The Two Types of Training

[jliddil]

The world is flat
The earth is only 6000 years old
Intelligent Design is a theory
I see dead people
I use cold fusion to heat my home

[walterchaos]

1. I used to row like s%#t. I now row well.

2. Indeed I will. We are upstanding folks. We pay our bets, if we lose.

3.

4. At the end of the month, I am going to do a FM@1:45

5. My attempt to get better has involved improving my technique. That work is done. I now row well (13 SPI).

1. I used to row 2k for 6:28 7 years ago but I have improved my effiency so that I can sustain 2k pace for 7:11!

2. You have never really lost a bet until you pay it.

3. I am now ready to race Online Typing-Wanking but there is no one who can challenge me.

4. By the end of the month I will have rowed a total of 42k @ 1:45 pace (perhaps in 500 meter increments)

5. The fastest time is not the real winner. Medals should be presented for the highest SPI, not for completing the distance in the shortest time.

[snowleopard]

ranger the sage of Ann Arbor;
Has frothed himself to a lather.
His technique still deficient,
And far from efficient;
How can he row faster and farther?

[Citroen]

Here are some practice sentences or paragraphs you can work on. The task is to translate them from Ranger-speak to English.

1. I used to row like s%#t. I now row well.

2. Indeed I will. We are upstanding folks. We pay our bets, if we lose.

3. I am now ready to race OTW.

4. At the end of the month, I am going to do a FM@1:45

5. My attempt to get better has involved improving my technique. That work is done. I now row well (13 SPI).

Here's my attempt at translating Ranger-speak. I would probably have had more chance translating Vulcan, Romulan or Klingon into English.

1. I used to row at 6:28 like s%#t. I now row only 7:11 like s%#t.

2. I'm more of a bare faced liar than ex-Prime Minister Tony Bliar and George Bush, Jnr put together.

3. I've never been in a real boat OTW.

4. At the end of the month I'll still struggle to pull 1:45 for seven minutes.

5. I think I'm the only person in the world that a) uses SPI and b) understands why anyone would want to divide number of watts by stroke rate to form an entirely meaningless number that tells me nothing at all about my performance or whether #4 is acheiveable. Or in phonetic Klingon "Dujeychugh jagh nIv yItuHQo'. [1][2]"



[1] http://mughom.wizage.net/
[2] http://www.forvo.com/languages/tlh/tag/proverbs/

[ranger]

I'll post a 4 x 2K result on Sunday.

Back in 2003, I did these at 1:43.

I am quite a bit better than that now.

I think I will now do 1:40 (@ 30 spm).

If I do, it will predict 1:40/16:40 for 5K, and I'll start doing some 5K trials to test that out, too.

ranger

[ranger]

If I can test on 1/5 of the meters you purportedly do

If you only train to race, you can certainly test yourself, and do every day, but when you do, you only find out how slow you are, and wonder why you can't seem to do anything about it.

Sharpening will never make you faster.

A 2K is determined by your UT training, both UT2 and UT1.

AT, TR, and AN work is all the same for everyone.

Necessary, yes, but moot.

The question is what you can do for 60min @ 10 MPS.

That's top-end UT1.

I am aiming for 1:44.

If you can do 60min @ 1:44, once you are fully sharpened up, you can do 2K @ 1:34.

ranger

[ausrwr]

I'll post a 4 x 2K result on Sunday.

Back in 2003, I did these at 1:43.

I am quite a bit better than that now.

I think I will now do 1:40 (@ 30 spm).

If I do, it will predict 1:40/16:40 for 5K, and I'll start doing some 5K trials to test that out, too.

ranger

You really ARE a clown. How's about you do ONE 2k at < 7:00 pace?
Shit, three out of the last four girls I've been out with can do that. They all weigh less than you and train less than you. Well, less than you claim to train.

Most people, having suffered a massive kick in the nuts like last week's racing should have been, would be considering if they'd possibly done something wrong leading up to the event.

No, not driving there. That doesn't account for being 55 second behind where you should be. The training you CLAIM to be doing... The philosophy behind your training...

Proudly saying NAY until something happens to prove me wrong.

[jliddil]

She was looking kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb
in the shape of an "L" on her forehead.

[detlefchef]

Not for nothing ranger, but do you know what would quiet everyone down a whole bunch?

How 'bout a photo of a time that someone aspiring to a 6:28 would find respectable. How 'bout 6:45? I mean, anyone who thinks they're a few months of training away from hitting 6:30 should be able to just sit down and knock out a 6:45. No tapering, no specific training. Just warming up and doing it.

