Train hard and less or easier and more?

[iant187]

NB mdpfirman, just re-read your long reply earlier. Thans for that, very interesting.
You're right the Wolverine does have that low rate, but hard strokes, which like you I didn't like at all and started to give me a bit of back ache over an hour! That was exactly one of my reasons for looking at the PP again. I will look at what you suggest too, that sounds a good base.
Cheers

[hjs]

Thats a very nasty session, if it does not feel horrible you are not trying hard enough

OK - did that session.
I was actually 1 second quicker than target pace (makes me think my current 2k might be better than I thought).
Wasn't too bad at all (maybe I should have gone quicker) although I was blasting out the first 100 still putting pressure on to 200m (as I might a 2k test), then I slacked off for the last 300, trying to keep some for the next interval!
Do you try and row an even split on those type of intervals?

Don,t do this session often, I use shorter rest.

But the way you discribe it, faster and a bit room to play says your 2k benchmark was a bit soft. Which is fine, no need to kill yourself. A "good" feeling is around rep 5/6 you start doubting you can finish. If you really can slack off you certainly had a bit more...

[Remo]

My advice to you is get yourself under 7:00 asap. It gets harder every year.

My thoughts:

I tend to follow the advice of Prof. Stephen Seiler who is the guru of Polarized Training. He has an great twitter feed https://twitter.com/StephenSeiler should you be interested in nerdy sports physiology stuff. Dr. Seiler opines:

• Athletes respond individually to training. However, there are some general guidelines for successful integration of volume and intensity

• Make your hard days hard and your easy days easy. Too many athletes go to hard on easy days and to easy on hard days. Also ignore the slogan, "No Pain, No Gain"

• An 80% - 20% ratio between long intensity training ("LIT") and high intensity training ("HIT") is common in elite athletes and corresponds to good results. And that these results can be applied to the recreational athlete as well. (warmups and warmdowns on hard days can be included as "easy")

• Both LIT and HIT are effective in stimulating positive physiological adaptations

• LIT's is most effective at 60 -75% of max heart rate, which corresponds to UT2 and borderline UT1/UT2

• HIT's are stressful and require a greater time from which to recover. They appears to be most effective where the end of workout heart rate (without sprinting) is in the range of 90 - 95% of your max heart rate. Heart rates between 95 - 100% appear to be less effective in that they are stressful and limit the amount of workout time that can be done at high heart rates.

• Two days a week for HIT workouts appears to be sufficient to generate an appropriate physiological response

• Seiler has gotten some very positive results from a 4x8:00m/2:00rest interval done twice a week combined with 4 days a week of LIT

With respect to a training plan, focus mainly on LIT's (and feel free to break up an LIT every 20 minutes for a drink and wipe of brow).

I would also do 1 -3 HIT's a week. Mainly focusing on the "endurance intervals" or similar intervals from the "Pete's Plan" (5 x 1500m, 4 x 2000m, 3k-2.5k-2k, or 4x8:00m, 3x10:00m, 5x6:00m) except that I would limit the rest time to 2 minutes (this pushes your average HR on the HIT to a higher rate). A month or two before your race, I would increase the rest time on the "endurance intervals" and decreasing the reps.

Alternative HIT would be short intervals of 12x1:00/1:00r, or 8x500m/1:30r, 10x1:30/1:00r, or 2 sets of 8x40s/20s rest. Short intervals should be done with a rest period equal or less then the time of the row period of the interval.

A second alternative HIT would be an all out (or 95% effort) on a 4k, 5k, 6k of 30minute piece.

[iant187]

Thanks Remo, that's really interesting stuff. Especially the thoughts on 90- 95% HR being more effective.
I think I'll measure my HR and see where my UT2 range is - tomorrow I'm plannig on just a steady 20k+ SS (broken up in 2 sessions).
As a few have said, I think I'll def aim for the 80 / 20 mix, maybe 90 / 10 to start with and see how that goes

[bob01]

My advice to you is get yourself under 7:00 asap. It gets harder every year.

