Concept2 Forum

Goodness! This raises all sorts of questions. Here are a couple of them, along with a few observations (note that these are based on what I've read, and not based on any sort of professional qualifications...so take them for what they're worth!).

First, what is maximum heart rate? I understand it is that rate beyond which your heart will not go. (Not that it shouldn't go, but that it won't go.) Not like a red-line number in a car where it is/could be dangerous to go over that number.

Second, how did you determine your maximum? Most of the formulas/calculations are "wrong" for nearly everyone. Famous 220 minus Age etc. appears to have been an off-the-cuff estimate of when to be careful when testing people who had impaired capacity that has become "enshrined" in the the imagination. Actual maximum appears to be determinable only in very uncomfortable, personalized testing. Estimates are simply that. If the maximum is the max. your heart rate transmitter gives, it may not actually be your max.

It is unlikely, therefore, that you are actually training at your maximum...nor should you!

Finally, very impressive beginning! But whether this is the best way to use your 30 minutes 3x a week, I don't know. If you tell us a bit about yourself (height, weight, age & previous fitness activities) and your goals (what is it that you are hoping will be the result of your activities), hopefully someone with a better background for this sort of thing will come along...

Best wishes,

Alissa

mpizey01 wrote:I’ve recently purchased a Concept2 Model E rower, at present I only have time to complete 3 sessions each week.

Each session consists of rowing as many meters as possible in 30 minutes & during the final sprint to the finishing line my heart rate regularly exceeds 192bpm (max 196bpm, providing that my heart rate transmitter is accurate). Understandably I have a job to walk after each session.

My query – is it dangerous to keep training at maximum heart rate.

No warmup and no cool down. In my opinion, that is asking for trouble. If I were limited to 30 minutes, I would use the first 5-10 minutes at an accelerating rate and increasingly harder pace, go at what I would consider to be a high rate and hard pace for the middle 10-20, and finish off the last 5-10 at a decreasing rate and an easing off of the pace. Most likely I would split it into 6'-18'-6' and would be looking for a large drop in my pulse in the 6' cool down part.

Bob S.

are you training for cardio fitness or fat burning?

Hi mpizey01

Dude,, you're an animal. But,I think your embarking on a self limiting strategy for training. Keeping that sort of approach up for any length of time will probably lead to burnout or worse, injury. Even if only three days a week, if you don't get the recovery just right you'll be struggling. Finding a challenging yet sustainable 30 minute average will ensure that you can balance keeping fit, not getting injured and not getting so burned out that you can't bear to look at the machine.

Dan

This workout can be OK (but not optimal), IF:

1) you cool down. So if you row a easy to get your heart rate down and stop sweating, and then do something active afterwards. I didn't worry about the cool down as much when I would ride my bike home from the gym and then am moving around at work. If I erg at night and am just going to eat diner and remain sedintary then I am much more careful about the cool down.
2) you warm up. If you start at something slow and slowly build up to a very hard effort then you are doing OK. (If you are trying to break your own records, then you will start doing a warm up simply because it is the easiest way to improve your speed.)


Ending in a sprint is fine (provided you cool down). If you start out at someing like 2:08 for 1000m (just making up numbers here) , bring it up to 2:00 for 1000m, Then slowly increase the pace over the next 5000m to say 1:54, and then finish in an all out sprint for 500m at say a 1:45, then essentially you are doing three 500m max efforts a week after a very good warmup and a hard steady state. That is not excessive.
If you start out at a 1:54 keep it their and end at a 1:50 because that is all you can do, then it is excessive.
If you are really tired a few hours afterwards or feel it the next day the efforts are too hard.

You are much better off varying things. Even if you only have 1.5 hours per week, you are much better off rowing for say 20, 30 , and 40 minutes rather then doing three 30 minute sessions.

Also you will likely get bored with this program once the improvement stops-- and it very likely will after a couple of months. There are other thing to do and learn to keep erging interesting.

Do a search on the Pete plan an the interactive plan (on the UK web site) also the wolverine Plan (although that requires more of a time commitment) to get some idea of the variety you can put into your work out. Also check out the workout of the day on the C2 main website for interesting ideas.
Nosmo

Taking into account all the other good advice provided, consider varying the three workouts a bit, so one or two are more moderate and consistent, and the third you push harder, or actually do some very hard interval training with active rest. I do a lot of this.

Bob S' recommendation of 6-18-6 is very good. The missing warm-up and cooldown both put some strain on the heart. Damage from that does not show up for years, but will add up.

My predicted max HR is 166. My cardiologist does not want me over 130. My actual is at least 176, since I have kicked it up that high near the end of a few intervals. 130 is a boring non-challenging pace for me on the erg. I'm 54. I usually train from 125-145, and if pushing will let it go higher for a minute or two. My recent PB was 9:20 for 2k. Max HR was "only" 170.

If you warm-up, you may find your max hr does not climb near as high during the hardest part of the workout. That's a good thing.

The warm-up lets the heart muscle itself warm up literally, get more oxygen, and its tissues become fully oxygenated to pump blood every where else. You wouldn't put a plastic bag over your head would you so you couldn't breathe would you ? Do your warm-up.

Bob S. and I are both triple bypass recipients. Bob is many years since his, mine was 14 months ago.

