Mike Caviston » December 13th, 2005, 9:33 pm wrote:
Training
Re: stroke rate. Jeez, people, you’re killin’ me here! What did I just say about focusing too much on numbers that are just meant to be guidelines?
Mike Caviston @ Dec 12 2005, 03:13 PM wrote:
People tend to take me too literally or focus only on the numbers I give while ignoring all the qualifying statements that go along with them.
The 8 x 500m workout is often done at 2K pace minus 3-4 seconds, so the rate is bound to be quite high. As I recently explained, the 10mps relationship breaks down at the top end.
While I’m on the subject of what I’ve already said – I really do wish people getting involved in this thread would go back and read it from the beginning. If you’ve already read it once, read it again. If that’s too much trouble, then just avoid this topic altogether. Sorry to be so blunt, but I keep seeing questions that I swear I’ve just answered (or explained why I don’t plan to answer in the near future). The forum has a function where you can click on a person’s name and view all posts by that person. Click on my name, call up my posts and start from the beginning. You’ll find that I’ve addressed a lot of things relevant to the WP and training in general. Some examples:
Mike Caviston @ May 11 2005, 01:13 PM wrote:
What’s all this, then? A thread under the “Training” heading actually devoted to training? You realize this is doomed and destined to fail? (Sigh.)
I wish more people would analyze their training methods so completely. I rarely do more than quickly skim the “What Training Have You Done Today?” threads because they primarily exist as a string of random and isolated examples taken out of context. It would be more instructive to see discussions that deal with controlled manipulation of training variables like volume, intensity, frequency, etc. It is very difficult to isolate variables with clinical precision but I continually make subtle adjustments in things like total meters, order of workouts, format (e.g., 8 x 500m vs. 4 x 1K), pacing strategies, warm-up routines, etc. Then I note the results and compare them to past performances and decide if my changes were a step in the right direction or a false start. My basic training program has been intact for years, but I’ve also made a number of useful tweaks and adjustments and if the me of today could communicate with the me of 15 years ago I’d have a number of useful tips and suggestions. Anyway, I’d just like to put it out there to encourage people to relate experiences like “Last year I made this crucial change in my training with the following results…”
Since Training Plans are pretty much my business, here are a few things to think about that people might consider as they prepare for another season:
1) “Training” is distinct from “getting some exercise”. The latter is done to maintain general health and fitness but the former is done with the explicit goal of improving performance in a specific sport or event. Training and exercise have a lot in common but the criteria for training are more stringent.
2) Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. And yet so many people put no thought into their daily workouts and jump randomly from one thing to the next. Or blindly take up challenges from others. Or endlessly repeat their favorite workouts to the exclusion of other needs. A Training Plan needs to be a detailed, coherent set of instructions for achieving the desired physiological, neurological, and psychological adaptations required for success in the chosen sport or event. Desirable adjectives for a Training Plan that come to mind include organized, structured, systematic, balanced, comprehensive. And of course terms like effective and safe. I’m sure I could list many more.
3) Training should be goal-oriented, so set a clearly defined goal. And be realistic. Vague or unattainable goals aren’t very useful. Some goals of people I’ve worked with include “Win a hammer”, “Be faster than last year”, “Be faster than [insert team or opponent here]”, “Be in the top 10% for my age/weight/gender”, etc. For some of us, the goal has become “Be slower than last year by only a small amount.”
4) If you have more than one goal, prioritize. Few athletes are extraordinary enough to win EVERY race or to perform at a peak for an extended period. If you want to win BIRC, for example, don’t try to peak for every regional race as well. A major challenge to my training for the past couple seasons has been to figure out how to get fast enough to qualify for the USIRT in October, race in Europe in December, and still try to retain some speed by the time February and the CRASH-Bs roll around.
5) Once the goal is set, COMMIT to it and plan the training to achieve that goal. But remember that nothing is free. The more lofty the goal, the more you’re going to have to pay. One of the more frustrating aspects of what I do is “bargaining” with people who say they want to reach a certain level of performance but are unwilling to do the necessary work. Joe Paterno said something like “Everybody wants to win, but few are willing to PREPARE to win.”
6) Keep records of training. Review them. Learn from them. I am amazed at how many athletes I know that consider a training journal to be too much bother. But you know what they say about history and those who are doomed to repeat it.
