Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

If you don't row well and can't be arsed to work on getting better, you are wasting your time following one of the standard training plans for rowing, trying to get faster by improving your fitness, especially if you are a Senior or Veteran rower whose fitness is declining, no matter what you do.

You're a bonehead.

You don't understand the sport.

Working on your fitness when you don't row well is like putting expensive, high octane gas in a souped up sports car so that you can go really fast but forgetting to put put air in the tires.

Duh.

ranger

[ranger]

None of this means that you don't have to have _some_ aerobic capacity in order to row well.

Of course you do.

If you are a 60-year-old, and through a lifetime, or long periods, of neglect, your maxHR has fallen from 230 bpm to 160 bpm, as someone's such as Mike VB's has, then, sure, you can't row well even if you have filled your tires and know how to leverage a handle on a sliding seat.

You no longer have the gas.

I can't row anywhere very fast at 22 spm with a HR of 130 bpm (75% HRR for someone with a maxHR of 160 bpm), either.

2:00 pace is just about it, as it is with Mike.

1:46 is out of the question.

I suspect that many veteran rowers don't have this problem at all, though.

For instance, I think I heard Rocket Roy say that he could still run his heart up to about 180 bpm.

That's probably plenty of aerobic capacity in order to row well.

You would just have to watch the rate a bit when you raced, perhaps lowering it from 36 spm to 32 spm, or some such thing, relative to what you might have been able to do when you were younger and had a maxHR of 220 bpm, or whatever.

My maxHR is still 190 bpm.

That's plenty high in order to row well, as long as I watch the rate and keep it in the low 30s when I race.

ranger

[lancs]

Now, almost ten years later, when I am just stroking naturally, HR steady state at 75% HRR (155 bpm), I pull 1:46 @ 22 spm (13 SPI).

119 df.

I now row well.

No evidence for this whatsoever. None.

Given the fact you're a pathological liar, you ought so try and provide some. At least something?

[ranger]

Now, almost ten years later, when I am just stroking naturally, HR steady state at 75% HRR (155 bpm), I pull 1:46 @ 22 spm (13 SPI).

119 df.

I now row well.

No evidence for this whatsoever. None.

Given the fact you're a pathological liar, you ought so try and provide some. At least something?

Race preparation for the 2K is best done from the top down, from FM to the sprints and then to the 2K.

So, first evidence will be a FM @ 22 spm, "Steamrollering."

I am training for that now, every day.

20K this morning.

If I can now do 1:48 for a FM, as I think I can, it will predict a 1:34/6:16 2K.

A FM is done at 2K + 14.

1:48 will be a bit off of rowing well (1:46), but given the length of the row, this is understandable.

When I race a FM, I will lighten up .5 SPI from 13 SPI to 12.5 SPI, just to stay entirely relaxed and comfortable for the two and half hours.

I'll hold back a bit in order to handle the unusual distance.

I don't usually row 40K in my sessions, but only half that, although I often work that long.

I like to split my sessions between erging and biking, for variety, prevention of injury and staleness, and recovery.

A daily 1-2 hours of each (erging and biking), with breakfast in between, seems perfect for me.

Makes me feel great, with no residual tiredness the next day.

I don't take rest days.

ranger

[mikvan52]

If you don't row well and can't be arsed to work on getting better, you are wasting your time following one of the standard training plans for rowing, trying to get faster by improving your fitness, especially if you are a Senior or Veteran rower whose fitness is declining, no matter what you do.

You're a bonehead.

You don't understand the sport.

Working on your fitness when you don't row well is like putting expensive, high octane gas in a souped up sports car so that you can go really fast but forgetting to put put air in the tires.

Duh.

ranger

Can anyone, besides ranger, imagine a coach saying remotely resembling this to his athletes?
This post exhibits a disgraceful tone in its approach and is a perfect example as to why ranger has no followers of his routines, only skeptics.

Why does this man sound so angry?
Why does he endlessly repeat his feats of the distance past?
Why does he say he is now a faster old man?
Something is really wrong here.
Richard Cureton should be pitied and then forgotten.

