Ranger's training thread

[MRapp]

No reason to because 'thinking is everything'?

No, no reason to because a 500m trial is useless as a training piece.

As I said, 8 x 500m is much more productive; 20 x 500m perhaps more productive yet.

But a 500m trial just wastes a day of training.

ranger

I don't disagree with you on this point. There's only one problem...you've been saying for 4 years that you'll be performing, and posting screenshots, of the 8x500. According to your posts you've done hundreds of these over the years, and you were going to post screenshots of every single one of them. Not a screenshot in 4 years.

So again, you're either doing, or about to start doing 8x500 regularly right? Why will we never see the screenshot you promise? Could you tell us when you plan to do the next 8x500? As in a date? Then we can tune in to see the accompanying screenshot. Novel thought huh? Claim to do specific workouts...post screenshot to show doubters that you've done the workout.

[mikvan52]

a 1:30 500 isn't even a time trial for a man of your supposed skills.

True.

I think I'll do 8 x 500m at _very_ close to 1:30

Think as hard as you want.
This 8 x 500 @ 1:30 pace is an impossibility for you and you know it.

You wouldn't post your next 8x500 anyway...

Faker.

[mikvan52]

We know you were a former WR holder before Paul Siebach and others came along and buried your time.

I wasn't even rowing when I was 50.

I didn't race until I was 51.

I didn't race as a lightweight until I was 52.

I didn't row my best race as a lighweight (6:28) until I was a couple months shy of 53.

No, Paul hasn't, and won't, row 6:28 when he is just shy of 53.

He'll miss it by five seconds--maybe more.

ranger

Pick any BS you want: Paul has the 50-54 lwt record; Roy has the 55-59 lwt record, Brian Bailey has the 60-64 lwt record and you have "I think" and 16,000 posts about 'eventually'.

"Unprecedented"... doubtless!

Another 'glory weight' bites the dust.

What do you guarantee you will pull at Crash-B ?
You would know this from your training 2 weeks before the event....
I predict you will go out at 1:39 and break 6:50 as a hwt.

The fact of the matter is that you have not improved your 2k since a long time ago. => Nothing to be ashamed of: your older => therefore you are slower.
The only reason you include the words "I think I'll pull a 6:16" in your posts is to get attention.

[Gus]

The fact of the matter is that you have not improved your 2k since a long time ago.

Please do not confuse ranger with facts.

[ranger]

Pick any BS you want

When you pick up a sport is BS?

O.K.

When you master a sport is (e.g., learning to row well)?

O.K.

We'll just have to disagree on this, I guess.

ranger

[ranger]

What do you guarantee you will pull at Crash-B ?

I don't have any evidence that bears on this issue at the moment, but I suspect what I pull in Cincannati this weekend might start to give me some.

How about this as a start?

Better than you.

ranger

[ranger]

This 8 x 500 @ 1:30 pace is an impossibility

Nope.

I only have to rate 38 spm.

I'll row 500s this year to this, which moves along at 38 spm:

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

I pull pretty close to 10MPS now when I am going 1:30.

57 strokes for a 500m, if I rate 38 spm.

At 38 spm and 119 df., my drive is _very_ short, no longer than .5 seconds, perhaps less.

So, even at 38 spm, I am in over a 2-to-1 ratio.

Comfortable business.

12.7 SPI

I'll also try to work up to a 1K, 1:30 @ 38 spm (12.7 SPI).

ranger

[ranger]

It is pretty clear, I think, that there are two ways to get faster at rowing.

First, improve your rowing skills.

Second, improve your fitness.

It is also pretty clear, I think, how each of these is done.

You improve your rowing skills by getting more effective and efficient at rowing, given some level of effort. The way you do this is by lowing the drag, lowering the rate, lengthening and strengthening your stroke by improving your quickness, leverage, footwork, timing, sequencing, balance, rhythmicity, posture, flexibility, strength. These things are largely skeletal-muscular and technical.

You improve your fitness by training yourself so that you can raise the rate over some distance, given your technical and skeletal-muscular effectiveness and efficiency on each stroke. These things are largely physiological.

Ideally, it also seems clear that rowing skills are more fundamental than fitness. Rowing skills are a matter of deep-seated skeletal-muscular and mental habits. Once you learn how to row well, you never forget. Fitness, however, can come and go, depending on your level of activity at the moment. It is easy as pie to get out of shape, and if you don't do anything, for even as short a time as a few months, you can lose a lot of your fitness, especially if you are an older rower.

ranger

[ranger]

Mike--

Given your limited aerobic capacity and proven skill as an OTW rower, I don't understand why you don't just row well on the erg, lowering the rate, raising your stroking power, and therefore raising your ratio, as you do OTW in order to compensate for your poor physical capacity.

You seem to spend all your time OTErg doing the opposite, raising the rate, lowering your stroking power, and therefore cutting your ratio, which (perversely) just sacrifices your considerable technical and skeletal-motor effectiveness and efficiency and raises the aerobic/physiological cost of your training and racing.

Dumb stuff.

