Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

Many young basketball players, who grow up playing with their friends, who are just as bad as they are, never learn the fundamentals of the game. They don't learn to dribble, pass, block out, rebound, play defense, pick, move, etc. They just shoot the ball, because that's what the sport seems to be all about to them: scoring. Because of this, anyone who really knows the game can humiliate them on the court in short shrift--no contest.

ranger

[macroth]

Zebras are African equids best known for their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds. Unlike their closest relatives, horses and asses, zebras have never been truly domesticated.
There are three species of zebras: the plains zebra, the Grévy's zebra and the mountain zebra. The plains zebra and the mountain zebra belong to the subgenus Hippotigris, but Grevy's zebra is the sole species of subgenus Dolichohippus. The latter resembles an ass, to which it is closely related, while the former two are more horse-like. All three belong to the genus Equus, along with other living equids.

[mikvan52]

I love the daily summary! I can skip six pages of useless Ranger garbage and still keep up!

YES! THANKS.. IT helps me while I go through RTD (ranger thread withdrawl)

Here's another tip for those like me.. it help with what the screen looks like===>>>
I put ranger on my "foes" list so his "poetic work" can be "ignored"



I just get to read what I used to come here for .... the responses.


Why waste time reading what ranger has to say?
What a relief!

[leadville]

Welp, that looks like another day on the ranger-go-round. Not quite as thrilling today. The best row by any 60+ males this year is on the docket for completion by April 30th and 8x500 at 1:30 "will" be a goal. (I guess it's not a goal now?) Lancs's profession took a blow after accusing ranger of some pace/distance impossibility. Then we got a lesson on how great Curetons are at argumentation followed up by a how awesome I am summary of results in the distant past. Throughout the day most of modern society and today's youth had scathing criticism and even poor imaginary Freed took a punch. Whew. No wonder ranger is tired at 8:00.

mrfit -

thanks for this public service. your willingness to dig thru rangerboy's voluminous rambling is appreciated - your suffering on behalf of others is a credit to your sense of public service.

Still, we'll all understand when you can't stand it anymore. Don't push it too far, as there might be permanent brain damage.

[ranger]

I didn't mention fitness, just how long you are able to keep up your 60' target pace

You mean by pushing my HR up to 172 bpm, my anaerobic threshold, and holding it there?

Why would I do that until I am fully used to my technique, rowing smoothly and easily, habitually, unconsciously, automatically?

Here we go again:

It is no virtue at all to row badly and slowly, but continuously, over long distances, especially if you do this pushing your fitness to the max.

If you spend all of your training time doing this, you just train yourself to be--permanently--bad and slow, and for most people here, especially veterans like me, you do nothing for your fitness, either.

At the moment, I am practicing base pace (1:44 @ 27 spm), getting more and more efficient and easy with it.

As I said, with the long recoveries involved (I am in a 3.5-to-1 ratio, and therefore get to rest 1.75 seconds between drives), most of this involves learning how to relax and let the wheel spin (for an eon) at the catch, before I fire off with my legs on the next drive.

ranger

[macroth]

Since you're regurgitating the same nonsense, I'll just ask again:

Right now, you can't row 15 minutes (10? 5?) straight, 1:44@27 spm. Why is that? If it's not a question of fitness (let's hope not, since yours is maximal and can't be improved), is it a mental issue, a social issue, a metaphysical issue?

Technical, you say? Why does your technique break down after a few k's, if not for physical reasons (fatigue)? How do you propose to improve your technique --which you've honed over the last 8 years, to say nothing of the last 8 months, to the point where you currently row well, solid, smooth, relaxed, unprecendented and so on-- so that you can row 4 times longer than you currently can at a given speed?

[ranger]

Technical, you say?

Sure.

Rowing is _hugely_ technical (and skeletal-muscular).

That's why I pull 1:44 @ 27 spm (11.5 SPI), just stroking naturally, but just stroking naturally, no 60s lwt has ever pulled even 1:52 @ 27 spm (9 SPI), eight seconds per 500m slower at the same rate.

I get 30% more work done on each stroke that those my age and weight.

2.5 SPI

Unprecedented stuff.

Skeletal-muscularly and technically, I row like Stephansen.

119 df.

ranger

[macroth]

Unprecedented stuff that you can't even manage for 1/4 of your target distance. Why is that?

[ranger]

Unprecedented stuff that you can't even manage for 1/4 of your target distance. Why is that?

If you are rowing steady state, distance is irrelevant.

Your heart rate doesn't go anywhere.

It just goes up to the level of steady state effort required and hangs there.

Even if that level of effort is right up to your anaerobic threshold, you can do it for a HM (or at a somewhat lower HR, a FM).

In this sort of work, the issue is just relaxation, habituation, unconscious mastery of what you are doing, so that your level of effort (and the work done by that level of effort) doesn't fluctuate.

The difficulty is not how long you can row at some constant, sub-threshold effort.

The difficulty is how fast you are going while you are doing it.

If you are a lightweight male and go along at 1:52 (9 SPI) when you are rating 27 spm, you need to work on your technique.

It's wretched.

You are doing something _seriously_ wrong.

You are rowing too short, or mis-sequencing your levers, or not using a lever, or using bad footwork, or losing the integrated rhythm of the stroke cycle as a whole, or diving at the catch, or rushing the slide, or rowing at too high a drag, or...

Rowing well for a lightweight male is 13 SPI, so you are only getting done a bit over _half_ the work you _should_ be getting done when you take a full, firm stroke.

If you were a major league baseball pitcher, you would have a 50 mph fast ball.

ranger

[hjs]

Unprecedented stuff that you can't even manage for 1/4 of your target distance. Why is that?

1/4 ? That's a lot of credit. 1/8 at best

[MRapp]

Any plans to show that screenshot of the 1:34/32 that you didn't do? I will tune back in at the end of April to hear your reason for not having posted a single piece after claiming you'll own every wr by then. Then it will be may, then July, then November, then 2012, then 2013, then before you know it you can start talking about the even more obscure if that's possible 65 year old wr's. You'll still be talking about this bullshit habituation and not doing any real training.

For anybody getting bored with the thread, I just summarized the next 5 years. The five after that will be exactly the same so you can feel good about moving on, you won't miss a thing.

[jliddil]

All I can think of for this circular thread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Goes_the_Weasel

[PaulH]

Unprecedented stuff that you can't even manage for 1/4 of your target distance. Why is that?

If you are rowing steady state, distance is irrelevant.

Then do the distance.

[ranger]

You'll still be talking about this bullshit habituation and not doing any real training.

Training your fitness up is a no-brainer.

Anyone can do that.

Rowing well is another matter entirely.

Almost no one rows well.

No veteran, much less 60s veteran, has ever come close to rowing well.

Give it a try.

You'll see why.

Rowing well is so hard to do that most never consider doing it for one stroke, much less learning how to do it automatically, naturally, inevitably, unconsciously, habitually, effortlessly, consistently, etc., whenever you take a full, firm stroke.

ranger

[PaulH]

Rowing well is so hard to do that most never consider doing it for one stroke, much less learning how to do it automatically, naturally, inevitably, unconsciously, habitually, whenever you take a full, firm stroke.

And hardly surprising that almost nobody has, given that the biggest proponent of it has been training specifically for it for 8 years, and still has to stop every 5 minutes to make sure he's doing it right.