My thoughts:

I tend to follow the advice of Prof. Stephen Seiler who is the guru of Polarized Training. He has an great twitter feed https://twitter.com/StephenSeiler should you be interested in nerdy sports physiology stuff. Dr. Seiler opines:

• Athletes respond individually to training. However, there are some general guidelines for successful integration of volume and intensity

• Make your hard days hard and your easy days easy. Too many athletes go to hard on easy days and to easy on hard days. Also ignore the slogan, "No Pain, No Gain"

• An 80% - 20% ratio between long intensity training ("LIT") and high intensity training ("HIT") is common in elite athletes and corresponds to good results. And that these results can be applied to the recreational athlete as well. (warmups and warmdowns on hard days can be included as "easy")

• Both LIT and HIT are effective in stimulating positive physiological adaptations

• LIT's is most effective at 60 -75% of max heart rate, which corresponds to UT2 and borderline UT1/UT2

• HIT's are stressful and require a greater time from which to recover. They appears to be most effective where the end of workout heart rate (without sprinting) is in the range of 90 - 95% of your max heart rate. Heart rates between 95 - 100% appear to be less effective in that they are stressful and limit the amount of workout time that can be done at high heart rates.

• Two days a week for HIT workouts appears to be sufficient to generate an appropriate physiological response

• Seiler has gotten some very positive results from a 4x8:00m/2:00rest interval done twice a week combined with 4 days a week of LIT

With respect to a training plan, focus mainly on LIT's (and feel free to break up an LIT every 20 minutes for a drink and wipe of brow).

I would also do 1 -3 HIT's a week. Mainly focusing on the "endurance intervals" or similar intervals from the "Pete's Plan" (5 x 1500m, 4 x 2000m, 3k-2.5k-2k, or 4x8:00m, 3x10:00m, 5x6:00m) except that I would limit the rest time to 2 minutes (this pushes your average HR on the HIT to a higher rate). A month or two before your race, I would increase the rest time on the "endurance intervals" and decreasing the reps.

Alternative HIT would be short intervals of 12x1:00/1:00r, or 8x500m/1:30r, 10x1:30/1:00r, or 2 sets of 8x40s/20s rest. Short intervals should be done with a rest period equal or less then the time of the row period of the interval.

A second alternative HIT would be an all out (or 95% effort) on a 4k, 5k, 6k of 30minute piece.

Hi. whilst not in any way trying to be confrontational: there is no such thing as wrong training, as any plan is better than no plan.... but we are all looking for a method that will maximise the returns for our investment in training.

I think that can ne achieved through a mash-up of polarised and periodised training. Basically Polarised with, as the goal event approaches more specific training is introduced.

Rowing has the advantage over say cycling in that most events will be largely at a constant ish pace; unlike cycling where break aways/hills have to be covered and recovered from.

Polorised training by definition would mean training at both ends of the spectrum and therefore no efforts around the anaerobic threshold, this would exclude the extensive intervals of the PP.

If one were to split the training spectrum into 3 zones
1.Endurance
2.Threshold-
3Above Threshold

Spending no time in zone 2


I would also do 1 -3 HIT's a week. Mainly focusing on the "endurance intervals" or similar intervals from the "Pete's Plan" (5 x 1500m, 4 x 2000m, 3k-2.5k-2k, or 4x8:00m, 3x10:00m, 5x6:00m) except that I would limit the rest time to 2 minutes (this pushes your average HR on the HIT to a higher rate). A month or two before your race, I would increase the rest time on the "endurance intervals" and decreasing the reps.

3 sessions of HIT a week would be 50%!!! and the PP would be in Zone 2 of the polorised scale... where polarised plan says you shouldn't be!


This means spending most of ones time in the less than 75/80% of ones 60 min PB POWER... or perhaps 70/75% of 5k POWER. Probably around the middle of the UT2 zone And then 10-20% in Zone 3 short max rows what I would call Lactate Production ... not lactate tolerance!


As the target event approaches then more race specific work in introduced - including Lactate tolerance and race specific work. Periodised!! Remember this can be maximised in a relatively short period -weeks.

So really what I am advocating is a Polorised approach that morphs into periodised as the target approaches.

