Ranger's training thread

[jliddil]

http://www.despair.com/fail24x30pri.html

[macroth]

http://www.despair.com/delusions.html

The nay-sayer's motto!

[luckylindy]

My goal has been to get a dozen seconds better by improving my technique.

Why do you think that's unreasonable?

• * You're 6 years older
  * You spend a lot of time tearing down your body via cross training
  * You starve your body to 'make weight'
  * Based on your post history, you don't seem to sleep regularly

I actually have no doubt that your body is capable of still rowing sub-6:30, but I don't see how you could possibly reach your potential given these other factors.

[aharmer]

Assuming he got on the plane we can eliminate the DNT (did not travel) from the predictions. Hopefully at 5:50 EST Sunday we can rule out the DNS, and at 5:56:46 we can rule out the DNF...hope he got on that plane.

[mikvan52]

... it is only repeated failure that predict success.

It is repeated success that predicts failure.

Oh, really? Thanks for setting me straight.
Australian miler Herb Elliott was never beaten at the king of all track distances... 1500m

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Elliott



"Sanity is not statistical."
- 1984, Book 1, Chapter 9

"From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."


to which we may now add, c/o Herr Unter-Professor VonMannBatt:
REPEATED FAILURE PREDICTS SUCCESS.

I'll go with a personal philosophy of compounding success upon success

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

while ranger looks to the dwarf to be his ladder....

In natural selection it is the survivor whose genetic material goes on to the next generation... not that of the deceased...

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." - George Patton

How many Waterloos does ranger want anyway?
Amsterdam 2006
WIRC 2007
no shows ever since at the biggest indoor rowing events...

I don't know about the rest of you but if ranger doesn't beats 6:38.1 at the BIRC... I will consider RWB training a permanent failure... The statute of limitations is up on this one!
AND (!) I'll promise not to bring the subject up again.. What would be the point? 7 years is long enough to get into a better percentile against your peers...
Roy reigns supreme.... today. He'll remain so at noon Sunday GMT.

[jliddil]

I don't know about the rest of you but if ranger doesn't beats 6:38.1 at the BIRC... I will consider RWB training a permanent failure... The statute of limitations is up on this one!
AND (!) I'll promise not to bring the subject up again.. What would be the point? 7 years is long enough to get into a better percentile against your peers...
Roy reigns supreme.... today. He'll remain so at noon Sunday GMT.

Can I have a Hallelujah, Amen Brother!

[jliddil]

The Ranger theme:

[luckylindy]

In all seriousness - how does ranger's RWB training plan work? Is it basically interval training, or are we talking much longer breaks? If just extended intervals, I would think that there is some merit to it.

[macroth]

In all seriousness - how does ranger's RWB training plan work? Is it basically interval training, or are we talking much longer breaks? If just extended intervals, I would think that there is some merit to it.

He probably doesn't know himself, and never reports any details here. It's not much of a plan. And it's mostly contradictory.

It's basically free-form intervals, or fartlek training, but who knows how long his breaks are. Keep in mind that he does this even when he claims to be doing "distance training" or UT1/UT2 (low intensity) training. All this is done at somewhere between 1K and 5K speed (not that he actually rows 5K at a time, mind you), as demonstrated by the fact that he HAS to take frequent breaks to keep his heart rate in check, so it is very much like extended, moderate intensity intervals. This is why, in my opinion, when he races 5-6 times in the winter while RWB, he can't claim to not be sharpened. Maybe he's not 100%, but easily 90% sharpened. Also, he's a liar, so who knows what he actually does during those sessions.

[hjs]

My goal has been to get a dozen seconds better by improving my technique.

Why do you think that's unreasonable?

• * You're 6 years older
  * You spend a lot of time tearing down your body via cross training
  * You starve your body to 'make weight'
  * Based on your post history, you don't seem to sleep regularly

I actually have no doubt that your body is capable of still rowing sub-6:30, but I don't see how you could possibly reach your potential given these other factors.

You are very wrong, nomatter how he trains or what drugs he would take, sun 6.30 will nevr be possible, between age 52 and 59/60 a man simple looses quit a bit of his potential. Around 52 he was more or less topfit.

[hjs]

In all seriousness - how does ranger's RWB training plan work? Is it basically interval training, or are we talking much longer breaks? If just extended intervals, I would think that there is some merit to it.

He probably doesn't know himself, and never reports any details here. It's not much of a plan. And it's mostly contradictory.

It's basically free-form intervals, or fartlek training, but who knows how long his breaks are. Keep in mind that he does this even when he claims to be doing "distance training" or UT1/UT2 (low intensity) training. All this is done at somewhere between 1K and 5K speed (not that he actually rows 5K at a time, mind you), as demonstrated by the fact that he HAS to take frequent breaks to keep his heart rate in check, so it is very much like extended, moderate intensity intervals. This is why, in my opinion, when he races 5-6 times in the winter while RWB, he can't claim to not be sharpened. Maybe he's not 100%, but easily 90% sharpened. Also, he's a liar, so who knows what he actually does during those sessions.