Rather than waxing obtuse about random metrics that you aspire to being able to do which would prove that you're capable of making 6:28. Why not just sit down and hit something in the neighborhood?

If you tell Usain Bolt to hop on the track and break the WR, he may or may not do it. But you know he's gonna be right around 10 sec. He's not coming in at 11.5, that's for sure. So, if somebody comes out and says they're gunning for the record, they should be able to just walk out on the track and run something in the 10s, right then and there. No questions. If dude comes across in 12 seconds, you can be pretty sure he's full of chight.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

If you can do 60min @ 1:44, once you are fully sharpened up, you can do 2K @ 1:34.

I'm pretty sure anyone who can hold a 1:44 for an hour goes at least sub 6:00 on a 2k. I know plenty of guys who have 2k splits under 1:34 and no way can they do an hour at 1:44.

[mikvan52]

If I can test on 1/5 of the meters you purportedly do

If you only train to race, you can certainly test yourself, and do every day, but when you do, you only find out how slow you are, and wonder why you can't seem to do anything about it.

Sharpening will never make you faster.

So slow that I seldom lose

28 races this year, only 3 losses....hmmm & 25 wins. Hard to argue with wins in my book....

and my avg. pace for less than 800k spent on the erg is 2:03/500m

I do very little sharpening.
Most of my meters are done under 22 spm. Is that "only training to race"?

How wrong can you be??? RIch... RI___III __ ITCHIE ???

Are you out there somewhere? On the Planet Claire??

or better yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7t7cGwN7_0

I finally understand: "in your own private Idaho!"

[mikvan52]

Rich:
I must have missed your comment on my meters this year and the time spent doing them...

2,189,601m in
170:46:34.2

Broken down (I left out a few skierg meters)
otw=1393151m in
116:36:15.6

erg= 788967m in
53:23:41.1

explain how my record shows that I was sharpening all the time...

simple math shows quite the contrary

about 280 days since May 1, 2009 171 hrs rowed = 36 minutes a day average

at a whopping 2:20 pace/500m average over the period....

[Carl Watts]

Oh no I can see we are now getting some spill over from the infamous and now "Locked" thread to here instead.

Anyway as far as training goes I'm just happy doing my own thing which comprises of mainly 30minute online RowPro sessions, the best of which so far is uploaded to the Concept 2 Online Logbook. Consistant regular training with slow improvements while staying injury free has been the key for me.

While it is great to offer training advice, is it not also probably a good idea to be able to verify the actual results of this training ?

So why have some people not uploaded their results to the Log ?

Surely this adds credibility to any advice offered ?

Correct me if I am wrong because I am just the new kid on the block here, but it just seems common sense to me because if your getting the actual results then I am going to listen to you.

[ranger]

Rich:
I must have missed your comment on my meters this year and the time spent doing them...

2,189,601m in
170:46:34.2

Broken down (I left out a few skierg meters)
otw=1393151m in
116:36:15.6

erg= 788967m in
53:23:41.1

explain how my record shows that I was sharpening all the time...

simple math shows quite the contrary

about 280 days since May 1, 2009 171 hrs rowed = 36 minutes a day average

at a whopping 2:20 pace/500m average over the period....

That 2:20 average would be about standard for hard sharpening, if you took active rest between intervals.

For instance, 8 x 500m @ 1:30, paddle a 500m inbetween at 2:30 pace, would be 2:01.8 pace overall.

The distnace would be 6610m.

The time would be 26:50.

In my RWBs workouts, pulling hard (14-16 SPI), if I took active rest between intervals, I averaged aroud 2:00 pace over long distances, such as 20K, just about the same overall pace as an 8 x 500m workout with active rest at 1:30.

So, something comparable for you would come out close to 2:20.

If you warmed up in other ways and then did steady distance rowing for all of your meters, your average pace would not be slower.

It would be considerably faster.

In fact, an elite lightweight might average 1:45, or even 1:40.

The overall pace of a steady row is much faster than the overall pace of an interval workout, as my 2K last Sunday illustrated.

ranger

[ranger]

For a lightweight of any age, given current standards, the ultimate achievement in effectiveness and efficiency, before you do any sharpening (i.e., AT, TR, and AN rowing) at all is to be able to do "threshold" (i.e., top-end UT1) rowing, 1:40 @ 30 spm (10MPS, 11.7 SPI), as Eskild E. could in his prime.

