Am I training too hard?

[penncrnp]

I have been erging for a year or so at a steady 5-6 sessions per week. I usually row 250m sprint, 5000m set, and then 250m sprint. Then I complete a short cool down until my heart rate slows to around 135bpm. However, lately my times are slowing and I feel a lack of power.

I have never had times like some of you guys and gals report. My best 5000K time is 1:59.7/500m and I typically row somwhere in the range of 2:01.3 to 2:02.0/500m. I typically average around 193-194 watts. I also wear a heart rate monitor and by the end of my 5000m portion my heart rate is around 160-165bpm.

As for background I am almost 35 years old, weigh about 172lbs, and I am 5'10". I average 24spm.

My questions are:

1. For general fitness, and using this work out as my only work out (Work long hours and have a newborn at home), should I be targeting a slower time than 2:01.3-2:02.0/500m?

2. Also should I attempt to keep my heart rate lower?

3. Could I see meaningful improvement by changing up my program? (But by keeping a similar total time for the overall work-out)

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Byron Drachman]

However, lately my times are slowing and I feel a lack of power.

It sounds like overtraining to me. Some typical symptoms are higher than usual resting heart rate and trouble sleeping. If you google on overtraining, you can find lots of information. As always, you need to decide for yourself what sounds reasonable. The very first article I came across was this:

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/over ... 62499a.htm

I'm not familiar with it, but the orthostatic heart rate test sounds interesting.

added later: The basic idea is that the high intensity intervals overload your muscles and you develop from the high intensity intervals, but the slower rowing has to be slow enough that you recover and rebuild. If you spend too much time in that zone that you can maintain but are too close to your threshold, then you don't rebuild and recover. It is easy to stay tired and hit a plateau. That's my experience but I confess I am not a qualified coach, just speaking from my own experience.

[mikvan52]

Hey penncrnp (» October 8th, 2010, 5:08 pm)

Any Idea what you max heart rate is?
It would be good to know that in order to establish training zones...

Also, in building a program, it is good to think about how much time you will train each week. I see you say 5-6 days... but how many minutes do you allow yourself for an average session?
In my experience, it is good to have some days longer than others.. Do you have that luxury?

[penncrnp]

Thanks very much for you comments.

I imagine that I may be over training and I am certain that I am growing bored with repeating 5000m around 5-6 times per week.

As far as the time I have to devote to my workout routine it remains slightly variable. In this regard, I have about 25-30 minutes a day during the week, an hour on Saturday, and about 40-minutes on Sundays.

I use Rowpro to track my progress. Should I stop trying to always complete 5000m and turn my focus to a Rowpro training routine?

Again, I appreciate your advise.

[Bob S.]

Thanks very much for you comments.

I imagine that I may be over training and I am certain that I am growing bored with repeating 5000m around 5-6 times per week.

As far as the time I have to devote to my workout routine it remains slightly variable. In this regard, I have about 25-30 minutes a day during the week, an hour on Saturday, and about 40-minutes on Sundays.

I use Rowpro to track my progress. Should I stop trying to always complete 5000m and turn my focus to a Rowpro training routine?

Again, I appreciate your advise.

Variety usually helps. You have time enough on Saturday to do an easy 10-12k for building endurance, with appropriate warm up and cool down. During the middle of the week it would be worthwhile fitting in an intense interval session, followed by a day off for recovery. Again, there should be adequate warm up and cool down, so an interval session would necessarily be short to complete it all in the 30 minutes.

Bob S.

[chgoss]

It's actually really hard to overtrain, but it's quite easy to get to a plateau in performance.
Like Bob said, variety in workout and intensity will be a big help.
Consider training on line with us using RowPro, you can sign up for nightly sessions here: http://www.digitalrowing.com/Oarbits/Schedule.htm guarantee you'll really enjoy it.

[jamesg]

5k a day doesn't seem enough to cause overtraining, most of us do more, even me.

The initial post did not mention warm-up, but to do a fastish 5k without is a sure recipe for feeling lousy; so I'd start there. At least 5 minutes, better 15, starting arms only, then add swing (plenty of it) and only adding legs gradually after 3-4 minutes. Then get really going when the sweat flows, reaching for the chainguard.

And as technique is at the root of most problems on the erg, basics can't be ignored either: low drag so the pull can be quick, full length stroke, straight back, relaxed slow recovery in arms swing legs sequence so that we row off our feet, with hands near the chainguard at the catch. Any shorter than this leads to a short stroke (as we lose about 30cm at the catch) which causes no end of trouble.

Good guides to technique and stroke quality are:
Do you lift the handle over your knees? Wrong sequence and short stroke;
The Watt/rating ratio. 10 won't do you any harm, if it's done with a long stroke; less can mean a short stroke where we are trying to compensate for lack of length by pulling too hard.

[Bob S.]

5k a day doesn't seem enough to cause overtraining, most of us do more, even me.

The initial post did not mention warm-up, but to do a fastish 5k without is a sure recipe for feeling lousy; so I'd start there. At least 5 minutes, better 15, starting arms only, then add swing (plenty of it) and only adding legs gradually after 3-4 minutes. Then get really going when the sweat flows, reaching for the chainguard.

With only 25-30 minutes a day available during the middle of the week, there isn't enough time to do even a very fast 5k with adequate warm up and cool down on those days. My own personal approach to fitting it all in for a limited time session was to do what I call an "all-in-one," which consisted of a warm up period of gradually increasing rate and intensity, a middle period of constant rate and whatever pace I felt up to, and finally a cool down period which could be either a reversal of the warm up or just a light paddle, depending on how fast a pace I used in the middle part. The main advantage of this all-in-one method is that no time is lost in breaks and resetting the monitor. A setting of 30', with 1' splits provides plenty of data about the details of each period.

