If you do your work on technique and stroking power until you can row well at low rates (13 SPI for lightweights; 16 SPI for heavyweights) and then work up the 10MPS ladder in your distance rowing until you get to your anaerobic threshold, your training life becomes very simple.
Just row at your anaerobic threshold for an hour or two each day.
Then, occasionally, do some sprints to keep sharp.
That's it.
As everyone has been mentioning, the trick to doing this at the very limits of your ability is an exercise in efficiency.
10 MPS rowing is high rate rowing.
It doesn't have anything to do with spending 80% of your time trudging at 16 spm, as people like Mike Caviston recommend.
Once you row well, that's absurd.
Your achievement with threshold rowing has about an equal amount to do with your talent for the sport (e.g., your aerobic capacity, flexibility, strength, length, etc.) and your skill in rowing (your timing, leveraging, rhythmicity, relaxation, consistency, posture, sequencing, etc.).
These two together determine what point on the 10MPS ladder you are rowing at when your heart rate is at your anaerobic threshold.
Then, the task in your rowing is just to keep practicing this rate and pace until you can do it for an hour or so, steady state.
I suppose we'll have to wait and see to know for sure, given that I have just arrived at this issue in my training, but if I hold my technique together, the point on the 10 MPS ladder where I am rowing at my anaerobic threshold is 30 spm, 11.7 SPI, 350 watts, 1:40.
So there it is.
I just need to rate 30 spm in my distance rowing and the game is won.
It is not surprising, I think, that I mentioned this quite a while ago.
In my daily sessions, rowing for me from now on, both OTW and off, will be pretty simple.
I just need to rate 30 spm and work on efficiency (i.e., being correct, consistent, and relaxed with my technique).
Nothing else matters much.
If you have a top-end UT1 pace of 1:40, and get so that you can row at your anaerobic threshold for an hour, as I can, and have, all you have to do is sharpen up and you can row a 6:00 2K.
Then, if you can make weight, as I can, you are the best lightweight rower in the world.
Give or take a bit, you can pull the Open lwt 2K WR each time you show up for a race.
ranger
The Two Types of Training
The challenge for someone such as Mike VB, who already rows well OTW, is not technical, but physical.
He just needs to hold his technique together and rate 30 spm at his anaerobic threshold and the game is won.
He will win the Head of the Charles every time out, and his rowing dreams will come true.
At the moment, he just rates too low.
When he is both comfortable and rowing his best, Mike rates something like 24 spm at his anaerobic threshold, not 30 spm.
If you are rowing efficiently, that's a FM rate, not a 5K/6K rate.
On the erg, at 11.7 SPI, which Mike can row very smoothly and easily, 24 spm is 1:47.
At 11.7 SPI, 30 spm is 1:40.
There's that seven seconds per 500m again!
In order to accommodate his physical limitations, if he wants to keep his technique together, Mike has to lengthen out his stroke on the erg to 11.68 MPS, 1:47 @ 24 spm, in his threshold rowing, rather than continuing to raise the rate until he is pulling 10 MPS.
Therefore, he can't row with maximal efficiency, even though his effectiveness, his technique and stroking power, is just fine.
Unfortunately, your physical fatedness has a lot to do with your accomplishment in rowing.
Your physical gifts mediate between your effectiveness and efficiency, permitting you to maximize the two, by balancing them.
When you are rowing your best, if you don't have the aerobic capacity to lift the rate to 30 spm in your threshold rowing, your rowing is imbalanced: it is effective but not efficient.
If you need to lower the rate to maintain 10 MPS, your rowing becomes efficient but not effective.
And if you have to abandon your technique in order to lift the rate, your rowing becomes neither effective nor efficient.
Thrashing about, willy-nilly, when he does trials of various sorts, Mike tries out all of these dodges as alternatives to the ideal he can't achieve (a balance of effectiveness and efficiency, maintaining both) because of his poor aerobic capacity.
ranger
He just needs to hold his technique together and rate 30 spm at his anaerobic threshold and the game is won.
He will win the Head of the Charles every time out, and his rowing dreams will come true.
At the moment, he just rates too low.
When he is both comfortable and rowing his best, Mike rates something like 24 spm at his anaerobic threshold, not 30 spm.
If you are rowing efficiently, that's a FM rate, not a 5K/6K rate.
