Hopefully not a ridiculous question: DPS

[tinak]

Hi there. Just got a nearly brand new Model D/PM3 off Craig's List about a monthish ago and have been working on my technique, lurking here and reading as much as I can. I bought the RowPro software and have been following a program from that 4 days per week on top of my normal lifting and crossfitting and am finding that I'm putting out more watts at a lower HR and that my split times are dropping accordingly. That's not the intent of the program at the moment; it seems like it's more about UT1-UT2 work, but it's still encouraging to see improvement.

Here's my question, though. I'm a 5'5" woman, around 24% bodyfat, so no bits get in the way at the finish or catch. I would say I'm average in my flexibility, although my ankles have poor dorsiflexion. I have been experimenting with the foot plate position with 3 to 4 holes showing to see if it makes a difference, but I can't detect much of one. However, my DPS seems to be around 8.5 to 9.5 meters, which, according to what I've been able to glean from the forum, is on the low side. I know there's a height factor and a reach factor, and I CAN get the DPS up into double digits, but I have to round to bring the handle closer to the housing to get there, and it seems inefficient. So... what's an "average" DPS for someone of my stature? Is there a calculation?

Thanks in advance. I really appreciate all of the collective wisdom in here.

Tina

[hjs]

Hi there. Just got a nearly brand new Model D/PM3 off Craig's List about a monthish ago and have been working on my technique, lurking here and reading as much as I can. I bought the RowPro software and have been following a program from that 4 days per week on top of my normal lifting and crossfitting and am finding that I'm putting out more watts at a lower HR and that my split times are dropping accordingly. That's not the intent of the program at the moment; it seems like it's more about UT1-UT2 work, but it's still encouraging to see improvement.

Here's my question, though. I'm a 5'5" woman, around 24% bodyfat, so no bits get in the way at the finish or catch. I would say I'm average in my flexibility, although my ankles have poor dorsiflexion. I have been experimenting with the foot plate position with 3 to 4 holes showing to see if it makes a difference, but I can't detect much of one. However, my DPS seems to be around 8.5 to 9.5 meters, which, according to what I've been able to glean from the forum, is on the low side. I know there's a height factor and a reach factor, and I CAN get the DPS up into double digits, but I have to round to bring the handle closer to the housing to get there, and it seems inefficient. So... what's an "average" DPS for someone of my stature? Is there a calculation?

Thanks in advance. I really appreciate all of the collective wisdom in here.

Tina

There is no given dps, the lower spm you use, the more meters per stroke, butbin end its pace per 500 meters that count. Shorter people also should have shorter strokes. You simply can,t make the meters like a tall person can. Don,t start overreaching or anything. Keep using base technique. Also keep the drag low enough. Crossfitters tend to use to much drag.
110/120 is enough.

[jamesg]

Not easy to use distance per stroke, as it depends on both rating and power. 8.5 to 9.5 m looks good anyway. Rating?

As examples we have these correspondences at rating 20 and 25:

Rate 20: 8 m/stroke = 53 W; 9 m = 76 W; 10 m = 104 W
Rate 25: 8 m= 104; 9m = 148W; 10 m = 203W

So as you can see, small distance changes for large power differences.

At 5'5" I'd guess you can produce 80 - 100W in LSS work. The Watt reading is more sensitive than distance or pace, small differences are easier to see.

Calculations are based on W=2.8V³ (cubed), where V is the speed in m/s.


The main effects of foot height are on posture at the catch: lower make it easier to get to a strong position with our weight on the feet.

The erg is very effective for endurance work in the UT2 and UT1 bands, as you have seen.

[KevJGK]

Is there a calculation?

Hi Tina

I was advised by Paul Smith (PaulS) a few years back to do most of my training at 10MPS and although it took a bit of getting used to I now adhere to that advice almost 100%

I actually find it strange now not to cover exactly 10MPS as a consequence of which I am usually between 23 & 26 spm as that covers the 01:55-2:10/500m range.

I would find it difficult to explain the logic behind the advice - so here it is from the horses mouth.



