Heart rate info

[keepitlow]

Just got my rower and love it. I measured my heart rate and after 15 minutes at a #5 1/2 resistance setting and a stroke rate of 29 to 31 my heart rate was about 132 per min.

Should I increase the resistance, row longer and / or row faster to get my heart rate up?

And what heart rate formula should I use for my maximum aerobic training as a 55 year old man?

[Citroen]

Leave the damper lever where it is and get the PM2/PM3 or PM4 to give you a drag factor number. That's a more meaningfull measure than damper lever position.

Lower your stroke rate and push harder with your legs on the drive.

Calculating HR appears to be simple when you look at the 220-age formula (which for gives 165) but that can be off by 40bpm either way. Without knowing how fit your are it's next to impossible for us to say what HR you should be working at. Since you're a new rower it's not sensible to suggest that you try a step test.

So my advice is learn technique, learn to row well then as you get fitter start measuring HR and trying to work harder to push your HR higher.

[Bob S.]

Just got my rower and love it. I measured my heart rate and after 15 minutes at a #5 1/2 resistance setting and a stroke rate of 29 to 31 my heart rate was about 132 per min.

Should I increase the resistance, row longer and / or row faster to get my heart rate up?

And what heart rate formula should I use for my maximum aerobic training as a 55 year old man?

You haven't really provided the pertinent information. First off, resistance setting is not as important as the drag factor and neither is important with regard to training. Nor is the stroke rate. What counts is the intensity at which you are working, as measured by the pace (or watts or Calories per hour, if you prefer these other units).

Increasing the resistance changes the feel of the pull, but does not, in itself, have much to do your work load.

By 15 minutes, at a steady rate and pace, your HR should have reached a fairly constant level. After that there is usually a very slow increase as dehydration causes some increase in the blood viscosity.

Rowing faster is an ambiguous term. Some people use this to refer to rowing at a higher stroke rate. This is misleading since it doesn't necessarily mean working harder. It is more meaningful to consider faster to be doing more meters in a certain period of time — or conversely, taking less time to do a certain number of meters. That is where the pace comes in, i.e. pace is the time that it takes to do 500 meters. The meters are fictional, of course, since the erg isn't going anywhere, but the monitor is designed to provide numbers analogous to what would be happening in a boat being rowed at that same work output. (I think that it is based on the average work done by the members of a 4-.)

There are a lot of heart rate formulas kicking around out there and none of them have much validity other than as a general guide. For any one individual they are sort of useless. The surest method is to find out what your maximum heart rate is and use one of the training programs that are based on various percentages of your HR Max. Finding your max involves gradually increasing the work load as measured by pace, watts, or Calories/hour to the point of exhaustion — a grueling procedure that I personally do not have the nerve to tackle. (Note that pace decreases with increasing intensity, whereas watts and Calories/hour increase.)

The figure of 132 BPM is on the low side, but not necessarily wrong for you. It depends on what condition you are in at this time.

Bob S.

[Cazneau]

The 132 HR doesn't tell you much without knowing what your max heart rate is. And the age formula is not very useful. I'm 45, and my max heart rate is about 188-190. That is far higher than it "should" be following the age formula. Even among elite athletes, Max HR can vary dramatically, from much higher to much lower than the age formula number.

HR as a measurement of how hard or easy something feels is also very imperfect. When I'm running, which I've been doing for years, I can maintain a 165-170 HR for ages, and it feels relatively easy. A 165 HR feels very hard for me on the erg, and on the bike, my quads will be screaming and I can be very uncomfortable when I'm spinning fast and my HR is 130.

[keepitlow]

Thanks.

Will study up your feedback.

[keepitlow]

I checked my watts. I was using about 45 watts. I started to pull harder and now average about 55 to 58 watts.

Getting a better workout and heart rate is higher after 15 minutes. Much more satisfied.

What sort of wattage do you pull for comparison?

[Bob S.]

I checked my watts. I was using about 45 watts. I started to pull harder and now average about 55 to 58 watts.

Getting a better workout and heart rate is higher after 15 minutes. Much more satisfied.

What sort of wattage do you pull for comparison?

I just checked out the data from the PM on my for my regular 10 minute warm up row this morniing. These are the results:

2' @ 12spm, 385m, 92 watts
2' @ 15spm, 409m, 111 watts
2' @ 18spm, 429m, 128 watts
2' @ 20spm, 439m, 137 watts
2' @ 12spm, 374m, 85 watts

To put this into perspective, I am 84 years old, I had an aortic valve replacement and 3x bypass 5 1/2 years ago, and I am taking it very easy nowadays because of a lack of cartilage in my right knee. O.K., so a couple of years ago, I was active in competition and was doing well in my category, but that is a thing of the past. Since the knee started giving me trouble, I have had to forego training for competition. Except for one 40' session several months ago, I have done just one these 10' warmups each day and there have been a lot of days when I didn't even do that.

With regard to heart rate, I have checked it out only a couple of times on these warmups and it gets to the mid 130s. When I was training for competition, it would get up into the 150s.

Unless you get your wattage up to at least the triple digit level, you are not working hard at all. I would guess that most men in your age bracket would be getting well over 200 watts in a real workout.

Sorry to be so blunt, but that is the way that I see it.

Bob S.

[Citroen]

What sort of wattage do you pull for comparison?

