Getting sub 6:10

[PorkoRosso]

Hi,

I am 6’6 and weigh 211lbs (96kg). I am currently in my first year of university (3year bachelors) in the senior rowing team. Before coming to uni, I rowed between age 12-14 and then had a long break during which I was doing boxing and basketball. I have an ambition of going to Harvard for masters and row there for the heavyweights. My current 2k is 6:48 (I know that it is really bad). I am aware that in order to make to the team I should pull at least sub 6:10. I was wondering how long it would take me to get there. I was thinking about switching next year to the best rowing programme in my city and there requirements is roughly the same as they are for Harvard. So, is there any chance that I can get there within a year given that I started erging every day (6 days a week) and mostly do high volume (e.g 3x20). I.e. Can I pull 6.10 within a year or even less? And if it is the case, what should I do in order to reduce my time by such a significant margin.

[Tony Cook]

Hi PR and welcome.
6:48 is very respectable in general life and fitness. Many people chase the magic sub 7 and that’s a great achievement.
You have a different goal and have height and youth on your side. If 6:48 is very early in your erging life then you have newbie gains that should knock another 10 or seconds fairly quickly. After that it’s down to you and nature.
If you can keep up a 6 day a week training schedule and train the right way then 6:10 should be achievable. If life takes you in other directions and 6 days a week becomes undoable then the goal will be harder to achieve.
There’s great advice on here about training plans and what others are doing but for you getting your own coach would be very beneficial to keep you on track and know what’s right for you personally.
Good luck.

[btlifter]

I'd imagine it will take you 3-6 months. Or 3-6 years. Or it might not ever happen....

Neither I nor anybody else can tell you how long it will take you to reach any milestone. What I can tell you is that your life won't magically change if and when you hit it. If you enjoy the journey of pushing yourself, you'll have a great time, irrespective of the speed of your progression. If that's not worth it to you, I'd encourage you to consider a different activity.

[Carl Watts]

Yeah pretty bad time for your age, weight and height combination.

Pretty much I found that 6 months of decent training gets you as fast as your going to get.

You still have the chance to improve that time significantly, however it gets almost exponentially harder from a Sub 7 downwards.

Decent gains come pretty fast then it begins to flatline.

[Dangerscouse]

Not much else to add to the advice above, but basketball is a fantastic way of building transferable aerobic fitness so there is hope.

6:10 is a huge increase in pace from your current PB, but until you prove it's impossible, it's always a possibility. If you join the best rowing programme available you'll soon see what is possible and then you need to get very comfortable with being very uncomfortable.

Good luck

[Tsnor]

Excellent goal. Obtainable.

You are currently on a rowing team. Work with your coach. Build a plan to get to 6:10 with him/her. **DO NOT** do extra sessions without the coach knowing because it will hurt you. (It's like seeing 3 doctors and getting 3 prescriptions and taking all the meds --the results are bad).

You need a plan for rowing and a strength plan. Some schools the rowing coach assigns the weights, other schools there is a strength coach. Either way you need both that weight plan and the rowing plan.

Elite rowing teams, and Harvard in particular, work out 15-20 hours a week spread over 10 session over 6 days year round. NCAA limits schools to 20 hours per week, max 4 hours per day. This is likely more time than your current coach uses, so be prepared to offer your coach more time.

Harvard will also want academics. Your 6:10 target is for when you get accepted. To get accepted you'll need to grind your coursework which will be difficult given the time commit to rowing. Grinding to be top 5% of class is part of your goal and will also give you a nice platform to use when you look for work, etc.

FYI https://harvardindependent.com/2019/05/ ... the%20ergs.

Liam: For the rowing team we are always training and competing, but our official ‘in season’ period is roughly from early-April until mid-June. The rest of the school year we are still training and most people train to some extent over the summer.

Indy: How does training differ in these different seasons?