On the erg, at 11.7 SPI, which Mike can row very smoothly and easily, 24 spm is 1:47.
At 11.7 SPI, 30 spm is 1:40.
There's that seven seconds per 500m again!
In order to accommodate his physical limitations, if he wants to keep his technique together, Mike has to lengthen out his stroke on the erg to 11.68 MPS, 1:47 @ 24 spm, in his threshold rowing, rather than continuing to raise the rate until he is pulling 10 MPS.
Therefore, he can't row with maximal efficiency, even though his effectiveness, his technique and stroking power, is just fine.
Unfortunately, your physical fatedness has a lot to do with your accomplishment in rowing.
Your physical gifts mediate between your effectiveness and efficiency, permitting you to maximize the two, by balancing them.
When you are rowing your best, if you don't have the aerobic capacity to lift the rate to 30 spm in your threshold rowing, your rowing is imbalanced: it is effective but not efficient.
If you need to lower the rate to maintain 10 MPS, your rowing becomes efficient but not effective.
And if you have to abandon your technique in order to lift the rate, your rowing becomes neither effective nor efficient.
Thrashing about, willy-nilly, when he does trials of various sorts, Mike tries out all of these dodges as alternatives to the ideal he can't achieve (a balance of effectiveness and efficiency, maintaining both) because of his poor aerobic capacity.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
Wow.
I certainly did my homework on technique and stroking power.
As it turns out, my distance stroke has turned into 1:40 @ 30 spm and my stroke for race pace 500s, 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI).
Yikes.
Ideal.
Both are 10 MPS, the perfect ratio.
13 SPI is rowing well for a lightweight, right on the button.
18K for 60min predicts the Open lwt WR for 2K.
Nothing more needs to be done on these matters for the rest of my life.
Now, all I have to do is row.
I am just stroking along, at all distances, with the best elite young lightweights in the world.
It will interesting what my 2K time turns out to be after rowing like this for the next three weeks.
Better, I wonder what my 2K time wilil turn out to be if I row like this for a month, or two months, or six months, or a year, or five years, or fifty years, as indeed I will
Mind-boggling stuff.
It looks as though, sooner rather than later, I am going tø row 18K for 60min and 6:00 for 2K.
Won't that be something?
For 500s, the best thing to do now would be to work up to 20 x 500m, 1:34 @ 32 spm (13 SPI, 10 MP), or even 40 x 500m.
I just need to keep practicing the effectiveness and efficiency of it.
Hail Zatopek!
You were the nuttiest of them all!
No need to go any faster at the moment.
No need to do anything else, or anything different.
I just need to get habituated completely to these perfect blends of effectiveness and efficiency.
The more meters I row at these paces and rates, the better.
The heck with cross-training.
Ideally, I should now do double sessions on the erg, or even triple session, e.g., over spring break, which is coming up for me here at UM in a week, rowing exclusively at 1:40 @ 30 spm for longer distances (10K, 30min, 6K, 5K, 4K, 3K, 2K) and 1:34 @ 32 spm for shorter ones (1500m, 1K, 750, 500, 1 minute).
It took me seven years to get it done, but my attempt to learn to row well is now complete.
Now, I can just row and forget about it.
_No one_ rows any better.
ranger
I certainly did my homework on technique and stroking power.
As it turns out, my distance stroke has turned into 1:40 @ 30 spm and my stroke for race pace 500s, 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI).
Yikes.
Ideal.
Both are 10 MPS, the perfect ratio.
13 SPI is rowing well for a lightweight, right on the button.
18K for 60min predicts the Open lwt WR for 2K.
Nothing more needs to be done on these matters for the rest of my life.
Now, all I have to do is row.
I am just stroking along, at all distances, with the best elite young lightweights in the world.
It will interesting what my 2K time turns out to be after rowing like this for the next three weeks.
Better, I wonder what my 2K time wilil turn out to be if I row like this for a month, or two months, or six months, or a year, or five years, or fifty years, as indeed I will
Mind-boggling stuff.
It looks as though, sooner rather than later, I am going tø row 18K for 60min and 6:00 for 2K.
Won't that be something?
For 500s, the best thing to do now would be to work up to 20 x 500m, 1:34 @ 32 spm (13 SPI, 10 MP), or even 40 x 500m.
I just need to keep practicing the effectiveness and efficiency of it.
