Are we training too easy?

[jcross485]

Bait-y title acknowledged.

I don't think there is much question that the training of the higher performers and elites works for them.

That said, I can't help but think the sheer volume of their training more or less necessitates that their easy work is as easy as it is; it's to make sure they can do the hard work as hard as they do.

I had one week once where I managed 140k with strength work added; I needed to do a bulk of that volume at a relatively easy effort or intensity just to get through the amount of work.

That's definitely not the norm for me though. I'm more of a 6ish hours per week person on the average; some weeks get away from me with work and other commitments and at other phases, I can put in 8-10 hours consistently. I would still base my plan around ~6 hours a week as it's fairly sustainable for me year round.

So back to training - what about those who are training more along the lines of 4-6 hours per week like myself? Do we really need to do 80% (or more) of their volume "easy" or at such a low effort, HR, etc.? By "easy", I'm referring to Zone 1 / 2 HR's or UT2 type efforts on the erg.

Surely the harder stuff needs to be in there (thinking sprint intervals, harder "race pace" intervals, threshold work) but would we be better served doing "easy" work more in the realm of UT1 or LT1 type effort (ie. Z3-ish)?

Just some of my thoughts as I build out my next block a bit more formally now that I'm home and travel has calmed down a lot.

[Cyclist2]

I'm in the same boat, as it were.

I like to be competitive, but long gone are the days of rigidly training, tracking, evaluating, etc. I keep up a fitness regimen, and a lot of that doesn't involve the erg.

I am currently following the C2 interactive training plan for the erg race in February (Section 5: Preset Programmes, Table 5.11, Level 3 - Fit). I'm getting 4-5 sessions per week and at this point in the program, it's all UT1 and harder interval workouts. Early in this particular program there was UT2 with mostly UT1. So, it looks like what you suggest for people in our situation - every session a solid effort, since there is plenty of rest time between the sessions, and our base fitness is well established.

I guess we'll see how competitive I am come the erg race.

[JaapvanE]

Just my experience, for what it is worth (51 year old male, always been an athlete).

A bit of context: I row about 82K a week, where each day has some rowing, and I do two to three judo trainings a week as well is walk about 4k a day. But work pushes a bit sometimes, just like yours does.

I do 6 training steady state HR Zone 2, where I typically hit the upper HR border at the end of the session. 1 training per week is HR4 to HR5 (on a 5 zone scale).

Sometimes I overshoot in a HR Zone2 session, and end up upper HR Zone 3 to Zone 4 (a lack of impulse control), so I'm pretty confident my limits are where they should be, as all physiological tells indicate Zone 2 just went out of the window. Side effect typically is a fatigue in my legs and a need to more actively manage HR (=bring pace down a bit) in the remaining sessions as I fatigue more easily. I'm the first to admit that improving sleep and food intake could improve my recovery, and thus reduce these effects. But with my current life's choices, I guess 1 intense session is the max before negative effects set in and start to carry over too much.

[alex9026]

I could waffle on all night about this but I'll cut to the chase (and forgive me if I'm missing your point).

You're well versed in the strength training world so can I assume you're familiar with Dan John's work? I like his "park bench" perspective ie a session we can repeat over and over without accumulating much fatigue. In the flip side, we have a "bus bench" where we have a set time frame or schedule and an appointment ie your goal to meet. We could probably sustain a given effort (programing at least) for six weeks. Your 140km week (I recall it) is impressive but week in week out, it would have caught up with you.

After taking a break from the Erg back in October and a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries I set myself a target in the way of the infamous (in weight lifting circles) Super Squats program. This is six weeks, 2-3 sessions a week of progressive overload and a ton of food. I stopped "easy" Erg'ing on rest days after week one. No way I'm pushing that envelope for more than six weeks (I'm back in a 531 routine). Everything hurt, every single day.

I'm back on the Erg, albeit quite steady stuff atm. After Christmas, I'll ramp up the intensity but this will be for 8 weeks before returning to my "park bench".

