Ranger's training thread

[NavigationHazard]

Okay, since you're in the mood to reject inconvenient hypotheticals. Let's take a piece you already did: 500m in 1:30 r30. That's 16.0 spi. Try rowing 500m r45 at 16.0 spi (720w, about 1:18.6 pace) and see how far you get. I don't think you can do 200m at that pace.

The point remains valid. As a general proposition, you cannot hold everything else equal and maintain constant spi while raising the rate. Either the distance/duration you can sustain the spi will fall off as the rate increases, or spi will fall off as the rate increases, or both.

Oh, and you cannot come close to 90 minutes of unbroken rowing at 1:49 pace r22 "with a UT2 HR" at any drag factor possible in our universe. Fraud. I doubt you can do 1500m at 1:49 r22 with a genuine UT2 HR. Maybe you can row for 90 cumulative minutes with the occasional stroke at 1:49 r22, and lots of slower strokes that are de facto breaks, and keep your HR in the UT2 range. But inasmuch as you have no clue whatsoever what your actual training bands might be, it's moot....

Oh dang me. I put too much predicate in that last sentence again.

[ranger]

Row a 500m piece flat out r20. Compute your spi. Now try to row that spi for 500m at r50. It cannot be done

No reason to row 500r20, flat out.

So the example is nonsense.

ranger

I agree with you on that example, however many clubs do a 30minute rate 20 test. Would you use the same SPI for that as a HM at rate 20?

What do tests have to do with anything substantial about training yourself to row well?

The issue is what you do when you row well.

When you row well, you just hold your technique constant, pulling the same SPI.

For instance, in the table of rates and paces in the IP plan, the suggestion is that for a 6:28 2K, my pb, is that I row 1:52 @ 21 spm for UT2, 1:47 @ 24 spm for UT1, and 1:41 @ 28 spm for AT.

Give or take a bit, these are all about 12 SPI.

Why?

32 spm or so is a good 2K race rate, and 32 spm @ 12 SPI is right around 1:37/6:28.

For a 6:16 2K, which is three seconds per 500m faster than 6:28, these rates and paces have to be raised 3 seconds per 500m and 1 SPI, to 13 SPI: 1:48 @ 21 for UT2, 1:44 @ 24 spm for UT1, and 1:38 @ 28 spm for AT.

Why?

32 spm or so is a good 2K race rate, and 32 spm @ 13 SPI is 1:34/6:16 for 2K.

ranger

[ranger]

Okay, since you're in the mood to reject inconvenient hypotheticals. Let's take a piece you already did: 500m in 1:30 r30. That's 16.0 spi.

For me, pulling 16 SPI, for whatever distance, has nothing to do with rowing well.

It just shows I have a lot of maximal stroking power for an old lightweight, which can be important, if it is combined with other things, e.g., low drag, efficient technique, and high aerobic capacity.

It says something about how effective my stroke can be--but not much else.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Muppet. And the schedule of workouts will show you -- incontrovertably -- that UT2 workouts are of longer duration than UT1 workouts are of longer duration than AT workouts are of longer duration etc. Even if you could row (say) 90 minutes continuously at 1:48 r21 with a genuine UT2 HR, you could not row 90 minutes at 1:38 r28 with any HR possible. A 6:16 rower >might< be able to last 15 minutes at 1:38 r28.

I agree that your 1:30 r30 shows nothing about your current capabilities. Not least because you can't come close to it now, let alone as a genuine weighed-in LW.

[ranger]

And the schedule of workouts will show you -- incontrovertably -- that UT2 workouts are of longer duration than UT1 workouts are of longer duration than AT workouts are of longer duration etc

Of course.

But according to the IP plan, the way to row, nonetheless, is to keep your SPI constant, as you shorten the distance and raise the rate, pace, and HR.

You just use your natural stroking power for all purposes.

You keep your technique effective and efficient.

You row well.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Um, no it isn't. For one thing the IP even in its original incarnation was predicated on HR-based training bands. The recommended paces and rates were tacked on after the fact, as guidelines rather than prescriptions. Moreover (no surprise) you're misrepresenting the original IP table. It recommended ranges of paces and rates in the various training bands. It did NOT make specific prescriptions. And the paces it recommended were at the top end of the ranges.

