almostflipped wrote:First thing I would look at is your "off-season" training program. How often are you on the erg? More importantly, how consistent are you at getting on the erg? Be honest with yourself on that last one, it's amazing how often we convince ourselves we are working hard only to look in the training journal and realize how little we've actually done.
"Off season" for rowers in New England is a bit different...during the winter period (around early November through the end of March), we're not able to get on the water because it's all frozen over, so that means 5 months straight erging, 6 days a week. I attend practice diligently and never miss an erg session unless I'm sick (very rarely). Workouts for us are 2x30 min steady state (2x per week), 20 min steady state + weights (2x per week), and then on Fridays we usually do erg circuits (a common one is erg relays where you have a team of 5-6 people and you all pull as hard on the erg as you can for 1 minute and whichever team finishes with most meters wins). Saturday is usually calisthenics-related stuff. Every few weeks are the erg tests where I must report my erg score to the coaches - these tests include the Hour-of-Power (pull as hard as you can for a full hour), the 6K (in the fall, for the Head of the Charles crew), and the 2K (in the spring, for ECACs).
Anyway, once the ice melts, we're practicing in the boats for the same amount of time - 6 days per week - but we all usually try to do weights and erg sessions on our own time. In the summer, I'm typically on the water 4-5 days a week, other days are weights and ergo. Admittedly, I probably don't train as intensely in the summer as I do during the school year, but I haven't seen my fitness or erg scores decline yet. In general, being a collegiate rower means that I follow a VERY structured training program, in part because I have to do what coaches tell me, and in the company of the entire men's team.
All that and I'm still rather slow. It might be a mental block, but I somehow I doubt that, especially since I've heard accounts from many other people who are the same size as me and just as slow (sometimes slower). Actually, I've been doing 3x10 min @24 SPM on ergo recently and found I can pull around 1:56-1:57 so I might have to try a 6K again sometime soon. Of course my fitness will improve and I'll learn to pull harder as I get used to it. But the fact is, there are just some guys who can hop on an erg and pull sub-6:45 2Ks their first time, and I'm not one of them.
yehster wrote:MT2008 wrote: I've long been under the impression that I can't pull as hard because I'm not big enough, but even so, there must be more that I can do to get faster. Any suggestions?
I think a big problem is you've got a mental block. I'm 5'7" , was 68kg in college and pulled 1:54's for 5K back in the day. Years later and significantly overweight, my 5K PR is 1:57-1:56. Your size isn't the only thing holding you back.
Like George stated the specifics of your current training are important, but I think you need to find a structured workout routine and stick to it. Something like Pete's plan or the Wolverine plan might serve you well.
While I will not criticize your 5K score since I can't pull that hard myself (not at the moment, anyway), I'm sorry to inform you that if you were pulling that hard and you were on my college team, you wouldn't have a chance in hell of making the Head of the Charles boat (which is what I hope to make this year). Last year, there were two guys on the team pulling 1:53 and 1:52, respectively, for their 6Ks, and they didn't make the Charles crew, either. One of them was about your size, too, and he'd been rowing for several years before me. All of the rowers who were in the Charles boat had a range of scores from 1:45 to 1:50 for their 6Ks.
At least one other possible problem I've identified is that I might not be engaging the hip flexors properly on the drive, and that's an issue with flexibility. I've noticed that I seem to be extremely lithe in my hamstrings (I can easily touch my toes with a straight back, sitting or standing) but NOT the hip flexors (I can't bend very far in the butterfly position). Learning to make different muscle groups work harder is an important part of lowering splits (when I began pulling in my LATS at the finish, I found I could consistently pull splits about 1-2 seconds faster than usual), so maybe it's just time for me to focus on making the hip flexors do more work.