My 7K workout tonight was:

01] 3:25.1 834m 25SPM 2:02.9 947cal 188W
02] 0:41.7 186m 28SPM 1:52.0 1155al 248W
03] 1:08.3 298m 26SPM 1:54.5 1100cal 233W
04] 1:07.2 302m 28SPM 1:51.2 1174cal 254W
05] 1:08.0 313m 29SPM 1:48.6 1239cal 273W
06] 1:06.7 311m 29SPM 1:47.2 1276cal 284W
07] 1:07.1 320m 35SPM 1:44.8 1345cal 304W
08] 1:06.1 318m 34SPM 1:43.9 1372cal 312W
09] 1:07.1 318m 34SPM 1:45.5 1325cal 298W
10] 1:05.7 310m 35SPM 1:45.9 1312cal 294W
11] 5:53.2 1490m 25SPM 1:58.5 1023cal 210W
12] 8:21.3 2000m 24SPM 2:05.3 911cal 178W

First two were just messing around as a warm-up, I'd not rested long enough after my 3mile cycle ride into the town. Intervals 3 thru 10 were rowed as 30s hard (around 1:36)/30s paddle (around 1:54) with 1:00 rest. Interval 11 was just trying to keep pace under 2:00 and interval 12 was a cool down before cycling home.

To get under seven minutes for 2K you need to pull 302W.

Most of us don't discuss calories or watts. The normal units of measure are time, distance, pace (time for 500m) and stroke rate.

[Nosmo]

If your watts are that low it is likely a technical problem. You may be doing a lot of work but none of it is going into the flywheel.

Don't be discouraged by the low watts. It can take a while to learn to row well.
To give you some perspective, at a sculling camp several years ago my wife could kick the butt of a young man who was going off to be a navy seal. He was 30 lbs heavier, 45 years younger had a body like Divini's David and was really fit. But he didn't know how to row. He had a lot of power but most of it went into slowing the boat down (and a week of sculling camp didn't do him much good either). Erging in not as technical as rowing on the water but technique matters a great deal.

Check out these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXnKyJdA ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVmMd7FdAA

There are many other related videos on the right that are good.
Look for anything by Xeno Muller (& Iron Oarsman). I like the first one a lot the cartoon. No one can row that way at high ratings but if you try at low ratings you may endup looking like Xeno when you bring the rate up.

Best is post a video of yourself on YouTube then post a message here asking for help. I'm sure your watts will go way up.

[jamesg]

K, rating 30 and 60W says you are pulling short strokes with no work in them. Short strokes is one of the few if not the only things not allowed on the erg; they defeat the purpose of the machine, which is to make us work hard. Think of using yourself to full extension - a long steady pull moves a boat much further than a hammer blow.

Your hands at the catch should be near the chainguard, back straight, shins vertical, so that you're ready for a good long stroke. It will be very hard work. All you need do is do it, for the next 30 years or so.


Using HR as control is handy, because our power level increases as we get fitter, for the same HR. However 220-age, while safe, is an average, not a predictor. I never saw the standard deviation cited, so can't even guess where a single individual's MHR could be. If the SD were 10, presumably 90% of the population would have max 210/230 - Age.

For what it's worth, for me 205-Age/2 is more accurate (170-175). You'll soon see your max HR, if you survive; just do a long hardish workout and the last minute flat out.

If you're using HR bands, 45-70% of your range (UT2 and 1 as to Karvonen) will be ok for CV training: if you have HR range say 60-180, UT2-1 = 120-145. The point is to keep it low so that we can carry on for say 40 minutes, not to reach any specific level today.

Then, once you're fit, you can use pace (time/500m) or power (Watts). Again fwiw, I do most work at between 150 and 200W, rating 19-21, with occasional very short efforts as foreseen by the Interactive into TR at up to 250W, rating 25.

[keepitlow]

Wow...my wattage is puny.

For health and fitness and not competition, should I still be striving for such high numbers as was mentioned? Or are the low to mid hundreds the minimum for a serious health and fitness devotee?

And what do the women do?

[Bob S.]

For health and fitness and not competition, should I still be striving for such high numbers as was mentioned? Or are the low to mid hundreds the minimum for a serious health and fitness devotee?

And what do the women do?

The following will give you an idea what people in all the categories are doing:

http://www.concept2.com/sranking03/rankings.asp

These lists include the competitors of course, but for the most part they are just average folks who are using the indoor rower for exercise.

As you can see, the lists are based on the times for various distances and do not show watts. For calculating watts, see the following:

http://www.concept2.co.uk/guide/guide.p ... conversion

Note that the latter URL includes a table for easy conversion of pace to watts. It also has a link for a table matching pace with times for various distances.

Bob S.

[Nosmo]

Using HR as control is handy, because our power level increases as we get fitter, for the same HR. However 220-age, while safe, is an average, not a predictor. I never saw the standard deviation cited, so can't even guess where a single individual's MHR could be. If the SD were 10, presumably 90% of the population would have max 210/230 - Age.

I've seen the SD quoted as 11,
from wikipedia:
It puts 68% of the population with +/- 11 of the formula
90% with in +/- 18
95% within +/- 22
and 3 out of 1000 people more then 33 beats away from the formula.

[jamesg]

Wow, I'd forgotten the Gaussian distribution was so wide with respect to SD. So 220-age would seem worse than useless..


K, you don't need to stick to any particular pace or Power. When starting, it's better to use HR levels, so as you get fitter your output increases automatically. More important, you'll be able to work at a reasonable level for far longer times. Working at HR 120-140 for say 30', in due time, will stress you enough to be effective.

What is needed is good technique, otherwise there won't be any work in the stroke and you won't get fit for lack of overload. A certain amount of sweat is de rigeur in some circles.

It's also much more fun if done well, as the A said to the B.