Ranger's training thread

[Byron Drachman]

Sorry everyone for not posting yesterday's summary of the ranger-go-round. I was rather taken by all the news around Japan and did not pay much attention to the thread in my spare time.

The posting day started off at 2:39am in Ann Arbor with a prediction of 1:44 for the hour. Fitness is reported to be sky high and work on technique is reported to be complete but when this row will be attempted is unknown. When asked, ranger replied "Beats me". This was followed up by Ranger reporteing that attempts that this would be rather counter productitive at this point until he is habituated to his new technique. A bit later ranger noodled on why 27 spm is so ideal and thought biorhythms might explain it. Then it dawned on him to report that actually:

"Before the end of the indoor rowing season in April, I think I'll pull 27 spm/base pace/1:44/11.5 SPI for a HM."

This lowers the SPI demands, extends the time well past an hour and puts a time frame on his performances. For many readers this stirred some interest and before long the ranger-go-round was humming along with about 8 riders yesterday. It spun around and around. 13 SPI was noted as missing in his new goal and rangers reply was that this was only true for "full strokes".

At 5:27am, out of the blue, ranger predicted MIke VB will get worse and worse.

Ranger had some tangent about skating with Bonnie Blair and how his parents used to hold both hands when he learned to skate. Ranger made an observation that rowing well is much like tumbling in the demands it places on muscular-skeletal development. Then it seemed to make sense to ranger that he could have therefore been a great tumbler. (however the converse is not true according to ranger. Great gymnasts are too small).



Readers were again invited to test themselves with this protocol:

(1) 50 jackknives

(2) 25 extension press ups

(3) 30 pull ups


No one reported their results.


==============================================

MrFit,

I join leadville in thanking you for your daily summaries of our intrepid hero's postings. If you ever get stuck trying to decipher one of our hero's postings, I believe leadville still has a Ranger-speak decoder stored away in a closet somewhere. For example, we know that the phrases or words tomorrow, soon, at the end of the month, at the end of the season, etc. in Ranger-speak all have the same meaning: never in the more common English usage.

[ranger]

This morning:

15K OTErg, working with 10 MPS.

Then a nice hour on the Kurt Kinetic, HR flat at 165 bpm (!).

Lots of sweat OTBike, but no discomfort at all, which shows that 165 bpm is still well shy of my anaerobic threshold.

Happy to see the high HR, which is probably a product on my faster rowing this morning.

Hour bike rides, pushing my HR to 172 bpm, my anaerobic threshold, and holding it there through the middle 30 minutes or so, would now be a great addition to my erging.

In my erging, I am also leaving the music behind and just letting the rate float up naturally to 10 MPS.

Erg sessions of this sort should also drive my HR up to my anaerobic threshold.

I am indeed getting ready for distance trials.

In a 60min trial OTErg, I will want to bring my HR to 172 bpm over the first ten minutes or so, hold it there for forty-five minutes or so, and then kick to the end, pushing my HR to 185 bpm.

ranger

[ranger]

This lowers the SPI demands, extends the time well past an hour and puts a time frame on his performances. For many readers this stirred some interest

Why?

Because my readers here have no interest in training, just an interest in racing/performances?

Wake up, folks.

Performances don't improve your rowing a whit.

So they have nothing to do with training.

They are just _tests_, which measure the _results_ of your training.

Any improvement that shows up in a test is secured elsewhere and otherwise.

It is isn't produced by the test.

ranger

[PaulH]

This lowers the SPI demands, extends the time well past an hour and puts a time frame on his performances. For many readers this stirred some interest

Why?

Because my readers here have no interest in training, just an interest in racing/performances?

No, it's because you keep saying that you're _much_ better now, but most people here don't believe you're doing the math right. You've apparently decided that increasing the power a rower puts out per stroke is hard, but once you've done that upping the rate to the same rate as others your age is pretty straightforward. Most here don't think it will be, because to row at a given pace requires a given energy output and you haven't demonstrated that you can maintain the high outputs necessary for the times you want to lay claim to, however you may have got there.

That's why people are interested to see how well you do at maintaining power output over time, even if it's not for an entire hour/HM/FM. Your refusal to do so is taken as evidence that you can't, rather than evidence that your training is so highly focused that you can't waste 10 minutes one day to make a point.

