Ranger's training thread

[rjw]

one thing you cant do is a 36:00 10k

My goal is now 1:42 @ 29 spm, 34:00 for 10K.

ranger

Good call Lance!

[ranger]

Setting an even more unrealistic goal doesn't mean you can [or indeed have] achieve(d) the lesser one

The 1:42 for 10K is just the same goal at a shorter distance.

A FM is done at 2K + 14.

A 10K is done at 2K + 8.

These have been my goals since I started working on technique eight years ago.

They are still my goals.

FM 1:48
HM 1:45
60min 1:44
10K 1:42
30 spm 1:41
6K 1:40
5K 1:39
2K 1:34

ranger

[KevJGK]

Unlike heavyweights, since all quality lightweights are right about the same height and weight, no one really has much of an advantage in length, which can affect quickness and drive time, or lean body mass, which can affect aerobic capacity.

All quality lightweights, I presume, are also fit as a fiddle. Their fitness is maximal. They can't get any fitter.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that the only thing left to distinguish quality lightweights from one another, especially quality lightweights of the same age, and therefore the same aerobic capacity, is how well they row, their technique, how effective and efficient they are--mechanically, technically, physiologically, and psychologically--while rowing.

You are oh so wrong.

What distinguishes quality athletes of the same age and aerobic capacity is not “how well they row” its how big there balls are.

When you repeatedly handled down at BIRC it was your choice because you were hurting, if you had carried on it wouldn’t have killed you, you didn’t have the balls to carry on and that’s all there is to it.

All this rowing with breaks has made you soft.

You've trained yourself to stop whenever it starts to hurt.

[ranger]

My guess would be that no other 60s lwts can row anywhere at all at 26 spm, 95 df., and 12 SPI, not even 500m.

ranger

[ranger]

What distinguishes quality athletes of the same age and aerobic capacity is not “how well they row” its how big there balls are

Been there, done that.

6:27.5 for 2K in my first race, when I was 51 years old.

Also: 6:28, 6:28.5, 6:29, 6:29.7, 6:30, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:32, 6:33, 6:36, etc.

My balls are plenty big.

Rowing is also a skill, though, and I pulled these times rowing badly at max drag.

I didn't use my legs!

Why be one-dimensional?

No reason not be _both_ skillful and big-balled.

As the Canadians would say,

Eh?

ranger

[PaulH]

My guess would be that no other 60s lwts can row anywhere at all at 26 spm, 95 df., and 12 SPI, not even 500m.

ranger

Why say 'other' - as far as anyone has seen, neither can you. Happy to be proven wrong though.

[ranger]

Happy to be proven wrong

Really?

Odd sentiment for a nay-sayer.

But, hey, if you say so, I'll take you at your word.

ranger

[KevJGK]

What distinguishes quality athletes of the same age and aerobic capacity is not “how well they row” its how big there balls are

Been there, done that.

6:27.5 for 2K in my first race, when I was 51 years old.

No doubt that they used to be.

But not any more.

You give up far too easily nowadays.

[ranger]

BTW, I was fascinated the other day watching the Masters to hear someone analyze Rory McIlroy's golf swing on his drives.

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

At the point of contact with the ball, Rory rotates his core _away_ from his line of contact with the ball and then reverses that motion as he follows through.

Result: He hits the ball farther than anyone else, even though he is hardly an imposing character physically.

As I have found rowing at low drag (95 df.), a good rowing stroke is similar--and perhaps equally hard to get right in this way.

As your weight shifts up onto the balls of the feet at the catch and you fire off with your quads and then set your heels and push with your hams and gluts, your upper body should be entirely relaxed so that your lats, delts, abs, etc. are stretched out completely in the opposite direction until they are called upon when you swing your back and pull with your arms.

As in Rory's golf swing, the motion is a double-take that moves the upper body in opposite direction while the legs do their work and then reverses that motion when the upper body in engaged in middle of the drive and the finish.

The trick, which is helped enormously by rowing at 95 df., is to get your weight fully up on the balls of your feet before you start the drive, and then to push your legs entirely through, or almost entirely through, before you engage your upper body.