For a 6:28 2k the recommendations looked like this:

UT2
Stroke rate 20-22, 1:52

UT1
Stroke rate 22-24, 1:47

AT
Stroke rate 26-28, 1:41

TR
Stroke rate 30-34, = 1:37

AN
Stroke rate 36-46, = 1:35

The instructions for decoding this read as follows:

The training intensities in each band are based on your current 2K time. The figures indicated are at the top end of each band. UT1, AT, and TR training bands, can be identified as lying between the figure in the training band column and the figure in the column to the left. At max pace, a 2K is carried out at around 95% of maximum heart rate which is indicated here as the top end of the TR band. The TR band is from 85%-95% of MHR which are the figures indicated under AN [sic; should read "AT"] and TR. Training in the TR band should be equal to or less than TR pace ( ), but not less than the figure in the AN column. The pace figure indicated in the AN band is 110% of 2K pace. Training in this band should be carried out at 110% or better than 2K pace ( ).

The first of your misrepresentations of the IP is your failure to associate it with a current 2k. The second is your failure to associate it with a step test to determine HR-associated training bands. The third is your failure to take into account the workouts that go along with the recommended paces/rates.

Leaving those aside, which is sort of like ignoring the loss of virginity in a prize filly, you completely fail to get the concept of ranges.

UT2 work for a 6:28 2k is supposed to be done for the recommended durations at stroke rates from 20-22, no faster than 1:52 pace and potentially slower. That's a range of 11.3 spi to 12.5 spi even at the top-end pace for the band.

UT1 work for the 6:28 2k is supposed to be done for the recommended durations at something between 1:52 pace and 1:47 pace, r22-24. That's a range of 10.4 spi at the slow end of the band (1:52 pace r24) to 13 spi at the hard end (1:47 pace r22).

AT work is supposed to be done for the recommended durations (and here you're getting intervals rather than continuous rowing) at something between 1:47 pace and 1:41 pace, r24-26. That's a range of 11.0 spi at the slow end of the band (1:47 pace r26) to 14.2 spi at the hard end (1:41 pace r24).

TR work is supposed to be done for the recommended durations at something no slower than 1:37 pace and no faster than 1:35 pace, r 30-34. That's a range of 11.3 spi at the slow end (1:37 pace r34) to 13.6 spi at the hard end (1:35 r30).

AN work is supposed to be done for the recommended durations at something no slower than 1:35 pace and potentially as fast as you can go, r 36-46. At the slow end of the training band that's a range of 8.9 spi (1:35 pace r46) to 11.3 spi (1:35 pace r36).

To sum up: there is nothing whatsoever in the IP that resembles constant spi as ratings climb. There's an inherent assumption that as you get faster in a given training band you will drop the rate.

EDIT: almost forgot to add. The IP's interval workouts cannot be disassociated from the HR-associated warmups and rest-interval prescriptions they come with. Change the warmups and rests and you alter the designed relationship between intensity, pace and rate.

[DUThomas]

I'm probably just a crazy dreamer, Pookie, but isn't it about time for you to swear off posting forever because we're all SO mean to you? Or will that happen in the last week before BIRC?

[mikvan52]

In the last 5 years ranger has never posted an IND_V of 80 strokes at over 500 watts and never will

I am not sure why you are futzing with 80 strokes, but I would only need 65 strokes or so for a 500m @ 46 spm (1:23 @ 13 SPI).

That is close to 600 watts, not 500 watts.

I would need 110 strokes or so for a 1K (1:32 @ 36 spm, 12.5 SPI).

That's only 450 watts.



ranger

As I was saying:
In the last 5 years ranger has never posted an IND_V of 80 strokes at over 500 watts and never will.
Your reply does not address my assertion.
My point is that ranger cannot do any sustained piece of 500m or longer at 40 spm and 13 spi whereas he could at 20 spm and 13 spi...

Simple.

Glad ranger disagrees.
Certain that ranger has no stats (55-59 lwt) of anyone ever achieving 13 spi for 500m at 40 spm.

forum talk is cheap.

[ranger]

Even if you could row (say) 90 minutes continuously at 1:48 r21 with a genuine UT2 HR, you could not row 90 minutes at 1:38 r28 with any HR possible. A 6:16 rower >might< be able to last 15 minutes at 1:38 r28.

I agree that your 1:30 r30 shows nothing about your current capabilities. Not least because you can't come close to it now, let alone as a genuine weighed-in LW.

Say what?

None of this has anything to with the discussion, which is about holding your technique together and rowing at a constant SPI at various rates and paces.

This is what I do now at 12.5 SPI.

This is what others who row well do, too.

That's what the IP Plan recommends.

Etc.

Standard stuff.

ranger

[ranger]

Of course, the unspoken dirty little secret here is that, really, the standard training plans for rowing are just directed toward race preparation.

They say nothing about how to get better at rowing--faster, more skillful, more highly trained, fitter.

