The Two Types of Training

[mikvan52]

I will not get on the erg again this spring/summer and do 2-5k race pace for some time now. I am OTW and my coach suggests I stay off the erg. I'd be happy to do 60 minute pace though... .for 60 minutes.... You go first!
and I don't handle down... you do!

I don't know where you get this stuff from, Mike.


(snip)

On the erg, I am also quite a bit better than you over 2K.

The two are directly related.

(snip)

Sure, I'll do 60min over the next couple of weeks.

Then we can see what you can do.

(snip)

Then our technique, by and large, will be the same, and any difference in our achievements will be differences in aerobic capacity.

Now high can you rate?

How high can I rate?

If you pull 11 SPI at 135 df., what rate will you shoot for, so that your HR stays below 143 bpm, your anaerobic threshold?

23 spm?

I'll run my HR to 170 bpm, which I think will come out to be about 29 spm.

Pulling 11 SPI in this way, the best young lightweights rate 32 spm, as do the best boats at the Head of the Charles.

Why?

I guess this is what I don't get.

If your aerobic capacity is so substantial, as you keep saying it is, despite your low maxHR, why don't you rate 32 spm for 60min pulling 11 SPI at 135 df., like the best young lightweights?

Doing 11 SPI is not pulling hard at all.

It is just a solid stroke for anyone who knows how to row well.

So technique is not the issue, or anything else skeletal-muscular.

A 60min row of this sort is just a pure test of aerobic capacity.

'rrrrr

Avast! matey!! 'rrrrrr!
So rowing a great hour piece on the erg settles the OTW technique issue?

It took a lotta bluster to get down to the brass tacks:
According to you, "technique is not the issue"
Red Alert! Tug boat w/o a rudder approaching the pier! Collision imminent!
"Not the issue" at all?
(Smash)
One of my points about the two videos above was to indicate how your OTW "technique" matched your erg "technique" I imagine it still does even with implementation of The Rich's Excellent Adventure Training (TREAT)
(Mine does too to a great extent. I don't like that. That's why I moved to the sliders which forces positive changes.)

I repeat: You are a faster erger over 2k (than me): 6 whopping TREAT seconds this year. (we won't go into 2008 if you promise to forget about 2003)
However, I am a racing sculler who has posted sub 2:00/pace results for 5 k and 2:01 avg for between 9 and 10k and 1:50 results for 1k. I surmise from your posts that your times OTW are far slower at these distances at much higher rates than I row.
If you are stronger and technique is not the issue, what is (HERE, ON THE WATER)?
No, it can't be rate. You should be able to match me stroke for stroke because of your superior power at matching rates.

I await your TREAT theory on this.

I await your TREAT lwt 60min row w/o breaks IND_V... Then I'll beat it (w/o TREAT)
(Please don't wait for me to challenge "the young lightweights". I am not young. Evidently you think you are )

I prefer to leave out any answer to the "why not row at 135 df at 32 spm?" I'll answer that once you TREAT us to your lwt 60' IND_V piece.

[mikvan52]

Rich, I forgot your:

"A 60min row of this sort is just a pure test of aerobic capacity."

Let's look at "pure"... (hmmm)

No, I don't think so!

Here's a pure test of aerobic capacity. It was done in a lab.
(see: http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmhpl/ )



Want one? We'll go visit Declan AJ Connelly together when you come to VT.
I think you'll enjoy the part where you wear the mask!

[ranger]

Mike--

I am a novice OTW, but I have indeed been working on my technique both there and on the erg.

Seriously, I am indeed interested in your claim that my stroke on the erg is bad in some way and inappropriate for OTW rowing, in ways that the stroke you use on the erg isn't.

Why don't we both do videos, say, 500m, 1:45 @ 27 spm, a couple of minutes of a nice distance stroke at 11 SPI and a modest pace, and take a look at what we are doing on the erg in terms of technique?

I would indeed like to learn something from you (or anyone else) about what I am doing wrong, if there is something glaringly awry, especially when I don't think there is.

Perhaps Nav can give us a frame by frame analysis that points up differences in our technique, whether strengths or weaknesses.

A nice elaboration of this would be to do _two_ videos, one of our rowing and one of the force curve, pace, and rate on the PM3/4, while we are rowing.

ranger

[ranger]

Mike lives in a more normal EASTERN DAYLIGHT timezone and isn't a freak and so isn't normally active on the forum at FOUR O'CLOCK in the MORNING.

I am not a freak at all, unless you call an adult with a job (and a spouse who has a job, too) a freak.

If you have to work all day, then you have row either before work or after work, no?

Given that my wife and I eat dinner together when she gets home from work, I prefer to row before work so that, after work, I can relax, chat about the day, and be with her.

I also seem to have more physical energy in the morning, when I am not mentally tired.