Ironically, as I demonstrated repeatedly with my training and racing back in 2002-2003, given my high aerobic capacity, _I_ can benefit the the kind of high rate, inefficient and ineffective, erging that you like to do, but you can't.

Go figure.

ranger

[ranger]

I don't disagree with you on this point.

Good to agree.

Then again, I don't see how disagreement is even possible, given the facts.

I am one of the most successful veteran ergers in the history of the sport, but I have never done a free rate 500m trial.

Not one.

At the moment, and throughout the decade I have been rowing, I have had no idea, really, what I can do for 500m, free rate.

So, obviously, it just doesn't matter.

ranger

[macroth]

It's sort of obscure to mention your times w/o pointing out how much faster the time is these days for the 50-54 lwt best, don't you think?

Not until someone just shy of 53 pulls a lwt 6:28.

But if that happens, sure.

It hasn't happened yet, and the clock is ticking.

It has been ticking for eight years.

Paul can take a shot at it in a couple more years.

But I suspect he will have a hard time with 6:35 by then.

ranger

This post is impossibly ironic, when you think of these past several years when the clock was ticking for ranger to beat Rocket Roy's 55-59 lwt record. Now, supposedly, Paul S is supposed to give a flying speck what he pulls at "just shy of 53", just so rangerboy can feel better about being out of the world record books.

[redzone]

Not until someone just shy of 53 pulls a lwt 6:28.

We'd also need to set up a competition to replicate the lax weigh in rules that allowed you to get away with the massive dehydration/rehydration routine that you engaged in to make lightweight.

It's a shame for you that they tightened everything up isn't it?

[ranger]

I thought that "Good Time" went along at 35 spm.

Nope.

33 spm.

That's perfect.

So, besides my UT1/23 spm, "Steamroller" music, I now have my AT/26 spm "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" music, my TR/33 spm "Good Time" music, and my AN/38 spm "Wipe Out" music.

If I row well, stay right on the beat, and row a FM right through, I can do 1:48/2:32 listening to "Steamroller."

If I row well, stay right on the beat, and row 60min right through, I can do 1:44/17.3K listening to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy."

If I row well, stay right on the beat, and row a 2K right through, I can do 1:34/6:16 listening to "Good Time."

If I row well, stay right on the beat, and row a 1K right through, I can do 1:30/3:00 listening to "Wipe Out."

So, there's the rotation of my sessions for the next while: 23, 26, 33, and 38 spm--rowing (pretty darn) well at low drag (119 df.).

No need to row at lower that 23 spm ("Learn to Row").

My technique and stroking power are now fine.

I have learned how to row well--and won't ever forget.

I will also be cross-training as much as I can so that I can be at weight at the end of the month and into March.

Music therapy!



For my various skeletal-muscular and technical sicknesses.

Nice medicine:

30K a day keeps the doctor away!



ranger

[ranger]

This post is impossibly ironic, when you think of these past several years when the clock was ticking for ranger to beat Rocket Roy's 55-59 lwt record. Now, supposedly, Paul S is supposed to give a flying speck what he pulls at "just shy of 53", just so rangerboy can feel better about being out of the world record books.

Learning to row well has been much more important to me than getting in the WR books in the 55s lwt age division.

I will be racing--both OTErg in the winter and OTW in the spring, summer, and fall--for the rest of my life.

Learning to row well has been an investment in the future for me.

And when I pull a lwt 6:16 at 60 OTErg, I won't care that someone five years younger was 22 seconds slower (and now is 35 seconds slower).

I will hold the 60s WRs in both weight divisions.

Rocket Roy will have his 55s lwt record for a couple more years.

Then Paul Siebach will blow it out of the water, probably by several seconds.

On the other hand, Siebach won't row much better than 6:40 when he is 60.

Rocket Roy won't row much better than 6:50 when he is 60.

And that's all she wrote.

For the rest of my life, I'll beat everybody.

No one else will ever row a lwt 6:16 at 60--or match any of the lwt times I do after that.

Sure, a heavyweight will eventually row better than 6:16 at 60, but even that might not occur until well into the future.

Other than Paul Hendershott, so far, no 60s heavyweight in the history of the sport has done better than 6:30 for 2K.

When he is 60, Dick Cashin will have a hard time pulling Hendersott's 6:24.

He won't come anywhere near my 6:16.

ranger

[ranger]

Not until someone just shy of 53 pulls a lwt 6:28.

We'd also need to set up a competition to replicate the lax weigh in rules that allowed you to get away with the massive dehydration/rehydration routine that you engaged in to make lightweight.

It's a shame for you that they tightened everything up isn't it?

The weigh-ins for all of my WR lwt rows were all within two hours.

At the big venues (BIRC, WIRC, EIRC), veteran races are early (usually at 9 a.m.).

Weigh-ins don't usually open until 7:30 a.m.

Now that I am 60, that's all a matter of the past, anyway.

I will now beat all of the heavyweights, too, rowing as a lightweight.

In fact, I will hold the 60s heavyweight WR by a massive margin (8 seconds, two seconds per 500m).

I will beat the 60s lwt WR by 26 seconds (6.5 seconds per 500m).

ranger