Ranger's training thread

[Byron Drachman]

Here is one of my favorite quotes

Ergos are the invention of the Devil to torture the bodies & souls of
the damned. Only the good get to scull. Web posting by Carl Douglas

Byron

Pretty harsh, but there is a lot of truth to it.

In defense of sweeps, there are very few moments that match the sweet feel of a well coordinated 8 when it reaches that point where it sings through the water. I can't think of any other way to describe it. But it has been a long, long time since I have felt that.

Bob S.

Hi Bob, Mr Fit,

I agree that those (rare in my case) magical moments when everybody is in the swing are a joy beyond description, no matter if it is sculling or sweep rowing. Our local club is mostly sculling but we do have a four and we all do some sweep rowing. It is good to practice both. A couple of our older members (not me, heh, heh) are able to do sculling but do not do any sweep rowing at all because of back issues.

Another (friendly) jab at sweep rowers, said by David Goldstrom during broadcast of World Cup at Poznan, 2008, I thought it was amusing so I wrote it down:

Sculling is the superior sport. Rowing with one oar is for the clumsy ones.

[Gus]

Amen Bob, when I rowed It was all sweep 4's and 8's . I thought those that rowed anything else were just side shows. 8's HAUL!

But nothing beats a pair if you want to become a good sweep rower.

[Citroen]

Amen Bob, when I rowed It was all sweep 4's and 8's . I thought those that rowed anything else were just side shows. 8's HAUL!

But nothing beats a pair if you want to become a good sweep rower.

Ranger would never be able to row sweep, it needs co-operation, respect and a friendliness between the rowers. Ranger is billy no-mates so he's doomed to scull on his own on his remote lake for ever.

He'll never row a race like he'll never row an ergatta - he's too damned yellow.

[Bob S.]

Another (friendly) jab at sweep rowers, said by David Goldstrom during broadcast of World Cup at Poznan, 2008, I thought it was amusing so I wrote it down:

Sculling is the superior sport. Rowing with one oar is for the clumsy ones.

Personally, I love 1- rowing (standing up). The odd thing about it is that, when I learned it as a kid, we called it sculling and it was much later that I learned the use of the word in rowing terminology. Sweep rowing in a 4 or 8 may well be for us clumsy ones, but, as Gus implied, a 2- is the ultimate sweep challenge - I consider it to be definitely more challenging than a 2x as well. The 1- is in a category all its own. It has its own skill requirements, especially if you are using the technique to make a regular 1x go sideways.

Where my laziness really shows is that I prefer the 8 (8+, by default) and the 4+ to any other boat. With an aging neck and bad eyes, I much prefer leaving the steering up to the cox. Yeah, yeah, there are mirrors, but I don't have the eyesight that makes it work well and I never did develop much skill at it. My first 1x (or any x for that matter) experience was at age 65 and I never did really develop decent skills at it.

Bob S.

edit added: Never tried a 2+.

[Rockin Roland]

Ranger would never be able to row sweep in an eight because he'd never find 7 lightweight senile old men that are washed up ex-world champions on obscure gym equipment........... and are prepared to boat on the water at the crack of dawn..... after already spending an hour warming up(excluding breaks) thrashing around on an erg ........and row together just as badly as him.

Come to think of it.......the boat would never get on the water because they'd never find a coxswain crazy enough to put up with them. At least they'd never need a coach because they'd all be self-coached.

[ranger]

In the 2 hours I've been OTW, I have leant that it is not power you need but technique to move a boat, so it doesn't matter a fig how strong you are OTE. Get it?

I don't believe this at all. Strength is _very_ important in rowing. But if you row well, I don't think you need to work on strength in some other way. Just rowing a lot will maintain the strength you need. But, of course, this is the hitch: In order to row well, you need to be strong, and to maintain your strength, you need to row well. For many older and/or bad rowers, I think, this is a catch-22.

Mike obviously has great technique, as is obvious if you watch him OTW. That is why he is a Champion hwt and lwt sculler of the USA.