[adutton]

[Performances] are just _tests_, which measure the _results_ of your training.

Any improvement that shows up in a test is secured elsewhere and otherwise.

It is isn't produced by the test.

Ranger,

You have stated several times that your training is producing unprecedented results. However, you have failed to demonstrate a single performance that would "measure the _results_ of your training". Therefore, I think your most recent non-DNS/DNF performance of 7:02/2k is an accurate "measure of the _results_ of your training". If you have another performance that 1) is timed 2) is over a measured distance over 500m, I think you could show better results. As it stands now, your training has produced a 7:02 rower.

You still have my full respect for your 7:02 row. I am just over half your age and my times are nowhere close to yours. Hats off to you. I'd be happy to have your times as a personal best anywhere in my lifetime.

[ranger]

to row at a given pace requires a given energy output and you haven't demonstrated that you can maintain the high outputs necessary for the times you want to lay claim to, however you may have got there.That's why people are interested to see how well you do at maintaining power output over time, even if it's not for an entire hour/HM/FM. Your refusal to do so is taken as evidence that you can't, rather than evidence that your training is so highly focused that you can't waste 10 minutes one day to make a point.

Why I haven't been racing yet doesn't have much to do with the "high focus" of my training.

It has to do with achieving the necessary level of habituation, relaxation, consistency, unconscious command, etc., of the tecnique I have fashioned.

This work is coming along just fine, though, and I will do distance trials as soon as I am ready.

Obviously, at least when it comes to erging, you (all?) continue to think just in terms of fitness, dismissing technical effectiveness and efficiency (how energy input is translated into energy output) as irrelevant.

So be it.

But the need to demonstrate a full mastery of something that you have not yet fully mastered is an unreasonable demand, so you shouldn't be surprised that what you want is not being provided.

I will provide it when I have it; I can't provide it if I don't yet have it yet.

What I am doing with my training has nothing to do with fitness.

My fitness is just fine.

It has been maximal for a decade.

What I am doing with my training is skeletal-muscular and technical.

But skeletal-motor and technical training has an arc of development that is just as substantial as the arc of development of fitness.

You just don't recognize it because you have never tried to do it.

Rowing well is a substantial technical and skeletal-muscular challenge.

Give it a try.

You'll see why.

ranger

[ranger]

However, you have failed to demonstrate a single performance that would "measure the _results_ of your training".

Over the last eight years?

Not true at all.

I presented some results after my work on technical and skeletal-muscular effectiveness, when I was 56 years old in 2007:

(1) Sub-6:30 2K @ 12 SPI/32 spm.
(2) 500r30 @ 1:30 (16 SPI)
(3) 1Kr24 @ 1:38 (15.5 SPI)
(4) 1Kr20 @ 1:42.5 (16.25 SPI).

All of these were massive pbs, _entirely_ distinct from anything that I could have done five years earlier.

From 2003-2007, I taught myself to use my legs in good timing with my back and arms.

I am now preparing to demonstrate the results of my work on technical and skeletal-muscular efficiency.

From 2008 to the present, I have taught myself to lower the drag, loosen up shoulders and abs at the catch, row in my bare feet and without sitting on a towel, use the full slide, develop better footwork, be quick with my arms and back out of the finish back into prep position, rhythmize the stroke cycle, both the drive and the recovery, performing it right on a beat, and row with large ratios.

To row to the limits of my potential for 2K (6:16/1:34) I will need both.

Rowing is substantially technical and skeletal-muscular.

You can't row to the limits of your potential unless you maximize your technical and skeletal-motor effectiveness and efficiency, how well you translate energy expended into work done while rowing.

These things don't have anything to do with fitness.

They have to do with rowing.

ranger

[ranger]

As it stands now, your training has produced a 7:02 rower.

No, it's produced a rower who can pull sub-6:30 @ 12 SPI, 500r30 @ 30 spm, 1Kr24 @ 1:38, and 1Kr20 @ 1:42.5. Given my size and age, these results demonstrate high effectiveness.

Check back in a few months, and I will probably be able to list my results for the distance rows, which demand high efficiency: 5K, 6K, 30min, 10K, 60min, HM, FM.

ranger

[PaulH]

But the need to demonstrate a full mastery of something that you have not yet fully mastered is an unreasonable demand, so you shouldn't be surprised that what you want is not being provided.

