Concept2 Forum

I have been rowing for almost two years now and my times have not been improved. I am still averaging at 2:25 for 10K in one sitting. . I believe I am not doing something right. The only good thing that I have lost 25 lbs in last two years from 210 to 185. Food intake is pretty similar during the last two years. Mid-section is still flabby.

Looking for few pointers for the timing improvement. I am only doing the standard rowing and thinking of doing interval training in coming weeks.

Take my advice with a grain of salt - you've been rowing much longer than I have, and I'm not improving as fast as I'd like either.

Buuutttt, what I am doing to improve, and what seems to have some effect is pushing myself harder, bit by bit. At first I'd do a set of "power 10" or "power 20" strokes every few minutes. That helped me realize that I could hold a pace of 2:00 / 500 pretty easily. So now I do a 2:00 500m piece every few minutes. Like this morning, I'm recovering from a cold and too much holiday food. So I took it easy and did one 2:00 piece every 10 minutes x 4. That had my pace for the +8.5K piece at 2:17/500m. Nothing to brag about, clearly, but faster than where I started 6 weeks ago.

Another thing to toy with is stroke rate. There are threads on this, and everyone probably knows better, but I was impressed to see what an effect stroke rate can have. I consciously dropped my stroke rate for my 2:00 pieces to 23 spm. My pace and time are the same, just that the stroke rate went down. Which meant much more recovery time every stroke. And I felt like I could hold the same pace for longer. Which I might try tomorrow.

Finally, and you might consider some cross training too. Walking, running, strength training. They all might help push things along a bit.

Definitely consider intervals!

And congrats on the weight loss!

VS, what rating do you use in your 10k @2:25? Damper?

If rating is any higher than 20, and damper >4, then you are pulling short strokes that do not load you.
Suggest you set the damper to 1 or 2 at most, and pull full length quick strokes with slow recovery - let the boat go, she will. NB, the lower the drag, the harder the work. You should see >10m travel each stroke, and a Watt/rating ratio >8; this is the amount of work in each stroke.

Controls on power level and reactions, as well as the direct Watt readout, are your HR as a % of HR range (rest to max, i.e Karvonen) and the amount of sweat, which should be substantial, around 2litres/h.

The Interactive schedules on C2 UK will be of help if you need a plan, after learning to row. There are hundreds of variations, in two types, weightloss with no paces but only HRs, and 2k racing which provide paces based on your last 2k test and also HR bands.

I am rowing at the damper setting 3. Stroke rate is 18-20. Usually exercise in the morning. Starting to do 5K twice a day instead of 10K in one sitting. Also, will include interval training twice a week.

I've got an idea, which might explain why I'm not seeing the speed gains I'd like either.

I've read that it's hard to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Does anyone here know much about that? Could calorie restriction hold rowers back from gains in speed?

What I've read is that you should do things in stages - lose the fat, then gain the muscle. Don't know if I'm scientific enough for that. Would like to know more from someone experienced?

Help?

genagoodrow wrote:I've got an idea, which might explain why I'm not seeing the speed gains I'd like either.

I've read that it's hard to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. Does anyone here know much about that? Could calorie restriction hold rowers back from gains in speed?

What I've read is that you should do things in stages - lose the fat, then gain the muscle. Don't know if I'm scientific enough for that. Would like to know more from someone experienced?

Help?

Not to the degree mentioned. You should still gain AEROBIC capacity - which is irrelevant of muscle mass. If you are exercising and still eating at least 1500kCal/day you will not damage your muscle mass, unless you're eating junk or not consuming any sources of protein. Aerobic capacity is what ultimately dictates your pace over a 10000m piece. So the issue found by our original poster is probably technical more than anything else.

Hi,

I don't think there is any truth to the thought that you can't lose weight and improve times simultaneously. At least that is not what I experienced over the past year. I lost about 45 lbs (230 t0n185) and about 45 seconds off my 2K time (7:45 to 7:00) over the same period.

