Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

Mike VB could row well in all of his work OTErg.

Then his erging would help his OTW rowing--directly.

He doesn't do this because he wants to look like everyone else.

And when he ergs, to look like everyone else, he has to rate up, but given his fitness, he can only rate up if he rows badly.

So when he ergs, Mike VB rows badly, and as he contninually laments, this only hurts, rather than helps, his OTW rowing.

It ruins his OTW technique!

Those who can row well and still rate up OTErg don't have this problem.

They can use the same stroke OTErg than they use OTW.

Most of these people are young, but not all of them.

I can do it, but I am not young at all.

In fact, I am older than Mike.

ranger

[mikvan52]

Has anyone noticed?
It's quite regular...
ranger blather in the evening really become disjointed and off topic.
Weak attempts at humor fall flat and seem rather dull.

I get the same way when I drink too much.

Cheers! Mr 6:16

Or should it be Seven and Seven
https://www.weinquelle.com/artikel/Seag ... r_274.html

[ranger]

http://www.britishrowing.org/rowing-stroke#1

I am always astonished when demonstrations of rowing technique such as this don't even mention the footplate.

As I have experienced it, most of the difficulties and successes in learning to row well have their sources there.

How a lever is used is grounded at the footplate, and the footwork in rowing is very fast and difficult.

How a lever is grounded at the footplate controls how your weight is distributed and how forces are directed.

In rowing, nothing is more crucial.

If you don't have your weight forward on the balls of your feet at the catch you can't use your quads effectively or drive straight back at the catch. Your angles of leverage are wrong.

Then, if you don't quickly rock your weight back and drive with your heels, you don't engage your hams and glutes. And if you don't set your heels and engage your hams and glutes, you will find it difficult to keep your back forward and upper body relaxed on this second, most crucial beat of the drive that brings your forces applied to the handle to a maximum.

Then, if you don't immediately get your weight forward again onto the balls of your feet, you get the angle of leverage wrong for the swing of your back. Your also fail to take full advantage of your calves, which you start to use at this point, driving the front of your foot forward, pointing your toes.

Then, if you don't hold your weight forward on the balls of your feet right through the pull with the arms at the finish, you can't use your back as a brace for your arms, which both slows down the finish and are leaves you at the finish with your weight rocked back onto your heels, which is hard to recovery from. OTW, this bounces the boat and slows the recovery, both of which are crucial to moving the boat. A boat does not reach its maximal velocity at the finish. It does not reach its maximal velocity until 3/4 of the way through the recovery. This means that how you position your weight at the finish is absolutely the most important thing in moving a boat. The longer you remain at backstops, rocked back from the momentum of your stroke, the more you undercut the movement of the boat from the point where force has been applied to where it reaches its top speed. Especially at low and moderate rates, this time span can be as much as a couple of seconds. So you have all kinds of opportunity at this point to screw up or succeed.

Crucial to the recovery is also a quick return of your weight to your heels, which both stabilizes the release and draws you up the slide as the boat flows under you. This return to the heels lets you slowly balance your weight at prep position and slowly gather it forward again as you approach the catch and prepare to drive with your quads again.

I suppose these things at the footplate are rarely mentioned because they are hard to see.

Odd reason.

Rowing doesn't have much at all to do with looking.

It has to do with producing the ideal coordination, sequencing, and timing of forces that can move a boat (or spin a wheel).

ranger

[ranger]

Luckily, there is an excellent way to find out whether you are rowing well--or not.

When you row well, you do a lot of easy work on each stroke--naturally, inevitably, consistently, etc.

For males, lightweights are rowing well when they are pulling 13 SPI OTErg, 8.5 SPI OTW.

For males, heavyweights are rowing well when they are pulling 16 SPI OTErg, 10 SPI OTW.

If you are doing this, it doesn't matter how your look, even though, sure, as it turns out, you pretty much look like everyone else who rows well, if you are rowing well, too.

The problem is:

Looking good is not at all a _measure_ of rowing well.

You are rowing well when you are getting the job done, not just looking as though you are getting it done.

You are rowing well when you are doing a lot of easy work on each stroke--naturally, inevitably, consistently, etc.

Then, once your rowing well, in the end, how fast you are over some distance once you are fully trained up for it depends on more accidental matters which have nothing to do with rowing--your full-body power, size, aerobic capacity, flexibility, sense of rhythm, dexterity, quickness, etc. You can have all of these accidental things--in spades--and not be able to row a lick. You can push and pull like hell, but if you don't know how to row well, your boat will sit there, dead in the water.

Someone who rows well can make the boat fly (the wheel spin) without exerting much effort at all.

ranger

[snowleopard]

8.5 SPI OTW

How do you measure SPI on the water?

[mikvan52]

As for ranger's post of August 17th, 2011, 4:00 am....

Well intentioned.... I'm sure...
but near total rubbish...
"returning weight to to the footplate": YE GODS!

It never leaves.... and if you feel more on the recovery it can only mean you are rocking the boat, stern to bow, by rushing the slide.

We see this in ranger's OTW video... and, no Rich, your form has not changed: it's what you show on the erg too.

[mikvan52]

8.5 SPI OTW

How do you measure SPI on the water?

