"Old" Rower back to his roots with a question

[wkparry]

Hi. Well, it feels great to be rowing again. I rowed Varsity Heavyweight crew for Rutgers from 1988-1992. Since then I haven't rowed much at all and in the last few years I've been pretty sedentary. However, I'm not entirely out of shape. When I graduated college I was 220 lbs. Now I'm 205 but the weight has moved around if you know what I mean. So anyway, I'm back into this for the joy and health benefits.

I got my new Model D last week and learned just how little I've done in the last few years. I rowed a 30 minute piece today at about a 22 spm average and averaged 2:18.2 for 6513 meters. Definately well below what I was able to do in college, but that's to be expected.

My question is this... I never used heart rate monitoring before, and from what I see people posting, I feel like my heart rate is high, but I'm wondering if that can be normal for some people. Last week, my heart rate would average in the 170's and I could hit 200 when pulling real hard. This week (even today) my average heart rate is about 165 so I think it's improving. Even before my workout, just getting onto the machine my heart rate can be in the 80's or 90's.

Does this sound too high to people? Even averaging 165, I feel great getting off of the machine and feel like I could have given it more, but I'm trying not to push too much yet. I'd appreciate your feedback and thoughts.

I'll post updates as I progress, but I'm targeting some weight loss and looking to get to between 195 and 190 lbs. I'm also looking to keep rowing for the long haul now and looking forward to my first 1MM. I'm up to 57,903!

[PaulS]

As long as it's beating, you're fine. I know that you remember 2:18 as something that most of the gals would be embarassed to be pulling but it will come back pretty quickly as your body readapts to the rowing stroke. Enjoy the process.

Welcome back to the fray.

[wkparry]

I know that you remember 2:18 as something that most of the gals would be embarassed to be pulling

Since you put it that way, I feel much better about my splits than I did a few hours ago!! LOL

No, I'm good with it. Like you said it is coming back pretty quickly. Just the week before I was much worse off. Even at these splits I can carry on a good conversation and don't feel like I'm really exerting myself just yet. But I know I'm not as young as I used to be so I wanted to start easy and ramp up. I'm not looking to hurt myself, but still my competitive nature is starting to kick in and I want to do better...

Thanks for the reply! I'm glad my heart's still beating!

[PaulS]

I know that you remember 2:18 as something that most of the gals would be embarassed to be pulling

Since you put it that way, I feel much better about my splits than I did a few hours ago!! LOL

No, I'm good with it. Like you said it is coming back pretty quickly. Just the week before I was much worse off. Even at these splits I can carry on a good conversation and don't feel like I'm really exerting myself just yet. But I know I'm not as young as I used to be so I wanted to start easy and ramp up. I'm not looking to hurt myself, but still my competitive nature is starting to kick in and I want to do better...

Thanks for the reply! I'm glad my heart's still beating!

I was away from rowing for 17 years and the first 5k back was done at 2:12, thinking I was going to die. That was in July and by the Time January and ErgoMania rolled around I was well under 6:40 for 2k, and back into the low 1:50's for 8k workouts. It's almost 7 years ago and I can still remember that exact session it was so painful. Before that day I don't think I'd ever seen a pace on the Erg slower than 2:00, at least not when moving. But the old saying about it being easier to stay in shape than to get in shape gained a whole new meaning that day.

Bump a second off the target pace for a few days, you may surprise yourself how quickly your body will remember what to do. And do pay alot of attention to getting your technique solid, it's just as easy to ingrain a bad habit as a good one, but it pays to not have to break the bad one later.

[Chris Brett]

wkparry

There are many parallels with your history and my own. I was competitive as a track athlete at Loughborough from 1988-92 and after that time I drifted out of sport and out of shape. I came back to sport around 1998 and took up rowing. I was in pretty poor shape at the time. I rowed sporadically until 2002 when I put in 2 serious years of training and reached a reasonable level of fitness and competed at a decent level on and off the water. Since 2004 my training has been very intermittent but I have been fairly consistent since February of this year.

My experience is that if you take steps to tailor your training to your current state of physiological fitness there is no reason why you can't get back to a high level of fitness. One fact that comes out of this approach is that splits and Watts go out of the window to some extent and you certainly should not make comparisons with any training that you used to do in more glorious days.

I believe that Eddie Fletcher is a real authority on this subject and the work that he is doing with Suunto watches and First Beat software is very impressive.

By totally changing my more conventional training band approach and the mentality I had as an athlete I have had the longest period of illness free training in my life (Just over 3 months ). Despite only training 2-3 times a week I have improved my 30min rate 20 pace from 2:07 to 1:52 (All at very low intensity in terms of heart rate I must add). For me this probably equates to a 2K improvement from around 6:40 to 6:20. It is no coincidence that Graham Benton, Nik Fleming and many other athletes at the absolute top of the indoor rowing sport have seen such improvements under Eddie's wise guidance.

I hope this is of some use, and comfort.

[wkparry]

Thanks for all the replys. Well, I'm in my second month since I got my erg and some sort of exercise routine and am happy to report some things. I just did a 45 minute piece this morning replicating one I did a month ago in split times and stroke rating. I found it very easy to maintain the previous splits and my average heart rate was 20 beats lower! I'm feeling like I'm starting to get back into shape. I'm typically holding anywhere from 2:00 to 2:10 splits for a longer piece and feel confident I could row a 2000 meter piece in the 1:50s without much problem. 2000 meters was somewhat of a sacred piece when I was rowing and I don't really want to figure out where I'm at with it just yet

For any of you going through a similar experience as me, one of my goals was to lose weight. I'm finding the opposite. I'm actually gaining weight, however, I am confident that my body is getting back some of the muscle mass I lost over the years. My post athletic period weight was 215. I started back at 205 and now I'm at 207.5, but am definately losing some of the fat around the middle!

Chris, thanks for the tip on Eddie Fletcher, I'll check out his stuff.

Thanks again and happy rowing to all. I'm enjoying being back into it!

[iain]

My question is this... I never used heart rate monitoring before, and from what I see people posting, I feel like my heart rate is high, but I'm wondering if that can be normal for some people. Last week, my heart rate would average in the 170's and I could hit 200 when pulling real hard. This week (even today) my average heart rate is about 165 so I think it's improving. Even before my workout, just getting onto the machine my heart rate can be in the 80's or 90's.

I am a recent convert, but basing it on the various Rowing Forums, there is a split on how effective heart rate based training is. However, the advocates are united that the heart rate ranges for each person should be based on measurements on them and cannot be predicted. Variations of 50BPM are found between people of the same age. So the absolute value is only meaningful when compared with your maximum and resting rates. So you can measure fitness improvement by the decline for the same work (although improved technique could explain some of this), but if you want to use heart rate as a determinant of intensity, you must first find out the maximum it reaches when flat out.

Congratulations on the improvement so far, although if you are doing the same training 20bpm lower, you might like to speed up now !

Regards

Iain

[wkparry]

if you want to use heart rate as a determinant of intensity, you must first find out the maximum it reaches when flat out.

Congratulations on the improvement so far, although if you are doing the same training 20bpm lower, you might like to speed up now

Iain,

Thanks for the feedback. Since this post I've had quite a bit of improvement. I've also done a step test to determine my max heart rate which turns out to be right around 200 bpm. My resting heart rate is 60 bpm which gives me quite a good range of heart rate reserve.

As far as "speeding up" I've done that as well, but thanks for the encouragement in that direction!!

I'm finding the process of improving to be enjoyable though not always as fast as I want it to be. Hopefully by this time next year I'll be able to row a 2000 meter piece in the 1:40s.