Easier said than done!

As with Rory's drive, if you can do this, you can't help but generate all sorts of power with your stroke.

The problem is, of course, almost no one does this, especially if they are older than 40.

As the guy analyzing Rory's stroke in the video comments, after he turns 30 or so, Rory will probably have to give up this reverse leverage he is able to generate with his hips when he makes contact with the ball.

It is too hard to be so fast, precise, and coordinated in an entirely natural and consistent way with an older body.

ranger

[ranger]

Been there, done that.

6:27.5 for 2K in my first race, when I was 51 years old.

not any more.

True.

Now that I row well at low drag, I'll pull 6:16.

ranger

[ranger]

As you raise the drag up from something like 95 df., you can get away with being slower and slower with your legs and earlier and earlier with your upper body, eliminating the lightning quick, reverse motion between the legs and the upper body that generates the power in the drive when it is done skillfully at low drag, like the hitch in the hips in Rory's golf swing.

Of course, the ultimate in this ploy is to do what those who don't know how to row at all naturally do:

Jam the drag all the way up to max and just haul anchor with all of your levers from catch to finish, in conjunct motion, everything moving slowly in the same direction.

That's what I did when I first took up rowing back in 2002-2003.

I didn't know how to row.

There is only one thing worse that doing this, and, sad to say, it is what almost all older rowers do.

They row at low drag but, nonetheless, haul anchor with all of their levers from catch to finish, in conjunct motion, everything moving slowly in the same direction.

If you row like that, you don't generate any power at all.

8 SPI?

9?

Rowing well for a lightweight is 13 SPI.

Rowing well for a heavyweight is 16 SPI.

ranger

[ranger]

Here is what you get at low drag if you haul anchor with all your levers at the catch, pulling slowly, from catch to finish, in conjunct motion.



This is what you do if you use the reverse action between legs and upper body, pushing the legs through entirely before you engage your upper body, parallel to the hitch in Rory's swing.



Your can certainly see where the legs get pushed through in my stroke.

At the same time that my force curve hits its peak at about 120 kg.F., the force in the other stroke is about _half_ that, 70 kg.F.

Without the quick legs and the reverse leverage with the upper body at the catch, force builds slowly to the center in the first stroke, and even so, peaks at only 85 kg.F.

ranger

[PaulH]

Happy to be proven wrong

Really?

Odd sentiment for a nay-sayer.

Perhaps, but then I'm not a nay-sayer. I merely react to what you do. And for the last 2,000+ days what you do is say you're going to achieve some time for a distance, and then fail to reach your mark. But I'm always happy to be proven wrong, as it improves the total sum of my knowledge.

[ranger]

Kev--

Post a digipic of your force rowing at 95 df. with your "balls-y" stroke.

Let's see what you are doing.

Do you know how to row?

ranger

[KevJGK]

Kev--

Post a digipic of your force rowing at 95 df. with your "balls-y" stroke.

Let's see what you are doing.

Do you know how to row?

ranger

It doesn't take big balls to produce a single big stroke.

The gyms are full of people doing it for a few minutes then stopping.

Any gym rat can do it.

You've gone soft.

This is what I wrote.

Unlike heavyweights, since all quality lightweights are right about the same height and weight, no one really has much of an advantage in length, which can affect quickness and drive time, or lean body mass, which can affect aerobic capacity.

All quality lightweights, I presume, are also fit as a fiddle. Their fitness is maximal. They can't get any fitter.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that the only thing left to distinguish quality lightweights from one another, especially quality lightweights of the same age, and therefore the same aerobic capacity, is how well they row, their technique, how effective and efficient they are--mechanically, technically, physiologically, and psychologically--while rowing.

You are oh so wrong.

What distinguishes quality athletes of the same age and aerobic capacity is not “how well they row” its how big there balls are.

When you repeatedly handled down at BIRC it was your choice because you were hurting, if you had carried on it wouldn’t have killed you, you didn’t have the balls to carry on and that’s all there is to it.

All this rowing with breaks has made you soft.

You've trained yourself to stop whenever it starts to hurt.