Zones for 5k test

[Tsnor]

Ok, so this was my first proper 5k test. I did a 4x5 minutes with 90s econds rest at rates 20/22/24/26 a few days before the 5k. This gave me a 1:48.4 average split. From this, I should have my target, said my coach.

At the 5k test, I went hard for 5-10 strokes, then settled for about 1:49-1:48. Held that and felt pretty tired already with 3000m to go. I took it up a notch a few times to 1:46-1:47, to match the guy next to me, who was faster, but at 500m I became so tired I struggled to hold it at 1:51. Coaches were screaming at me from left and right to take up the rate, so I managed somehow to finish the last few hundred meters at rate 40, split 1:45. Felt very, very tired afterwards.

Anything 1:45-1:50 is a VERY nice pace for 5K. Well done, especially powering down to that 1:45 when you were already dead. If you wore a heart monitor bet you now know your max heart rate. And coaches tend to focus on the people who they think will make strong rowers so get used to having a bunch of coaches in your face. It's not a bad thing, don't let it stress you. (Or if it does talk to the coach, 2 way communication is critical and coaches will act more mellow if they know they should).

my coach says I always over-reach at the catch, on the erg, and not in the boat.

Fixing Overreaching at the catch on a erg:
0. Have someone use your phone to take video from the side while you are erging. Watching yourself is not 100% necessary, but will make fixing overreach much easier. Seeing is believing. You'll also catch stuff like using your arms too early, etc.
1. Shins no more than vertical. Easy to get past vertical, but you need to stop at vertical and almost bounce into the next stroke. You'll see the power numbers go up at constant effort which really reinforces shins not going past vertical. This will also help you get to higher stroke rates.
2. Set your back angle at the start of recovery and DO NOT CHANGE IT. Do not reach further at the catch, your arms and back do not change from the start of the recovery to the catch. Since you row OTW you'll know the importance of keeping the knees down, getting hands out and setting your back angle before you start lifting the knees. You should feel a slight pull in the back of your legs as the knees start to come up.
3. Do not round your back, you need a strong back. Back angle does not curve forward, it curves the other direction to protect your lower back. Try to keep a straight back then look at video and see where you hunched your shoulders and rounded your back vs where you kept a straight back. Rounded shoulders and lower back is often part of overreaching because you get a longer stroke when you do this -- but you also get less power and more injury risk, so keep that back straight and strong. Like a weight lifting squat back position. https://youtu.be/U3HlEF_E9fo A strong back will give you a slightly shorter more powerful stroke and slightly higher SPM. Look at the PM5 while you play with getting strong back.
4. The amount of reach you get OTW is limited by stroke rower's reach as you go "in together, out together". On the erg you get to pick the stroke length yourself. This may be why you overreach on the erg and not OTW. Once you get technique right you will really like the flexibility to use the stroke length that works best for you on the erg. You'll also like rowing with some rowers as strokes OTW better than others because their stroke matches yours so you have to do less adjustment to match oars and body swing.

But in the boat, some people spend half an hour adjusting their footstretcher, slides, heels I don't know what, I have no clue what they are doing.

This is definitely a common problem/complaint. Our coaches didn't coach much on this until asked then they looked stunned anyone could not know this before explaining. Sort of like novices not knowing how to keep the boat set when rowing by 6s in an 8.

Do ask a coach about how to set up your foot stretchers for OTW rowing. First get the foot stretcher set so that your seat doesn't hit the front or back stop on it's slide when you do a practice stroke. You must get this right. Then optionally fine tune the foot stretcher so that your finish position is good when whoever is rowing stroke hits their finish position. If your feet are too far forward or back then you will either end your stroke without pulling all the way in or you'll hit your chest every stroke (or your oar will be at a different angle than strokes when seen from overhead, which is bad). You can't set this up statically, you need to see what the stroke is doing. 99% of the time just setting your feet so that you are not hitting either stop is all you need to so. But if your finish is really bad and you have room to move the stretcher without hitting the stops then you can get some relief by moving your feet. Get a coach to work this with you, and also work through when to move spacers up or down to get the right handle height. Moving spacers on the dock is a lot easier then on the water, so this is a good thing learn and do every row. When water is bad, moving oarlock spacers can give you more room to tolerate waves.

Now I am training even more in "zone 1" slow regime, for the next test. I watched the Ted Talk, how most endurance athletes are essentially just plodding along in their training. It makes sense. Our body cannot recover from daily hard training sessions, it makes sense.

Excellent. You don't need to learn more - you've got the main point that sometimes more is not better. If you want to learn more try watching this video from the middle on (you can skip the old folk stuff at the front). https://youtu.be/kC5_0qOJhDk?t=3061 The link should start at 51 minutes in, and is the same speaker as the ted talk.

[matt]

Thanks a lot! I watched the videos (https://youtu.be/U3HlEF_E9fo) and also the one about how to squat, learned a lot again. I’ll buy a heart rate monitor to make sure I’m not exerting myself too much.