I will provide it when I have it; I can't provide it if I don't yet have it yet.

That seems entirely reasonable to me, and yet you're the ones who talks endlessly (as I'm sure Byron could demonstrate) about what you're going to achieve in the next few days or weeks. You've been wrong consistently, to such an extent that you've not yet been right. Why shouldn't we conclude that's because you *can't* master your new stroke at rates sufficient to meet your targets?

[ranger]

In terms of my life experience with sports, I am not a rower.

I am a skater, swimmer, runner, and canoeist.

I didn't start erging until I was 50 years old.

I didn't start rowing OTW until I was 53 years old.

So I have had to learn to row.

The specific/unique technical and skeletal-muscular aspects of any sport take considerable time to master, especially if you take up a new sport in your 50s.

ranger

[ranger]

You've been wrong consistently, to such an extent that you've not yet been right.

When I took up rowing, I turned out to be right about my fitness. I pulled three consecutive WR rows.

I have also been right about my ability to improve my effectiveness. I have just listed those results (twice).

No one my age and weight has ever come anywhere near pulling a sub-6:30 2K @ 12 SPI, etc.

I repeat: I can't demonstrate my improved efficiency until I have indeed achieved it. But that work is coming along just fine.

You think I should give up?

So be it.

But you're not me.

Why give up on a long-standing project that is succeeding so well, in fact, is only a blink of an eye from completion?

Is this how you go about all of the ambitious things that you attempt?

If so, good luck with it.

Quitters don't amount to much.

ranger

[ranger]

That seems entirely reasonable to me, and yet you're the ones who talks endlessly (as I'm sure Byron could demonstrate) about what you're going to achieve in the next few days or weeks.

Sure.

Because that's when I think it's going to happen.

Do I know for sure?

Hell no.

But I am happy to express my opinion on the matter and I don't see any reason not to.

My training is coming along beautifully.

I now row well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.).

My stroke feels great.

My fitness is sky-high.

I am doing 2-3 hours of physical work a day.

Yesterday, OTBike, I ran my HR at 165 bpm for an hour.

I feel great--no injuries, no staleness, no sickness, high spirits.

I'm lovin' it.

And sure:

I am getting more and more used to my new technique, more and more confident and consistent with it, and therefore closer and closer to the complete mastery I need to demonstrate its (massively!) improved efficiency.

ranger

[ranger]

I am now, easily and naturally, pulling 1:39 @ 30 spm (12 SPI, 10 MPS) in a 3-to-1 ratio at 119 df.

DANISH LIGHTWEIGHT RACING STROKE

ranger

[ranger]

Paul--

I think that anyone in their 50s who would try to do what I am trying to do (a lwt 6:16 at 60) would have to do it in the same way and therefore would encounter exactly the same obstacles, delays, and slow arc of development.

First, before they even began, they would have to demonstrate superior physical capacities, an unusual retention of their youthful aerobic capacity and full-body power, however that might be done.

Second, they would have to develop a stroke with sufficient effectiveness (12-13 SPI) to get the job done. That is, they would have to show that they can row with strong, quick, balanced, well-sequenced, and well-timed leverage.

Third, they would have to show that they can deliver this superior leverage completely and consistently with full relaxation and unconscious control at low drag and full slide, with a smoothly rhythmized stroke cycle and high ratios, over indefinitely long periods (a FM and beyond).

And fourth, they would have to show that they can sharpen effectively and race succesfully, at weight.

There are no short cuts!

No 50s lwt could get get this done by just preparing to race. They wouldn't have the physical capacity, stroking power/effectiveness, or efficiency.

No 50s lwt could get this done by just doing distance racing and sharpening, points 3 and 4. They wouldn't have the physical capacity or stroking power.

No 50s lwt could get this done by just doing low rate rowing, distance racing, and then sharpening. They wouldn't have the physical capacity.

ranger

[Citroen]

I join leadville in thanking you for your daily summaries of our intrepid hero's postings.

MrFit

I'll add another vote, I can't wait for your report from the Ranger-Go-Round, especially after the early start to today's pile of drivel.