Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

I was asking about your sculling

No, you weren't asking about my sculling; you were asking about my racing.

Different issue altogether.

I don't have any plans to race at the moment.

For a daily regimen, the plan for this summer, if and when I can get it going, is to do 20K OTErg just before dawn and then 20K OTW just after dawn.

I am getting _much_ better OTW, but, hey, I'm still a novice.

I have never had a lesson, never finished a head race, never been in a sprint race, never even timed myself over any distance of any sort.

I just like to row and so have been doing it quite a bit.

It's fun to do things you enjoy, no?

As I mentioned, in a half century of going there, I have never seen another 1x in Door County.

I will be leaving for Door County on Friday.

I will come back in to Ann Arbor in September.

My wife is retired now, so we can go to Door County together for the whole summer.

We have a parade of folks coming to see us. My wife's brother is arriving on Monday with two friends. My daughter is arriving this weekend. My eldest son will come next week for a couple of weeks. My brother and his wife will be there all July, with a long visit from their daughter. Old friends from our home town in Illinois will arrive in August, as will my younger son and his new girlfriend.

It's a family affair.

ranger

[ranger]

If I'm "limited", why am I the best "E" lwt sculler at all distances in the US?

You compete in a soft division.

The 60s/F division is _much_ tougher, as you will find out when you get there.



ranger

[ranger]

The best big heavyweights do as well as 10 SPI OTW in a 1x.

Wow.

That's just too good.

Clearly, for me, the limit would be 8 SPI.

But if I can get to that this summer, I will be in _excellent_ shape rowing against other 60s scullers.

No 60s scullers are any better than that technically, and after technique issues are put to rest, the remaining issues are physical, which I am in a _very_ good position to handle.

In terms of daily training, 8 SPI OTW is 2:00 @ 25 spm (10 MPS).

So that is my target.

At 15 seconds above erg times, that is comparable to 1:45 @ 25 spm (12 SPI) OTErg, just what I am doing now.

So erging 20K at 25 spm before I go out OTW for 20K at 25 spm should be a great combination.

2:00 @ 25 spm (8 SPI), of course, is 10 MPS.

So, if I ever get there, I can just pull along on the zeros.

Someone who pulls 8 SPI OTW can get as fast as 1:45 in a 1K if they can rate 37 spm for three and a half minutes, as I think I can.

130 strokes

1:45 @ 37 spm is 8 SPI.

ranger

[ranger]

Yea, the technical journey I have been on for the last eight years has been a search for an additional 2 SPI at the same level of effort, starting from four seconds below the 2K WR for my age and weight at the time (a lwt 6:28).

Over the last eight years, instead of preparing to race and working on my fitness, I have worked on technique, trying to learn those twenty (or more?) ways that you can use your body and the dynamics of the erg to do a bit more work on each stroke without any cost, physiologically or skeletal-muscularly.

Fait accompli.

I have now gained that (free!) 2 SPI.

At 25 spm, that gain of 2 SPI is worth 50 watts, the difference between 1:52 pace (10 SPI @ 25 spm), 250 watts, and 1:45 pace (12 SPI @ 45 spm), 300 watts, seven seconds per 500m.

(There's that seven seconds per 500m again!)

At race pace, that 50 watts is worth four seconds per 500m, the difference between 1:37 and 1:33 for 2K.

Back in 2002-2003, when I rowed badly (10 SPI) at max drag (200+ df.), my FM pb was 1:54, but I only raced it once, and given my 2K of 1:37 at the time, I should have been able to do a bit better, 1:51. I paced it erratically, going too slow for the first 20K, then too fast for the next 10K, then limping home. 1:51 is 1:37 + 14. If you get it done right, a FM is done at 2K + 14.

My fitness now is pretty much the same as it was eight years ago, perhaps with a decline with age of a second per 500m over all distances.

So now, I should be able to do 1:45 (1:51 - 7 + 1) for a FM, if I can get it right.

I now pull 1:45 @ 25 spm (12 SPI) with a middlin' UT1 HR (155 bpm), steady state.

I can row a FM at that HR.

A FM @ 1:45 would be a pretty darn good session for a 60s lwt.

That's a pretty good interval workout!

A quality Zatopek (FM length session) with no rest between the intervals.

42K

21 x 2K @ 7:00/1:45 (no rest).