Mike Caviston @ May 12 2005, 01:19 PM wrote:
If 8 intervals are more than you can handle right now, do 4 or 5 or 6 (whatever seems comfortable) and perhaps eventually you’ll feel ready to expand to the full 8. I can’t speak for the C2 plan, but the Level 1 workouts in the Wolverine Plan are based on my readings of the scientific literature devoted to interval training, as well as my practical experience as a coach and athlete. Long story short, for an event of the intensity/duration of a 2K (i.e., all-out for 6-8 min), the “optimal” volume for the session is 150-250% race distance (3-5K in this case) broken up into intervals roughly ¼ - ½ race distance (500m-1K in this case). I’m partial to a total volume of 4K (not only 8 x 500m but also 5 x 750m and 4 x 1K) because they fit comfortably into an hour training block (including warm-up and a brief cool-down). If someone did a hard 10 x 500m the intensity would have to be less than a hard 8 x 500m, which again would be less intense than a hard 6 x 500m (for someone giving their best effort for each workout). Because of the interplay between volume and intensity, I don’t have the final word on which format is “best”. While I normally choose 8 x 500m, there have been situations where I was forced to limit the workout to 3 x 500m and I’ve still considered it a productive workout. Just not optimal.
Mike Caviston @ May 16 2005, 05:24 PM wrote:
Quoting TomR:
“Would you offer your list of, say, the five best tweaks in your training regimen during the past 15 years? Perhaps you could also venture an explanation of why you think they worked.
I know I should plan the work and then work the plan, but for someone like me going nowhere slowly, part of the fun is tinkering w/ the plan.”
Tom, “plan the work and then work the plan” really says a lot. I’m going to steal that for future reference. I’ve been thinking about the best way to respond to your question, and I have to admit it’s kind of a challenge. But here are a few simple rules I follow as a result of trying different strategies, with some brief explanations (I could get encyclopedic if I wasn’t careful).
1) Warm up a lot. For the typical athlete, however much they think they’re warming up, it’s probably not enough. I’ve developed a very structured approach to warm-up (as I have to all aspects of my training) and follow a set routine before each workout (or race). These routines still continue to evolve slowly as I experiment with slight variations, but I’m satisfied with the basic formats. “Warm-up” essentially constitutes a fifth training band (in addition to Levels 1-4) in my program, and I regulate it almost as strictly as I do the other bands to control the overall training stimulus. But my main point about warm-ups is they need to be pretty intense, and leave you hot & sweaty and breathing pretty hard. People who see me preparing to work out and don’t know any better are usually surprised when they find the warm-up wasn’t the actual workout. I have consistently shown athletes I’ve worked with over the years that they’ll perform better if they warm up to the point where conventional thinking would lead them to believe they would be too tired to perform.
2) Develop a routine. A consistent format is more beneficial than a random or constantly changing schedule. Experiment to find a system that works but then stick to it. I don’t believe in periodizing, and keep the same general format year-round. Even if your training includes different phases, keep a consistent format within each phase. Even the same workouts in a different order can affect performance in a way that makes it more difficult to determine true progress. I spoke with an athlete recently who was disappointed her best 2K was a little slower this year than last, even though all of her standard workouts (8 x 500m, 4 x 1K, 4 x 2K, 60’, etc.) were all greatly improved. Turns out she had rearranged her schedule at various points in the year to specifically prepare for a season’s best attempt for each workout (varying the amount of speed work, tapering, etc.) She incorrectly assumed that achieving better performances for her workouts in this manner would translate to a faster 2K. The real key is to improve the various workouts within a consistent or stable training format.
3) Work on consistency. I have found it extremely helpful to develop skill in holding a desired stroke rate and split with minimal fluctuation. I find it helpful to occasionally use combinations of rate and pace that aren’t necessarily optimal for performing the specific workout. In my training, rate and pace are specified for Level 4 workouts and I attempt to stick to them as exactly as possible. For other workouts, I have a range of rates that are appropriate for each pace. The range is fairly narrow, but I don’t believe there is one optimal ratio for all workouts. But whatever rate and pace I select for a given piece or workout, I attempt to hold those numbers with as much consistency as possible. I think the ability to select and hold different rate/pace combinations while training makes it easier to find and hold the most optimal combination during a race.