Sure, for his age, and at the moment. But both OTErg and OTW, Mike is fifteen seconds per 500m slower than the best elite young rowers, and not all of this gap is the fact that Mike can't rate up. In terms of moving a boat easily, Mike would have to pull 9.5 SPI to be as good as the best young scullers. Lately, Mike has been pulling under 7 SPI (e.g., 2:05 @ 26 spm). 9.5 SPI is 1:58 @ 22 spm.

ranger

[ranger]

Ranger would never be able to row sweep in an eight because he'd never find 7 lightweight senile old men that are washed up ex-world champions on obscure gym equipment........... and are prepared to boat on the water at the crack of dawn..... after already spending an hour warming up(excluding breaks) thrashing around on an erg ........and row together just as badly as him.

The erg is a great training tool for rowing, if you know how to use it appropriately. That's why it's now used so universally and therefore is not obscure at all. In rowing, the erg is one of the most common things imaginable. It is not at all an accident that Rob Waddell has the Open hwt WR OTErg. The best OTW rowers are also the best ergers.

ranger

[ranger]

I have a question for all those who are able to calculate their spi on the water: Where's the watt read-out on the SpeedCoach???

At any given rate, SPI varies with meters per stroke, but it is more useful because it equalizes values across rates, yielding a stable measure of technical accomplishment.

Where's the meters/stroke readout on the SpeedCoach?

The SpeedCoach is appropriately named.

It's not at all clear that it is a technique coach.

It is clear that, for the erg, at least, PaulS's ergmonitor is trying to provide a range of information that is more relevant to technique than just speed--force curve, SPI, ratio, meters per stroke, etc.

Where is the force curve, meters per stroke, and ratio readouts on the SpeedCoach?

I would _love_ to have a SpeedCoach for OTW rowing that gave me, simultaneously, SPI, ratio, rate, MPS, and force curve.

If I had that information, I wouldn't care about pace.

Pace would be dispensable, an irrelevant epiphenomenon dependent on much more important and basic technical parameters.

IMO, training by pace is the _worst_ way to train for rowing, especially OTW.

ranger

[mikvan52]

Mike obviously has great technique, as is obvious if you watch him OTW. That is why he is a Champion hwt and lwt sculler of the USA.

Sure, for his age, and at the moment. But both OTErg and OTW, Mike is fifteen seconds per 500m slower than the best elite young rowers, and not all of this gap is the fact that Mike can't rate up. In terms of moving a boat easily, Mike would have to pull 9.5 SPI to be as good as the best young scullers. Lately, Mike has been pulling under 7 SPI (e.g., 2:05 @ 26 spm). 9.5 SPI is 1:58 @ 22 spm.

ranger

Thanks for the boost, Roy!
AH, ranger... You still haven't answered... How do you measure watts on the water (SPI being watts/spm)?
You cannot. You can only measure it on the ergo... and an arbitrary conversion factor (provided by C2) yields a theoretical rowing pace... to "stroke" egos such as yours.... No speed deductions for bad form.
All theory / no confirmation... just like your tales of your sculling.... and erging.

A boat measures speed not watts. Give it a whirl. Go out and attempt to scull 1:50 pace for 1k and report back.. I'd wager you couldn't (and haven't ever achieved) 2:00 pace...for an uninterrupted 1k.
I've done 1:50.xx in the last year... 3:40.18 for 1k... It was the fastest 1k by any "E" (55-59) sculler in the US in 2010. Such a time is in the region of being the very best for what men our age are capable of doing... despite what you theorize.
So:
Thanks for pointing out that I am not an elite young sculler. I would have never known. My sixtieth birthday comes up in one year and eleven days.
Every year I get older... I can't figure out why I still am not becoming younger with each passing year... as you claim to be...

Where will you be a year from now? I know: Talking trash from a basement; definitely not racing others on the water.
You should have stuck with your old training boat instead of forking out nearly $8k for equipment you will never use racing.... Lot's of old guys do that though... for some it's a sports car, for you it's a boat you polish in your driveway and then put back in the shed w/o ever using it as it was intended...

