Ranger's training thread

[mad39]

I will be _very_ fast over 2K, much faster than I was back in 2002-2003.

...now thats genuinely funny, thanks Doc, Sunday nights tend to be a depressing time but not with you around - and you honestly believe it and look horrified and shocked when you blow out of your hoop and do a 7.02

world class denial & delusion



I expect a fully mental reply, please include tales of SPI, muscle grease, energy pathways and the whit!

[mrfit]

I was calling you a liar. You didn't perfectly time the two bubbles

Yes, I did.

I took all of my retirement money out of the market 12/29/2000, parked it annuities making 6%, waited for the crash, and then started buying back in at the bottom at a rate of 10% of the total plus interest per year.



ranger

What did you use to buy back in? Those annuities you parked your retirement in are locked up and do not pay out until 59.5 without all kinds of penalties.

[Byron Drachman]

I was calling you a liar. You didn't perfectly time the two bubbles

Yes, I did.

I took all of my retirement money out of the market 12/29/2000, parked it annuities making 6%, waited for the crash, and then started buying back in at the bottom at a rate of 10% of the total plus interest per year.

ranger

What did you use to buy back in? Those annuities you parked your retirement in are locked up and do not pay out until 59.5 without all kinds of penalties.

Hi MrFit,

The University of Michigan has a generous retirement program. Each year you have 5% of you salary put into a 403(b) and the university puts in 10% of your salary. Michigan State University has the same deal. If you go with TIAA-CREF you can move money into or out of CREF (the stock market part) at will. Money in TIAA, which until fairly recently was a well managed fund, is guaranteed by TIAA to earn a certain percentage. That percentage varies from year to year, but until the last few years 6% was about right. It is much lower now. If you want to transfer TIAA money back to CREF, you are required to do it over a ten year period.

Our intrepid hero did nothing unusual or particularly clever. Many university people moved all their funds from CREF to TIAA when the stock market started to tank in 2000. Our hero would have you believe he is a financial genius. In reality, many university people did very well the last ten years because of the structure of our unusual retirement plan.

added later: To clarify a little, you keep your money in the 403(b) but as I mentioned, you can always move from CREF to TIAA within the 403(b), and as I said, you can only move money out of TIAA back to CREF with what they call a transfer payout annuity over ten years. The TIAA traditional fund is not a true annuity--you know, the kind that is a lifetime annuity where you can never get at the balance and typically your payments are less than what a payout annuity calculation based on your life expectancy and no fees would give you.

[TomR]

why does anyone bother engaging with him....its insanity...

So true, but you broke down, didn't you?

After years of clean living, Mad39 falls off the wagon.

[mrfit]

Hi MrFit,

The University of Michigan has a generous retirement program (snip) .

Well, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining. That's a dream annuity TIAA-CREF offered. 6% is double your money in twelve years even without moving into the CREF funds. 10% of salary funding too? Retirement savings on a plate!

[ranger]

I was calling you a liar. You didn't perfectly time the two bubbles

Yes, I did.

I took all of my retirement money out of the market 12/29/2000, parked it annuities making 6%, waited for the crash, and then started buying back in at the bottom at a rate of 10% of the total plus interest per year.



ranger

What did you use to buy back in? Those annuities you parked your retirement in are locked up and do not pay out until 59.5 without all kinds of penalties.

Nope.

They can be distributed to other investments in 10-year "payouts," as I mentioned, at 10% of the total plus interest. Given the uncertainties and fluctuations in the market over a recovery period, this is actually a pretty productive strategy, because you stick to a practice of steady buying over a sustained period while the market is going up, as it has done so nicely after both of the bubbles. Even nicer, these two 10-year "payouts" that I have used to buy stocks, as the market has risen from the bottom to the top, have overlapped, both with each other, and with a third that I started before that, so that in the middle of the period, I did large stock buys three times a year, plus smaller buys each month from my regular contibutions plus the contributions of my employer. Given that rise in the price of the stock itself as the market climbs back to its peak, this expands my stock holdings from the bottom to the top at a rate of about $100,000 a year, which is plenty fast to take advantage of the rise in valuations.

Great stuff.

Everyone else gets slaughtered.

I lose nothing; then I make money hand over fist for the next 10 years.

Then I do it again.

And again.

In overlapping waves.

Profits compound very quickly.

Money makes money.

Of course, exactly the same is true of "profits" you can earn from technical advances in your rowing.

Advances make possible other advances.

These technical gains compound quickly.

If you use your legs correctly, you ease the burden on your back and arms.

If you lower the drag, you increase the ratio and therefore your rest time between drives.

If you speed up the drive, in order to stay in good rhythm, you speed up the recovery of your arms and back in prep postiion so you spend less time in the bow/or a backstops and therefore increase your slide control.

If you increase you slide control, you have more time to set up and get good compression on each stroke at the catch, increasing your length.

If you increase your length, you get in a better position to get your weight more effectively up on the balls of your feet at the catch for the leg drive and therefore make more effective/explosive use of your quads before you set your heels and finish your legs with your hams and gluts.

If your legs are faster, you can delay your back and core more effectively and therefore really explode with your back in the middle of the drive.

And so on and so forth.

Result: Your stroking power goes up 50%, from 9 SPI to 13.5 SPI and therefore, when you are properly prepared to race, you can row a pb 2K that you use to have to rate a frenetic 38 spm in a 1-to-1 ratio to achieve now a at leisurely 30 spm, in a wonderfully relaxed 3-to-1 ratio.

ranger

[ranger]

I will be _very_ fast over 2K, much faster than I was back in 2002-2003.