[matt]

Another (and the last) 5k test! This time, I stayed conservative, going out hard then staying really strictly on 1:49.1-1:49.2 for most of the 5k at rate 28. Thought this was a good strategy because I had a sticky cold for most of December and January and was supposed to do a 5k in January which was a disaster. Now, it went well. I managed somehow to go up to rate 44-45 in the last sixty seconds, at pace 1:40. That’s according to ergdata, I was too busy erging, don’t remember the last 20 second of the erg or so actually. I finished at 18:03, just missing out on sub-18. Didn’t even know it’s possible to rate that high. Wish I could do it on a 2k. The 1:49 main piece felt like I was in control , tiring but it thought, “this is a head race, you are in seven seat, you have to row hard but you just stay controlled and don’t lose your mind or blow, no matter what the guy next to you is doing”.
I guess the trick is not to exhaust yourself in the middle/main part of the piece?
My maximum heart rate was 175bpm at the high rate finish, assuming this is my max hr, is there anything I can do to increase the max hr, to get more speed/power/endurance/energy?
Should I have rates higher in the main part of the 5k, ie rate 32 instead of rate20? My feeling is that I would have tired myself out more at rate 32..

[MPx]

Great time, well done and it looks very well paced to me although if you could rate up to 40 and 1:40 for the whole of the last minute then you could have gone a little faster throughout.

It is very likely with that finish after a hard 4.7k that you would have reached your MaxHR. No amount of training will increase that figure - indeed it will very gradually decline as you get older. What will improve the fitter you get is your RestingHR. As a result your heart rate range/reserve whatever you want to call it will increase over time as you get fitter, you will not need such a high HR to achieve a specific pace, and thus will be able to go faster at your Max level.

I'm assuming typo r20 in your question as you say r28 at the beginning. For the longer TTs the optimum rating will be personal to you. 28 is fine - I've seen some great scores off 26 (or less for some very strong people) as well as long distance records set at 34 - particularly by smaller lightweight people. I'd suggest try r32 or 33 for a 2k TT

[Tsnor]

My maximum heart rate was 175bpm at the high rate finish, assuming this is my max hr, is there anything I can do to increase the max hr, to get more speed/power/endurance/energy?

Your personal Max heart rate doesn't change with conditioning. It is what it is. Only time changes it (you lose about 0.7 beat per minute per year as you get older).

Instead, your heart gets larger and stronger, pumping more blood at the same heart rate, allowing you to do more work at the same heart rate. You also get a lower resting heart rate since each beat is sending more blood.

Max speed/power/endurance/energy are very trainable. Performance tends to scale with training hours. Training includes a mix of strength/weights, hard workout sessions and long/slow sessions.

Because you have a coach who will be telling you what to do it's VERY hard for you to have a training plan without working with your coach. Ask for time with your coach and tell them how many extra hours you want to put in, they should be happy you are interested and work with you to build a plan. If that isn't going to work, you can just insert more long/slow training time. As Tony said earlier, 2K is 80% aerobic, and you can build that base with long/slow rowing, biking, swimming, running, etc. But best is working with your coach.

[RayOfSunshine]

My maximum heart rate was 175bpm at the high rate finish, assuming this is my max hr, is there anything I can do to increase the max hr, to get more speed/power/endurance/energy?

Your personal Max heart rate doesn't change with conditioning. It is what it is. Only time changes it (you lose about 0.7 beat per minute per year as you get older).

I

Very helpful... My max HR 4-5 years ago when I was training hard was 189. I only observed it 3x over the course of the year. Now, that I'm trying to get back there I have only observed 181. I wasn't sure if that was lower partially do to conditioning.

[Tsnor]

.. My max HR 4-5 years ago when I was training hard was 189. I only observed it 3x over the course of the year. Now, that I'm trying to get back there I have only observed 181. I wasn't sure if that was lower partially do to conditioning.

It is neat that conditioning doesn't effect maximum heart rate. I guess it's predictable by the lack of (state of conditioning) variable in any of the "guess your max HR from your age" formulas, but I was surprised when I read it.

This video discusses measuring your to max HR. https://youtu.be/lmB5cTOWCbs There is a lot of slop (some people set max HR in intervals, some in longer runs, etc). There are some strange effects, like if you test max HR three days in a row your observed max HR drops 2 to 3 beats / day for the same test protocol, or if you warm up too little you see lower max HR. So rest before a max HR test is critical, as is the setup. Seems easier to just keep track like you did and use the highest number you've seen.

The only critical HR zone (as far as I can tell) is staying below stress level when doing long/slow. There is more slop in the max HR based formulas for finding that boundary then there is in actually finding max HR. Cross checks like speaking conversationally and looking for heart rate drift are needed in any case. So using 70% of (189 minus 3 beats for 4-5 years = 186) as the starting point probably works as does using 70% of (181).

(If you do manage to hit 189 minus 3 beats for 4-5 years = 186 as max HR please post how you did it.)

[RayOfSunshine]

It is neat that conditioning doesn't effect maximum heart rate. I guess it's predictable by the lack of (state of conditioning) variable in any of the "guess your max HR from your age" formulas, but I was surprised when I read it.

This video discusses measuring your to max HR. https://youtu.be/lmB5cTOWCbs There is a lot of slop (some people set max HR in intervals, some in longer runs, etc). There are some strange effects, like if you test max HR three days in a row your observed max HR drops 2 to 3 beats / day for the same test protocol, or if you warm up too little you see lower max HR. So rest before a max HR test is critical, as is the setup. Seems easier to just keep track like you did and use the highest number you've seen.


(If you do manage to hit 189 minus 3 beats for 4-5 years = 186 as max HR please post how you did it.)

I was rowing intervals when I hit 189 the 1st 2 times. The 3rd time I was sprinting at the end of about 30-35' run. I was quite shocked with the last one because it was recorded with my Garmin watch. I don't run much and use a chest strap when rowing. Call me crazy, but I treat my "new MHR" like a PB. It totally sucks at the time, but it pushes me on the intervals.

I will report back if I can get 186. #Goals