4) Pacing is critical. There are several things to consider when deciding the best strategy for pacing a workout or race. Mechanically, an even split is most efficient and requires the least expenditure of metabolic energy when averaging a given power output (watts). But (without taking time to justify this with a lengthy physiological discussion), metabolically it is more effective to ease into things a little and gradually increase the intensity as the piece progress – in other words, it is more effective to negative split. (From a metabolic standpoint, “even split” is actually a milder form of “fly and die”.) The trick is not to negative split too much, and sacrifice the metabolic advantage by creating a race plan that reduces mechanical efficiency with too big a gap between the slowest and fastest pace. So for me, the optimal race plan is to start out .5-1 sec/500m slower than my final target pace. But my training strategy is considerably different, and I’ve developed a system where I divide each piece into 5 segments (inspired by the default setting of the PM3) and accelerate the pace 4-5 sec/500m over the duration of the piece. This is true for pieces as short as 1000m all the way up to 25K. I’ve put together a series of tables that allow me to determine quickly the pace for, as an example, each segment of a 4 x 2K workout. I determine the desired pace for the entire workout, which dictates the pace for each 2K (each one the same pace or slightly faster than the previous) and the pace for each 400m segment within each 2K (negative split). I emphasize that this rather extreme format is a training tool and not my idea of the optimal way of pacing workouts for the fastest possible session. But I have created a consistent framework to improve incrementally in a measured way from week to week over the duration of the training period. It also gives me something else to concentrate on, which makes the time go by that much quicker. This has been especially helpful during the ever-demanding 4 x 1K workouts. For some of my staple workouts, like 8 x 500m or 12 x 1250m, I stick to a constant pace for the entire workout.
5) Patience is a virtue. Not only is it critical to pace each workout; it is also critical to pace the season. Just as in a race, it requires discipline to avoid the temptation to go too hard too soon and precipitate the dreaded “fly and die”. I never try to make rapid gains in a short time, but am content to make slow, steady improvement over several months. The glacier moves imperceptibly slow but given time can crush mountains. At the beginning of the season, I determine my goal for CRASH-B, determine the corresponding paces I will need for my core workouts like 4 x 1K and 4 x 2K, then map out a schedule of improvement from the beginning of the training phase to the end [i.e., rate of improvement = (initial pace – final pace)/# of weeks to train.] In the final few weeks before competition, if I think I have it in me, I can decide to up the intensity a bit more (just like deciding you have enough left to sprint the last 2-300m of a 2K). Until recently, I had thought the optimal number of weeks to sustain a full training program was somewhere around 22-26 (using the other half of the year for active recovery and less structured activity), but I am coming to believe that year-round structure is better if the appropriate pacing is used.
Mike Caviston @ May 23 2005, 06:14 PM wrote:
Well, I have a very clear picture of what volume of training I need to reach certain levels of performance. I’ve mapped it out over the last 10-15 years. My optimal volume is around 180K per week. 200K per week doesn’t show any improvement and begins to show signs of decreased performance. 160K per week has given good performances but less consistent, so I feel more comfortable with 180K. (I generally start a new training season at around 120K and gradually build up over several weeks.) With as little as 120K I could still race within about 8 seconds of my full (180K) potential, though weight management is more difficult (at 180K per week I can make the lightweight cutoff with only minimal adjustments to my normal diet).
But all of this only makes sense within the context of my own particular training program. For a typical week, my meters break down to roughly 17% warm-up, 3% Level 1, 7% Level 2, 23% Level 3, and 50% Level 4 (using Wolverine Plan terminology). The paces for each training band are appropriate for the stage of the season in which I am training. The overall pace for a week may be something like 1:52, but that is averaged from a range of paces that may go from 1:34 to 1:59. This is certainly not the same thing as rowing 180K at a steady pace of 1:52.
The short answer to the original question is, certainly there is a ceiling effect for a given volume of training. Increasing the intensity of a given volume will induce further improvements, but of course there will be physiological and psychological barriers for intensity as well. So still further improvements will require more volume. The trick (for the individual with enough time to train and the will to maximize performance) is to find just the right combination of volume and intensity before pushing things too far.
Mike Caviston @ May 26 2005, 03:10 PM wrote:
4 x 1K? Let me tell you about 4 x 1K! On the one hand, it is the single most valuable workout I do (in terms of preparing to row a competitive 2K). OTOH, it is also the single most physically and mentally demanding workout I do. My best 4 x1Ks have all been harder than my best 2Ks. Which of course is the point. But over the long haul it is important to be smart about how you attack this workout, and how often you do it.