I guess what I'm trying to say is we can push harder than normal or what science suggests we should at, for interim periods. I burnt out this summer, probably more mentally than physically. But it does get you in the end. Ask yourself, could you train harder? Yes. Should you train harder right now? It depends...

[p_b82]

I'm def in the "not enough volume so grip and rip" mindset.

Pretty much everything I do is zone 4/5 in the 5 zone model - or AT/TR in the other paradigm; as I'm doing 3 maybe 4 sessions a week typically.

When I did the marathon training, I did back down the HR, but then I was working on lower pace work, as the volume at target pace was more critical than a short sharp 5k blast. I was also recovering from a back spasm that mandated the gently gently approach too.

I did find that I burnt myself out mentally post FM - just could not get into the groove, and then repeated bouts of illness over summer and autumn put me further on the back foot. October I only completely 16.5k all month - less than my weekly average last season.

[nick rockliff]

A very provocative subject of which I'll stay silent

[Dangerscouse]

In my humble opinion there's always been, and always will be, a tendency for people to look for convenient boxes for what training should look like, but in reality every single day and every week will vary in what is possible, nevermind the sheer vagaries of personal capabilities and recoverability.

I'm far more inclined to suggest just do a mix of easy medium and hard sessions, based on some sort of structure, but use intuition to adjust it on occasions. No need for us amateurs to overcomplicate it all with finer details that may, or may not work.

[Dangerscouse]

A very provocative subject of which I'll stay silent

Hahaha, I probably should have as well!!

[iain]

Can't resist despite Rocky's wisdom.

I think there is no one size fits all. If someone wants to win a hammer then they need to optimise the time available for training to work on all aspects of their fitness and speed focussing on areas of weakness. Probably means cycles with mainly long slow with some faster work then focussing on quality at the end. But most of us aren't in that camp. For the rest it is about doing what accomplishes their aims. These will vary from cross training (where determined by the training in the main sport), building/retaining reasonable fitness (more important to do sustainable work that you like so that you stay motivated). To setting and chasing different objectives (where objective focus required with training changing when type of objective changes).

So sorry no one approach. 12 months ago I would have said 80% slow was not right (and I think that is normally 80% of sessions ONLY containing slow work so with warm ups, recovery and cooldowns and longer slow sessions will be >90% by volume slow!). I posted many times that the SS sessions just needed to be slow enough to recover for the faster sessions. But as someone who had no endurance or strength background who had been under active in childhood and sedentary for 15 years before starting erging, I had no base. Following my prescription got me much quicker (if far from serious times even for my size and age). But more recently I have added UT2 and it has significantly improved my pace for longer rows and allowed me to set a PB for HM over 10 years since I started going backwards. So now I think that for people like me slow SS is very necessary to improve optimally.

[jcross485]

Boy, I did not expect this to take off this quick!

I'm in the same boat, as it were.

I like to be competitive, but long gone are the days of rigidly training, tracking, evaluating, etc. I keep up a fitness regimen, and a lot of that doesn't involve the erg.

I am currently following the C2 interactive training plan for the erg race in February (Section 5: Preset Programmes, Table 5.11, Level 3 - Fit). I'm getting 4-5 sessions per week and at this point in the program, it's all UT1 and harder interval workouts. Early in this particular program there was UT2 with mostly UT1. So, it looks like what you suggest for people in our situation - every session a solid effort, since there is plenty of rest time between the sessions, and our base fitness is well established.

I guess we'll see how competitive I am come the erg race.

It seems like your plan is more structured towards an end date or goal which makes sense, similar to peaking for any kind of event, endurance, strength, or otherwise. Going generally from least specific to more specific. It makes a lot of sense to me. I guess I was thinking more of just a general year round plan where there isn't a set calendar date for an event per se.

Just my experience, for what it is worth (51 year old male, always been an athlete).

A bit of context: I row about 82K a week, where each day has some rowing, and I do two to three judo trainings a week as well is walk about 4k a day. But work pushes a bit sometimes, just like yours does.

