Concept2 Forum

Sub 6 minute row Journal

Hi guys,

I was just wondering if you guys could give me a bit of insight on the challenge I have set myself as it is one of the things I would like to achieve in my fitness. I will give you a bit of information about me before I start answering questions. I will be 25 next month, I am 88kg, 5ft 10 (178cm I think...), Body fat 21% and I use to do indoor rowing a lot at gym when I was 16-20 and occasionally do it now. I have started to pick up again 2 months ago and I am doing about 1-2 rows a week (usually 2km or intervals of 300mWork:400mRecovery x 3).

I use to do it on Level 10 and achieved 6:57, but I found out about drag factor and went to level 8 and went to 6:54 recently and I think i still had some more in the tank, but got bit lazy at the end. I think I am going to try it at level 6 next time and on that rower is a drag factor of about 130.

6:54 my splits were 1:41 (29 s/m), 1:42 (31 s/m), 1:45 (28 s/m), 1:45 (28 s/m).

My current training at the moment consists of the below (3 months ago I was doing probably 3-4 sessions a week of just cardio/weights then I stepped it up):


Olympic lifting Clean and jerk w/legs and shoulders (Turkish get ups, Front Db lunge raises, Kb clean and presses) x 1
Olympic lifting Snatch w legs (Dead lift/ front squat) x 1
KB session x 1
Upper body x 2 (Pull ups, dips, bench, rows, flys and reverse flys)

Usually 2 together (30 mins in gym for quick cardio)
Running x 2 (2-5 km)
Cycling x 1 (3km or 10km)
Rowing (2km + intervals) x 1-2 (If I don't row twice, I swim (45 mins) x1)

Yoga x 1
Shoulder stability x 1
Gymnastics x 1 (Mobility is rubbish, so this is helping)
Body weight circuit session or boxing bag/skipping x 2


So I think that's all the information about me and my training regime.

So I was wondering what you guys think I could do to help my rowing, I was going to do 2-3 rowing sessions a week now and maybe take 1 other thing out of my regime.
I also wanted to know how long I should plan to get to my sub 6. I am aiming to get a 6:49 in the next 2 weeks as I think I could it, but how long for the 5:59, are we talking 1-2 years. If so should I aim to get to 6:25-29 by the end of this year.

Other things I can think of is decrease my body fat, but keep my weight up, Eat well and try to have more pasta, brown rice etcc and take more complex carbs. Try to get my stroke rate to 32-34 but with the same power. I know this is not going to be a walk in the park and is going to be extremely difficult, but any help I could get from you guys would be much appreciated.

Thanks

RD

If you want to maintain a rowing blog go here: http://indoorsportservices.co.uk/forum/ ... cent_blogs

You'll need to do lots of endurance work at say 20 and 250W +. A 6' 2k is an Olympic level time; maybe Xeno can help you.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ironoarsman

If we look at your 6:54 that's 1:43.5 pace and 315.7W
When we look at 6:00 that's 1:30.0 pace and 480.1W

So to go from your current PB to your desired goal you need to generate 480/315.7 == 1.520 times your current power. That's a 52% increase on every stroke.

It's going to take a lot of training for seven days a week to go from your casual rower status to elite, world class rower.
Best of luck with that.

At your height you're too short to be an elite heavyweight and currently too heavy (by at least 18Kg) to be an elite lightweight.

Citroen wrote:If we look at your 6:54 that's 1:43.5 pace and 315.7W
When we look at 6:00 that's 1:30.0 pace and 480.1W

So to go from your current PB to your desired goal you need to generate 480/315.7 == 1.520 times your current power. That's a 52% increase on every stroke.

It's going to take a lot of training for seven days a week to go from your casual rower status to elite, world class rower.
Best of luck with that.

At your height you're too short to be an elite heavyweight and currently too heavy (by at least 18Kg) to be an elite lightweight.

Sub 6 will almost certainly be impossible, only if you are very unfit is a full minute improvement possible. Next to that, I don,t think any rower your height ever reached sub 6,

Rowing is a very aerobic, you need lots of meters mostly to become good. Lots is way above 100 km a week.

You made one comment that seemed to me to be a little backwards, when you said you want to "produce the same power at a 32 - 34 stroke rate". I'll defer to the more experienced guys that post here, but I think the goal should be to produce the same power (or more) at a lower stroke rate.Try pulling 6:57 at a 20 rate and see how it feels. James g hit the nail on the head when he recommended 250 watts at a 20 rate. Then when you have built a powerful stroke, rate up to 30-32 and bring the wattage up with you. As mentioned earlier, you need to pull over 450w to get near 6 minutes. Why not do a 450w x 1000m and get a feel for what's required? One thing is a given, you won't get there on 2-3 erg work-outs per week. I don't see how it would be possible to get to 6m with-out logging 100k per week, with lots of long ( 30 - 60m) 20 rate high wattage stuff.