If I pulled the FM at weight, which I might indeed consider doing, 1:45 would be an Open lwt FM WR.

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

The 60s hwt FM WR is 1:54 pace.

If my fitness has declined a second per 500m over the last eight years, that 50 watts should be worth three seconds per 500m in a 2K, the difference between 1:37 and 1:34.

So I am rowing right on my target.

ranger

[ranger]

If you want to row, rather than just get fit using rowing, I would suggest this regimen as a training plan.

(A) Never use rowing just to improve your fitness. If you do, you'll never reach your potential as a rower. Sure, you'll get fit, but end up rowing badly. Rowing badly vs. rowing well is worth 10 seconds per 500 across all of the distances, a _gigantic_ margin that is large enough to convert anyone from one of the worst rowers to one of the best. If you aren't fit (e.g., because you are old, or because you have been a couch potato for a decade or two, or because you are young and have never had any experience with doing something that taxes your skeletal-motor and physiological capacities, etc.), get fit in other ways. Run, skip, bike, step, swim--a lot--a couple hours a day. Work easily at first, but long, and then work up to exerting yourself to the limit of your endurance, aerobic capacity, skeletal-motor abilities, etc. in as many ways as possible using your entire body. The most efficient way to do this, probably, is just hard, totally exhausting physical labor--chopping down trees, digging holes, carrying rocks, hiking mountains with a 50-lb. pack, etc.

(B) Always use rowing to improve your rowing. Make a checklist of the major things you must do in the stroke cycle to row well for your weight (13 SPI for lightweights, 16 SPI for heavyweights). These might be included in your list.

(1) Get good length. Get all the way to shins vertical at the catch. The front of your seat should be only six inches from front stops when you fire off with your legs.

(2) Keep your hips/back forward at a good angle when you fire off with your legs. Hold that angle until your legs are done. At this point, the handle should be over your feet.

(3) Get your weight securely up on the balls of your feet at the catch, driving with your quads. Do _not_ take the catch with your heels and hams.

(4) Relax your shoulders at the catch.

(5) Relax your core at the catch.

(6) After about .1 seconds set your heels and stand up on the footplate, flattening your legs out with your hams. As in (2), at this point, the handle should be over your feet.

(7) Open your hips and swing your back with your core.

(8) While you are swinging your back, roll back up onto the balls of your feet and drive down on the footplate with the front of your foot using your calves.

(9) Keep your shoulders relaxed even though you have engaged your core, back, and calves.

(10) Pull through with your arms into your chest.

(11) Keep your elbows level as you pull the handle into your chest.

(11) Get a substantial lean with your back at the finish.

(12) Keep in good contact with the footplate at the finish. Point your toes and push the footplate away from you by digging in with your toes.

(13) Recover your arms as quickly as they finish.

(14) When you recover your arms, sit up tall and push the handle down toward your knees.

(15) Keep your knees flat on the rail until the handle sweeps past them.

(16) Recover your back as quick and fully as you did when you engaged it in the drive, returning to shins vertical (Prep Position). As in (2) and (6), at this point the handle should be over your feet, legs flat on the rail.

(17) The movements from (1) to (16) should be _very_ fast, 3/8 of the stroke cycle, at the most. If you count "And-ONE-and-TWO-and-THREE-and-FOUR" as you do the stroke cycle as a whole, execute the movements from (1) to (16) in the first three pulses of this counting/beating: "And-ONE-and."

(18) Set you heels firmly when as you get into prep position.

(19) Break your knees and move the seat slowly toward the catch.

(20) As you do this, roll your weight slowly from your heels to the balls of your feet.

If technique in rowing is worth about 10 seconds per 500m, then as an approximation, each of these 20 technical points, I think, miight be worth a couple of seconds over 2K (.5 seconds per 500m).

All twenty of these technical points, taken together and mastered completely, are worth forty seconds over 2K (10 seconds per 500m).

When you get on the erg, your task in training is to master these things.

Each time you row, work on one of these twenty things, or some subset of these twenty things, that you know you do poorly, until you have mastered them all.

Put in 20K a session.

If you are fit, master all of these technical aspects of rowing, and are a big lightweight (e.g., 6', 165 lbs., right at the weight limit), you should pull a nice 1:43 @ 25 spm (13 SPI), just naturally.