...now thats genuinely funny, thanks Doc, Sunday nights tend to be a depressing time but not with you around - and you honestly believe it and look horrified and shocked when you blow out of your hoop and do a 7.02

world class denial & delusion



I expect a fully mental reply, please include tales of SPI, muscle grease, energy pathways and the whit!

My lwt 6:41s for the last two years, at max drag, without even preparing or them, still working on technique rather than preparing to race, are not 7:02.

You need to get your facts right.

For a 58 and 59-year old lightweight, 6:41 is WR pace.

These types of rows were just fine as performances, while I was waiting for the profits from my technical advances to compound.

Then there is this:

These 6:41s were the best for my age and weight--by far.

No one is doing any better, even if they are expending all their resources on racing and therefore not bothering to invest in the future at all.

In fact, in the history of the sport, no 58- or 59-year-old lwt has ever rowed as fast.

Last year, no one my age and weight (or older) came within 20 seconds of my 2K.

This year, if I get in a good lwt row near the end of the season, that gap, I think, will grow to 40 seconds.

ranger

[ranger]

In a metaphorical nutshell, over the last eight years, after I pulled three consecutive WR rows, albeit very wastefully, rowing poorly (10 SPI) at max drag (200 df.) at a high rate (38 spm) with no ratio at all (1-to-1), I sold out my racing time and energy at the top and invested that time and energy in the type of training that would overcome my technical weaknesses and therefore expand, rather than diminish, my racing stock, as the years went by.

Now that I have learned to row well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.), I am buying back into the market by again training to race, parading my strengths (aerobic capacity, endurance, quickness, full-body power, etc.), but now when the valuations of my racing stock are cheap and rising.

I am now much better at rowing, and I continue to get better and better every day.

Technically, my rowing is more effective (13 SPI) and efficient (119 df., 3-to-1 ratio, 30 spm) than it was back in 2002-2003.

So now, when I am again prepared, I can make full use of my physical gifts to spin the wheel (move the boat) when I race.

I can race to the limits of my potential.

ranger

[hjs]

If learning to erg should take 7 years, how many years would those sports take.

I am not talking about learning to row poorly.

I am talking about learning to row well.

Different matter.

Rowing well is 13 SPI for lightweights; 16 SPI for heavyweights.

No veteran has ever rowed well.

ranger

So olympic athletes who win gold at complex sports like say highjumping, gymnastics, etc etc a young age perform poorly

[JimR]

You need to get your facts right.

For a 58 and 59-year old lightweight, 6:41 is WR pace.

Since the WR for a 55-59 LWT is held by Roy and sits at 6:38.1 ... the "fact" is 6:41 is not WR pace.

I can understand why you want to try to convince everyone it is ... since you wasted so much time with your lack of focus and clueless experimentation that you missed your chance to claim the WR for even a moment.

JimR

[JimR]

In a metaphorical nutshell, over the last eight years, after I pulled three consecutive WR rows, albeit very wastefully, rowing poorly (10 SPI) at max drag (200 df.) at a high rate (38 spm) with no ratio at all (1-to-1), I sold out my racing time and energy at the top and invested that time and energy in the type of training that would overcome my technical weaknesses and therefore expand, rather than diminish, my racing stock, as the years went by.

Now that I have learned to row well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.), I am buying back into the market by again training to race, parading my strengths (aerobic capacity, endurance, quickness, full-body power, etc.), but now when the valuations of my racing stock are cheap and rising.

To rehrase ... you weren't good enought to beat Mike Caviston's 6:18, couldn't best NavHax at all, never had a chance at Roy's WR and can't figure out to get to Boston to race your peers.

So you hid at meaningless venues hoping to find a weigh-in process that allowed you to finish a 2K ... waiting to turn 60 so you would have a lower standard to race against.

I'm imagining you in the basement, cursing your real adversary ... the "truth" and the machine that delivers it daily.

JimR

[mrfit]

You could move 10% per year (or about $100k). That's very restrictive. I'd lose my mind if I had my money locked up like that. When I see the bottom of a stock or commodity, I need full control of my assets. Again, different circumstances.

I like that phrase "Everyone else gets slaughtered". Is that in the TIAA-CREF brochure? Do they give you a pirate eye-patch for you to wear when you open your statements?

[ranger]

You could move 10% per year (or about $100k). That's very restrictive. I'd lose my mind if I had my money locked up like that.

Why?

When the market has gone down 50% and you have lost nothing, it would drive you crazy because you only had $100,000 a year of cash on hand, year after year, for the next ten years, to buy stocks, starting at the market bottom on the way up 100% or more at a new market high six or seven years later, and then beyond that to new highs?

Then you're nutty.

Other modes of investing, however "professional," didn't succeed very well.

The guy managing the Harvard endowment lost $12 billion in the downturn, twice the entire University of Michigan endowment.

They pay him a a million bucks a year for his expertise in these matters.

ranger

[ranger]

So olympic athletes who win gold..at a young age perform poorly

No, certainly not.

But learning to row well, even for them, is not instantaneous, by any means.

Many of them, I suspect, have been rowing for a decade.

And for whatever reason, they lose what ability they had to row well by the time they are 40.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, I am now getting great endorphin dumps after about an hour, or an hour an a half, on my bike, after erging.

By that time, I have been working a[most three hours.

Drugs!



ranger