A top-end UT1 pace of 1:40 predicts a 6:00 2K.

The comparable achievement for heavyweights, with their larger aerobic capacity, would be a couple of spms higher on the 10 MPS ladder, 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI).

It is shocking to say this, but I think I am approaching this achievement.

In my distance rowing, once I am completely warmed up, I now get to 1:40 @ 30 spm (10 MPS, 11.7 SPI), largely because my distance stroke is now almost exactly 11.7 SPI, and as you go along in distance rowing, the most efficient cadence is 10 MPS, so you just tend toward that, if you try to relax and find a cadence where you are doing your best.

When you are fully trained up for it, in an all-out trial, you should be able to row at your anaerobic threshold, steady state, and at a constant pace, for a HM, as people like Rod Freed, Dan Staite, and Eskild E. could in their prime.

This would be pretty hard to do every day, so the best workouts that simultaneously develop, demonstrate, and solidify a top-end/threshold UT1 pace break up this 20K distance into intervals, just to ease the difficulty, but without really changing the effectiveness and efficiency of the rowing: 2 x 10K, 3 x 30min, 4 x 5K/6K, 10 x 2K, 20 x 1K, 40 x 500m, etc.

The 50s lightweight Rod Freed liked 2 x 30min @ 1:44.

If you are really at top-end UT1, effectively and efficiently, you should be able to do workouts like this, in a relaxed way, steady state, at a constant pace, with your heart rate just below your anaerobic threshold.

This is the point I am at in my training right now.

So it is time to do these workouts.

It will be interesting for me to see what my top-end UT1 pace comes out to be.

Back in 2002-2003, this pace was 1:48.

That predicts a 6:32 2K, give or take a bit, exactly what I pulled back then for 2K most of the time.

Back then, fully trained, I had five or six 6:32 2Ks in competition, more than any other time.

I got a little better than that on my best day, but not much.

I rowed 6:32 in competition just before WIRC 2003, just after WIRC 2003, and just after BIRC 2003.

I also did several 6:32 2Ks at home, but never anything better.

Back in 2002-2003, in order to train my top-end UT1/threshold rowing, I did exactly the workouts I have just mentioned: 40 x 500m, 20 x 1K, 10 x 2K, , 4 x 5K/6K, 2 x 10K, 3 x 30min, and 60min/20K/HM, rowing in a relaxed way, steady state, right at my anaerobic threshold, at a steady pace.

Because these workouts are done below your anaerobic threshold, they are not very taxing.

In fact, for the workouts with shorter intervals, you tend to get fresher and fresher as the workout goes along, and by the end, you are exhilarated.

Because of this, you can do these workouts every day.

You don't need to rest--or do anything else.

If you row effectively and efficiently, I think that these workouts are the best sessions to do--bar none.

When I took up rowing, I did these sessions every day for a year and a half or so.

Then, when I sharpened for a couple of months and did a 2K, I was four seconds under the 50s lwt WR (6:27.5) in my first 2K race.

At the time, I was 51 years old.

The big hitch in all of this, of course, is hidden in the conditional "if you row effectively and efficiently."



Back in 2002-2003, I certainly didn't.

I didn't know what I was doing, and I did no work on technique and stroking power in order to learn what to do in order to row well.

I just yanked the chain and went up and down the slide like all the other bozos in the gym.

I rowed like shit.

Nonetheless, because of my physical capacities, athletic background, and general attraction to hard work, I enjoyed erging and so kept at it long enough and consistently enough to get pretty darn fast.

All things equal, you can't do your best in rowing, though, if you don't know how to row.

You can't do your best if you just yank the chain.

Rowing is significantly technical.

If you want to do your best in rowing, it helps to know how to row well.

It has taken me quite a while (seven years!) to learn, but I now row well.

Hate to say it, but the dirty little secret in indoor rowing, throughout the entire community, even among the very best at the sport, is that almost no one rows well.

Why?

It ain't easy.

If you take a full stroke, and your natural motion is not being limited by other matters, such as aerobic cost, for example, as when you are rowing at low rates, rowing effectively is 13 SPI for lightweights, 15 SPI for heavyweights.

Rowing efficiently is rowing at 10 MPS and a stroking power 2 SPI below that.

In terms of stroking power, for those who row well, a 2K racing stroke is usually right between these two, a perfect blend of effectiveness and efficiency.

So, for a lightweight, 12 SPI is ideal; for a heavyweight, 14 SPI.

In my 2Ks, I will now pull 12 SPI.

ranger