The Two Types of Training

[ranger]

Rich would have us believe that lots of meters provides boat speed ?
Rich would have us believe that a great erg score, like his, provides boat speed?

Yep.

Against those the same age and weight, I would assume that a 60-year-old lightweight who could pull 6:16 on the erg and had put in 8 million meters or so OTW over eight years working on boat speed would do _very_ well in OTW racing.

Don't you?

ranger

[mikvan52]

Rich: Good luck with your rowing too. (no sarcasm here)

I think you may find that aerobic capacity can be maintained with a diet of OTW alone.
My VO2 max remains close to "60" (lab tested)
My work load this current C2 year will come in at (roughly) 2 million meters OTW and less than 1 million on the erg.

I feel that my yearly 3 million meters is very close to my desired max: all things considered

Your 10 million meters of RWB OTErg does wonders for you I must admit. It produced the 6:41... No one can argue with that.

[ranger]

Rich: A suggestion for you.

Enter a race and see how it goes:

I certainly want to race in regattas, but not until I am doing a full range of timed interval workouts and racing in training.

At the moment I am just learning to row; therefore I am training more informally, working on things I need to improve.

My training is coming along very nicely, I think.

I am delighted with it.

ranger

[ranger]

Rich: Good luck with your rowing too. (no sarcasm here)

I think you may find that aerobic capacity can be maintained with a diet of OTW alone.
My VO2 max remains close to "60" (lab tested)
My work load this current C2 year will come in at (roughly) 2 million meters OTW and less than 1 million on the erg.

I feel that my yearly 3 million meters is very close to my desired max: all things considered

Your 10 million meters of RWB OTErg does wonders for you I must admit. It produced the 6:41... No one can argue with that.

I am just up to doing distance rowing on the erg, Mike.

When I am done with that, I will do AT, TR, and AN work, which will prepare me for a quality 2K.

Yes, it will interesting to see what my 50 million meters of pulling hard at low rates, working on effectiveness, has gained for me, in addition to the 10 million more meters I have done working on efficiency at 10 MPS.

When I am fully trained, I think I still have a good chance of pulling my 2K target: 6:16.

No, I haven't been working on my fitness (VO2max, etc.).

That has been maximal since 2003.

I have been working on my rowing, my effectiveness and efficiency.

ranger

[mikvan52]

Rich would have us believe that lots of meters provides boat speed ?
Rich would have us believe that a great erg score, like his, provides boat speed?

Against those the same age and weight, I would assume that a 60-year-old lightweight who could pull 6:16 on the erg and had put in 8 million meters or so OTW over eight years working on boat speed would do _very_ well in OTW racing.

Don't you?

ranger

Let me answer the question this way.

I have polled masters ergers about their work loads on the erg. All of them log far less than you've reported.
I have also sat around with scullers our age and discussed training.... Most do not erg much at all.
The head racers do post some very decent distance pieces in the rankings for the erg.... My feeling is that they set these marks as an acknowledgement of training done (as opposed to racing done)
Two people to look at historically in the rankings are Jack Meyer and Gregg Stone... (I don't have immediate references here.. it takes some looking) 5 and 10 k for Meyer, 1 hr for Stone)

As for myself: My total lifetime meterage for the 1x is less than your 8 million. I know this only by estimating what I did prior to 2007 when I had v. little time OTW.

For me: I know some 50-59 hwts who erg at the 6:16 level who cannot come close to me OTW...
THe focus of my preparation centers on fitness and technique hand in hand...

As for weight: My opinion is that the two of us, 160 lb types, do better to forget about weight OTW... IF we restrict ourselves to lwt rowing... we run out of competition at regional regattas. 90 percent of my racing is with hwts!

All in all, my feeling is that training volume (alone) is not a measure of how well people will do in racing OTW.

OTOH Jim Deitz's return to superlative domination of his age group at the HOCR relied on his training everyday all last summer... But I doubt that he had goals that relied on logging immense #s of meters. \ He would have done lots of low rate, lots of drills, lots of time OTW.

Hope this helps.

BTW: Here's what I'm up to now:

From the 3rd of March thru the 12th I sculled 138k otw meters (and 4.5k erg meters )

[mikvan52]

Rich: A suggestion for you.

Enter a race and see how it goes:

I certainly want to race in regattas, but not until I am doing a full range of timed interval workouts and racing in training.

Many, many would argue with you that there is no such thing as "racing in training" OTW..
Patrick mentioned this in his post:

A supplementary point. Equating speed on your home course to speed at the HOCR is problematic. If I used my best training times over 5K on my home course (which is even twistier and much narrower than the HOCR course), I could have concluded that I would be in contention to win and a shoo-in for a guaranteed entry for 2010 (within 5% of the winner), especially since another sculler (who I was getting pretty close to in terms of speed by October '09) at our club came 7th the previous year & was seeded 1st in our division (Club 1x) in '09.
We both ended up between 5% and 10% behind the winner.