If you are fit, master all of these technical aspects of rowing, and are a big heavyweight (e.g., 6'5", 220 lbs.), you should pull a nice 1:36 @ 25 spm (16 SPI), just naturally.

You are now one of the best rowers in the world.

ranger

[PaulH]

Please show us a video illustrating point (2). In fact forget the video, just a photo would do.

[ranger]

OTerg, the major difficulty for an ambitious 60s lwt is how to get from 1:55 @ 25 spm with a middlin' UT1 HR to 1:45 at 25 spm at a middlin' UT1 HR.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Paul, an equally perplexing question involves point 6. I quite fail to see how 0.1 seconds into a drive supposedly initiated with the handle over the feet, the handle should still be over the feet with body angle unchanged. Perhaps this is rangerspeak for "before you start a hilariously uncoordinated and missequenced drive from a ridiculously short catch position, at an inappropriate drag factor, pause for 0.1 seconds to admire how beautiful you're going to look to the world if you can only get past the working muscles' need for oxygen and fuel and removal of metabolic byproducts."

[Byron Drachman]

Feb 7, 2011: I will be racing--both OTErg in the winter and OTW in the spring, summer, and fall--for the rest of my life.

July 9, 2011: --snip-- I don't have any plans to race at the moment.

[ranger]

Please show us a video illustrating point (2). In fact forget the video, just a photo would do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNpx8Gvr2fE

1:51 @ 20 spm

120 df.

12.6 SPI

130 kg.F peak force

.55 seconds drive time?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

ranger

[PaulH]

Please show us a video illustrating point (2). In fact forget the video, just a photo would do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNpx8Gvr2fE

1:51 @ 20 spm

120 df.

12.6 SPI

130 kg.F peak force

.55 seconds drive time?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

ranger

Watched the video, and it didn't illustrate point 2 (or 6, for that matter).

[ben990]

In a previous BS post, you wrote:

My fitness now is pretty much the same as it was eight years ago, perhaps with a decline with age of a second per 500m over all distances.

I think with your exreme training, you meant to write:

My fitness now is pretty much the same as it was eight years ago, perhaps with a decline with age of a second per 500m per year over all distances.



Rich Cureton - proud member of the over-7:00 2K club since 2010...

[ranger]

In a previous BS post, you wrote:

My fitness now is pretty much the same as it was eight years ago, perhaps with a decline with age of a second per 500m over all distances.

I think with your exreme training, you meant to write:

My fitness now is pretty much the same as it was eight years ago, perhaps with a decline with age of a second per 500m per year over all distances.
[/img]

Rich Cureton - proud member of the over-7:00 2K club since 2010...

Among veterans historically, the average decline with age due to reduced aerobic capacity among is 1.7 seconds per year over 2K.

My aerobic capacity hasn't declined at anything like that rate.

As I suggested, in my 50s, I think I only lost less than a half a second a year over 2K due to declining aerobic capacity, a second per 500m over the decade as a whole.

ranger

[ranger]

proud member of the over-7:00 2K club since 2010

In 2010, I pulled a lwt 6:41, at max drag, without even preparing for it, by far the best for my age and weight.

In fact, no 59-year-old lwt in the history of the sport had ever raced that fast.

RANKING RESULTS 2010

Indoor Rower | 2000m | Men's | Lightweight | Custom Age Range (55–59) | 2010 Season

You are number 1 of 105


1 Rich Cureton 59 Ann Arbor MI USA 6:41.4 RACE
2 Michael van Beuren 57 Hartland VT USA 6:47.6 IND_V
3 Jonathan Rich 56 Winter Park FL USA 6:52.3 RACE
4 Eric Winterbottom 58 Bodytalk GBR 7:01.9 RACE
5 Gary Passler 55 amesbury ma USA 7:05.0 RACE
6 David Sutkowy 56 manlius NY USA 7:05.4 RACE
6 Rolf Meek 59 Oslo NOR 7:05.4 IND
8 John Busk 56 Slangerup DEN 7:07.6 IND
9 Ernest Cook 55 Brookline MA USA 7:08.3 RACE
10 Daniel Devez 56 Port-Marly Rc FRA 7:08.5 RACE

ranger

[ranger]

Please show us a video illustrating point (2). In fact forget the video, just a photo would do.

Watched the video, and it didn't illustrate point 2 (or 6, for that matter).

Close enough.

Sure, I didn't say that I had it perfectly yet.

But I am very close.

ranger