[mikvan52]

Here's a partial list of things ranger refuses to consult expert coaches and exercise physiologists about:

Anaeorbic Threshold
Kinesiolgy (separation of levers, for one)
Energy reserves (especially in relation to weight cutting)
Simple mathematics (as it applies to SPI)
Heart Rate and Blood Supply to the muscles (failure to consider Stroke Volume)
Sharpening
Periodization of Training
Advantages of Rest
Peak Performance and Aging

In all these subjects, ranger attempt to go against the mainstream and makes claims w/o evidence.
Lots of fun to witness (here), but it's hideous to watch the results on his numerous youtubes, especially the ones on the water.

Ask yourself, how can such a self-styled "well-trained" man be so slow OTW?

I respect the man for training very hard for many years. It's too bad he didn't train well. If he had he could have gotten the 55-59 lwt WR. He got close.. but not very close. Perhaps this is why he sounds so angry and bitter these days.

He also isn't going to Boston... again... he knows he's blown another year's training: the second straight where he didn't even make the "free ride" C2 time mark for that group.....OUCH!
ranger does not hold any World Records and is now relegated to trying for one in the sections of the record books that become less and less noteworthy.
As he and I and others reach our later years we become "quaint"
How quaint it will be for him to get a WR now....and better the handful of men across the world who still train to race.

When it comes right down to it, this thread is about aging men rather than young ones. ranger wishes to be forever young... It's hitting him very hard these days that he can no longer see himself that way.

Well, I'm off to Boston to volunteer my services to (mostly) younger rowers.
ranger will go to his basement and pretend he is erging at 12.5 spi for 40 k...... (that's not a grin, it's a "grim" visage)

[leadville]

Mike
Have a ball at crash bs and thanks for helping out. I'm sure your expertise will help your athletes immensely.

I hope to be back on the erg in a week or so.

Goes without saying that the depth of rangerboy's ignorance about rowing and training for rowing is staggering. Anyone who believes erging performance is not primarily driven by aerobic capacity is dumber than dirt.

Rangerboy's recent rants are even more pathetic than usual. The disaster that is his recent racing performance looks to be taking a serious toll on his emotional health. I'd say it was a cry for help if he wasn't such an ass.

Have fun communing with REAL athletes tomorrow!

[ranger]

Anyone who believes erging performance is not primarily driven by aerobic capacity is dumber than dirt.

Talk will soon be irrelevant.

I am testing the claim.

Sure, if I pull a FM, 1:48 @ 22 spm, steady state, with a HR of 155 bpm, in a month or so, as I think I will, it will certainly be due, in part, to the fact that I can still run my HR at 155 bpm, steady state, for two and a half hours.

After 20K of rowing today with my HR at 155 bpm, I did 90min on the Kurt Kinetic with my heart rate just the same. 155 bpm, middlin' UT1 for me, is entirely comfortable. My anaerobic threshold is 172 bpm.

But if I row a FM, 1:48 @ 22 spm in a month or so, it will necessary to notice, too, I think, that this marathon will be 14 seconds per 500m beyond expectations, given what I used to pull a decade ago rowing badly at max drag rating 22 spm with a HR of 155 bpm for two and a half hours.

The 60s lwt FM WR is 2:00 pace, and given how I rowed technically back in 2002-2003, something like that would be the prediction for me now, if I had not spent eight years and 50 million meters working on technique rather than fitness.

I don't know about you, but 14 seconds per 500m is quite a lot.

No?

Especially for someone like me who can row at WR pace, or even below, rowing badly at max drag.

1:48 for a FM would be six seconds better than my pb of ten years ago and six seconds under the 60s _heavyweight_ WR.

It would predict a 6:16 2K.

The 60s 2K hwt WR is 6:24.

The 60s 2K lwt WR is 6:42.

ranger

ranger

[goblin]

So where is your evidence of world class milers that are doing fast marathons in preparation for the olympics?

Rowing isn't running.

It is primarily skeletal-muscular and technical, not aeorbic.


ranger

Skeletal-muscular is not an energy system. If I asked you what your car runs on, are you going to tell me transmission and gears? The energy demands of rowing are the same as the energy demands of cycling. Erging is a measure of raw power, just as cycling is. The technical demands of each are rudimentary, and after an initial learning curve your gains are going to come from improvement to your muscular energy systems.

