Concept2 Forum

Hi everyone! I was just wondering if you all could help me out.


I am a rower and, i must say, the erg is not my favorite piece of equipment in the gym. However, i am going to crash-b's and i would like to be prepared to, in all honesty, blow my friend away. she is a junior rower and thinks that she is THE thing in erging/rowing. for myschool at least. her 2k is 7:44 or so...not that impressive as far as life goes, but i think our competitive attitude has come out and now, i just want to get near her score.


my presonal best 2k is 8:03. my most recent, in november, was 8:07. To be honest, im reallly mad. I know can do better than that, i just need to train correctly. SO. i am going to start training when ireturn to school- january second. my only problem is...i have basketball 6 days a week as well. I am lucky enough to be on the varsity team, so i know that i am getting a nice cardio workout already. but....i really want to get the best 2k i can.



what is a good workout thati can incorporate with my basketball practices (2 hours 4 days a week) and games (either 1 hour or about 4, if you include travel time) 2 times a week. for instance, my friend told me that i should use sundays, the one day i have NOTHING to do, for my one hour piece. but i dont know at what pressure...or what splits i should go for, i have nooo clue.



ANY input is appreciated. thanks

kayla

Kayla-

Despite your aversion to it, you are going to have to get on the erg. For 2K training, the general plan is to lay down a solid base and then add sprint like intervals as the competition approaches. Given your practice schedule, you might as well assume that you have a solid base. On four of your practice days, you should try to add a fast paced interval style workout. You'll need a thorough erg warm-up before starting. These would included 20 x 250 at 2K-5 pace, with 45 seconds rest, 10 x 500 at 2K-3 pace with 2 minutes rest, 750 pieces, 1500 pieces, 4 x 5 minutes at 2K pace with 5 minutes rest, etc. In all of the above, 2K pace means your target per 500. On the day you don't have basketball practice, I'd do a 10K at "conversational" pace.

Oh, two more killer type workouts would be a "broken 10K" and "quien es mas macho?". A broken 10K is 4 x 250, 2 x 500, 1K, and 2K all at 2K pace with easy 1Ks in between each as rest. "Quien es mas macho?" is rowing at 2K - 5 pace for as long as you can until you miss that pace on two consecutive strokes, then rest half of the time your rowed and repeat until you can't pull at that pace.

Finally, be sure to taper in the last week. Nothing hard at all. Just keep yourself limber on the erg for 10 minutes or so.

Good luck,

Neil

nkoffler wrote: On four of your practice days, you should try to add a fast paced interval style workout. You'll need a thorough erg warm-up before starting. These would included 20 x 250 at 2K-5 pace, with 45 seconds rest, 10 x 500 at 2K-3 pace with 2 minutes rest, 750 pieces, 1500 pieces, 4 x 5 minutes at 2K pace with 5 minutes rest, etc.

question. it may sound very elementary but for these workoutts, the 20x250 and 10x500...would i choose one of those to do one day? like, tuesday, im going to do 20x250? something like that? and when you say 2k-5 and 2k-3, what do the 3 and 5 stand for?


sorryif these are simple questions, but, hey, i dont know the answers.

thank you so much though! i really appreciate it.

Neil described several different interval workouts ... you would do one on any given day.

The number is how much below your 2K pace (per 500) you would target. So if your 2K is 8:00 your pace is 2:00/500 and if your target is 2K-5 it would be 2:00 - 5 or 1:55.

JimR

Kayla--

How many days a week do you think you can both erg and play basketball? You need to have one rest day, so to erg, you will have to do that on a practice day.

As for sessions, I think Mr. Koffler's recommendations are generally in the right direction. Some fast-paced sessions on the erg could get you ready for the Crash-Bs, in conjuction w/ bball, but I think the sessions he's suggesting are too long and too fast. A group of us have been training for the Crash-Bs, and we don't--we can't--do the sessions Mr. Koffler suggests.

Fast workouts are tough. No training plan includes more than a couple of these sessions a week, and you're already competing in another sport. Don't overdo it.

Your current 2k pace is 2.02/500.

If you do two erg sessions a week, you might want to do one session of longer intervals (3 x 1500 mtrs) with a session of shorter intervals (6 x500) on another day. Consider doing the 1500 meter intervals at 2.09 (2k+7, which means 2k pace plus 7 seconds). You could start the 500 meter intervals at 2k+2. Once you get comfortable you can work the paces down. Remember to warm-up and also cool down afterwards. These sessions would take about 35-40 minutes to complete, including warm-up and cool-down. If you are able to do more than 2 sessions a week on the erg, you could consider a 30-40 minute piece at a steady pace of approx 2k+15 to18. You could break it into two intervals, if you prefer.

If you were simply erging and not playing basketball, you could do more and longer workouts, but I think you want to be careful not to overdo it.

There are different schools of thought about how much recovery to allow between intervals. On the longer intervals allow approx 50% of the work time. If you rowed for 6.30 mins, you'd recover for 3.15. Paddle lightly during recovery. For the short interval, allow recovery time at least equal to work time, that is 2 mins of rowing would be followed by a minimum of 2 min of recovery, although 3 min would be good as well.

Good luck.

Tom

Tom- your plan sounds great. I want to do as much as I can, yet A) I dont want to be dying of fatigue even more than i normally am B ) I dont have a lot of time in the first place C) I really need to keep my grades up.


Thanks so much for the help, everyone!


Good luck on your individual endeavours.

Have you ever raced at CRASH-B's before, or any indoor erg race? The other thing you need to know is timing. I had that problem last year (I swam) and didn't erg enough and CRASH-B's were a bust (8:08) and my pb is 7:28) I didn't know how to pace myself and didn't ever practice that. The thing is you have so much adrenaline that it's hard for the first 800 meters to go slow... then it gets very easy. The important thing is to know your pace and aim for it and go faster at the end not the beginning. Just thought I'd get that out there because I don't want anyone to have what happened to me last year.
Good LUck.
Sara

thanks sara! i have not raced at an indoor competition...ill try to keep timing in mind.

Sara is 100% correct. Do not under any circumstances start out too fast.
The most important thing you can do is get used to the erg and learn how to approach the race. You are fit and don't have much time, so worry less about the work outs and more about learning how to race. The vast majority of the benifit you will gain will be from two erg workouts a week. These should be geared toward learning how to race so they should be interval workouts as described above. If your grades are good and you are not too tired you should do more, but don't worry about it if you can't erg more.

You need to pace yourself and what it feels like to row a 2K race. You need to know what pace you are capable of rowing for 2K. In a perfect world you should row at a constant pace, but this is extreemly risky especially if you don't have a really good warmup and a lot of experience. If you know you can race at 1:57 but think you might average 1:55, then do the first 1000m at a 1:57 pace, then if you feel good pick up the pace a little at 1000m a little more at 500m to go, and a bit more at 250. The risk with this plan is that you might row one or two seconds slower then you are capable of. The risk of starting at too fast is that you will blow up and loose 15 seconds or more.

Just a suggestion, get a heart rate monitor if you don't have one. This will let you control your pace better during your race, i.e. you know your HR during training so you know it during the race. Of course during that last sprint you ignore the monitor anyway . This from an old runner. If the race erg doesn't have the HR sensor then you can put it on the handle so you can see it.