10 Meters / Stroke (10 per Stroke or “10PS”)
The principle behind fixing the number of meters per stroke is that to go faster we must complete that number of meters faster, and while it's easy to fool the PM, and ourselves, it will be far more beneficial to do away with any illusions and achieve genuine gains.

Ratio
With a high level of exertion some rest is going to be required so that there can be many repetitions without fading. DF, Stroke length, and Drive power all combine to determine Drive Time (DT), then recovery time (RT) is simply whatever is left over for a given SR. The quicker and more powerful the Drive, the more rest we are going to need between drives. What is optimal, very hard to say, but the often cited 1:2 ratio is a good place to start.

The actual Drive to recovery ratio (time) will be in the area of 1:3, our brains don't do that figuring very well, it seems more like the 1:2 that is talked about, but the catch and release are really part of the recovery.

The "Distance" ratios will be Drive: Recovery (1:1.5) hence the 4:6 @ 10m/stroke. This is because the speed is really the speed of the whole "system", not the hull of the virtual boat.

DF/stroke length/strength/quickness/fitness/sequence all interact to determine what will be efficient, so there are no really simple answers.
Every action has a consequence that balances in the trade off, i.e. faster recovery / less rest time, faster drive / closer to AN, the list is nearly endless.

The DF is used to adjust the ratio during the stroke. Also, the higher the DF the more meters/rev is credited. For a Model B Erg the number of revs during the drive will also depend on which sprocket is being used.

Whatever ratio is chosen, it should be stuck with though, since changing it around all the time avoids the specific training that is needed. i.e. If you find yourself getting done with the drive too quickly, increase DF to slow it down (slow down by adding resistance), if you need more recovery time decrease DF to get the Drive over with more quickly. The constant that remains is the meters/stroke.


Putting it into practice
When catching on the 0's, the drive alone should get you through about 4 meters or so (to the 7 to 6 change) and then 5-4-3-2-1-catch-9-8-7-release-5-4-3-2-1-etc...

DF can be used to help adjust the ratio slightly but how power is applied is going to be the key to making this work for you. If you are an on-water rower the DF should be set to reflect the speed at which you are expecting to be going. Lower DF’s will train you to be able to apply power very quickly, and you must be sure that your blade work will allow you to do so. If you can’t get your blade in the water before you begin you drive, all the power in the world does no good.

Make small adjustments to the DF (~. 5) per workout until arriving at the “sweet spot”. This basically sets up a forced ratio to the total stroke time. And starts to ingrain the habit of "If my drive takes this long / my recovery is going to take that long / my hands need to move at this speed / my body needs to start moving when hands get to here / my legs can start moving when body has moved back to here / and the catch comes right on ZERO, with no hesitation required."
(How's that for a run-on sentence?)

Having difficulty with S10PS? :
As for the 10M/stroke, it's just a matter of concentration and it will determine the Stroke rate for any given pace, i.e. a 2:00 pace is covering 250M/min, so a SR=25 @ 10M/stroke. A 2:26 all the way to 2:20 will have a displayed SR of 21 due to the rounding done by the PM2, but the displayed SR is not important. The goal is to pick your target pace and hit 10M/stroke for it. Why this will help with the Drive: Recovery ratio is that the flywheel, once the DF has been set, will give us credit for some number of meters/rev, the number of revs that we can get on the drive are pretty well fixed by our stroke length, i.e. the gear on a model C has 14 teeth, there are 4 chain links per inch so 3.5" of handle travel will cause 1 revolution of the flywheel. For easy math lets use a 49" stroke length, 49/3.5=14 flywheel revolutions on the drive.
When not on the drive the flywheel will lose velocity, but it was moving it's fastest at the release so we can take advantage of that during the recovery and let it spin 1.5 times the revolutions while we get a bit of time to rest.

How we attain faster Paces is by getting through the 14 revs more quickly, and then recover at a proportional speed. This way our ratio stays equal for all Paces.

The common error is to row with too high of ratio when going "easy" and then too low of ratio when rowing "hard", since we are really trying to train our system to act in some kind of harmony, getting out of ratio is confusing rather than conditioning.


