Post
by larkl » January 16th, 2008, 5:43 pm
I had a similar experience. I'm a lightweight woman, I was not in especially good aerobic shape when I started to row last summer, on a magnetic rower which is a different feel from the concept 2. I don't have a car though and I often carry up to about 50+ pounds on the back of my bike, and I live in a very hilly place. So my legs are pretty strong I think. I'm 48.
So after I'd been working out for a couple of months or so on the concept 2, I tried a 500 m sprint. I'd tried a 2000 m sprint, I started out much too fast, and I got tired and quit after about 500 m. So then I rested about 20 minutes and I did the 500 m sprint. Don't do this, I think it's not a good idea. But, my time was in the top 25% of the lightweight women. Probably I could do still better if I did the 500 m when I was rested.
And for the 30 minute distance I'm also better than 75th percentile, in the lightweight women. I was in the top 1/3 of the lightweight women at the 30 minute distance without even trying to row it especially hard.
My 2K time isn't as good compared to the other lightweight women. Maybe because I haven't trained for that sprintish distance. I'm not doing it as hard as I can, but pretty hard.
But it was surprising to see how well I'm doing. I do work out quite hard, whenever I've rowed next to someone else as the gym I've always been going at a faster pace/500 m. Except for one very heavily built guy when I was just starting.
I don't know if I'm talented at it. I've never been seriously athletic, but always mildly athletic.
I think a lot of people in the online rankings may not be trying very hard. A lot of women have a kind of ladylike attitude about working out, they just don't try hard. Especially with weights I've seen this, it's kind of like "I'm not going to lift anything heavy, weights are not for me". So they do a few reps with something very light. If I lift weights I lift the heaviest one I can do 1 or 3 reps with. For years I've always been able to work up to an unassisted chinup pretty easily, just by doing one in stages every morning. So I would do an unassisted chinup - from what they so wonderfully call a "dead hang" - once/day. I haven't been able to work up to an unassisted chinup recently - maybe because I haven't been getting much protein. So I've been working on the assisted chinup machine at the gym, trying to get my chinup back.
But most women don't care if they can do a chinup. I have kind of a challenging attitude about using my body, an "I'm strong, I can do it" attitude. A lot of people would dismiss the idea of carrying 50 pounds on their bike up a hill, without even thinking about it (you carry that kind of weight in a car!)
My supposed max heart rate for aerobic workout is 149. I abandoned any idea of conforming to that a long time ago :) I can work out for half an hour or so with my heart rate at 170 or more, though that's quite a hard workout. A lot of women would adhere to the formula max.
I was working out on the ellipticals at the gym for a while and I would be the only one who was really breathing hard, a lot of the time! I couldn't understand why people would go to a gym to work out, and not really work out?
It's not just women of course, lots and lots of guys don't work out very hard either. One guy I know had an exercise-is-dangerous and bad attitude, he castigated people who bike with their dogs because he thought it was too hard for the dog! Dogs think running with a bike is positively yummy, they don't get enough exercise usually. He seemed to think of exercise as a kind of abuse unless it's very gentle.
I haven't had any trouble with getting fat as I've gotten older, anyway. I think using my body this way is part of it.
Also, a lot of people in the online rankings are probably using bad form. Nobody just gets on a rowing machine and naturally rows right, apparently. If they're rowing with bad form they'd be overusing their upper body and getting too tired, and otherwise not using their muscles well.
So those are my guesses about why it's so easy to do really well in the online rankings. It's certainly very encouraging, it feels nice to be in the top 1/4.
Laura