Nothing wrong with shooting for a high goal....just don't under estimate the work required to get there. Good luck!

If you want to see what type of training it takes to come close to that level have a look at Paul Buchanan's blog - http://roadtosub6.blogspot.com.

I don't think he has broken the 6 minute barrier quite yet but have a look at his workouts. 8k+ 30r20's at 70%HR, 4 x 2000 intervals @ 6:24...100000m at about 1:51 split.

6:50's and sub 6 are galaxies apart. Good luck and keep us posted.

dnf0929 wrote:If you want to see what type of training it takes to come close to that level have a look at Paul Buchanan's blog - http://roadtosub6.blogspot.com.

I don't think he has broken the 6 minute barrier quite yet but have a look at his workouts. 8k+ 30r20's at 70%HR, 4 x 2000 intervals @ 6:24...100000m at about 1:51 split.

6:50's and sub 6 are galaxies apart. Good luck and keep us posted.

To add to this Paul started around 6.20 ish, and now is looking or 6.00
He is around 6.4 and weighs 105 kg.

Although there are other ways to train, Paul is 100% focussed on the endurence side, it gives a good idea what a 6 flat rower can do. Recently he erged a fm in 145, 22 2k s in 700 flat...

Of course, we are all reluctant to say that something cannot be done. More power to anyone who can go from 6:5x to sub 6. But then there is reality.

I know that a couple of years ago after rowing 6:57 pretty early in my rowing, I thought that maybe 6:40 was going to be easily in sight. A few months of rowing emphasizing intense workouts left me a second short of 6:40. I never made it. I never considered sub 6 min.

Just saying.

hjs wrote:

dnf0929 wrote:If you want to see what type of training it takes to come close to that level have a look at Paul Buchanan's blog - http://roadtosub6.blogspot.com.

I don't think he has broken the 6 minute barrier quite yet but have a look at his workouts. 8k+ 30r20's at 70%HR, 4 x 2000 intervals @ 6:24...100000m at about 1:51 split.

6:50's and sub 6 are galaxies apart. Good luck and keep us posted.

To add to this Paul started around 6.20 ish, and now is looking or 6.00
He is around 6.4 and weighs 105 kg.

Although there are other ways to train, Paul is 100% focussed on the endurence side, it gives a good idea what a 6 flat rower can do. Recently he erged a fm in 145, 22 2k s in 700 flat...

These numbers are just silly, unreal. Some of you guys are too kind to the OP. It's nice to have goals, even aggressive ones, but delusional ones probably aren't very beneficial.

maestroak wrote:

hjs wrote:

dnf0929 wrote:If you want to see what type of training it takes to come close to that level have a look at Paul Buchanan's blog - http://roadtosub6.blogspot.com.

I don't think he has broken the 6 minute barrier quite yet but have a look at his workouts. 8k+ 30r20's at 70%HR, 4 x 2000 intervals @ 6:24...100000m at about 1:51 split.

6:50's and sub 6 are galaxies apart. Good luck and keep us posted.

To add to this Paul started around 6.20 ish, and now is looking or 6.00
He is around 6.4 and weighs 105 kg.

Although there are other ways to train, Paul is 100% focussed on the endurence side, it gives a good idea what a 6 flat rower can do. Recently he erged a fm in 145, 22 2k s in 700 flat...

These numbers are just silly, unreal. Some of you guys are too kind to the OP. It's nice to have goals, even aggressive ones, but delusional ones probably aren't very beneficial.

Are you claiming that the numbers quoted by dnf00929 and hjs are false? Paul Buchanan's capability is well established and you are wasting your time if you are challenging the numbers. As far as the OP is concerned, so far there has been no response from that member. I doubt that there will ever be another post from the OP.

Bob S.

Bob S. wrote:
Are you claiming that the numbers quoted by dnf00929 and hjs are false? Paul Buchanan's capability is well established and you are wasting your time if you are challenging the numbers. As far as the OP is concerned, so far there has been no response from that member. I doubt that there will ever be another post from the OP.

Bob S.

No, not at all, just marveling at his capability.

-Steve

maestroak wrote:
No, not at all, just marveling at his capability.

-Steve

O.K. I took your message too literally. Sorry I overreacted.

Bob S.

The original poster hasn't been back to the forum since 24th June, so I suspect all discussion of his wild ambitions is pointless.

Citroen wrote:The original poster hasn't been back to the forum since 24th June, so I suspect all discussion of his wild ambitions is pointless.

Just typical. Time and again someone out of the blue asks for advice and oftentimes it lurches into fantasy land. The person gets some realistic advice, but the OP disappears. It would be interesting to see a really serious wannabe rower go from 6:5x to 6:00. But, in that case the OP is not likely to just disappear. I know that I got a lot of feedback when I was trying to improve by only 20 secs in 2012, and I did not disappear. I guess I'm saying that it gets old replying to posters who are pulling our collective legs and don't really have any interest. Jim G