Training twice a day?

[Ted209]

Hey there everyone.

I am the bowman for my school's 1st VIII and we normally train twice a day during school time, this will move up to 3 times per day for rowing camp coming up soon, and then I will move on to the holiday training program.
For the current training, a lot of it is technical (on the water) and not highly physically taxing, but we do often include ergos and hard pieces OTW in our training.
I consider myself quite physically fit, the holiday training program will consist entirely of ergos, core, and weights sessions, the largest component being ergs. Each day, we are given 2 workouts. One is longer and less intense (eg: 50' UT2) and the other is shorter and more intense (eg: 2 x 15' UT1 or 2 x 8' AT). The idea is that we choose one of these workouts to do depending on how we feel, and doing the second session is optional.
Seeing as my 2k time is 7:17 (Don't worry, I'm extremely light so it's not as bad as it sounds) and I need to have that under 7:00 after 4 weeks of holiday training (I believe about a 11.4% power increase), I figured I would try and do two training sessions on the erg per day.

Would you advise doing this? I will listen to my body and try not to overtrain but this brings me to the second part of my question; How can I aid my recovery between sessions?

I know what I eat and how I sleep will be important factors in recovery. Sleep will not at all be a problem, but could someone please inform me of some great post-workout foods and how long after exercise I should eat them (any other things which would help to aid my recovery are welcome).

Thanks in advance.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

I'm not a coach, so I don't pretend to know physiology/rowing inside and out, but if I am not mistaken 50' of UT2 is a waste of time.

To actually see benefits in UT2 training you need to go for >70 minutes. Otherwise you're just not taxing your system enough and will not see any physiological changes in response to the prolonged stress.

Anyway, as for erging 2x a day. I don't recommend it. I think you could easily burn out/injure yourself erging that much. I would do one session of erg and one of cross training or one of erg and one of weights. Or one of erg and one OTW.

If you were to do 2x a day on the erg though I would definitely do a long SS piece as one workout and then a shorter piece (can be 6k, intervals, 20 min, etc). Like I said though, I wouldn't do this every day.

If you had a lot of mileage behind you and years of training then you could definitely handle it but otherwise it's risky and you may actually slow down if your body doesn't recover between pieces.

[David Pomerantz]

I agree about the UT2 work. I just started heart rate training in 2012. I really felt that the UT2 work for 45-60 minutes that I did accomplished nothing but decrease my mental strength for maximal efforts over much shorter distances.

Dave

[The_Giant0]

I am going to weigh in here though I admit to having less experience than most. I find that doing 45'-60' of UT2 is really good to do as a second workout on a hard day. It gets a little cardio in when you might not otherwise do it because you are tired and in some ways you feel better after than the workout than when you started. That said, I think unless you are doing a really hard workout earlier that day I think that 45'-60' of UT1 would be better or long UT2. though another thing that hasn't been mentioned is doing UT2 hr and pace but doing it with lower stroke rating than you would normally do UT2 at. This will build strength without feeling completely wasted. Basically putting in UT1 press without straining all of your systems as much as you would otherwise.

[Ted209]

Thanks very much for your input guys, I think I will try to do the erg each day as required, and for the second sessions I will mix it up between ergs and weights and cross training depending on how I feel.

And also, there is still the question of recovery, advice needed!

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

Like you said, sleep is #1.

As for eating, I wouldn't over-think it. Just make sure you are hydrating plenty and eating enough calories. As for specific foods or meals I don't think you have to worry about that unless you A) have weight issues or are a LW and need to stay around 160 lbs.

When I rowed in college I ate as much as I could anytime I could. Didn't really worry too much about what exactly. But I was eating well over 500 g of carbs. And drinking lots of chocolate milk. Lots and lots.

[PaulG]

I'm not a coach, so I don't pretend to know physiology/rowing inside and out, but if I am not mistaken 50' of UT2 is a waste of time.

To actually see benefits in UT2 training you need to go for >70 minutes. Otherwise you're just not taxing your system enough and will not see any physiological changes in response to the prolonged stress.

I'm not an exercise physiologist either, but I recall this quote from Dr. Fritz Hagerman in Training the Energy Systems:

"We have convincing data, including muscle biopsy histochemical and biochemincal
indicators, which support that rowing continuously at a low steady state intensity for 60
minutes or longer for any calibre of rower, is not more effective in maintaining aerobic
capacity than 30 minutes of rowing at the same work intensity."

So, I don't know what to make of this except I find erging for more than 60 minutes incredibly boring. Is Hagerman implying that 30 minutes of aerobic work is as good as an hour or more? Or does he mean 30 minute intervals. In any case I find brief breaks at 20 or 30 minutes makes long erg session bearable.

Paul