Hail Zatopek!
You were the nuttiest of them all!
No need to go any faster at the moment.
No need to do anything else, or anything different.
I just need to get habituated completely to these perfect blends of effectiveness and efficiency.
The more meters I row at these paces and rates, the better.
The heck with cross-training.
Ideally, I should now do double sessions on the erg, or even triple session, e.g., over spring break, which is coming up for me here at UM in a week, rowing exclusively at 1:40 @ 30 spm for longer distances (10K, 30min, 6K, 5K, 4K, 3K, 2K) and 1:34 @ 32 spm for shorter ones (1500m, 1K, 750, 500, 1 minute).
It took me seven years to get it done, but my attempt to learn to row well is now complete.
Now, I can just row and forget about it.
_No one_ rows any better.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
Wow.
The stars are in my favor this year for a great outcome to the racing season.
As it turns out, my academic calender and personal life are ideally arranged this year to get maximally prepared for my last regatta at Grosse Isle, MI, on Saturday, March 6th.
Spring break here at the University of Michigan will start for me February 25th and will end on Tuesday, March 9th.
My children are all grown and out of the house, too.
So I will have very few, iif any, professional and personal responsibilities for the 10 days before my final regatta.
Perfect.
I can do triple sessions, if I want to.
Just lots of 1:40 @ 30 spm and 1:34 @ 32 spm.
10 MPS
Effective.
Efficient.
And for the 59-year-old lightweight, _unbelievablely_, _gob-smackingly_, fast.
In the range of 10 seconds per 500m faster than anyone my age and weight has ever rowed.
ranger
The stars are in my favor this year for a great outcome to the racing season.
As it turns out, my academic calender and personal life are ideally arranged this year to get maximally prepared for my last regatta at Grosse Isle, MI, on Saturday, March 6th.
Spring break here at the University of Michigan will start for me February 25th and will end on Tuesday, March 9th.
My children are all grown and out of the house, too.
So I will have very few, iif any, professional and personal responsibilities for the 10 days before my final regatta.
Perfect.
I can do triple sessions, if I want to.
Just lots of 1:40 @ 30 spm and 1:34 @ 32 spm.
10 MPS
Effective.
Efficient.
And for the 59-year-old lightweight, _unbelievablely_, _gob-smackingly_, fast.
In the range of 10 seconds per 500m faster than anyone my age and weight has ever rowed.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
The two great challenges in training in those last 10 days before my final regatta at Grosse Isle on March 6th will be the following:
20 x 500m (paddle a 500m inbetween), 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI)
6K, 1:40 @ 30 spm (10 MPS, 11.7 SPI)
During those ten days, I will spend all of my effort trying to accomplish these sessions.
ranger
20 x 500m (paddle a 500m inbetween), 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI)
6K, 1:40 @ 30 spm (10 MPS, 11.7 SPI)
During those ten days, I will spend all of my effort trying to accomplish these sessions.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
At this point, racing doesn't have anything to do with it, Henry.hjs wrote:ranger wrote:Wow.
The stars are in my favor this year for a great outcome to the racing season.
ranger
Thusfar
race one DNS
race 2 7.11
race 3 and 4 DNS
hahahaha
In erging, racing is redundant.
It is entirely predictable, and doesn't mean a thing until you are fully prepared for it.
Racing follows directly from training, in particular, from final sharpening.
This year I am sharpening.
So this is what matters and needs to get done:
(1) 6K, 1:40 @ 30 spm (10 MPS, 11.7 SPI)
(2) 20 x 500m (paddle a 500m in between), 1:34 @ 32 spm (10 MPS, 13 SPI)
If I accomplish these two sessions at some point over the next three weeks, I'll pull 6:16 for 2K on March 6th at Grosse Ile.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
And yet every prediction you've made about your racing, certainly for the last two seasons, has been wrong. So even if it's theoretically entirely predictable, it appears you're very, very bad at it.ranger wrote: In erging, racing is redundant.
It is entirely predictable, and doesn't mean a thing until you are fully prepared for it.
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hjs
- Marathon Poster
- Posts: 10076
- Joined: March 16th, 2006, 3:18 pm
- Location: Amstelveen the netherlands
In every sport, the end result is what you do on raceday. And you show 7 years in row that on race day you can,t perform.ranger wrote:At this point, racing doesn't have anything to do with it, Henry.hjs wrote:ranger wrote:Wow.