I posted a detailed "How do you" too ... yesterday...
Has TSO's trolling gotten so severe he cannot even read other posts?
I think his brain must have hemorrhoids at this late date... they've constricted his optic nerve.


An erg measures watts and translates them by an arbitrary estimating formula.
A SpeedCoach measures speed directly and has no means to measure power.

[ranger]

If you want to be the best male lightweight in the world, all you have to do is figure out how to row well and then do it until you can row all day long, 1:45 @ 23 spm (13 SPI), with a UT2 HR, steady state.

Then, in a FM, you can up the rate to 25 spm and pull 1:43, which is the Open hwt FM WR, flat out, with a low to middlin' UT1 HR.

A FM is done at 2K + 14.

So a FM @ 1:43 predicts a 1:29/5:56 2K, which is under the Open lwt 2K WR.

That's what I am doing now.

1:45 @ 23 spm, as I am "Steamrollering" along, is now as natural as can be.

As I keep doing it, it is getting easier and easier, and as it does, my HR is falling and falling, down toward UT2.

If I can row all day OTErg, 1:45 @ 23 spm, at 15 seconds over erg times at the same rate, OTW, I should be able to row all day, 1:58 @ 23 spm, with a UT2 HR.

That would be amazing.

I can't wait for it to happen.

Exciting stuff.

ranger

[ranger]

Older rowers, such as Mike VB, who have lost their youthful fitness, are locked out from such things, but Mike could still use the erg productively if he just continued to row well but lowered the rate and therefore HR.

Instead of rowing 1:58 @ 23 spm (9.5 SPI), rowing badly, he could just row well, 1:58 @ 16 spm (13 SPI), until his HR dipped to UT2, or for him, about 120 bpm.

You can't row 1:58 @ 16 spm easily short sliding, with slow legs, bad footwork, bad timing and sequencing, no back swing, dumped finishes, clumsy recoveries, no slide control, bad preparation, etc.

If you are a lightweight, to row 1:58 @ 16 spm easily, you have to row well.

Then, in a 2K, Mike could still row well but could lift the rate to 24 spm, the limit of his fitness.

That would get him his standard 6:54 for 2K.

No need to row badly and rate 34 spm, just to look like all the other folks who are rowing badly.

Mike knows better, so he should just do better.

So what if he shows his hand: that he has lost his youthful fitness--entirely?

It's just the truth.

Nothing bad about facing facts.

Of course, none of this stuff with Mike VB applies to me.

With a max HR of 190 bpm, I can still do UT2 work, rowing well, at a rate as high as 24 spm, 8 spm higher than Mike, with a HR of 145 bpm.

I haven't lost my youthful fitness much at all.

ranger

[snowleopard]

Exiting stuff.

If only

[ranger]

"returning weight to to the footplate": YE GODS!

It never leaves.... and if you feel more on the recovery it can only mean you are rocking the boat, stern to bow, by rushing the slide.

Hardly.

During the recovery, there is no hard pressure on the footplate.

The boat is floating under you.

You are pulling back with your heels.

If you are pulling back with your heels, you are not pressuring forward with the balls of your feet.

Have you seen Xeno's video that explains this?

As you prepare for the catch, your weight shifts forward and applies pressure on the footplate with the balls of your feet.

Gradulally, sure, but inevitably, or you are not ready for the catch.

No.

This isn't rushing the slide.

ranger

[Citroen]

8.5 SPI OTW

How do you measure SPI on the water?

I posted a detailed "How do you" too ... yesterday...
Has TSO's trolling gotten so severe he cannot even read other posts?
I think his brain must have hemorrhoids at this late date... they've constricted his optic nerve.


An erg measures watts and translates them by an arbitrary estimating formula.
A SpeedCoach measures speed directly and has no means to measure power.

Mike, you're forgetting that the [almost] universal laws of nature don't apply in Rangerland. Using Rangerphysics you can interpolate any number to create an imaginary wattage.

Everything is measured in inverse square pico farads and the ohm-farads rule.
http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 90#p164455

[ranger]

10K OTW over at Europe Lake just after dawn, after 15K OTErg, just before dawn.

Iffy conditions.

Cloudy and gray, with bouts of rain, but calm and warm.

Yea.

When I am rowing my best OTW, I am now pulling a nice 8.5 SPI.

Delighted with that.

My erging and my OTW rowing are now entirely in sync.

I am using the same stroke for both.

And for both, I am getting the same result.

Rowing well!

ranger

[ranger]

We see this in ranger's OTW video... and, no Rich, your form has not changed

In my latest video OTW, from back in July 2008, more than three years ago, I was doing 2:00 @ 30 spm.

This morning over at Europe Lake, I was doing 1:52 @ 30 spm.

Hard to imagine how I am now getting eight seconds per 500m more pace at the same rate, if my form is still the same.

Can you explain?

2:00 @ 30 spm is 6.66 SPI

1:52 @ 30 spm is 8.33 SPI

The latter gets 25% more work done on each stroke.

1:52 @ 30 spm is every bit as good as you at your best.

And you can't rate up, while I can.

It's hard to imagine how my form is bad if yours if good, given that our speed at the same rate is now the same.

Can you explain?

ranger

[snowleopard]

When I am rowing my best OTW, I am now pulling a nice 8.5 SPI.

How do you measure SPI on the water? Can you explain.