Liam: Honestly, I would say the training is largely similar in the off season versus the in season. We train roughly 20-25 hours a week both in season and off season. In the fall and spring most of the training is rowing a boat on the water, with 3-4 sessions spent weight training or rowing indoors on the ergs. During the winter all of the sessions are either on the erg or weight training as the river is mostly frozen. The only major difference between fall and spring is that in the spring racing season we have races every Saturday as opposed to practice.

[mjk]

How much training did you do leading into the 6:48?

Are you rowing on a club? Or a university team?

If you're part of a "varsity" university program, be aware of eligibility to compete. Even though mens rowing isn't a NCAA sanctioned sport, many athletic departments follow NCAA eligibility rules across all sports. The NCAA gives you 5 years to compete in 4 seasons athletically

[jamesg]

Can I pull 6.10 within a year or even less? And if it is the case, what should I do in order to reduce my time by such a significant margin.

There's a big difference between 330 and 450W. How you can bridge it depends largely on your technique, since you have the size.

Technique quality on the erg is expressed in the form of Power/Rating, which is the amount of work in each stroke. What was your number in your last 2k? Are the ergs big enough for you? Bolted down or on slides?

Guessing you would erg a 450W 2k at rate 30, given your height, the stroke number has to be at least 450/30 = 15. Work at increasing ratios for a while and low rates and see how it goes, typically almost 300W at rate 20 in short intervals to start with; 300W at 20 needs a lot of strength. A test that's often used on oarsmen is 30 minutes rate 20.

Afloat you'll need to be in a crew close to your size; otherwise the rigging might hamstring you. Have you any large 1x boats available? Watermanship can come in handy too; and erging is not rowing in any case.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

Very difficult to say if this is an achievable goal for you or not. Even at sub 6:10, at your size you'd probably need to eventually be closer to sub 6:00 t0 have a chance at a top boat somewhere like Harvard.

Anyway, what you do have going for you is your size: 6'6 gives you a lot of leverage that shorter athletes lack. Also, at 210+ lbs, you've got a lot of mass to put behind the handle. Getting to sub 6:10 should be achievable for your size, but the specific timing is impossible for anyone to guess.

I'm a bit smaller than you (6'3, ~193 lbs) and it took me quite a while to break 6:10. Certainly took way more than doing 3x20' sessions, which I would argue is NOT high volume. A 60' SS session should be the absolute minimum you look to do if your goal is to break 6:10. You should regularly be doing 75-90 minutes or even more. I'd aim for at a minimum 125km a week of work, with some AT sessions thrown in and as you get closer to 2k time doing some good sprint work as well.

[PorkoRosso]

Hi. It has been a long time since then. Thank you for your advice. I finally joined the most competitive club in my city which has some people from team GB. So I had quite tough year overall and at some point didn’t train for 3 weeks due to injury and etc. just did my 2k now and got 6:40 (I still have a fever). So I have to shave off another 30 seconds . I will see where summer would take me… hopefully, by august I will be around 6:27ish. Again, thank you for your advice and motivation.

[mjk]

Hi. It has been a long time since then. Thank you for your advice. I finally joined the most competitive club in my city which has some people from team GB. So I had quite tough year overall and at some point didn’t train for 3 weeks due to injury and etc. just did my 2k now and got 6:40 (I still have a fever). So I have to shave off another 30 seconds . I will see where summer would take me… hopefully, by august I will be around 6:27ish. Again, thank you for your advice and motivation.

Will you be continuing to train with this club throughout the summer? If so, its a good idea to let club workouts be your "hard" workouts each week, no need to do additional intervals or test pieces on top of workouts with the club.

Consistency and easy volume will be your friend over the summer. Try to get a lot of easy meters in on the erg - some people like to use Heart Rate as their guide for what is easy, I like to use perceived exertion.

I was able to go under 6:10 in my second year rowing, and the summer between seasons I just did a bunch of easy rowing while watching movies. Like 20k, 5x5k, 2x10k. Most weeks that summer I did 70-90k, but I did hit 120k for one week in mid-summer.