Realistic goals?

[NavigationHazard]

(snip)
The one important part of training that Ranger has missed is that he doesn't believe in tapering.

Byron

Well, there's also the bit about training for competitions losing most of its point if you never actually compete. And the bit about no one save identical twins having quite the same body as anyone else, so that no training plan can ever be ideal for everyone. And the bit about there being different events, optimum performance in them demanding different training strategies. And the bit about rowing being primarily 'skeletal-muscular-technical' rather than aerobic, as if muscles somehow produce energy without respiration. You get my drift.

I actually wonder if there's any substantive part of training he hasn't missed at one point or another. True, he dinks around enough that sooner or later he's bound to get something right for a week or two. And then abandon it for some new 'magic bullet' ....

[Byron Drachman]

The one important part of training that Ranger has missed is that he doesn't believe in tapering.

MIke Caviston doesn't place much emphasis on it either. But really who knows what Ranger really believes?

That's really interesting. Mike Caviston is a very credible expert.

[Nosmo]

......That's really interesting. Mike Caviston is a very credible expert.

Here is the quote from the original WP document for the Michigan Women:

Tapering is the practice of reducing training volume & intensity prior to competition to ensure peak performance. While it is a common perception among athletes that a taper is necessary to allow maximal performance, this is not clearly supported by scientific research. The benefits of tapering are most evident in situations where athletes were clearly overtraining in the first place. In other words, the benefit is not so much the taper per se, but removing the negative effects of overtraining. In situations where training volume and intensity are properly controlled, the effects of tapering are less substantial. Now, this is not to say we won’t taper before important tests and competitions. We will. Rest assured that we have your best interests at heart. But some athletes expect a vacation and are disappointed when all they get is a modest reduction in a pretty demanding schedule. The fact is the only noticeable reduction in training will occur during the week prior to NCAAs. And the benefits are probably far more psychological than physical.

He has written more but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. Because the WP plan is not periodized (at least not in the traditional sense) one should have a very good idea of what is sustainable in the long term and one should never be over trained. Not tapering seems very risky to me if one does hard "sharpening" only in the last several weeks before competition.

[Byron Drachman]

. True, he dinks around enough that sooner or later he's bound to get something right for a week or two. And then abandon it for some new 'magic bullet' ....

Hi Jon,

Nicely stated. My all time favorite was the Sprackback, almost horizontal at the finish.

Hi Nosmo,

That quote from the WP makes so much sense to me. A very good cycling coach once said that almost of his cyclists who were disappointed in their racing would do better if they weren't so overtrained. Back to realizing goals, I suspect many of us are burdened with compulsive tendencies and would do better at reaching their goals by training less.
I have to log off now and work out again with my new ab wheel. Compulsive? Who? Me?

Byron

[chgoss]

n all seriousness though I think that "foundation" and "sharpening" are very well established phases/concepts in yearly training cycles..

<snip>
The one important part of training that Ranger has missed is that he doesn't believe in tapering.

well, he doesnt need to!!

It(crosstraining) makes it so that you can work hard every day in your rowing sessions, without having to waste days with rest.

[ranger]

But really who knows what Ranger really believes?

Chad has summed up my beliefs several times, and these summaries are just quotes from my posts, where I have done a similar service.

If you have missed these, you must be unable to read.

ranger

[nycbone]

Can we please keep the 6:28 discussion in the 6:28 thread? I was hoping for a productive discussion in this thread as I'm here to learn.

So, what are your realistic short- and long-term goals and how do you plan to achieve them?

I'd love to read more from everyone, including novice, middle-of-the-road rowers like me.

Thanks,

Dave

[peterhowd]

Started back up in late October after a 4 year break associated with a job change (that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it)

Short term goals for October, 2010:

1. Get rid of 65-70 lbs (25 gone so far)
2. Get off BP medication.
3. Avoid going on cholesterol meds.
4. Feel considerably younger for having done 1-3.

No time trials, no competition, just general health and fitness for now.

[7-11]

despite a lot of noise in these forum threads there is a lot of great information that can lead to (and has led me) to establishing some realistic short term and long term goals.

The best bit of advice I took in was the training for an objective rather than working out. If you do not plan to compete or you do not compete, it can be hard to train for a specific goal. So even though I don't really plan on going to a competition, I committed myself to a competition specific training goal.

So I set out on a program developed through ROW pro and stuck to it religeously. I picked the 2K because that is the benchmark. For every "competition" test or TT, I would compare my times to people on the ranking site. I read profiles and looked see what times they had posted in other distances. That gave me an idea what I could realistically expect at other distances. If their post said first time rower trying to drop 60 lbs., I figured I could realistically do better than those times in longer distances because I have an athletic background and I am trying to set times and not lose weight. Likewise if the photo showed some guy with big round shoulders and was 6'-6" with a Polish national team tank on, that's probably not someone I could realistically expect to match.

After a while you get to "know" people in your ability level and motivated by the new times they set. And you get a good feel for what your realistic goals are at a given distance.

I also used ROW pro to do some online racing. My experience in cycling races is that you never really know how fast you can go until you actually race. So trying to simulate competition gave me confidence that I could probably do better than I had first expected.

For me I wan't sure if I could break a 7 min. 2K. But as I progressed and saw that my raking "peers" were flirting with the 7 min. 2K. it became a realistic goal. I was able to accomplish this (barely) and I'm pretty sure I left it all out there because I was pretty much done for the day after that.

Anyway, I am using the same method to set realistic goals for the 5K and 10K also. But it starts with a training program. Until you really start training for a goal, it id hard to set a high enough expectation.