Bloomp's comment is on the mark. Speed is most specifically related to aerobic capacity. I suggest that if you want to improve your times that you get a heart rate monitor. I found it helped me a ton. Knowing my maximum heart rate, I could judge how hard to push in workouts. The other thing that made a difference was varying the workouts, mixing faster paced intervals with lower intensity distance rowing. I did the Pete Plan for a couple of months and am now using the Wolverine Plan and it has had a strong impact on my times.

Greg

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will try to implement them and see how it will go.

vsaksena wrote:I am rowing at the damper setting 3. Stroke rate is 18-20. Usually exercise in the morning. Starting to do 5K twice a day instead of 10K in one sitting. Also, will include interval training twice a week.

Hi there,

Damper setting does not mean much, what drag factor does damper at 3 represent on the erg you're using? I have been training intensively last winter and I always calibrated the erg with the drag factor before starting the workout. In that way you always have the exact same resistance coming from the erg. Together with the info from the display (like the split time! ) You get to know you're body quite well, and get a feel of what you can do. Kind of like a heart rate monitor (that I have not been using so far).
Also your stroke rate of 18-20 is rather low. There is much potential there. Of course for 10k the rate should not be too high, but some changes in stroke rate help to keep the liveliness in the workout. In a 10k workout I usually vary my stroke rates between 20 and 28. I hold them for the length of the song which comes out of my earbuds The important thing here is: Constancy! Vary the rate but keep the same split time. Naturally it will go down when you increase the stroke rate, but try to keep it within a few second, and what is crucial is that when you go back to a lower rate that you keep the split down and that it doesn't come roaring up. It is hard at the beginning, but that way you'll improve your time almost certainly.

Clearly interval trainings help too. There also try to do intervals at different stroke rates but with constant split times. Also what other was said about pushing oneself a bit further shows you where you can go. Just try it. Don't force it, but there you can see what's possible and then take a new spilt time as a target. Step by step...

You can lose weight and build muscles at the same time. It is actually quite important to work out when losing weight, as muscle tissue is broken down before the fat tissue. It's unfair, but that's the way it is. Thus with training you can avoid that. Thus even if you're 'just' keeping the same muscle mass, it will proportonally be more w.r.t. body weight.

Just my 2 cts. Hope that helps
Philippe

I would add that type II muscle is preferential in fat metabolism. This means that you have to work at maximal intensity to train type II muscle. Interval training is best, but the intervals need to be at maximal output. Type II muscle also selectively atrophies. Low intensity training does not develop Type II muscle, and studies show that intensity training is the best way to improve health over endurance training. So while 10,000m is great for aerobic training, doing one minute of sprinting and recovering during the 10,000 would be the best way to enhance your type II muscle system and burn fat, and increase your power outputs. Try to start with a sprint, recover, sprint again and so on throughout your workout.

nchasan wrote:I would add that type II muscle is preferential in fat metabolism. This means that you have to work at maximal intensity to train type II muscle. Interval training is best, but the intervals need to be at maximal output. Type II muscle also selectively atrophies. Low intensity training does not develop Type II muscle, and studies show that intensity training is the best way to improve health over endurance training. So while 10,000m is great for aerobic training, doing one minute of sprinting and recovering during the 10,000 would be the best way to enhance your type II muscle system and burn fat, and increase your power outputs. Try to start with a sprint, recover, sprint again and so on throughout your workout.

...
Care to share your sources? This argument has been attempted many times and is not backed up by data.

You are born with a certain proportion of muscle fibers. There is no way to drastically change this - and to suggest that type II muscle FIBERS (not muscles) are not used or do not receive any benefits during aerobic exercise is ludicrous! Intervals, HIIT, Tabatas, they're all part of a 'myth' that there is a fast and easy way to kill fat. The only way to get rid of fat is to maintain a healthy, controlled diet over a long time and increase activity.

