Fan settings for 30 min test

[Peter55555]

Hello
Please can anyone enlighten me!
I have erged for years always on fan setting 10, ie max. Only recently have I started checking the drag factor and when I do tests at club everyone puts it to about 135 so everyone should be on the same level.
However, I have always assumed I will go further if on max fan setting over a fixed time but is this really the case?
Clearly don't want to put it on 2 or something as will feel too light and rate will be much higher but for a 100kg male pulling 1.35s currently, where should I put the fan setting?

[Carl Watts]

You have it set about right on 135.

No the monitor self calibrates so it doesn't matter if your on 2 or 10, its using that drag factor number in the calculations.

Higher drag for short sprints like the 500m, you may want to go to 160-170 but for a 30min I would stay at 135.

To a degree the drag should match your rating or spm and pace to optimize the setup but there is a reasonably wide range of drag that works regardless.

Typically many people are in the 110 to 130 range.

[lindsayh]

Hello
Please can anyone enlighten me!
I have erged for years always on fan setting 10, ie max. Only recently have I started checking the drag factor and when I do tests at club everyone puts it to about 135 so everyone should be on the same level.
However, I have always assumed I will go further if on max fan setting over a fixed time but is this really the case?
Clearly don't want to put it on 2 or something as will feel too light and rate will be much higher but for a 100kg male pulling 1.35s currently, where should I put the fan setting?

You will find a lot of discussion re DF here.
Ignore the damper setting - as you know it is vary variable and unrelated to DF when trying to compare machines.
Your DF may vary from others - we all have a sweet spot but 130-140 works well for many although there are others 110-120 by preference.
If you are racing the DF does not have to be the same and anyone can set what suits them.
I agree with Carl - you could go higher for the sprinty distances where SR is higher.
You will definitely do better on a 30min erg with a lower DF rather than a higher one.

[Peter55555]

OK,
1.but if I am doing a 30 min erg at a fixed rate, everyone has set their ergs to 135 DF, say with the fan lever on 7, then I put the fan lever on 10 (hence changing DF), will I go further?
2.Or, if I understand correctly, if everyone is set up to DF 135 on whatever lever they have erg on, then there we are all equal.
Thanks!

[jamesg]

Will I go further?

Probably not; the higher drag will cause a slower pull, so less time to rest on the recovery. Anyway, try it and see, but first learn how row at (very) low drag.

on 2 or something as will feel too light and rate will be much higher

A lot depends on your height. See how fast you can go on drag zero, by adjusting technique: stroke length and sequence, and speed off the stretcher. If it's not enough, increase drag slightly. Speed depends on technique, drag is relevant only to the extent that it lets us (or not) use good technique. I can reach 200W on drag 80, height 6'2, at rate 24-25.

If you want to endurance train over long distances (> 30 minutes) at say 250W (2.5W/kg), first you have to develop, identify, use and characterize your stroke (in terms of work content, where Work=Watts/Rating), then calculate the rating needed. E.g. If your stroke is worth 12W', at 20 you produce 240W. Suggest you use the lowest drag that lets you do it, to reduce injury risk.

When racing 2k, long but not infinite, the stroke work increases slightly; so for example you may produce 13W at 30 = 390 W, about 6'30. You can reverse engineer this too, it was called the Gold Standard method.

The 1'35 (per 500m?) you mention is about 410W. Do you use that for long pieces at low rating?

NB drag is not resistance; the erg has a flywheel that provides an inertial load, so resistance = the pull force we apply, and we can pull as hard as we like.

[hjs]

OK,
1.but if I am doing a 30 min erg at a fixed rate, everyone has set their ergs to 135 DF, say with the fan lever on 7, then I put the fan lever on 10 (hence changing DF), will I go further?
2.Or, if I understand correctly, if everyone is set up to DF 135 on whatever lever they have erg on, then there we are all equal.
Thanks!

No, its the amount of energy put in the flywheel that gives the meters. Its like biking, just setting the gears high does not make you move at all.

The fact you erged at that high setting gave you a poor technique. The fan is very slow and so is your stroke. After a while a lower setting will feel much better.

[lindsayh]

OK, 1.but if I am doing a 30 min erg at a fixed rate, everyone has set their ergs to 135 DF, say with the fan lever on 7, then I put the fan lever on 10 (hence changing DF), will I go further?
2.Or, if I understand correctly, if everyone is set up to DF 135 on whatever lever they have erg on, then there we are all equal.
Thanks!

IMO the impact of DF is over rated. It is really not all that important between 100 and 160 and depends on what suits the individual and what sort of training and the like but you won't be dramatically affected one way the other most of the time.

1) you may or may not go further but normally you would slow down and go less distance as it is very difficult to erg for 30 minutes at very high drag unless hugely strong and fit and even then you would be most likely be faster with a more user friendly DF. At very DF the fan slows down quickly and you need to keep a fast SR to keep it spinning. A lower DF allows a slower more powerful stroke.

