Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

If you tell me why the fen
Appears impassable, I then
Will tell you why I think that I
Can get across it, if I try.

--Marianne Moore, "Progress"

[ranger]

[removed]

[ranger]

Seriously, what does yanking the chain 7 or 8 times prove?

Nothing, unless you yank it, just that way, a couple of thousand times a day, as I do.

ranger

[KevJGK]

You claim to row OTW and erg around 20K a day if not more.

So it would seem age has had effect on your metabolism if you gain weight. And you eat a large excess of calories each day. so on one hand your power has not diminished but your metabolic rate has?

I can tell you that since the beginning of the concept2 log period (May) I have been averaging 20K a day. Look at the challenge board. All data uploaded via Rowpro. Not fast by any standard. But I am not able to maintain my weight at all. I've gone from skinny to really skinny, my sig weight says 180 I think. I am down to more like 170 now and I eat all the time.

Just another thing that does not add up.

To be fair that’s not the way I find it but it’s obviously a personal thing.

I don’t do anything like 20K but I have averaged 10K for 6 months and currently average around 8K. In my experience it is easier to lose weight when your exercise levels are lower because your appetite is correspondingly lower. If I do say 10K @ 02:00 which burns about 740 calories my intake has to increase by more than that to feel strong the following day. Working out hard consistently with restricted calories for me leads to increasing lethargy. If I want to drop a few pounds I simply count calories for a few weeks but I would always cut right back on my erging for the duration.

I can see how somebody erging 20K a day would get heavier in the long run and I recon I would be the same.

[ranger]

I've gone from skinny to really skinny

How skinny?

To make weight, I have to be about 10% body fat.

I have about 148 lbs. of non-fat body mass.

How about you?

Only 1% of 60-year-old males have 10% body fat (or less), and I would guess that most of those can't row a lick (because they are just skinny little runts).

To row well at 10% body fat, you have to be pretty tall and pretty heavily muscled, too.

That's a trick for a 60-year-old, given what happens to the body with age.

25% of 20-year-old males have 10% body fat (or less).

I suspect that the number of 60-year-olds out there who are 10% body fat and still both tall enough (6'0"", etc.) and heavily muscled enough to row well are disappearingly few.

To be in that condition, your body needs to look like a fit, athletic 20-year-old.

ranger

[ausrwr]

it will take you at least 3 months

To lose 10 pounds?

Nah.

A month at most.

At best, three weeks.

ranger

So, all this training and you STILL haven't made weight? Jeez rangie, no scores on the board, not yet a lightweight, it's going to be another ugly season for you, isn't it?

Better get some travel insurance so that you can fake a claim for the airfare when you decide not to go to BIRC...

[ranger]

I am down to more like 170 now and I eat all the time.

6'5", 170 lbs., at 50 years old?

Yikes.

Are you strong enough to stand up?

How many pull ups can you do?

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Haulin' -- got my white hat on
Keep haulin -- in the cold predawn
Sprackback -- more or less supine
Just keep haulin' on

Video sessions and force-curve displays in Ann Arbor
Cincy and Indy and Elkhart I'm still a boatstopper
Your typical fraud involved in a prevarication
Handle down and see what tomorrow brings

Chicago -- got my toes froze cold
Britain -- couldn't drop the pounds
Boston -- didn't get a plane
They just won't let you win for free

Most of the guys you meet on the Forum are scullers
Most of the time I'm sittin' and thrashing at home
One of these days I know I've got to start racing
Out of the cave and into a boat of my own

Haulin', like the Forum folk
All tell me that's the way I stroke
I say your back ain't nothing but a joke
If you don't lay it down

Sometimes my force curve's pointy and high
Other times I can barely try
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange row (with breaks) it's been .....

With apologies to Weir/Garcia et al.

[ranger]

Yea, I like things like this:

http://invernessrowingclub.org.uk/perso ... alini.html

Basalini swings his back through an arc of at least 90 degrees.

Great power in the center of his stroke, coming from his core.

Yea, that's indeed how I row.

Love it.

Fiona Milne is similar:

http://invernessrowingclub.org.uk/perso ... fiona.html

Nav--

You row bolt upright like you're doing some sort of chicken walk.

No power coming from your core and back.

No swing.

All legs and arms.

BTW, you might also notice how Basalini and Milne both break their legs on their recoveries and bring them _way_ up before their hands cross their knees.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Basalini does NOT "swing his back through an arc of at least 90 degrees." Neither does Milne. Nobody does; it would be silly. Moreover you don't row like either of them.

And I do not row "bolt upright," although unlike you I actually do have great power in the middle of my stroke. It goes with the great power at the catch and at the finish.

[ranger]

Basalini does NOT "swing his back through an arc of at least 90 degrees." Neither does Milne. Nobody does; it would be silly. Moreover you don't row like either of them.

And I do not row "bolt upright," although unlike you I actually do have great power in the middle of my stroke. It goes with the great power at the catch and at the finish.

Yes, I agree.

The contrast between the mechanics of your stroke and the mechanics of the strokes of Milne and Basalini is high--and telling.

Both Milne and Basalini make _huge_ use of their back and core, as all good rowers do.

ranger

[Byron Drachman]

And therefore Michelle Guerette, with very little body swing, cannot be a good rower:

[PaulH]

you've been slowing down for the last 7 years

No evidence for that yet.

Actually there's lots of evidence for that yet. You've raced, by your own account, more than most indoor rowers, and have proven to be slower than you used to be every time. Now that doesn't mean that you'll continue to be slower, of course, but it is clear evidence that you are slower.

[PaulH]

Basalini does NOT "swing his back through an arc of at least 90 degrees." Neither does Milne. Nobody does; it would be silly. Moreover you don't row like either of them.

And I do not row "bolt upright," although unlike you I actually do have great power in the middle of my stroke. It goes with the great power at the catch and at the finish.

Yes, I agree.

The contrast between the mechanics of your stroke and the mechanics of the strokes of Milne and Basalini is high--and telling.

Both Milne and Basalini make _huge_ use of their back and core, as all good rowers do.

ranger

Of course they make huge use of their back and core. They also make huge use of their legs, arms, fingers, and inner ears. All in proportion, of course, but huge nonetheless. That's entirely different, however, from traversing an arc in excess of 90 degrees, which they do not. You're putting on a display of quite staggering ignorance today, ranger - is there something wrong at home?

[ranger]

Of course they make huge use of their back and core. They also make huge use of their legs, arms, fingers, and inner ears. All in proportion, of course, but huge nonetheless. That's entirely different, however, from traversing an arc in excess of 90 degrees, which they do not.

Pretty close to my eye.

It's not 20 degrees. It's more.

It's not 30 degrees. It's more.

It's not 40 degrees. It's more.

It's not 50 degrees. It's more.

It's not 60 degrees. It's more.

And so forth.

What is crucial is the closing and opening of the hips and the angle of the lower, not upper, back.

At the end of his stroke, the line of Basalini's lower back is about 60 degrees past the verticql.

Milne's is just about the same.

Anatomy doesn't permit that far of a forward lean, but to me, the angle of their lower backs approach 30 degrees forward at the catch.

ranger