The Wolverine Plan is based on the premise that Level 1 workouts will provide the best training stimulus for 2K. But such high-intensity work can only be done roughly once per week. The remaining WP workouts are geared towards improving the endurance, power, technique etc. that will lead to improved Level 1 performance (more speed during each interval and more complete recovery between intervals). There is a strong correlation between Level 1 pace and 2K pace, so I always have a good sense of what my current 2K ability is based on recent workouts.
The basic format of Level 1 workouts is 4K total work, divided into intervals of 500m-1K. The paces generally range from a little slower than 2K to 2-3 seconds faster than 2K, depending on the exact format and how fit you are at the time. 8 x 500m is probably the simplest format to work with and appropriate for beginners. Other variations include 5 x 750m (I do a hard 250m first just to keep the total at 4K, but that’s not really essential) and a pyramid format: 250m/500m/750m/1K/750m/500m/250m. Once in a while I do a version based on time: 15 x 1’on/1’ off. But I don’t think it’s very productive to do too much work with intervals <500m. I wouldn’t, for example, do 16 x 250m. Although it is possible to reach very fast paces and most people think of it as an easier format in terms of perceived effort, the metabolic demands are considerably different from what is used in a 2K, so the training crossover is small. OTOH, intervals >1K are TOO demanding in terms of maintaining the appropriate pace for the entire workout. So in my view, the BEST combination of interval length/intensity is 4 x 1K.
But 4 x 1K is a two-edged sword – it’s great training BUT it’s hard in every way imaginable. In-season I do it every other week (on alternate weeks I do another format such as 8 x 500 or 5 x 750). As I get further into the training process it gets mentally harder and harder to complete and I find myself starting to worry about it at least 2-3 days before I’m scheduled to do it. It becomes somewhat stressful but I think it’s a good thing to learn how to deal with the stress, and if I pull it off then actual 2K races by comparison aren’t that stressful. I haven’t done 4 x 1K since the week before CRASH-B, however, and am enjoying the time away from it. I’ll stick it back in the rotation sometime in August and keep it there throughout the upcoming racing season.
For the actual workout, I begin with a thorough, extended warm-up. I have a set goal for the entire workout and for each 1K interval. My general advice for pacing is to be fairly consistent across all pieces, but to try to row the 4th piece a little faster than the others. For someone who wanted to average 1:48.0 for the workout, I would suggest something like 1:48.2, 1:48.2, 1:48.0, and 1:47.6. Within each piece, either attempt to even-split or negative-split (in other words, no fly-and die). I have begun using a fairly extreme format of negative-splitting, but it’s a training tool and not the optimal way to do the workout for best results. For myself, I structure the majority of my workouts around progressively getting faster within each piece. (Ideally this carries over into racing.) In terms of progress from session to session, I am happy to improve by .2 sec from one workout to the next (e.g., 1:36.0 and then 1:35.8 two weeks later), but newbies will probably progress at a slightly faster rate. But for God’s sake don’t try to get too fast too soon. Take the long view and chart out a realistic rate of progress for the season. (I find that at the end of a training season I suspect I might have a little more room for physical gains, but mentally I’m shot. My goal is to psyche myself up for the best possible 4 x 1K I can muster the week before my last race of the year. If I nail the 4 x 1K, I can pretty much go ahead and write down my 2K score while I’m at it.)
Oh, and one more thing (sorry this is getting lengthy): recovery between intervals. My rule of thumb is: work time + recovery time = 5’/500m. In other words, 4 x 1K is done on 10’ centers. I don’t set the monitor for recovery time because I like to start the intervals from a dead stop, as at the beginning of a race. Don’t obsess about every last second of recovery but be fairly consistent. The goal is to maintain a high intensity during the work periods so I’d rather rest a few seconds too long than not long enough. Actually, I find too much recovery actually makes me slower because I begin to lose my warm-up. My method is to finish a piece, take a moment to get reoriented and take a few breaths, then write down my splits, and grab a quick drink or a towel for a quick wipedown. Then I reset the monitor for 1K and row at or slightly faster than my recovery pace (defined in the Level 4 pace charts) using a low rate. Activity between pieces (active recovery) promotes faster/more complete recuperation than no activity (passive recovery). I also use the time to mentally recover, and get into as relaxed a state as possible. That means getting my breathing under control, reminding myself I’ve done this before and I can do it again, I’m fine, pain don’t hurt, etc. etc. When I complete the active recovery, I take the final seconds to reset the monitor, get psyched up, and then start the next piece.
Please keep the questions coming – just not the same questions over & over!
Mike Caviston
