The Two Types of Training

[ranger]

t would be interesting to hear how long (in time and meters) this ersatz "warm up" was.

I warm up for 10-12K.

Quite a bit.

ranger

[ranger]

As for whether or not Ranger could row a 6:29 at 31 spm given a 6:28 at 36, we'll never know. He no longer can do either.

No longer and not yet are not at all the same.

Do you write off your goals for 2K before you have even sharpened with AT, TR, and AN work?

Hardly.

Stupid stuff, Nav, either insincere or just dumb.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

You can do no such thing.

Go ahead, prove me otherwise. Post a screenshot of a PM4 display showing your heart rate "gliding along" at 172 bpm at your alleged threshold pace for some non-trivial amount of time. You won't because you can't. Call it nay-saying all you want. Muster up all the ad hominem criticisms and deflections you want. They won't change the fact that you can't do it.

News flash: your threshold pace/ vVO2max is what it is in the here and now. It is NOT what what you wish it to be.

[johnlvs2run]

All the other stuff you added.

So? You have also made additional posts since the forum began.

Apparently my first post was not clear, so I clarified, for your benefit.

See.

As a general proposition it's simply not defensible.

A brick wall needs no defense.

How "hard" it is/isn't is a subjective judgement that will depend on the rower.

Well try rowing at 12 spm your next race.

See if you can get the same final time compared with your usual rating.

Moreover I reiterate: there is no one and only one solution to the pace/rate tradeoff.

As performance becomes optimal, the choices become fewer.

It is highly unlikely that an open lightweight would ever break the 2k WR at 31 spm, as compared to 40+ spm.

Your precious Danish and Italian LWs may choose to race 2ks on an erg at comparatively high average rates but that doesn't necessarily contradict other strategies.

So far, no lightweights with any different strategies have come close.

[ranger]

Your current threshold pace/ vVO2max is NOT 1:40 @ r anything you want. If you want a robust estimator do a 20 minute test flat out and use that pace. 1:46-47 pace is probably more like it when you're fully hydrated.

Sorry, but I don't train like you.

The way to do well in a 20min piece is to row a quality 60min piece, then a quality 40min piece.

"Double the d, add 3."

It is just bad training to do it the other way around, or to blow off the long, hard rowing altogether, in your training for the most intense, short stuff, like a 5K.

I can row at my threshold for 60min, not 20min.

60min is top-end UT1.

20min is AT.

UT1 and AT differ by six seconds per 500m.

My goal for 60min is 1:44.

ranger

[aharmer]

f your HR truly wants to level off at 145, there's a strong probability it's because >that's the deflection point for erg exercise associated with your current threshold<.

No, I can work for long periods with my HR at 172 bpm.

That's top-end UT1/threshold.

It just takes some doing to get it up there unless I train my heart to do otherwise, which I will do now.

145 bpm is UT2, not UT1.

That's just a warm up heart rate, FM pace, or a HR for cross-training hours and hours, not threshold.

ranger

So you saying that in your recent 2k race your HR wouldn't advance beyond warmup level?

Are you also saying that you currently work for long periods at 172? It appears that you are saying this. So you are able to train at UT1 at home, but come race time your heart decides it's not going to advance beyond your warmup rate...regardless how hard you try to push it?

Maybe you could start be elaborating on my previous question, then move to this one. I'm trying to learn from more experienced rowers Rich, but you're not making it very easy on me:) The entire conversation is irrational. Some of these things are not happening, I'm just trying to figure out which ones.

[ranger]

I don't see that all this testing has anything much to do with good training at all.

Just find a comfortable pace at your anaerobic threshold and go with it.

What needs testing?

What is needed is training, not testing.

As you do something a lot, it gets easier.

You do it longer and longer with less and less effort.

You groove into the rhythm.

You relax.

You find ways of becoming more effective and more efficient at that particular rate and pace.

You let your mind wander.

You turn up the music.

You look at the monitor now and again and are surprised to see your HR at 170 bpm, feeling no pain at all.

You double or triple the meters you put in, now and again, just to test your endurance.

You use this pace as a base and then push it, push it, from time to time, to get a feel for how your reserves are doing.

You do it every day.

Day after day.

Year after year.

This used to be my relation with about 1:50 @ 30 spm (9.2 SPI)

I suspect that, from now on, this will now be my relation to 1:40 @ 30 spm (11.7 SPI).

Why?

I used to row like shit (9.2 SPI)

I now row well (11.7 SPI).

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Considering that you have done neither a quality 60 minute piece in the last seven years, nor a quality 40 minute piece, nor a quality 20 minute piece, you would seem to have lost your way. Even by your own standards you have been blowing off your distance rowing for the better part of a decade now. You have zero standing to slander anyone else for failing to do what you shrink from. Zero.

I can row at my threshold for 60 minutes too. So can anyone. You can't maintain constant pace at your threshold, though, and neither can anyone else.