[ausrwr]

Ranger would never be able to row sweep in an eight because he'd never find 7 lightweight senile old men that are washed up ex-world champions on obscure gym equipment........... and are prepared to boat on the water at the crack of dawn..... after already spending an hour warming up(excluding breaks) thrashing around on an erg ........and row together just as badly as him.

The erg is a great training tool for rowing, if you know how to use it appropriately. That's why it's now used so universally and therefore is not obscure at all. In rowing, the erg is one of the most common things imaginable. It is not at all an accident that Rob Waddell has the Open hwt WR OTErg. The best OTW rowers are also the best ergers.

ranger

Well, Rich, you may not be onto something, as usual.

Dan Noonan, who you saw in the clip posted by Roy, pulled just under 6 when he stroked the fastest quad the world has ever seen. In that boat was another, Chris Morgan, who didn't pull under 6 that year. James McRae did a 5:47. Brendan Long, however, pulled a 5:52 that year and was beaten by little old me at Nationals, though he out seat raced me by bigger margins than I care to remember. Not terribly big ergos to be very fast indeed.

Matthias Sjekowski, who held the WR before Waddell, was a renowned boat stopper. Power on the water is absolutely pointless if you can't apply it.

You're now slow on the ergo, and can't row a lick on the water. So even if you did have the power you used to, you'd be useless. You know nothing about OTW rowing, and you're too pig-headed to listen to anyone who does.

And Mike - while I would agree with you about Noono dumping the finish, bear in mind that he'd been out of the boat for a few months before that row with injury, and it was his first row back.

[Byron Drachman]

And Mike - while I would agree with you about Noono dumping the finish, bear in mind that he'd been out of the boat for a few months before that row with injury, and it was his first row back.

Ausrwr, Mike,
The first thing I noticed was the slight arm bend during first part of the drive. I know some coaches don't think that is a big deal, but I suspect that limits the power you can apply through the legs and core, and can cause wrist and elbow injuries in the long term. However, I am not an expert so this is merely a guess. What do you think?

[ranger]

And after all... being "senior" we can no longer rely too much on physical power... It's got to be form.

IMO, this is doubly wrong.

First, I think that older rowers can be just as strong for their weight as younger rowers. There is no necessary loss of full body strength with age as there is with aerobic capacity. There is just neglect and poor/irregular/slight training. Of course you lose your strength with age if you don't use it! I will have to test this when I get back home to Ann Arbor, but I think I would be able to meet all the Olympic standards for strength relative to body weight cited in _Rowing Faster_ (bench pull, squat, dead lift), even though I am 60 years old.

Second, of course form is important (!)--but not just for older rowers. Younger rowers can't win without great form, either.

ranger

[mikvan52]

ausrwr + Byron:

Didn't want to take anything away from Noonan... most everything about him was great in the vid'... and as you say: 1st day back... wow/cool. Clearly the man has great power.

oh & ranger: No I do not have this kind of power as I am getting weaker with age
(don't want you to feel left unattended... When's the first fall head race you are definitely going to sign up for (as promised a scant few weeks ago)? Or, do you want to remain a perpetual novice?

[mikvan52]

I think that older rowers can be just as strong for their weight as younger rowers. There is no necessary loss of full body strength with age as there is with aerobic capacity.

Total crap and you know it.

No 60 year old can erg a 500 as fast as he could when he was 40...

Truth!
What's your current top 500m time? It's not neglect.... It's age...

What's this "strong for your weight" stuff... All records drop off and become slower w/age.... except in troll-land Door County B>F> Egypt...

[ranger]

Go out and attempt to scull 1:50 pace for 1k and report back.

O.K.

I don't think I would have any problem doing 1:50 for 1K.

You are right that I am not doing sprinting at the moment, but not because I can't.

I am making more progress with technique by rowing at lower rates.

ranger