You have summed up the last 6 years nicely, only the racing results are missing. On average plus 7.00, more then half a minute above his pb.

[KevJGK]

In all seriousness, I have tried to fathom rangers training plan from his occasional clues because lets face it he is a bloody fast erger - period. The problem is that he contradicts himself so much. I suspect that although he lies a lot it’s because he is playing some sort of game with us?

What I have taken on board is his mantra that you won’t get better racing your training and the need to develop a base. I think most people knew this already and maybe ranger himself has taken these principles a bit too far. We all know you need to race your training occasionally to see how everything is going – I suspect ranger does it anyway but just keeps the results to himself.

It will be interesting to see how he does on Sunday. I want everybody to succeed if they apply themselves to a goal the way he has although ranger does make it difficult to really cheer him on.

[macroth]

In all seriousness, I have tried to fathom rangers training plan from his occasional clues because lets face it he is a bloody fast erger - period.

Well he was in great shape in 2003 and "born" to be good on an erg, basically. Fitness and the right body type are all you need to be a good performer on the erg, as has been demonstrated by plenty of people who have pulled awesome times with hardly any rowing background. You'll recall, as well, that ranger actually rowed long CONTINUOUS pieces in his early C2 years, plus a range of standard predictive workouts.

As the years have gone by, he's replaced this rather standard training regimen with RWB. His fitness has remained quite good, taking into account natural stagnation/decrease due to age (and why shouldn't it, with his volume of training) and he is still one of the best age-group ergers. His past WR rows turned out to be 3+ seconds off the current 50's WR. His best recent rows are 3+ seconds off Roy's 55's WR. Nothing's changed much in that respect. There's a chance he'll pull off a WR row before he turns 60, and a chance it will be beaten again in a few years.

RWB hasn't been particularly detrimental, nor particularly effective. Given what we know, it just adds up to a lot of rowing (+ stationary bike + whatever he fancies at any given time, OTW/stepper/skipping). Hard to draw any revolutionary or even useful conclusions from that.

[hjs]

In all seriousness, I have tried to fathom rangers training plan from his occasional clues because lets face it he is a bloody fast erger - period. The problem is that he contradicts himself so much. I suspect that although he lies a lot it’s because he is playing some sort of game with us?

What I have taken on board is his mantra that you won’t get better racing your training and the need to develop a base. I think most people knew this already and maybe ranger himself has taken these principles a bit too far. We all know you need to race your training occasionally to see how everything is going – I suspect ranger does it anyway but just keeps the results to himself.

It will be interesting to see how he does on Sunday. I want everybody to succeed if they apply themselves to a goal the way he has although ranger does make it difficult to really cheer him on.

One thing that you should forget is Mike Caviston. The 6.16 is taking by ranger to be faster then mike's PB. Around Mike's prime they worked at the same Uni. That was also ranger prime, but he got a lot less credit. he could not stand that, at first he "stalked"mike more or less and began to downput his training. But he did learn that his stroke was weaker then mikes stroke. Simply copying the L4 work Mike has in his plan was not a possibilty, it that would work it would even give more credit to Mike.

So he made a simple plan, he had to get stronger to be able to pull harder and that is what did. At first it did seem to work. In 2006 he pulled one, his last, good race, but he had one problem, the hard pulling had build some extra muscle and he could not get below 75 kg anymore. When he finaly did he pulled 7.11
So his plan did work a bit, he got stronger, but that made him to heavy, now he is 7 years older, at that age 7 years slower and that's the hole story.

[mikvan52]

The one remaining thing that confuses me about r.c. vonMannBatt is he recalcitrance from revelation of his actual training.
He is a strong erger. He should be proud of it and willing to share the details.

As it is, all we get is misleading sketchy statements about his daily regimen.

* working with
* lots of

There is nothing noteworthy about this form of speech. Long time readers here have grown to find it amusing. There is a side-effect though: This relegates the ranger-mojo to that of a clown's or a stand-up comic's. Albeit, he is one who believes at least part of his fanciful monologues.

There is zero chance of ranger breaking Roy's record because:

#1: TSO does not do the volume he claims
#2: TSO does not do the intense fast workouts he "should I's" about
#3: TSO is old
#4: TSO has been "fully trained" many, many times these last few years and only denies it to attempt to convince others that should he increase his fitness he will get faster. IOW: We have seen his "best" efforts already...There is no need to wait for him to become "fully sharpened"... he has been and could not approach his goals to become faster than 6:28.

The most absurd contention by our maestro is that he can, even in theory, be 20% stronger than anyone in his age/weight group. This is attractive to older men who do not relish getting slower. This is offensive to those who prefer straight talk to banter. Notice that no women participate in this thread... They don't have "the testosterone problem".

In the end ( and this is huge ):
There are no examples of a 20% strength supremacy by a single individual in the world of athletics. I does not happen.

There is, after all, such a thing as "strength in numbers".