I do 6 training steady state HR Zone 2, where I typically hit the upper HR border at the end of the session. 1 training per week is HR4 to HR5 (on a 5 zone scale).

Sometimes I overshoot in a HR Zone2 session, and end up upper HR Zone 3 to Zone 4 (a lack of impulse control), so I'm pretty confident my limits are where they should be, as all physiological tells indicate Zone 2 just went out of the window. Side effect typically is a fatigue in my legs and a need to more actively manage HR (=bring pace down a bit) in the remaining sessions as I fatigue more easily. I'm the first to admit that improving sleep and food intake could improve my recovery, and thus reduce these effects. But with my current life's choices, I guess 1 intense session is the max before negative effects set in and start to carry over too much.

What you're saying makes sense to me as you're training with a bit more volume overall than I will be; just looking at the schedule, you have over 6 hours of training per week across all modalities I would guess. You also do have a few more years on me so my perspective may be skewed as well. I think as total volume starts creeping up (IMO, all modalities need to be factored in), the more important it is to control intensity, meaning hard sessions hard, easy sessions easy enough to allow for recovery for the hard sessions. But, if total volume isn't all that high (~6 hours a week max), my thought then becomes a bit harder aerobic work may be more beneficial than the lower end work.

I could waffle on all night about this but I'll cut to the chase (and forgive me if I'm missing your point).

You're well versed in the strength training world so can I assume you're familiar with Dan John's work? I like his "park bench" perspective ie a session we can repeat over and over without accumulating much fatigue. In the flip side, we have a "bus bench" where we have a set time frame or schedule and an appointment ie your goal to meet. We could probably sustain a given effort (programing at least) for six weeks. Your 140km week (I recall it) is impressive but week in week out, it would have caught up with you.

After taking a break from the Erg back in October and a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries I set myself a target in the way of the infamous (in weight lifting circles) Super Squats program. This is six weeks, 2-3 sessions a week of progressive overload and a ton of food. I stopped "easy" Erg'ing on rest days after week one. No way I'm pushing that envelope for more than six weeks (I'm back in a 531 routine). Everything hurt, every single day.

I'm back on the Erg, albeit quite steady stuff atm. After Christmas, I'll ramp up the intensity but this will be for 8 weeks before returning to my "park bench".

I guess what I'm trying to say is we can push harder than normal or what science suggests we should at, for interim periods. I burnt out this summer, probably more mentally than physically. But it does get you in the end. Ask yourself, could you train harder? Yes. Should you train harder right now? It depends...

Yes, definitely would consider myself versed in strength work. I agree, 140k a week would catch up quick and not be something I could sustain given life circumstances. If life would allow that kind of training time, I think physically I could manage but it would need to be very much smart training with polarized volumes - a lot of pretty darn easy work, a bit of the harder spicier stuff. I do acknowledge the "it depends" answer and I think that really could apply to anything, but given this particular case or situation that I am in, I am going to experiment with focusing a bit more on quality as opposed to strictly volume, ie. 10-12k at UT1 vs 15-18k at UT2.

I'm def in the "not enough volume so grip and rip" mindset.

Pretty much everything I do is zone 4/5 in the 5 zone model - or AT/TR in the other paradigm; as I'm doing 3 maybe 4 sessions a week typically.

When I did the marathon training, I did back down the HR, but then I was working on lower pace work, as the volume at target pace was more critical than a short sharp 5k blast. I was also recovering from a back spasm that mandated the gently gently approach too.

I did find that I burnt myself out mentally post FM - just could not get into the groove, and then repeated bouts of illness over summer and autumn put me further on the back foot. October I only completely 16.5k all month - less than my weekly average last season.

I think we're in about the same boat. When I was prepping for more HM / FM work, doing a lot of lower HR volume made sense as I had to condition the body to be on the seat for a long period. Right now, my focus is bringing my deadlift back up and knocking out some of the shorter distances (100m - 2k); because that's going to be the focus, I am going to experiment with a bit more quality as opposed to volume for meters sake.

A very provocative subject of which I'll stay silent

Please chime in! Your experience and insights are always welcomed!