Strapless Rowing (Coupled with 10PS = “S10PS”, the foundation of Erg Training):

Why Strapless rowing?
There are many common errors, rushing the recovery, too much layback, unbalanced finish, lack of smooth transitions, etc… that will be magnified in their uncomfortableness by not strapping your feet down to the stretchers. While it is still possible to row poorly while not strapped in, I have found that it forces the elimination of gross errors (Pending extreme stubbornness). If a high level of competitiveness is desired, live coaching will be required, but short of that trying to copy what you see in the C2 technique video while rowing strapless will go pretty far in getting the stroke in line.

10m/stroke
As for the 10M/stroke, I am very strict on this, especially for training. For rowers in just about any size range it optimizes the ratio of recovery and drive, which includes the amount that the flywheel is going to be allowed to slow between strokes. Using it as a fixed value is very effective in monitoring progress since it provides a constant to work with. Since the SPM is only shown in whole numbers it can't be relied on as well as "catching on the zeros", so that is really what you want to keep an eye on. Once you get used to watching that you will also notice that your release will be on about the 7 to 6 change. Adjusting DF to get this to happen will be a way of “tuning” ratio to your particular stroke length.

The SR will take care of itself when we start to use target paces, obviously a 2:00 pace will be a SR=25, but the only way we know that additional power is being gained is that we have a faster pace and still cover 10M/stroke. The SR will change more slowly than the Pace figure due to rounding. The two pieces of information that will be focused on will be Pace and 10m/stroke.


Why not 11m/stroke?
Just trust me on the 10M/stroke for now. 11M/stroke would be better (so long as all the correct ratios were maintained), but the problem with it is that we can't get 11M/stroke without slowing down our recovery and letting the flywheel slow excessively, then we have to speed it up far more to keep the pace where we want it to be. This is also reshaping the nature of your stroke, which is always uncomfortable to begin with. The ratio will smooth out and start to feel more natural as time goes by, you may even get to the point where you start to wonder, "why do they need straps on these things at all?" The stroke really has no beginning or end once we get rolling so try and think of it as a whole rather than a discreet drive and recovery, what we are looking for is being able to do the absolute least amount of work while maintaining the desired pace, having it "feel" hard is not what we are after. An analogy might be like this, would you rather leg press 999Lb. one time, or 50 lbs 20 times? Which was more work? Which felt easier? Was one actually impossible even though theoretically it is less work?

Make every stroke as easy and smooth as possible while maintaining the target pace and 10M/stroke, it will come around.

[hjs]

10 spm has big flaws, slower rowers only may use slow spm and faster rowers high spm. This whilebthe slower rower is often small and faster rower tall.
So the short legs should move slow and the long legs fast. Completely the wrong way. The only reason 10 spm is used is because it is easy to hit the zero,s. 9 spm or 11 let alone a not round number is impossible to hit.

[KevJGK]

10 spm has big flaws ...

Hi Henry

If you consider the range of training paces usually reported on here, then it seems that 10MPS gets you to a stroke rate usually advocated as ideal (for training).

Cheers,

[hjs]

10 spm has big flaws ...

Hi Henry

If you consider the range of training paces usually reported on here, then it seems that 10MPS gets you to a stroke rate usually advocated as ideal (for training).

Cheers,

Kev, the lady asking is 5.5 10 spm for her would be unworkable.

And to give two simple examples.

A rower rows 8.00 on the 2k rating 35, she is short.
B rower rows 6.00 on the 2k rating 31 he is tall.

Let them both use 10 spm and see how that would work out. A runner, swimmer, cyclist would never use meters per stride. The only reason it is used is fake convenience. The same goes for rate 20 I might ad.

[jackarabit]

I can catch on the zeros, the nines, the fives, or up and down your great grandma's lace hooks, bit I can't do that ten count out loud or silently. Does Paul Smith intend the count to be a literal prescription or only illustrative of the 1:2 ratio? OK, I do admit to being closer to 9m/S and tend to see a zero nine eight seven etc. progression of the last digit of meterage on the monitor. Jack

[KevJGK]

I can catch on the zeros, the nines, the fives, or up and down your great grandma's lace hooks, bit I can't do that ten count out loud or silently. Does Paul Smith intend the count to be a literal prescription or only illustrative of the 1:2 ratio? OK, I do admit to being closer to 9m/S and tend to see a zero nine eight seven etc. progression of the last digit of meterage on the monitor. Jack

I just start each stroke on a zero - you tend to slow the recovery for it.

