Ranger's training thread

[Gus]

If you feel bad about yourselves because you can't row worth a damn, it's not my fault.

It's yours.

ranger

Hahahaha!!!! Ranger I have always been and will always be a better erger and rower than you including making any weight or age adjustments you like.

Yea, I can see that in your signature line.

ranger

Hahahaha! Like what a person writes in their signature line means anything related to the truth. I think Paul, in particular, and others have pointed out how inaccurate your signature is. You've ignored those comments too.

What criteria do you want to use to compare our performance? Our all time bests or what we can sit down and do right now?

Tell you what I'm going to do to prove I'm better than you...nothing. Which is exactly the proof you've delivered for all of your claims and statements about your training.

[whp4]

I was four seconds under the WR for my age and weight in my first race, just training hard, not even knowing how to row, hauling anchor at max drag.

No, you weren't. You have never held a heavyweight world record, and your first race was as a heavyweight. You have never equalled that first result, either.

[ranger]

Here is MIke and Rocket Roy at WIRC 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzBeDL8wdV4

While MIke and Roy's strokes are exemplary in many ways (compression, length, smoothness, consistency, balance, posture, etc.), the basic problem is stroking power.

The crucial part of the stroke that generates this power is when you set your heels and push your legs through, holding your back and arms in reserve.

Mike and Roy do nothing of the sort.

They just push their legs through slowly and evenly, from catch to finish, with a slow roll at the footplate from the balls of their feet to their heels.

When the handle goes over their knees, their legs are still only half through and don't complete their work until the finish.

At the footplate, their weight doesn't get completely on their heels until the finish, and therefore they never get back up onto the balls of their feet when they swing their back and pull with their arms--at all.

A stroke of this sort gets about 90 kg.F of peak force and does about 9 SPI of work.

If they pushed their legs through _before_ engaging their back and arms, their strokes would get a peak force of 120 kg.F and do about 12 SPI of work.

If you have the skill to handle it, the easiest way to get quicker legs is to lower the drag.

The other way, much harder of course, is to row a lot in training at _very_ high stroking powers, e.g., up to 16 SPI, working on technique.

I don't know what drag Mike and Roy are rowing at, but I assume 120-130 df.

If they lowered the drag to 95 df., they would have better timing.

They would have the quickness to push their legs through before swinging their back and pulling with their arms, although this would demand several modifications of their technique.

In particular, at the footplate, they would have to plant their heels earlier, push their legs through with their hams and gluts, leveraging off their heels, and then get back up on the balls of their feet before they swung their backs and pulled with their arms, leveraging off the balls of their feet again, as they did at the catch.

Then they would have to push the wheel away at the finish with their calves, pointing their toes.

This takes quite a bit of practice to get right, so that it is automatic, and quite a bit of work to bring the old skeletal-muscular system up to the speed, dexterity, and strength required.

Then, of course, a few million meters of training with this new technique, never breaking form, would provide the psychological and physiological training to handle the new skill easily without spiking their heart rates.

ranger

[ranger]

If I indeed pull a FM @ 1:48, as I think I will, a nice way of summarizing my technical progress is to say that, over the last ten years, my work on technique and stroking power has made me a whole training band faster, while the prediction, given normal decline with age over a decade, is that I would now be a whole training band slower.

The training bands are separated by five seconds per 500m.

AN is 2K - 5, TR is 2K, AT is 2K + 5, UT1 is 2K + 10, UT2 is 2K + 15.

ranger

[hjs]

So.

Here is your chance to be helpful and positive, Henry.

What do you think I should do in order to pull a lwt 6:16?

Any ideas?

ranger

You know the answer.
You erged 6.28 ish age 52, that was at that time very close to your max. You did not row pretty, but you did use a technique that worked well for you. But at age 52 you where not in your prime anymore, If you had trained the way you did, in your prime (age 20/35), you proberly had a good change of erging 6.16, but you didn't......

For now 6.16 is absolute nonsense, any othetr number makes just as much sense, people at you age simply can't improve anymore on something they are well trained for. There is one thing you should do, accept that and just do the best you can and enjoy it.
You ave thrown away your racing years 2004/now.
You never should have mentioned a goals but simply trained and see what results you got. There is never harm in trying, but picking an impossible goal is making sure you fail.

You and nobody else is resposible fot this thread and the fact that everybody speaks against you.

[ranger]

8 x 10K and triple sessions is a bit much for daily FM training, but given this interval format, 6 x 10K might not.

Two sessions of 3 x 10K might be fine.

I like 10K as an interval for this sort of training.

Rest time between intervals is irrelevant in this sort of rowing.

I am rowing, steady state, at 155 bpm.

As it turns out, I seem to be a bit beyond my target of 1:48.

When I get good strokes, which I am doing more and more consistently now, I pull 12 SPI.

At 25 spm, that's 1:46.

Back in 2001, haulin' anchor at max drive, 1:46 used to be middlin' AT.

Now in 2011, ten years later, rowing well at low drag, it's middlin' UT1.