Mornings are also better for OTW rowing, because of the weather and boat traffic on the river.

ranger

[ranger]

So rowing a great hour piece on the erg settles the OTW technique issue?

No, indeed not.

Just the opposite.

A great hour piece on the erg (at some designated stroking power, e.g., 11 SPI) settles the aerobic capacity issue.

ranger

[ranger]

I await your TREAT lwt 60min row w/o breaks IND_V... Then I'll beat it (w/o TREAT)

Big words, but you don't have a hope in hell of doing it.

In fact, I don't think you'll come with six or seven seconds per 500m of what I will pull for 60min.

You will be out of sight, 1000m behind.

Two thirds of a mile.

ranger

[ranger]

A 60min row is in a predictable relation to all other rows, including 2K and 5K.

Your 2K and 5K are only as good as what you can do for 60min.

5K is done at 60min - 4.

2K is done at 60min - 9.

ranger

[mrfit]

Is the first trial this month the HM still?

[JimR]

Is the first trial this month the HM still?

Wow ... tomorrow is the last day of the first half of April. With 10 WR trials to be done that is a lot of hard work ... Ranger is soon to deliver the most amazing feat of erging ever done by anyone of any age for all time!

BTW ... the answer has to be Yes ... because you have to go from long distance to short ... always ... ranger said so!

JimR

[lancs]

So within 2 weeks we'll finally have a reported session as evidence you are indeed 'right on track' for a 6:16 (which will presumably be in the Fall sometime, as it usually is). What are you aiming for? I'm presuming anything less than 1:45/500m will be disappointing for you given how much better you are now than in 2003. If you do row slower than in 2003, don't forget that it's only because you're not yet fully trained..

[Citroen]

Mike lives in a more normal EASTERN DAYLIGHT timezone and isn't a freak and so isn't normally active on the forum at FOUR O'CLOCK in the MORNING.

I am not a freak at all, unless you call an adult with a job (and a spouse who has a job, too) a freak.

If you have to work all day, then you have row either before work or after work, no?

Folks who aren't complete dingbat freaks tend to be in their beds asleep between midnight and six thirty in their local timezone. They are not on the bloody internet writing endless, mindless crap about their crappy minority sport and their mythical ideas of times they'll never achieve and training that's never complete (as it restarts every fall with a new technique).

I row between 06:30 and 08:30 or between 17:30 and 22:00 on weekdays depending on the shifts my wife is working. I work full time between 09:00 and 17:30 on Mon-Thu and from 08:00 to 16:00 on a Friday.

[Carl Watts]

Come on Ranger I cannot believe what I am reading here.

Basically the Erg and OTW rowing have almost nothing in common except some of the physical and mental conditioning !

Anyone can jump on an Erg and thrash out a row, fundamentally it just measures power and thats it. Just because you can beat someone on the Erg DOESN'T automatically mean your going to beat them on the water. Chances are doing nothing but the Erg will make you a crap OTW rower, however a good OTW rower will carry their correct OTW technique that maximises boat speed to the Erg, thus are even a half way decent OTW rower will feed you to the fish !

Before you ask, I have never done any OTW rowing, I don't think I need too do any, just open my ears and listen to those who have competed OTW at the top level to be open to accept the vast difference between the two.

You still have until 1st May 2010 to blow us away with your distance rows on the Erg, seriously I would love to say good on you and well done Ranger, but all you post here other than your great 2K is theoretical "If I can do's" one post after the next.If you want to regain some real respect, the opportunity is there for you with some validated rows.

[chgoss]

Rich, you have been stating that you will best your 2003 times "in the next month/in the fall/by the end of the racing season". for 5 or 6 years at this point.

It's not like you're saying "I would sure like to beat my 2003 time, that's my goal", your saying "I definitely will beat those times". You know you will because your training "results" prove it.

My question is this: at some point, having repeatedly failed to get any where near the times you were so confident of based on your training, doesn't your mind start to examine the "predictive" nature of your training?


so, in replying, refrain from "well, I had the best 2k for a 59 year old LW last year w/out even trying".. that's not my question.. my question is the vast gap between your confident predictions, and reality, repeatedly illustrated, over the past 6 years.

[ranger]

Chances are doing nothing but the Erg will make you a crap OTW rower, however a good OTW rower will carry their correct OTW technique that maximises boat speed to the Erg

Sure.

And vice versa.

So it's a wash.

Those who are good on the erg carry their physical history and habits, athleticism, fitness, endurance, and aerobic capacity to their OTW rowing.

BTW, I have been rowing OTW for seven years.

ranger

[ranger]

Basically the Erg and OTW rowing have almost nothing in common

Well, then, do an experiment.

Row OTW now, when you are pulling 7:20 for 2K on the erg, and see how it goes.

Then train yourself to row 5:55 on the erg, a few seconds under the WR in your age and weight division.

Then go back OTW, and see how it goes.

ranger