Do you just wing it with your students at Michigan, also? I will say that I'm inclined to not recommend students apply there any more if this is the type of arm-chair education they can expect to receive.

[goblin]

Anyone who believes erging performance is not primarily driven by aerobic capacity is dumber than dirt.

Especially for someone like me who can row at WR pace, or even below, rowing badly at max drag.


ranger

ranger

All you talk about, now, is honking on it at a low stroke rate. You're unable to spin high rates, at low drag, and be fast. Your attempt at BIRC caused you to be unable to maintain your proclaimed SPI, and then you blew up. Your time was slow. Your muscles are unable to engage the resistance quickly and, whereas you used to cheat it by rowing at max drag, now you cheat it by rowing at low rates. You are guilty of parading your strengths, as you rail against others who do this.

[ranger]

The energy demands of rowing are the same as the energy demands of cycling. Erging is a measure of raw power, just as cycling is. The technical demands of each are rudimentary, and after an initial learning curve your gains are going to come from improvement to your muscular energy systems.

How can you improve a "muscular energy system" that you don't use?

How can you improve a "muscular energy system" that is uncoordinated, mistimed, truncated, arhythmic, imbalanced, inconsistent, missequenced, tense, etc.?

Nope.

The skills involved in rowing are _waaaay_ beyond the skills involved in cycling.

The rowing stroke involves multiple overlapping and complexly integrated and sequenced levers drawing on the whole muscular system of the body in dynamic motion.

Of course, if you discount these matters entirely, as you do, there appears to be no problem.

Then again, you can't row anywhere at 16 SPI.

Why not?

That's rowing well for a heavyweight.

I am a 60-year-old lightweight and I now pull 13 SPI, just stroking naturally.

The improvement that I have made over the last decade from 10 SPI to 13 SPI, a 30% increase in stroking power, despite my aging, has had nothing to do with the energy systems in my body.

It has had to do with lowering the drag and learning how to row well, mechanically and technically.

ranger

[ranger]

You're unable to spin high rates, at low drag, and be fast

Right now?

Sure.

Then again, I am not racing 2Ks right now.

I am just training for distance trials.

The training I do for these trials will slowly build the rate up from 22 spm for a FM to 28 spm for the 5K.

Rowing well, at 28 spm, I will be going 1:39.

After 5K trials, I will be ready for hard sharpening with anaerobic intervals and then 2K racing/trials.

A FM at 22 spm is a great 2K predictor.

A FM at 22 spm is done at 2K + 14.

All of the other distance rows are great 2Ks predictors, too.

And when you have a full set distance trials behind you, if your rowing is balanced, all of the trials tend to say the same thing about your 2K, formulaically, for good lightweights, by something like "double the d, add 3."

My goals are these:

FM 1:48
HM 1:45
60min 1:44
10K 1:42
30min 1:41
6K 1:40
5K 1:39

28 spm is hardly a high rate. Pulling 13 SPI at 119 df. and 28 spm, I will still be in over a 3-to-1 ratio.

.5 seconds for the drive.

1.65 seconds for the recovery.

A 2K at 1:39/6:36 would be six and half seconds under the 60s lwt 2K WR.

A 5K at 1:39 predicts a 1:34/6:16 2K.

ranger

[JimR]

... I am a 60-year-old lightweight ...

Considering your excuse for BIRC was you couldn't make weight and row I think this assertion is false.

JimR

[ranger]

... I am a 60-year-old lightweight ...

Considering your excuse for BIRC was you couldn't make weight and row I think this assertion is false.

JimR

Yes, it's hard for me to make weight and row well, but I have done it a couple of dozen times now, including three WR rows and four major championship golds.

ranger

[goblin]

The energy demands of rowing are the same as the energy demands of cycling. Erging is a measure of raw power, just as cycling is. The technical demands of each are rudimentary, and after an initial learning curve your gains are going to come from improvement to your muscular energy systems.

Then again, you can't row anywhere at 16 SPI.

Why not?

That's rowing well for a heavyweight.



ranger

My guess is that we weigh the same, old man. You should therefore conduct all of your training at 16 spi, and only when you cut weight on race day to race as a glory weight will you then be permitted to row at 13 spi. Mike VB is a lightweight. You are a midweight.