In my humble opinion there's always been, and always will be, a tendency for people to look for convenient boxes for what training should look like, but in reality every single day and every week will vary in what is possible, nevermind the sheer vagaries of personal capabilities and recoverability.

I'm far more inclined to suggest just do a mix of easy medium and hard sessions, based on some sort of structure, but use intuition to adjust it on occasions. No need for us amateurs to overcomplicate it all with finer details that may, or may not work.

More of an auto-regulated approach based on RPE it seems? It probably is the most ideal way to do it, if you're honest enough with yourself and disciplined enough with yourself to make that happen. I don't know that I am quite there yet myself. I feel like I am still in a position where I need some kind of structure (ie. two aerobic sessions, two threshold sessions, one VO2max session, one sprint / power session per week) just to hold myself accountable. If I am honest with myself, I have no issue with the aerobic work, more threshold type work, and even sprint / power work; its the VO2max type work (ie. 2k race pace intervals) that I avoid and I know that's what I need and would benefit from the most.

Can't resist despite Rocky's wisdom.

I think there is no one size fits all. If someone wants to win a hammer then they need to optimise the time available for training to work on all aspects of their fitness and speed focussing on areas of weakness. Probably means cycles with mainly long slow with some faster work then focussing on quality at the end. But most of us aren't in that camp. For the rest it is about doing what accomplishes their aims. These will vary from cross training (where determined by the training in the main sport), building/retaining reasonable fitness (more important to do sustainable work that you like so that you stay motivated). To setting and chasing different objectives (where objective focus required with training changing when type of objective changes).

So sorry no one approach. 12 months ago I would have said 80% slow was not right (and I think that is normally 80% of sessions ONLY containing slow work so with warm ups, recovery and cooldowns and longer slow sessions will be >90% by volume slow!). I posted many times that the SS sessions just needed to be slow enough to recover for the faster sessions. But as someone who had no endurance or strength background who had been under active in childhood and sedentary for 15 years before starting erging, I had no base. Following my prescription got me much quicker (if far from serious times even for my size and age). But more recently I have added UT2 and it has significantly improved my pace for longer rows and allowed me to set a PB for HM over 10 years since I started going backwards. So now I think that for people like me slow SS is very necessary to improve optimally.

Your response has a lot of wise insight, IMO. You, for a lack of better words, had to train to be ready to train. Acknowledging little base is very self aware and building that base so that you have something to build upon was probably the right call. My erg base is a bit low right now as I was off of it for 2 1/2 months traveling for work, but I stayed fit and averaged even more hours of training between rucking, running, and strength work than normal. That said, I am looking to build into some shorter more intense efforts and while I know the 2k is more aerobic than not, I just don't know that I will be training enough volume wise to necessitate that my "easy" work is as easy as often is prescribed.

[alex9026]

As the Erg was a new sport to me this year, I didn't go too far wrong following the good ol' generic Pete's lunch hour plan. He based a lot of his programming off a coach whose name evades me, but it had a longer term goal in mind (and is something I'd be keen to take a closer look at, should I remember the name!).

A good dose of aerobic work (I did longer distances than prescribed) and various intervals which rotated through a three week cycle. I chipped 7 seconds off my 2k over three months and although I didn't test it, I've no doubt my 4minute and 1k will have improved over that time, too. My mistake was not factoring in the odd easier week as the accumulation of cycles did start to wear me down.

If you have say 6-12 weeks (2-4 cycles) to run it, take a look, it struck a good balance for me.

[Nomark]

As the Erg was a new sport to me this year, I didn't go too far wrong following the good ol' generic Pete's lunch hour plan. He based a lot of his programming off a coach whose name evades me, but it had a longer term goal in mind (and is something I'd be keen to take a closer look at, should I remember the name!).

Mike Caviston's Wolverine Plan

[jcross485]

As the Erg was a new sport to me this year, I didn't go too far wrong following the good ol' generic Pete's lunch hour plan. He based a lot of his programming off a coach whose name evades me, but it had a longer term goal in mind (and is something I'd be keen to take a closer look at, should I remember the name!).