Another subject of otw racing you should consider is how to pass someone during a race that is not held in lanes. This cannot be practiced alone. All head racers need to develop an "automatic" response in passing that saves time and energy. Remember: Head racing final standings can be determined by few and even fractions of seconds ~ all the while you most often do not see the guy who you are trying to beat with your time. IOW: The guy you pass loses to you but there are people elsewhere on the course who row the entire course permanently outside of your line of sight.

One of the common observations of novice head racers is that " (so-and-so) got in my way (during the race) and I had a hard time trying to get by him without expending too much effort"

Come up to VT and we'll practice together!

[ranger]

Here are three or four standing ab-wheels.

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

ranger

[ranger]

Another subject of otw racing you should consider is how to pass someone during a race that is not held in lanes. This cannot be practiced alone. All head racers need to develop an "automatic" response in passing that saves time and energy. Remember: Head racing final standings can be determined by few and even fractions of seconds ~ all the while you most often do not see the guy who you are trying to beat with your time. IOW: The guy you pass loses to you but there are people elsewhere on the course who row the entire course permanently outside of your line of sight.

One of the common observations of novice head racers is that " (so-and-so) got in my way (during the race) and I had a hard time trying to get by him without expending too much effort"

Oh, sure.

But you are waaaay ahead of me.

I am still learning to row.

First things first.

First, learn to row.

Then learn to race.

ranger

[mikvan52]

Rich:
I feel that you should have more confidence in your current racing skills. You do have 8 million lifetime OTW meters under your belt in the single. I have less. You have 100 million erg meters (at least). I have less than 10!
You have high VO2 max now.
You are "fully trained" and are ready for "hard sharpening"

...(etc)

'nuff said!

One big advantage (over you) I had was having the opportunity to row for three solid years between the ages of 16 and 19 (1968- 1970)... This is in the neuro-muscular development area specific to our sport.

I suppose I should add, too, that I've coached for 12 years. Going over the same things repetitively ("the think technique") does have its value.

[ranger]

I feel that you should have more confidence in your current racing skills.

Excuse the pun, but...

Different strokes for different folks.

I guess we're not the same.

Lucky for you!



I'll be out there racing--eventually.

But only when I think I am ready.

I think I probably need a couple of more years of OTW training before I do anything significant in OTW racing.

Fine with me.

I am in no hurry.

ranger

[APM]

I am talking _60-year-olds_.

There are hoards of chiseled _60-year-olds_ out there, muscles rippling, lungs burning, caring beyond reason about beating everybody OTW?

_60-year-olds_ who are tough as hell and love to push themselves to the limit physically, spending hours and hours on it every day?

ranger

You would have thought such 60 year olds could therefore complete 2,000 m without quitting?

[ausrwr]

Absolute balls, Rich.
If you want to do it, you'll get your arse in gear and do it.
A friend of mine went from not having been in a boat until September 2005, and by August 2006 medalled at a senior World Championship at the age of 20.
No 'in a couple of years' from her. Just put the work in, listen to a coach, try like hell to get better, see your hands get carved up, fall in, want to quit, but just persevere.
Don't wait for the opportunity, go out and make it happen.

[johnlvs2run]

on what basis do you say that most rowers in this country try to bully their way through the water?

a quick catch feels "easier" than a big "weightlifting-type" slug at the catch, but the quick catch lets me go faster

http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=131057#p131057

Most rowers use a huge weightlifting-type slug at the catch.

They insist on banging their heads against the wall on the water.

But the top rowers, Stephanen, Luini, Ebbesen, row like Freed.

[johnlvs2run]

I talk about ERGING, you talk about ROWING

That's because I'm a rower, you're an erger.

You "modified" his program, you have show what you did in training a few years back, it did not look a bit like rowing every day, every training.

I only showed some small samples of my training.
I have rowed 110 kilometers in a day, 465 kilometers in a week.

About your drag, the fact that you did some training at high drags does not alter the fact that most of your erging was at very low drag.

I have rowed more than a marathon in sessions at the highest drag possible.

[johnlvs2run]

"disappeared from the rankings" means: "dropped out of sight permanently"... What do this seem to indicate?
Why did C2 institute IND_V?

Oh I see, Freed has to row till he's age 150 to please you. I have also stopped rowing and ranking my times.
If that makes you suffer even more, than that's wonderful.

C2 started the Ind-V at the time you started putting times in the rankings. Hmm that is quite suspicious, Mike.

I know both the people well (referred to in the quote above)... Why should I believe Freed record supporters wsho didn't ever meet him?

You know both of the people who are hiding, taking pot shots with no evidence. How delightful.