2) If every one sets DF at 135 then some would struggle and some would thrive - it is very unlikely that everyone would set the same and it is certainly never done in races. The other thing is that just because all the machines have the same damper setting doesn't mean that they have the same DF - they almost certainly won't.
You are not all "equal" because different people use different DFs all the time and are different in all sorts of ways - level of fitness, strength, height, weight and muscle fibre type for example.

[Carl Watts]

The key point is that your always "Equal" (as far as the erg itself is concerned) no matter where the lever position is as its taken care of in the monitor calculation as to the RPM's of the flywheel and the rate it slows down.

For you personally however just any old setting will not make you "Equal", either way to high or way too low will penalize your time.

Think of it as a bike, too low a gear going down a hill and you cannot pedal fast enough to keep up with the guy in front or too high a gear and going up a hill and you don't have the strength to pedal fast enough to keep up with the guy in front.

Low drag requires very fast leg speed to hit high fan rpm, high drag requires high power to obtain a high fan rpm so you need somewhere in the middle that best suits you in roughly the same way you would choose the right gear on a bike. There are many different factors, however height is a major factor as on the erg you simply get a longer drive length.

Many will disagree with the bike analogy but that's why its an analogy, its not the same as a bike but its just a good way to try and explain the drag factor.

[Peter55555]

Thanks for the answers.
Amazing how I can have done it for 20 years, always simply bashing away on highest fan, thinking no pain no gain, probably suffering technique-wise as well, also probably not great for lower back as get older.
Any ideas where a 6ft 6, 100kg rower should set the erg?
Also when the heavyweight tall guys erg the BRICs etc what settings do they use?

[Carl Watts]

I could be wrong but the drag factor appears to be a bit of a guarded secret.

Yes the higher drag is not good for your lower back and would increase the injury risk.

Not sure you would get an honest answer out of top rowers on what they use and at the end of the day it may not be relevant to you anyway, by that I mean it may be something for you to aim for if you can see yourself ever getting to that performance level, but it may not be that relevant to where you are right now.

My observation is that the "Better rowers" are probably able to use a lower drag and sustain a high rating at a maximal heartrate for the duration of the entire row. Eric Murray's recent 5K WR is a prime example looking at the data.

I am the same weight as you but 6 inches shorter. Back about 10 years ago the drag started out at about 164 for me as I didn't know what it was all about and now I'm rowing at 128.

30 minutes is a training row distance for me now 5 times a week and last night I hit the 7700m at 20spm without killing myself, average HR was 165 so probably still fitter now than I was 10 years ago.

[hjs]

Thanks for the answers.
Amazing how I can have done it for 20 years, always simply bashing away on highest fan, thinking no pain no gain, probably suffering technique-wise as well, also probably not great for lower back as get older.
Any ideas where a 6ft 6, 100kg rower should set the erg?
Also when the heavyweight tall guys erg the BRICs etc what settings do they use?

Low, look at races, setting on 2/3 always. Think 120/30 ish.

[Carl Watts]

Go with the suggestion from Hjs or anyone who has attended racing (which is not me, never been to a race).

The machines there are generally all new so the fans are clean so if a damper setting is 2 or 3 on a new machine is 120 to 130 then go with that as the target.

As I said 128 is working for me, did a PB 20 spm piece for the season last night at 7750m for the 30min at 601 strokes total and hr only 165 ave. Dropped over a second off the average pace over the night before and hr remained the same, must be falling into a sweet spot.

[lindsayh]

Thanks for the answers.
Amazing how I can have done it for 20 years, always simply bashing away on highest fan, thinking no pain no gain, probably suffering technique-wise as well, also probably not great for lower back as get older.
Any ideas where a 6ft 6, 100kg rower should set the erg?
Also when the heavyweight tall guys erg the BRICs etc what settings do they use?

For 2km racing most are between 120 and 140 and maybe a bit higher for the shorter ones.
OTW rowers are by and large lower that pure OTE.
Don't forget that the fastest every 2km (5:36) was (probably) done at about 100.

Technique does suffer at high drag and the back too.

[Carl Watts]

Probably is the right word and I wouldn't take that for a fact, like any form of competition its hard to get the truth and your just as likely to get a bum steer that points you in the wrong direction, people at the top of their game are very competitive by nature and want to stay there so handing out free advice is not the norm.

[lindsayh]

Probably is the right word and I wouldn't take that for a fact, like any form of competition its hard to get the truth and your just as likely to get a bum steer that points you in the wrong direction, people at the top of their game are very competitive by nature and want to stay there so handing out free advice is not the norm.

I agree Carl although in this case there is photographic evidence that the damper was set at about 2/3 and there is an article at the time which suggested that is about what it was.
The photo/article was published on a thread either here or in the UK a few years ago - I think Jon Bone had a copy.