A good dose of aerobic work (I did longer distances than prescribed) and various intervals which rotated through a three week cycle. I chipped 7 seconds off my 2k over three months and although I didn't test it, I've no doubt my 4minute and 1k will have improved over that time, too. My mistake was not factoring in the odd easier week as the accumulation of cycles did start to wear me down.

If you have say 6-12 weeks (2-4 cycles) to run it, take a look, it struck a good balance for me.

I appreciate the insight! The plan / program I am building out for myself does use some of the Pete Plan as inspiration but because I am working on some strength training goals as well, it is a bit tweaked so that hopefully the strength work and erg work go hand in hand as opposed to taking two standalone plans and smashing them together.

What I like about the Pete Plan and Jim Wendler's strength stuff is that it is not necessarily designed to be a big build into an event, rather they both seem to keep you in pretty good shape and pretty fit year round touching on multiple facets regularly. Dare I say "conjugate", ie. the raising of multiple abilities or capacities at once?

[MPx]

You are at a very different point in your life and potential to me JC so I would expect you to still have aspirations to build to new PBs (PRs in the US?) as well as maintain a generally healty lifestyle. My goals have always been about remaining fit enough and strong enough to do everything else I want/need to do. The aging process does take its toll - especially post 65! - and just maintaining, at best, some decent times is hugely important in my ongoing motivation but, say, being good enough to do well in a race couldn't be less important to me. As such we will, and no doubt should, train differently - but there are some similarities.

I'm not prepared to put in quite so much time as you, but similar - in a typical week I'll do 50k+ on the erg and 2 Dumbbells sessions of about 30mins (3x 7 exercises with 10/8/6 reps on increasing weights). I choose to erg every day as that has made it "what I do" and I don't have that decision moment where any number of excuses might come forward as to why today should be a night off. 50k+ a week over 6 or 7 sessions isn't enough to worry too much about recovery. Nevertheless only two days are hard - sprint intervals (typically Tuesdays) and then competitions, TTs, or endurance intervals (typically Saturdays). The rest is my steady state - long to me, but short sessions compared to most on here ranging from some 10ks, mostly 8ks, but occasionally just 6ks like I did tonight. These sessions are often at r20 (r18 tonight) and slow enough that my HR drifts towards my supposed UT1 cap by the end. They could be slower and I'd stay in UT2, but I've never believed that that would make me better on any other day. Its hard enough going from a 180w r20 session to a 300+w r35 session - any bigger gap and the mind games definitely win. Its a bit like the rest day "myth". For many its an essential element of the week, but for me any session I have following a rest day or worse 2 days in Brum watching BRIC has an RPE at least 2 or 3 higher than the same session would in an unbroken run.

You appear to be saying you're looking for a year round keeping fit regime. What I do does that...but what it doesn't do is "peak" at any time for any specific event. If you're still going for PBs, you'll do better to periodise and adjust to hit specific goals at specific times. The other way is likely to leave you closer to mid table obscurity and not quite ever realise your full potential on the erg - but may suit your overall goals as it does mine.

[Sakly]

Long story short: since I started erging, I do 3 hard gym sessions per week, so I need to really have an eye on my recovery.
First full season had an average of 45k/week, but volume increased in the second half of the season, so less in the first half. Long sessions often at about 80% HR max.
Second full season averaged 50k, more or less evenly distributed. Long sessions still mostly at about 80% HR max.
Current season averages 60k, but last 3 month or so I get 80-90km per week in. Since I do this high volume, I reduced the load to ca. 70% HR max, sometimes 75%. Otherwise recovery would not be possible. The pace at these 70% efforts is equal or faster than the pace I had half a year ago at my 80% efforts. And even doing longer sessions, eg. for 2 hours, my HR drift is lower or not existent.
Conclusion: higher volume on lower load, less volume on higher load - both worked for me to get gains and improve. It is difficult to say which approach gave the better results. Another factor is the training in the gym, which also has effects on the results on the rower. This changed as well over time.