Definitely no counting out loud

[Citroen]

If you consider the range of training paces usually reported on here, then it seems that 10MPS gets you to a stroke rate usually advocated as ideal (for training).

At 5'10" you are just about in the middle of the range for adult male rowers (who bother to report their training on here). That's probably why Paul's advice works for you. You're, probably, a good candidate for Paul's "Law" (aka conjecture) to work at double the distance and add 5.

At 5'5" and female we can throw all of Paul's laws, advice and conjectures out of the window.

For the OP the best bet is to row a eyeballs out 2K and report the result/splits in detail. That will tell us more than anything to do with DPS. It would also be useful to know age and body weight.

[KevJGK]

A rower rows 8.00 on the 2k rating 35, she is short.
B rower rows 6.00 on the 2k rating 31 he is tall.

I think the idea is to get away from 8:00 @ 35 - and sorry, but I don't know anything at all about 6:00 @ any rate (is that possible)

8:00 would be @ 25 or whatever pace was possible at 10 spm for 8:00 @ 35 erger.

[hjs]

A rower rows 8.00 on the 2k rating 35, she is short.
B rower rows 6.00 on the 2k rating 31 he is tall.

I think the idea is to get away from 8:00 @ 35 - and sorry, but I don't know anything at all about 6:00 @ any rate (is that possible)

8:00 would be @ 25 or whatever pace was possible at 10 spm for 8:00 @ 35 erger.

So you never seen a ladies race? They do not rate 25, they rate a lot higher. They should certainly no try to to rate 25.

6 flat for a tall strong rower rate 31 is pretty normal.

Also on general, take two rowers who are both mote or less of the same speed. One is 5.8, the other is 6.5. Almost always the shorter one rates a lot higher. But using 10 spm they should use exactly the same rate.

Think for yourself Kev. 10 spm is nonsense.

[KevJGK]

...So you never seen a ladies race? They do not rate 25, they rate a lot higher...
Think for yourself Kev. 10 spm is nonsense.

Just to be clear the 10MPS principle is for training not for racing. Tina; the original poster is already averaging 8.5M/9.5MPS at 5.5’ and both of my 5’ daughters erg comfortably at 10MPS.

I’m pretty sure anybody can manage 10MPS – obviously at a slower pace than an unrestricted MPS/higher SPM achieves. The idea is to do your best at 10MPS and improve your pace naturally - then you’ll know any pace improvement is a function of technique & power rather than rating - and when you do rate up, i.e. race, you’ll be much faster.

10 MPS is definitely not a racing strategy. Having said that – the 6:00/31SPM guy you describe is averaging 11MPS and guess what he would average at 33SPM?

[jackarabit]

I think Kev must have meant meters per stroke or distance per stroke rather than strokes per minute. I'm keeping an open mind, with particular reference to "tuning" drive/recovery ratio by choice of df as described by Paul Smith:

As for the 10M/stroke, I am very strict on this, especially for training. For rowers in just about any size range it optimizes the ratio of recovery and drive, which includes the amount that the flywheel is going to be allowed to slow between strokes. Using it as a fixed value is very effective in monitoring progress since it provides a constant to work with. Since the SPM is only shown in whole numbers it can't be relied on as well as "catching on the zeros", so that is really what you want to keep an eye on. Once you get used to watching that you will also notice that your release will be on about the 7 to 6 change. Adjusting DF to get this to happen will be a way of “tuning” ratio to your particular stroke length.

I guess this works best counting down from set distance. And I should watch the meters count down and see something like 3:7 or 4:6 drive to recovery? For the record, i'm under average hgt. and my times from 500m to 8Km conform very well to Paul's Law. Jack

[KevJGK]

Hi Jack.

Where Henry writes 10spm I think he means 10 metres per stroke. I am definitely talking about working out at 10 metres per stroke. I always set a distance to row and start the drive for each new stroke as the PM shows the last digit as a zero, so 10,000 - 9,990 - 9,980 etc.

Cheers,