High intensity can also be worked into such a workout by including short bursts (10-20 strokes) at intervals during the middle period.

As far as the arms only routine is concerned, I never could stand that stuff myself, but I know that it is strongly recommended, especially OTW, but it is not inconsistent with the all-in-one. It can be incorporated in the initial period as part of the warm up.

Bob S.

[penncrnp]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and advice. I continue to be amazed at the wealth of information located on this forum.

Yesterday I completed a 30-minute "all-in-one" session and felt pretty good. As a previous post had suggested I used the first five minutes as a warm-up and in similar fashion used the last five minutes as a cool-down. During the main part of the row I did not push really hard, but rather watched my heart rate and kept it in the upper 150's to low 160's. Enough to be sweating but not enough to feel exhausted.

So, I am curious how close to your personal best do you try to row? Is there a typical standard percent of maximal effort that everyday sessions should acheive but not exceed? For instance, my PB for 5000m is an average 500m split time of 1:59.7sec/500m. So if I row 5000m what split time should I routinely aim for - 2:00.0, 2:02.0, etc? Also or alternatively, should I focus more on heart rate than on times as this would seem to normalize a workout for my realtime level of fitness? And if heart rate should be the gold standard what percent of maximal heart rate is appropriate?

Thanks very much for taking the time to help me out as I learn to erg.

[hjs]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and advice. I continue to be amazed at the wealth of information located on this forum.

Yesterday I completed a 30-minute "all-in-one" session and felt pretty good. As a previous post had suggested I used the first five minutes as a warm-up and in similar fashion used the last five minutes as a cool-down. During the main part of the row I did not push really hard, but rather watched my heart rate and kept it in the upper 150's to low 160's. Enough to be sweating but not enough to feel exhausted.

So, I am curious how close to your personal best do you try to row? Is there a typical standard percent of maximal effort that everyday sessions should acheive but not exceed? For instance, my PB for 5000m is an average 500m split time of 1:59.7sec/500m. So if I row 5000m what split time should I routinely aim for - 2:00.0, 2:02.0, etc? Also or alternatively, should I focus more on heart rate than on times as this would seem to normalize a workout for my realtime level of fitness? And if heart rate should be the gold standard what percent of maximal heart rate is appropriate?

Thanks very much for taking the time to help me out as I learn to erg.

If your 5k pb is just below 2.00 a training row should be a lot slower. Not a few seconds but more 5/8 seconds at least.
It depends a bit on how often you train, but two hard sessions a week is plenty enough, and at some point during the year no hard work at all.
Focussing on hard rate is often a good thing. Only if you really go for it, ingore heart rate and just go by feel.

Also mixt up you training more.
Do some longer (slower) work. 30 min / 12 k (5k plus 12/15 seconds)
Do some shorter (faster) interval work 8 x 500 on 2/3 minutes rest (5k pace minus 5/7 seconds)
Do some longer interval (5 k pace) work 5x 1500 4x 2k rest 5 minutes orso

Depends a bit on how much time you have. But roughly

[H2O]

Very likely you are not seeing progress because your training isn't varied enough.
You could consider longer rows (60 mins or more) twice a week, then a fast 5K once a week, then a fast 6mins
once a week (with 15-20 mins warmup and cooldown).

You should be breathing at full tilt after 3 mins on the 5K and the 6 mins should be dreadful.
Even so you will be unlikely to hit a really maximum pace, quite likely far from it.
It will take a couple of attempts to find the right pace on each piece.

[aharmer]

If your 5k at 1:59.7 was an all-out effort, you could probably do somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:52 for 2k (7:28). This equates to 249 watts. I use 60% the watts of my 2k best as my easy distance work pace. For you this is just under 2:13/500 pace (assuming the 7:28 2k is close). This pace should be comfortable for long periods. Just one other way to look at it, good luck!

[penncrnp]

Awesome advice guys.

I agree with many of the comments including the lack of variety in my routine leading to minimal improvement. Also I think, based on the calculations of what I should set my pace at, that I am simply pushing it too hard - possibly this has prevented my muscles from getting stronger? I imagine I will never have times like you guys but I do want to continue to improve my cardiovascular fitness to be around for my wife and daughter for years to come.

Thanks for showing me how to do this effectively!

[Bob S.]

Very likely you are not seeing progress because your training isn't varied enough.
You could consider longer rows (60 mins or more) twice a week, then a fast 5K once a week, then a fast 6mins
once a week (with 15-20 mins warmup and cooldown).

Pointless advice, since penncrnp spelled out the limited time available, i.e. 60' on only only day a week, 40 on another, and 25-30 for the other days of the week.

Bob S.

[gregsmith01748]

Hi,

I think there is an interesting challenge here. How does one design an optimum training program for a given time investment per week. Given what penncrnp (By the way, did you go to penn?), says, he has 30 minutes a day for 5 days, and 40 and 60 minutes available on weekends.

From what I have read, most training programs include the following elements
1. A fair amount of low rate rowing to build a base
2. Some high intensity interval work
3. Some longer intervals to mimic race conditions
4. A day off per week for recovery.

So, how's this:
60 minute session: four week rotation of
- 10 min warm up, 8x500with 2' rest or 4x1k with 4' rest, 10 min cool down
- 10 min warm up, 4x2k with 4' rest
- 60 min row at low rate
- 60 min row for distance, or 10K for time

30 minute sessions, alternated so you get a mix of sessions each week.
- 30 minute row for distance
- 5 min wu, 6 x 500 with 2' rest
- 5 min warm up, 3 x 1K with 4' rest
- 3 x 2k with 2min rest (the first one would be a bit slow to get warmed up.
- 30 min low rate
- 5 min warm up, 5K for time

What do you think?