The stars are in my favor this year for a great outcome to the racing season.
ranger
Thusfar
race one DNS
race 2 7.11
race 3 and 4 DNS
hahahaha
In erging, racing is redundant.
ranger
You have only had 1 2 years in with you did well, trained well, had your weight unther control and raced well.
You simply did what you had to do, from there you started "thinking" and that is simply not a strong point from you.
Really, I wouldn,t even trust you to do my shoppings, you wouldn,t be able to even bring that simple task to a good ending.
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snowleopard
- 6k Poster
- Posts: 936
- Joined: September 23rd, 2009, 4:16 am
Well, everyone, it seems, just gets worse from year to year.hjs wrote:You have only had 1 2 years in with you did well, trained well, had your weight unther control and raced well.
You simply did what you had to do, from there you started "thinking" and that is simply not a strong point from you.
But they perform well, up to a point.
You claim that they perform well because they don't think.
I agree entirely.
But it applies to the other concern, too.
They are also getting worse and worse because they don't think.
In order to hold the line against age, or even get better, you need to keep overcoming your weaknesses.
This isn't easy.
It takes some thought.
It requires some odd training.
And it demands some unusual effort.
From now until March 6th, we'll see some of the results of my thinking (odd training and unusual effort) over the last seven years, as I have been working on my weaknesses.
Those directly parallel to me have lost as much as 20 seconds over 2K during the last seven years.
This weekend, I think I will row my lwt pb from back in 2003.
Then I will go on for the next two weeks and push my 2K time down from there.
When all is said and done, the swing in time, competitively, could be as much as 30 seconds over 2K, a pretty significant amount.
ranger
Last edited by ranger on February 16th, 2010, 8:47 am, edited 3 times in total.
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
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hjs
- Marathon Poster
- Posts: 10076
- Joined: March 16th, 2006, 3:18 pm
- Location: Amstelveen the netherlands
No it is not theyranger wrote:Well, everyone, it seems, just gets worse from year to year.hjs wrote:You have only had 1 2 years in with you did well, trained well, had your weight unther control and raced well.
You simply did what you had to do, from there you started "thinking" and that is simply not a strong point from you.
But they perform well, up to a point.
You claim that they perform well because they don't think.
ranger
it is just you You are the one who dns dnf dnweigh in, or rows really slow for at least 75/80 of your races. This after a long string of good results, now 7 years of failier.
Nobody else does this.
You don't think my final result was good last year?
It was the best for my age and weight.
In fact, given the normal decline among rowers, the 6:41 I rowed at 58 is exactly what is predicted, given that my normal row was around 6:30 in 2003 when I was 52.
The only difference is that the 6:41 I rowed last year was probably nothing more than an AT, perhaps even a UT1, training row.
It was done on the basis of just foundational training, with no distance rowing or sharpening.
It will be interesting to see how this year turns out, now that I am preparing to race.
I supppose we'll have to wait for three weeks to see.
I think I'll break the WR this week, perhaps by as much as 10 seconds, and catch my former self in terms of time, even though that defies the normal prediction by a dozen seconds.
Then I think I might get as much as a dozen seconds from my final couple of weeks of sharpening, as I bring my anaerobic capacities up to max.
If so, that would defy predictions by 25 seconds.
Hmm.
Yes, you are right.
This kind of thing is unprecedented.
ranger
It was the best for my age and weight.
In fact, given the normal decline among rowers, the 6:41 I rowed at 58 is exactly what is predicted, given that my normal row was around 6:30 in 2003 when I was 52.
The only difference is that the 6:41 I rowed last year was probably nothing more than an AT, perhaps even a UT1, training row.
It was done on the basis of just foundational training, with no distance rowing or sharpening.
It will be interesting to see how this year turns out, now that I am preparing to race.
I supppose we'll have to wait for three weeks to see.
I think I'll break the WR this week, perhaps by as much as 10 seconds, and catch my former self in terms of time, even though that defies the normal prediction by a dozen seconds.
Then I think I might get as much as a dozen seconds from my final couple of weeks of sharpening, as I bring my anaerobic capacities up to max.
If so, that would defy predictions by 25 seconds.
Hmm.
Yes, you are right.
This kind of thing is unprecedented.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)