Given your physical capacities, skills, and training at the moment, you can follow one of the training plans, and after completing the plan, you are ready to race at that level of capacity, skill, and training.

But what then?

If you follow the plan again, say, the next year, you get the same result.

If you are aging, and therefore losing certain physical capacities, you get worse.

You never get better.

Why?

These plans say nothing at all about how to get better.

So.

After short shrift, they are useless.

They aren't like a good coach at all.

For most experienced rowers, what they advise is irrelevant.

You get better by overcoming your weaknesses.

But the basic training plans say nothing about this at all.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

What part of "if you actually read it, you'd discover that the IP recommends no such thing" as constant spi don't you get?

Oh yes. All of it. But then you don't actually understand anything about >any< of the 'standard' rowing plans, do you. Let alone something like Rojabo, the science behind which is totally beyond your capacity to grasp. Have you ever actually read the 'standard' plans? I thought not.

As for your own training, the odds that you're doing (say) 8 x 500m/3:30 at 1:32 r36 (12.5 spi) are roughly nil. You can't do half that workout these days at that pace/rate/spi, even as a HW. To imply that you can do it and have been doing it is simply fraudulent. But then that's your entire approach to "reporting your training," isn't it. Make up some pie in the sky target and bleat about how you can now do it, and how "those who are rowing well also do it," and when called to account on it move the goalposts rather than demonstrate you can do it. You are a fraud's fraud's advisor in fraudulence. You give eels lessons in slimy slipperiness. You make chameleons blush natural tones. Fraud.

[ranger]

My RWBs training over the last seven years has been an attempt to overcome my weaknesses--to increase my physical capacities, to get more skillful and more thoroughly trained--not just to prepare to race.

And I have succeeded--in spades--so much so that, as I got better and better, I started to have the best race times for my age and weight, year after year, without even preparing to race.

I have learned to row at low drag and increased my natural stroking power 2 SPI from 10.5 SPI to 12.5 SPI.



That's a lot.

At 60, I now row well for a lightweight of any age--an unprecedented affair.

Most 60s lwts row at 9 SPI.

There are no such recommendations like RWBs in the standard rowing plans, but that is to be expected.

The standard rowing place have nothing to do with getting better at rowing but just concern themselves with race preparation.

Now, I am preparing to race, so, sure, I am rowing as the basic training plan suggest, but that is only after the fact (of getting better).

I didn't use these rowing plans to get better--because you can't use them to get better.

In fact, if you are beyond your prime and therefore losing physical capacities from year to year (and perhaps various skills and tolerance for hard training, too), you only get worse--precipitously.

ranger

[ranger]

The first of your misrepresentations of the IP is your failure to associate it with a current 2k.

Sure, if all you do is follow these standard training plans and never do anything concerted and directed to get better--to upgrade you skills, fitness, training, etc.

If you don't do anything else to get better, what other choice is there from year to year but to start where you left off the year before and see if you can get there again.

Most of time, of course, you can't.

You just get worse.

And the plan says nothing at all about how to get better.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Utter bo!!@cks, as usual. The reason for predicating IP workouts on a current 2k is to get them calibrated right against your current fitness. So important is this in the IP that it typically calls for a recalibration 2k once every 4 weeks. In theory, if you never take any time off in the IP and follow it you should always improve. Each training cycle that you set up should lead you to a new PB at the end -- hence a new set of target paces for your next iteration of the programme.

Rojabo wants me to do both power and endurance tests every month for the same reason.

The Wolverine Plan asks you to start not with a current 2k but with your 2k PB, pace rounded to the nearest whole second. After that it's all pace-driven. It presupposes constant improvement, with a new set of targets each year unless you've improved during the year enough to warrant change to a new level. Its level-4-free, quasi-legitimate offspring the Pete Plan is the same - pace-driven.

Why do you continue to misrepresent training plans you know nothing about, apparently haven't read, and quite patently couldn't comprehend if someone pounded their details into your consciousness? As for your own quixotic quest to "get better," since you've never actually followed a standard training plan you have no evidence whatsoever that you couldn't have improved on one. There's plenty of evidence, on the other hand, that your autodidactic approach these past seven years has been the most hilariously misguided waste of time in rowing since Peter the Great tried to teach Russian peasants to row galleys. See you at BIRC, fraud.

ps. You are NOT YET 60!!!! And when you fail to make weight at BIRC, you'll row snout to head with me, in the 55-59 MHWs.

[snowleopard]

You get better by overcoming your weaknesses.

Y' know you're right. Let's all follow the Ranger Plan. Seven years, no PBs