Intervals are an easy way (if that's all you do) to burn out, injure yourself, lose sight of what fitness is and not have a good relationship with fitness. If every workout you do ends in a lactic acid overload, you won't be prepared (mentally) for the next workout. Data supports the contrary of what you've said - aerobic work over time will increase your vO2 max, increase your lactic threshold (% of vO2 max where your cells cannot get rid of enough lactic acid and it accumulates) and doing endurance work FORCES one to become an efficient athlete. If you just need to thrash up and down for a minute or two, there's no incentive to finding a stroke that is most efficient.

bloomp wrote:Care to share your sources? This argument has been attempted many times and is not backed up by data.

I literally have dozens of research articles. See below for a list

bloomp wrote:You are born with a certain proportion of muscle fibers. There is no way to drastically change this - and to suggest that type II muscle FIBERS (not muscles) are not used or do not receive any benefits during aerobic exercise is ludicrous!

See this is just ignorant. Type II muscle selectively atrophies. This means use it or lose it. It doesn't go away, just gets MUCH smaller. Now when you read the research, you will find that subm maximal exercise does not have much of a training effect over type II muscles, while short bout high intensity exercise has a training effect on both type I and type II muscle.

bloomp wrote:Intervals, HIIT, Tabatas, they're all part of a 'myth' that there is a fast and easy way to kill fat. The only way to get rid of fat is to maintain a healthy, controlled diet over a long time and increase activity.

Nope, wrong again, a little light reading is in your future. You need to minimally understand EPOC (excess post exercise oxygen consumption and its impact on weight loss and fat burning in order to speak intelligently on the subject.

bloomp wrote:Intervals are an easy way (if that's all you do) to burn out, injure yourself, lose sight of what fitness is and not have a good relationship with fitness. If every workout you do ends in a lactic acid overload, you won't be prepared (mentally) for the next workout. Data supports the contrary of what you've said - aerobic work over time will increase your vO2 max, increase your lactic threshold (% of vO2 max where your cells cannot get rid of enough lactic acid and it accumulates) and doing endurance work FORCES one to become an efficient athlete. If you just need to thrash up and down for a minute or two, there's no incentive to finding a stroke that is most efficient.

Again, nonsense. While one can achieve fitness over along period of time at sub maximal levels, there is not a shred of doubt that one minute intervals cause a much more rapid change in physiology. Even the most basic exercise physiology text book will illuminate you on this point.

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See, you admit in your post that intervals are only good for a quick INITIAL boost in fitness. Yes, you can get your vO2 max to plateau rather quickly. But beyond that you don't get any benefits. If what you were saying is true, then NavHazard would race as a lightweight

I will read the articles, but I guarantee you that to properly train and maintain fitness, you need more than intervals. In fact, intervals should be 5-10% of total meterage.

I fail to see your point. Should you be a natural athlete, your fitness will increase more or less indefinitely. It is possible to achieve over training, but just as in running fast, the only way to run faster is to train by running faster. If you monitor your power output, and maintain your stroke rate but increase your power output are you performing an interval? The logic of your argument wears thin. The bottom line is this, without any doubt, intensity of exercise is the most effective way to increase fitness. As one increases fitness, fat burns. It turns out that high intensity exercise increases fat metabolism more than long slow sub maximal exercise does, although, that said, you can achieve the same amount of fat metabolism if you exercise as sub maximal levels for long enough. Imagine this: Two flights of stairs. Two of you. One of you walks up the stairs at a steady pace. The other sprints up the stairs for one minute at a time, then walks until he catches his breath, then sprints for a minute and repeats. After a defined amount of time, who will have done the most work, the walker or the sprinter? The answer seems obvious to me. I suggest that the exact same principle applies on the ERG and the literature supports my assertion. Do some reading. A good physiology text can be acquired on Amazon used for pennies.

nchasan wrote:After a defined amount of time, who will have done the most work, the walker or the sprinter? The answer seems obvious to me.

If the staircases are the same height on the same planet then they have both done identical work as the only opposing force is due to gravity.