There are physiological benefits to low intensity work! 'Capliorisation' getting the blood and nutrients to the muscle fibres (lots of lactate work can be negative in this regard) and the vital capoacity of the heart ( lots of high intensity work will lead the thickening of the ventricle muscles and a reduction in capacity. I do some of my low intensity work on the cycle turbo(wattbike) as I find it easier to control heart rate and I am sure the heart does not know if I am cycling or rowing... and it breaks the monotony (watching something on the tablet)

I will leave it there for now???

I suspect there will be some who will pick holes in what I have written- which is great . I would, as always appreciate some constructive thoughts

Although working as a professional swim coach for 25+years and trained for my own fitness I am always keen to learn!

[Jeromeno]

Good discussion going on here. I can say that I like to experiment with my interval sessions. What worked for me 6years ago 10*300m 1min rest, isn't working for me now, so will now see what happens with longer intervals.
The majority of my sessions are longer (16k) top end ut2 and it seems to be working as I was getting back to my old scores (6 years ago) before even starting interval training.
So my answer would be apart from asking similar strength rowers what worked for them, to experiment with what works for you.

[bob01]

PS the 1-3 high intensity workouts quoted was in reference to an elite athlete training > 10 times a week!!! Perhaps us lesser mortals could make the mesocycle over 2 weeks

[Dangerscouse]

Good discussion going on here. I can say that I like to experiment with my interval sessions. What worked for me 6years ago 10*300m 1min rest, isn't working for me now, so will now see what happens with longer intervals.
The majority of my sessions are longer (16k) top end ut2 and it seems to be working as I was getting back to my old scores (6 years ago) before even starting interval training.
So my answer would be apart from asking similar strength rowers what worked for them, to experiment with what works for you.

Totally agree.

[iant187]

3 sessions of HIT a week would be 50%!!! and the PP would be in Zone 2 of the polorised scale... where polarised plan says you shouldn't be!

Just an observation, but I think the % of work refers to distance covered (or time in that zone), not number of sessions.
IE a HIT session might cover 4k, but a SS session is likely to be 12k+ (3 times that).

The other thought I had was I'm not sure the 80/20 rule always applies!!!
I did hear a while back that your body can only take so much HIT otherwise it won't recover.
Therefore if you doubled your training, you couldn't necessarily double the HIT and the percentages start to go awry!

IE if you do 5 hours training a week, 80/20 would indicate 1 hour of HIT work, but if you did 20 hours training a week, that would be 4 hours HIT work and I'm not sure your body would recover from that sufficiently???

This is based on nothing much more than my own thoughts, but I did used to do about 15 - 20 hours training when I was rowing properly and I dont think I spent 4 hours in HIT zone (although maybe I would have won more regattas if I had )

[iant187]

.... experiment with what works for you.

You're absolutely right.
I also know for me that a wider periodisation works better for me.
The Concept 2 plan barely distinguishes any differences at all between Hard, Medium and Easy weeks..
I know I get better results from a hard week going through to a much easier week, then back to hard again.
I definitely need the rest (or very low UT2) to recover from a hard week.

[bob01]

Hi... if one is stipulating sessions then the 80/20 has to be sessions: perhaps 2 sessions over say a 10session 2 week cycle!!

The session length in time would/could certainly vary, with the High intensity stuff included in a shorter session

Obviously there is a warm up /cooldown on these session (although I tend to go straight into a UT2 session perhaps build the stroke up to establish technique)

In swimming during this phase we would often do steady state swims (the advantage here is you can vary it by stroke/drills/kicking/pulling) etc, but most sessions would include some short anaerobic alactate sprints... just a few secs <8secs (difficult to program into a PM where 20secs/100m is minimum) once again this can be varied stroke.... kicking pulling... into/ around the walls starts turns finishes!!!

Although we mostly followed a periodized plan it was certainly polorised for a good proportion on the training season!!

Was the Pete plan devised by Pete?? to fit into an hours training... from memory is it not a 3 week cycle???

I suspect that rowing at the top level as with all endurance sports is dominated by Polorized type training... and I think most would be surprised by how relatively slow the 80% is.

Remember too that there are huge physiological benefits to the slower sets

At the end of the day any plan is better than no plan

[Remo]

Thanks bob01, I like your additions to the conversation.

