likely rowing will be easier.

I hate running, but admittedly it's been about ten years since I bothered doing it, and I've lost about two stones since then. It might be worth trying again, but in reality, I won't

[btlifter]

Looks good to me, Maritn. But then, I'm awfully biased!

Your layout resembles my owm. While some of the details are different - the principles behind your schedule appear to be nearly identical to the ones behind mine.

However, I don't agree that it's more difficult to combine rowing with strength training than it is to combine running with strength training. At least not for me. While I see your point about the additional muscles required for rowing, it is simply so much easier on my body than running is that my joints and lower body musculature is much better prepared to lift, than if I were running similar amounts.

Thanks for your feedback Cam, great to hear that your schedule is so close to mine!

You're right of course, for heavyweights like us running is much more demanding than for middle or lightweights. I think that, when well adapted to running, it could be easier even for heavier athletes, but it will depend on the athlete's characteristics, and the heavier the athlete the more likely rowing will be easier.

Certainly everybody is different. I haven't done a significant amount of research on it, so can only really speak from my subjective experience.

After quitting powerlifting and losing about 65kg I became quite focused on running. Fortunately, I formerly had a bit of a base having played competitive basketball into my early 20s. Still, it took a couple of years to be able to adapt to volume of about 60-80km/week (mostly very slow). My bw at the time was between 95-100kg.

On the other hand, when I transitioned to rowing I was rowing well over 100km/week within just a few weeks (with only 5-10 easy running km) and my body felt MUCH fresher and less sore than it did from running. At least for me - I feel fairly confident in saying that running will always be more demanding (especially now that I've nearly found the 2 stones that Stu lost ).

[MartinSH4321]

You're right of course, for heavyweights like us running is much more demanding than for middle or lightweights. I think that, when well adapted to running, it could be easier even for heavier athletes, but it will depend on the athlete's characteristics, and the heavier the athlete the more likely rowing will be easier.

I hate running, but admittedly it's been about ten years since I bothered doing it, and I've lost about two stones since then. It might be worth trying again, but in reality, I won't

I tried it a few weeks ago, 4km running and my calves hurt for almost one week, I have enough for this year

[MartinSH4321]

Looks good to me, Maritn. But then, I'm awfully biased!

Your layout resembles my owm. While some of the details are different - the principles behind your schedule appear to be nearly identical to the ones behind mine.

However, I don't agree that it's more difficult to combine rowing with strength training than it is to combine running with strength training. At least not for me. While I see your point about the additional muscles required for rowing, it is simply so much easier on my body than running is that my joints and lower body musculature is much better prepared to lift, than if I were running similar amounts.

Thanks for your feedback Cam, great to hear that your schedule is so close to mine!

You're right of course, for heavyweights like us running is much more demanding than for middle or lightweights. I think that, when well adapted to running, it could be easier even for heavier athletes, but it will depend on the athlete's characteristics, and the heavier the athlete the more likely rowing will be easier.

Certainly everybody is different. I haven't done a significant amount of research on it, so can only really speak from my subjective experience.

After quitting powerlifting and losing about 65kg I became quite focused on running. Fortunately, I formerly had a bit of a base having played competitive basketball into my early 20s. Still, it took a couple of years to be able to adapt to volume of about 60-80km/week (mostly very slow). My bw at the time was between 95-100kg.

On the other hand, when I transitioned to rowing I was rowing well over 100km/week within just a few weeks (with only 5-10 easy running km) and my body felt MUCH fresher and less sore than it did from running. At least for me - I feel fairly confident in saying that running will always be more demanding (especially now that I've nearly found the 2 stones that Stu lost ).

Big running volume for such a heavy guy!

Every time I see your signature you're a bit heavier

[Meek]

Like others said lifting strength will come back ridiculously quickly. I just started deadlifting again and after 2 sessions am up close to 100lbs gain. Bench is up 30lbs this year. Both are far off PBs but getting back to decent quickly.
I, too, haven’t figured out my optimal strategy as I end up getting gung-ho, doing too much and blowing up. One huge key, we all should know by now, is the importance of managing acute and chronic stress loads both physical and mental...
Good luck and let us know how it progresses.

[MartinSH4321]

Like others said lifting strength will come back ridiculously quickly. I just started deadlifting again and after 2 sessions am up close to 100lbs gain. Bench is up 30lbs this year. Both are far off PBs but getting back to decent quickly.
I, too, haven’t figured out my optimal strategy as I end up getting gung-ho, doing too much and blowing up. One huge key, we all should know by now, is the importance of managing acute and chronic stress loads both physical and mental...
Good luck and let us know how it progresses.

Wow, 100lb is HUGE in such short time, I guess your PB is pretty high

Thanks, I'll post my improvements. It may be of interest for some erger here to see how much strength increase correlates with erg sprint improvement. I'm sure it will help, but I have no idea how much and haven't read something about it anywhere. Will a 25% strength increase in deadlift and front squat lead to 10% more watts over 100m/1', or 5%, 15%, no idea.

[btlifter]

Yes Martin, eating is by far my best sport . My weight gain has seemed to have slowed a bit recently though. If I cross the 115kg barrier I will have to reassess my strategy of giving myself carte blanche with the food!

Re: correlation between strength and sprint times: I - pretty arbitrarily - thought that each 10lb increase in my front squat should equate to approximately a .1 improvement in my 500m, all else being equal. This has actually - more or less proven true. I've done no sprint training, but my increases do seem to roughly follow the front squat increase.

Of course there are infinite other variables to take into consideration, and there is no formula that will be applicable to everybody, nor even to one person forever. Still, as a rule of thumb it has been useful for me (so far).

[MartinSH4321]

Yes Martin, eating is by far my best sport . My weight gain has seemed to have slowed a bit recently though. If I cross the 115kg barrier I will have to reassess my strategy of giving myself carte blanche with the food!

Re: correlation between strength and sprint times: I - pretty arbitrarily - thought that each 10lb increase in my front squat should equate to approximately a .1 improvement in my 500m, all else being equal. This has actually - more or less proven true. I've done no sprint training, but my increases do seem to roughly follow the front squat increase.

Of course there are infinite other variables to take into consideration, and there is no formula that will be applicable to everybody, nor even to one person forever. Still, as a rule of thumb it has been useful for me (so far).

As long as your PBs get up too that's OK I think!

Wow, 0.1 isn't as much as I expected for a 10lb increase in front squats, 45kg for only one second sounds even worse! Curious to see how strength increase affects my sprints compared to yours.