Despite aging a decade, I have improved an entire training band;

ranger

[ranger]

You ave thrown away your racing years 2004/now.

No, I raced.

I just didn't prepare to race.

I also didn't do that badly in my racing, given that I didn't do any race preparation or distance rowing, just my RWBs routines, slogging along at low rates and high stroking power, learning to use my legs.

In 2006, I pulled 6:29.7.

In 2007, I pulled 6:42.

In 2009 and 2010, I pulled 6:41.

Over the last two years, I have rowed faster than any 58- or 59-year-old lwt has ever rowed for 2K, without even preparing for it and without a stroke to use, still rowing at max drag.

But, sure, if I had prepared to race, I could have done much better, probably by about a dozen seconds over 2K.

Sub-6:30, as I pulled in 2006, rather than 6:41.

And sure, if I had done that, I'd have the 55s lwt WR--by a country mile.

But, heck, been there, done that.

I don't see what the point would have been, just racing the same time--over and over, over and over, while rowing badly at max drag.

Instead of preparing to race, during these years, I trained, working on technique, my major weakness.

Happy to make the trade.

During these eight years, I learned to row OTW, and I learned to do an OTW stroke OTErg.

I now row well (13 SPI) at low drag (95 df.).

OTErg, these technical advances have made me a whole training band faster than I was 10 years ago.

Sorry to disagree, but 6:16 is now entirely possible for me.

We'll see when I do my FM trial.

1:48 @ 23-25 spm for a FM predicts a 6:16 2K.

I don't know, but I think I might pull 1:46.

That would predict a 6:08 2K.

A FM is done at 2K + 14.

ranger

[ausrwr]

So.

Here is your chance to be helpful and positive, Henry.

What do you think I should do in order to pull a lwt 6:16?

Any ideas?

ranger

Rich, the only way you're going to pull a 6:16 LWT is to follow EE into a bar and dose his drink with Rohypnol.

[ranger]

You erged 6.28 ish age 52

Sure.

Then I pulled 6:29.7 @ 12 SPI when I was 55, without even preparing for it with distance rowing, distance trials, or anaerobic intervals, just on the basis of low rate rowing at high stroking power (RWBs), and still without a stroke to use, just bits and pieces of technical advances, without any consolidation of these technical gains into something useful.

At age 50, five years earlier, my best row was 6:27.5, fully prepared, 6:28.5 at WIRC.

If I had prepared to race, with distance rowing, distance trials, and anaerobic intervals in 2006, I think I would have pulled sub-6:20.

At 55, I was quite a bit better than I was at 50.

And this improvement has continued.

At 60, I am now quite a bit better than I was at 55.

ranger

[ranger]

If you can do a FM, steady state, with a HR of 155 bpm, you have a maxHR of at least 190 bpm, perhaps even 200 bpm.

A FM is done at 75% HRR.

If he did such things at all, which he doesn't, Mike VB couldn't do a FM with a HR much above 130 bpm.

My resting HR is 40 bpm.

ranger

[hjs]

You erged 6.28 ish age 52

Sure.

Then I pulled 6:29.7 @ 12 SPI when I was 55, without even preparing for it with distance rowing, distance trials, or anaerobic intervals, just on the basis of low rate rowing at high stroking power (RWBs), and still without a stroke to use, just bits and pieces of technical advances, without any consolidation of these technical gains into something useful.

At age 50, five years earlier, my best row was 6:27.5, fully prepared, 6:28.5 at WIRC.

If I had prepared to race, with distance rowing, distance trials, and anaerobic intervals in 2006, I think I would have pulled sub-6:20.

At 55, I was quite a bit better than I was at 50.

And this improvement has continued.

At 60, I am now quite a bit better than I was at 55.

ranger

You are far beyond redemption.

[ranger]

In my cross-training, I also have no trouble biking or stepping for 2.5 continuous hours with my HR, steady state, at 155 bpm.

ranger

[macroth]

I like 10K as an interval for this sort of training.

Rest time between intervals is irrelevant in this sort of rowing.

Ah, but what about rest time during intervals? You haven't erged 10K continuously in years. Hell, I don't believe you've rowed 2K continuously in the past 12 months, BIRC being a perfect example.

[ranger]

Ah, but what about rest time during intervals?

Just steady state rowing now, 155 bpm.

This rowing has no effect on me at all (no significant tiredness, etc.), although at the moment, because it is still pretty new, technically, I like to do it in bouts of 10K, just to give my attention to technique a psychological break.

I am just putting in the meters with this FM rowing, getting better and better at it, more and more relaxed with it.

I am just making this rowing at 95 df., 1:48 @ 23-25 spm (11-12 SPI), into a new technical norm.

Rowing is all about good technical habits.

It is one of the most repetitive activities imaginable.

It is just more of the same, more of the same.

ranger

[macroth]

Ah, but what about rest time during intervals?

Just steady state rowing now, 155 bpm.

... I like to do it in bouts of 10K...

Liar. How many paddles/rests over 10K?