I agree with you that 3x a week of HIT can be tough. I try to do 2x per week. I believe that most of Seiler's work on HIT and combined with LIT has been with 2x HIT and 4x LIT per week. However, I heard him mention 3x HIT per week in one of the podcasts or recorded lectures that he has done. (I don't consider the mention to be an endorsement by Seiler, per se.)

I took at look at my season to date erging and I have done approximately 14% HIT, 6.6% Tempo, 79.4% LIT

(I was surprised. I had thought that I would be closer to a 25-75 or a 30-70 distribution, mainly because of my time constraints. Two variables that are not accounted for are i). a modest amount of cycling which would increase the LIT, and 2). illness recovery which would also would increased the relative LIT)

In swimming during this phase we would often do steady state swims (the advantage here is you can vary it by stroke/drills/kicking/pulling) etc, but most sessions would include some short anaerobic alactate sprints... just a few secs <8secs (difficult to program into a PM where 20secs/100m is minimum) once again this can be varied stroke.... kicking pulling... into/ around the walls starts turns finishes!!!

I often do 5 stroke builds in my warmup and/or cool down. I drive the stroke rate up from low 20s to low to mid 30s. Strokes are all full length and full power with a good ratio of drive to recovery and with good fluidity, but without the craziness of the start. They feel good and powerful. And the burst is short enough not to be tiring. I realize that this goes a second or two beyond 8sec, but given the heavy load and the large range of body movement and low rpms, I think it fits within the realm of alactate sprints

[iant187]

I agree with you that 3x a week of HIT can be tough. I try to do 2x per week. I believe that most of Seiler's work on HIT and combined with LIT has been with 2x HIT and 4x LIT per week. However, I heard him mention 3x HIT per week in one of the podcasts or recorded lectures that he has done. (I don't consider the mention to be an endorsement by Seiler, per se.)

Thinking about this... I guess for me a week is too short a period to do 80/20 each week.
I have gotten better results spreading 80/20 over a 3 week period, where the bulk of that 20% (HIT) is in week 1, then week 2 and 3 are a lot of LIT... before starting the cycle again. IE basically going back to the Hard, Medium and Easy week cycles..

I'm actually thinking now I might try a 2 week cycle: hard week (more HIT) then easy week (lots of LIT). Also I wonder if anyone has done research into what an optimum cycle is generally. We use 1 week as a convenient unit of measure, but perhaps 2 x 10 day cycles would be optimum?? etc..

I know I'm just being picky and at the end of the day any training is better than none, but the beauty of the forum is being able to get others thoughts and constantly looking for improvements is what it's all about for me

[bob01]

Just a couple of thoughts on polarised training and alactate anaerobic

Perhaps 10 sessions over 2 weeks makes the maths easier... Well for a thicko like me!

As similar to above I often conclude a ut2 row with a few power pulls. Maintaining stroke form.

Anaerobic Alactate ... In swimming running cycling I/we tend to keep these <6/8 secs. With full recovery!

A couple of thoughts re this zone and rowing: most other sports the effort is constant ish... But in rowing there is a recover period ie at 20spm and 2:1 recovery/load. That gives a 2 second period of recovery. Which is significant.

Wondering if anyone has thoughts/ evidence on how this, or any other aspects that affects the length of time for work in this zone

[hjs]

Just a couple of thoughts on polarised training and alactate anaerobic

Perhaps 10 sessions over 2 weeks makes the maths easier... Well for a thicko like me!

As similar to above I often conclude a ut2 row with a few power pulls. Maintaining stroke form.

Anaerobic Alactate ... In swimming running cycling I/we tend to keep these <6/8 secs. With full recovery!

A couple of thoughts re this zone and rowing: most other sports the effort is constant ish... But in rowing there is a recover period ie at 20spm and 2:1 recovery/load. That gives a 2 second period of recovery. Which is significant.

Wondering if anyone has thoughts/ evidence on how this, or any other aspects that affects the length of time for work in this zone

Sprinting on the erg is often 60 spm, so that 2 seconds recovery? Its 0,7 orso..