[ranger]

You can't maintain constant pace at your threshold, though

When I am fully trained up for it, yes, I can.

ranger

[ranger]

Considering that you have done neither a quality 60 minute piece in the last seven years, nor a quality 40 minute piece, nor a quality 20 minute piece, you would seem to have lost your way.

I have increased my natural stroking power 2.5 SPI.

That's finding the way, Nav, not losing it.

Sure I had a way to do it back in 2003.

I did 1:48 @ 30 spm (9 SPI) for 60min, with my HR flat at 172 bpm, as a 52-year-old lightweight.

And that way was good enough that I certainly didn't have to try to find some other way.

But, hey.

Why not try?

It's a roaring bore not to try to do your best.

The goal has been to try to improve on my lousy rowing back in 2003.

Sorry to contradict or disappoint you, but I am delighted with the progress I have made with my technique and stroking power.

It takes quite a while to get an improvement of the magnitude that I am experiencing.

I have been patient with it.

ranger

[ranger]

Nav, my advance has been technical and skeletal-muscular, not a matter of improved aerobic fitness.

I used to cut the slide, dive at the catch, and yank the chain with my back, dragging my legs behind.

My stroke was short, unsequenced, and arhythmic.

BTW, the guy who won the masters/senior race at Cincinnati, which went off just before my race, rowed beautifully--great length, full use of his legs, smooth sequencing through his other levers, relaxed, wonderfully rhythmic and consistent on each stroke, even pace right through the whole piece. Don't know what he got for 2K, but I think it was something like 6:24. I don't think he rated much over 30 spm. Rowed in his gym shorts and a T, then toddled off with his 2-year-old son. Broke a bit of a sweat, I think, but not much.

Everyone else in the race rowed like shit (short, arhythmic, unsequenced), as I used to do, just going up and down the slide, yanking the chain, and therefore trailed him by about six seconds per 500m.

ranger

[BrianStaff]

While you're on the line ranger...tell us what your goals are for your two races this coming Sunday in Boston.

[NavigationHazard]

You can't maintain constant pace at your threshold, though

When I am fully trained up for it, yes, I can.

ranger

No you can't. It's a medical impossibility. If pace/output remains constant long enough, HR will rise. That's cardiac drift. If HR is held constant, pace/output must fall off. This is true for submaximal work at maximum lactate steady-state intensity. It is also true for work at nominal threshold-associated HR.

Go read http://biolsport.com/fulltxt.php?ICID=891543 . It's a 2007 study of Polish rowers looking at maximum lactate steady-state parameters. When workload was held constant over 30 minutes, HR rose an average 19 bpm between minute 2 and minute 30, with about 12 bpm of that coming between minute 2 and minute 10. Thereafter drift took over and HR rises were 3-4 bpm in each of the subsequent 10-minute periods.

Try instead to hold HR rather than workload constant at anything more than trivial intensity and pace/output must inevitably fall off. If you don't believe me, and you won't because it contradicts a cherished fantasy, go strap on your HR transmitter and test it. Row for an hour of continuous rowing at a constant 172 bpm and post a screenshot of the results.

[walterchaos]

There was an earlier reference to Ranger Rick and the lyrics to The Talking Heads Once In A Lifetime - a few more come to mind with the continuation of this saga/thread...

You may ask yourself how do I work this
You may ask yourself am I right am I wrong
You may say to yourself my God what have I done

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was (repeat over & over)

In addition..

"Road To Nowhere"

Were on a road to nowhere come on inside
Taking a ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride
They can tell you what to do
But they'll make a fool of you

'Psycho Killer'
can't seem to face up to the facts
tense and nervous can't relax
can't sleep bed's on fire
don't touch me i'm a real live wire

[ranger]

You can't maintain constant pace at your threshold, though, and neither can anyone else.

This issue is not racing, Nav, but training.

Racing just follows from training.

The issue is how to do a good UT1 row.

Do you even do these rows?

What you do is start easily, keeping good form, at FM pace and rate or so, and then build to your anaerobic threshold, 10 MPS at your natural stroking power, as your heart responds, the heat rises, the sweat flows, and you groove into the rhythm of the rowing stroke.

When you get there, you can then play with your aerobic limits for as long as you want, for as hard as you want to work.

Put in an average of about 20K, overall.

But always keep things comfortable.

Do more when you feel you can.

Do less when you think you should.

Do it again the next day.

Sure, then, when you race 20K, you try to get to your anaerobic theshold and therefore target pace as soon as possible, perhaps even immediately.

But you wouldn't have a hope in hell of doing this in a race if you didn't do all of the negative splitting 20Ks in training.

Nav.

In my experience as a marathon runner, I suspect that I have done close to 10,000 10-mile runs, negative splitting.

I did one a day for 30 years.

ranger