Ranger's training thread

[macroth]

After you are a WR-holder, or even after you work maximally for an extended period of time to prepare yourself to race, there is no way you can get better by improving your fitness, so work on fitness is futile, a waste of time.

Nonsense.

[ranger]

By and large, when you do just normal heart band training, you don't work on technique.

You can't.

You are trying to maximize your "score," your time over distance rowed.

So you do what you are used to doing already, even if it is technically poor.

ranger

[ranger]

After you are a WR-holder, or even after you work maximally for an extended period of time to prepare yourself to race, there is no way you can get better by improving your fitness, so work on fitness is futile, a waste of time.

Nonsense.

Besides me, no male WR-holder, 40-70, has ever gotten better.

And I got better by working exclusively on technique.

I rowed strapless at low drag (105 df.) and low rates for six months, attending closely to technique, learning to use my legs more effectively.

If I now pull 6:16 at 60, I will better expectations by right around seven seconds per 500m, given decline with age from the 6:30 I pulled in 2003.

None of this improvement will be due to improvements in fitness.

It will _all_ be due to improvements in technique.

ranger

[lancs]

And I got better by working exclusively on technique

By any definition you care to choose, you have not got better..

[atklein90]

Besides me, no male WR-holder, 40-70, has ever gotten better.

ranger

Let me help you with something. 7:02 is greater (and therefore, worse) than 6:28. It is certainly not "better".

I know you're a poetry professor, but these are simple concepts that are taught in kindergarten these days.

I actually asked my kindergartener what he thought was "better"...his response:

Duh, Dad....6:28.

Why can't you comprehend such simple concepts?

I'm sure you will reply with multiple BINGO comments, so I'm not sure why I even bother.

Loser.

[ranger]

And I got better by working exclusively on technique

By any definition you care to choose, you have not got better..

Fait accompli, Paul.

At WIRC 2003, I pulled a lwt 6:30.

By working on technique for six months, rowing strapless at low drag, I pulled a lwt 6:29 in the fall of 2003; then a lwt 6:28.

Since 2003, I have worked on technique in many other ways (lowering the drag to 100 df., learning to loosen my shoulders and abs at the catch, learning to use the full slide, learning to set my heels, learning to control the slide, learning to integrate the whole stroke cycle on the beat, etc.).

Even though I am now eight years older, I'll now pull 6:16, a dozen seconds better than I could back in 2003.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Besides me, in the history of the sport, no male 2K WR-holder, 40-70, has ever gotten any better--at all--much less substantially better. (snip)

Factually wrong.

At the 1995 Crash-Bs, the great Paul Hendershott (52) took 10 seconds off his own 50+ MHW record. And John Doyle broke his own 50+ MLW record but finished 2nd to a new WR set by the dieted-down Jean-Paul Tardieu. That was over 2500m, with heats. In 1996 they switched to 2k; perforce the year's best times were new WRs. At the 1997 Crash-Bs, Paul Hendershott took 4 seconds off his year-old WR in the 50+ HWs.

You've been reminded of this at least ten EDIT: eleventy times. And if you expand the list to include WR-holders in other standard distances, there are others. Me for example, over 1k. The second time I set the 50+ MHW 1k record (since broken), I took 4 seconds off what was then the record and 4.5 seconds off my previous WR for the distance.

[ranger]

Why can't you comprehend such simple concepts?

What it is to get better?

I think I have understood the concept very well.

No one of my sort has ever gotten any better by improving their fitness.

I haven't either.

I have improved my technical effectiveness and efficiency.

ranger

[ranger]

In 1996 they switched to 2k; perforce the year's best times were new WRs. At the 1997 Crash-Bs, Paul Hendershott took 4 seconds off his year-old WR in the 50+ HWs.

What did Paul row in 1997 for 2K? I don't have any access to it.

Sure, an exception such as this might be understandable--a brand new record at a brand new distance.

It takes a while to learn how to train for a 2K in order to do your best.

I suspect that Paul didn't improve either his fitness or his technique in order to gain four seconds over 2K, though.

I suspect that he just learned how to train for a 2K (as opposed to a 2500m).

ranger

[PaulH]

I am not doing UT2 rowing.

I am just fiddling with a new technique.

And yet you're able to predict your times for all events, and what's more this time there's no doubt in your mind that you're right, unlike the last 2,000+ days when you've been consistently wrong.

[mikvan52]

The funny thing is just how focused we all are on one of the most abstruse record arrays out there... be it the 2500m or 2000m erg...
It's not like this has been going on for that long... There were no C2 ergs in the 70's when I was in school!
The C2 WR book has only been around for far less than one standard lifetime!!

ranger is now vying for a spot in the record books in which there are roughly only 12 contestants 60-64 lwts who actually race the 2k (as opposed to simply log workouts and rank them)

Shall we all get a collective grip? Here's a muscle guide.




Shall we now engage in idle speculation as to how fast Ivanov would have been on the "truth machine"?

[JimR]

The ranger - go - round is spinning very fast today ... as much as I like the ride I think I am going to hurl!

JimR

[ranger]

ranger is now vying for a spot in the record books in which there are roughly only 12 contestants 60-64 lwts who actually race the 2k

Hardly.

I am trying to row 6:16.

And anyway, at the moment, the age-group WRs are pretty comparable, at least through the 60s.

The participation in each of the age and weight groups doesn't have much bearing on their quality, at least through the 60s.

Give or take a bit, the decline with age is about a second over 2K per year after 20.

If I pull 6:16 at 60, the novelty will be that my decline with age will have only been half that.

ranger

[NavigationHazard]

Hendershott rowed 6:16.8 in the 1997 Crash_Bs. It was a handicapped event that year (and also 1996) - he got an adjusted 6:07.8 with his 9 second handicap.

[ranger]

Hendershott rowed 6:16.8 in the 1997 Crash_Bs. It was a handicapped event that year (and also 1996) - he got an adjusted 6:09.8 with his 9 second handicap.

Ah.

So he pulled 6:21 the year before?

With a 6:16.8 when he was 54, Paul might well have the best 55s hwt 2K.

Does he?

What did he pull for 2K in 1998?

ranger