Larry Wagner

If you are trying to do heart rate training the best one i find (for me atleast) is either 2 x20min pieces, 2x5000 meters or 3x20min(for this my first one has an average heart rate of 155bpm and the other two are 165bpm and not focusing on split so much, that decreases in time) of course this may vary depending on your age, sex, fitness level and such. I am 21 year old lightweight male and my max heart rate (or so my poalr HR monitor has told me) is 202, but i never hit that in an endurance piece, the highest i will hit 175......but ofcourse i warm up and cool down, 5min each

mpizey01,
In addition to all the good points already made, I've found the following:
(1) As one approaches the max heart rate, my understanding is that the body releases catecholamines and other stress hormones. I once used to sprint at the end of every piece (intervals or long pieces), pushing my HR up to within 5% of max HR. I found I was irritable, got colds frequently, and had difficulty sleeping... signs of overtraining, even though my training volume was low (certainly no more than 30 mins a day). I do much better now saving my max efforts for time trials, which occur only once a month or even less often.

It's hard to know whether for you, max effort 3x a week will create an overtraining situation.

(2) A couple of books on training for endurance say specifically that training consistently near max HR WILL NOT produce changes in endurance. They recommend long workouts with the HR much lower, alternating with interval workouts. It's more complicated than that (as others have mentioned, search on Wolverine Plan, Pete's Plan or the Interactive Plan). The bottom line for me is that I didn't see much improvement in my fitness and times until I incorporated these longer, low intensity workouts into my schedule.

(3) It's often useful to observe the time it takes for your HR to return to baseline after a workout, as a sort of indication of how stressed one's system is. I goofed today, ran out of time, and could only cool down for 2 minutes after a hard 10k piece. Three hours later, my HR still is higher than usual, and I still don't feel right. My usual cool down is 10'.

In my experience, the cooldown actually speeds up my body's recovery time, allowing me to train harder the next day. So, even though it looks like I'm throwing away 10 minutes, I am actually making my body stronger. There's an author named Maffetone that goes into this argument extensively.

Also, I don't know about anyone else, but the cooldown usually feels great... the endorphins are flowin', I don't worry about the pace, and I pause every few minutes for a drink. The cooldown is the most fun part of the row!

C

P.S. I had to come back and edit this, first round too rushed to be clear. Wow, you can't get a moment to finish a darned thing around here!

There are a couple of very good books on Heart Rate Training available, do a search at Amazon. They all recommend training at 70-80% of max for best results. They have quite a few case studies proving it.

Hmm...why in the world would someone train near their max...especially up in those numbers mentioned!!?? Asking for trouble I would say, though i am no expert. Most of what I have read mentions the benifts of training in the 60% to 70% for fat burning and general health immprovements including increasing the rate at which the body can transfer energy to the muscles (helps for those the more advanced levels of energy expenditurre if your muscles are well accustomed to higher rates of energy transfer) ...70% to 80% for cardio and muscle training. Everything I have read mentions that going beyond 80% should only be done for short intervals and is used to train twitch muscles and train for competitive bursts, but not for sustianed rowing. Only a few top top athletes can sustain rowing at above the threshold and even then, it's considered a dangerous practice....

I have read over and over that, depsite it being a bit boring, staying in the 60% to 70% range actualy has GREAT benefits to your health and conditioning for faster rowing

but then, I am no cardiologist.....

perosnally, i would figure out your heart rate zones and stay within 80% maximum..but , then again, dpeends what you are training for.. I am one of those fat burning guys...stick to the 60 to 70% range.....so i guess I am biased...but then..aren't we all?

Darren

There are now enough serious studies available that confirm that so called increased fat burning at lower heart rates is a myth. Losing weight (fat) is basic thermodynamics, calories out must exceed calories in. You work harder (and the most practical method to determine this amount of work is heart rate) you burn more calories, you lose more weight.

Optimum heart rate training means training a muscle (your heart is a modified muscle) at a rate which increases it's endurance and strength without injury. The case studies made have verified that the 70-80% range is the best for this. Above 80% is your all out reserve and you train this only in the form of sprints.

For example when weight training you do not lift your all out max which you can lift perhaps once in a session, but you do repetitions at a considerably lower weight.

BobD obviously has researched this more than I, so I bow to his expertise.

For myself, I like the 60 to 70 range , but I then, I find that sustaining 70 to 80 is tough and makes me sore....so , I stick to 60 to 70% for my purposes. To each his own...whatever keeps one rowing..for as Bob said, calories out must be greater than calories in..and that measn more rowing in my case...

Darren

Google around and you will see that really no one really knows anything about HR training. Many successful people follow extremely different protocols. Humans are very adaptable.

Most of the recommendations on HR training you will find are going to be rather modest. Warming up and cooling down are becoming seen as less important, just as pre-stretching has become.

Quickly taxing your CV system of course puts an incredible load on your heart. That is the point. Some new research finds that shocking the heart with intense exercise without "warming up" trains the heart to withstand shocks of all kinds making it more resilient, not less.

Some people will die from undiagnosed heart defects jumping in to intense exercise. Probably the answer is a little variety of both worlds.

Start with a month or two of steady state moderate "aerobic" workouts. Then moving to interval training with some warming-up, but gradually reducing the warm-up while increasing initially intensity of exercise, until you can go full tilt without warming up.

The worst thing of course is probably sitting around doing nothing and being anxious about the "perfect" way to exercise.

Good luck!

Jason