citroen wrote:He can't come up with answers or denials for any of those faults.
The faults in my stroke are minor. At 13 SPI and 120 df., for a lightweight of any age, the stroke is perfect.
I also use this stroke in my 1x, and it moves the boat just fine. In fact, from time to time, I am now doing as well as 8.5 SPI, which is also perfect.
A bad stroke is one that does not spin the wheel and/or move the boat.
There is no other way to evaluate it.
Why the rowing community more generally seems to avoid this issue when it talks about training and devises training plans is a pretty long story, I think, and an important one.
The most glaring reason seems to be this:
For most people, and for everyone, it seems, over about 40 years old, a good rowing stroke, one that is both effective and efficient, and therefore can be used productively for all purposes, is just impossible.
Most people can't do it right away, or even after years and years of work.
And many, many people can't do it at all, ever, no matter how hard they try.
No one much older than 40 has ever rowed well.
For most of the good senior and veteran ergers, their stroke is their major liability/weakness.
They are in great shape.
But they don't row well--at all.
The opposite seems to be the case for many of the good senior and veteran OTW rowers.
They _can_ row well, but often (or even always) don't, because they have lost the required fitness (strength, quickness, aerobic capacity, etc.).
Because of their reduced fitness, if these excellent OTW rowers row well, they have to drop the rate down to absurdly low levels.
Mike VB can row well--no problem.
But when he does, he can only rate 24 spm over 2K--OTErg or OTW.
His maxHR is 163 bpm.
In his 20s, Mike had a maxHR of 230 bpm.
Yikes.
If my maxHR were 163 bpm, I could only row well and rate 24 spm in a 2K, too.
But my maxHR isn't 163 bpm. It's 190 bpm. For me, 163 bpm is middlin' UT1. My anaerobic threshold is 172 bpm.
MIddlin' UT1 is 2K + 12.
If you keep your technique steady, each additional increase in rate gets you about 1.5 seconds per 500m.
So, in a 2K trial, rowing well, I should be able to rate up 8 spm from Mike's 24 spm.
13 SPI @ 32 spm is 1:34/6:16 for 2K.
13 SPI @ 24 spm is 1:43.5/6:54 for 2K.
The VO2max calculator considers any VO2max over 37 to be "excellent" for a 60-year-old.
In his Tour years, Lance Armstrong had a VO2max of 85.
When he was 55, Dick Cashin, the best male heavyweight for his age OTErg, who comes _very_ close to rowing well, even when he ergs, rated 26 spm in a 2K race/trial OTErg.
When he is 60 in a couple of years, I suspect he'll rate 25 spm.
16 SPI @ 25 spm is 400 watts, 1:36 pace, 6:24 for 2K.
Now, as he is approaching 60, if Cashin entered an OTW 2K race against elite young heavyweights, he would probably row beautifully but he would be the joke of the field.
Everyone else would rate 34-38 spm.
Elite heavyweights pull 10 SPI OTW.
10 SPI @ 25 spm is 1:52 pace, 7:28 for 2K.
Mahe Drysdale has done 6:33 for 2K OTW, 1:38 pace.
1:38 is 10 SPI @ 38 spm.
In his 2K races OTErg, Mike VB could row well, like Cashin, but if he did, he would look nutty, going up and down the slide at 24 spm, and would reveal his hand:
He has no engine!
His aerobic capacity is so massively reduced from when he is younger than he can't row well and rate up.
He doesn't have the fitness.
ranger
Rich Cureton M 72 5'11" 165 lbs. 2K pbs: 6:27.5 (hwt), 6:28 (lwt)
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