New Wolverine Plan Thread

[Citroen]

PS. You may want to look at http://concept2.co.uk/forum which is slightly more active than this forum.

[gregsmith01748]

Them WP helped turn this 235 pound, 47 year old into a 188 pound 48 year old. It shaved about 25 seconds off my 2k time too. You do need to be able to carve out about an hour per day to be able to do it. Stroke rates on L3s are really up to you, and a few strokes higher or lower won't make much difference.

By the way, nice job on the 8x500. My first time through those, I thought I was gonna die!

One other note. Be careful on the L4s. When I started, I got a little too gung Ho and managed to give myself stress fractures in two ribs trying to hit my target splits when I was tired. Ramp the time and the stroke counts slowly.

[Nosmo]

First thing you need to do is learn good technique, second thing is more good technique. Then you'd need to start with something like [....] before you think of heading into a hard core plan like this.

Yes and Yes to the technique, but maybe for the other plans. You can do the Wolverine Plan if you start off slow enough and don't try to advance too fast. It does not have to be any harder then the Pete Plan, and depending on your temperament and interest, it may be a hell of a lot more interesting. As for your work schedule, just do the best you can and be flexible. You will not make as steady progress as you could on a more steady schedule. At one point I was on a fairly erratic schedule and I just did the workouts in order as best I could. It usually took me about 10 days to go through a 7 day cycle. It wasn't ideal but it worked for me at the time. To get the most out of any plan you have to listen to your body, figure out what you can sustain and adapt. There are more details and principles in the WP then any of the others. It is really worth learning them.

[gregsmith01748]

Hi, I haven't posted to this thread for a while, but I have a question that some of you might be able to help me with. I've been using the WP plan for about the last 18 months or so, and I do a couple of L4 workouts a week, but I rarely if ever do them in the interval format. I was rereading the WP, and I noticed that Mike Caviston did at least one L4 per week in an interval format. Granted, he was doing two-a-days almost every day, and he's an iron man, but still, I thought I should give it a go.

The format defined in the WP for the interval based L4 is 4x10' with 3'-20" rest. I wanted a bit longer workout, so I decided on a 6x10'/3'20"r. I usually do 2x40' sessions with a 17 to 18 SPM average. The plan says they should be done at proportionately greater intensity, so I set up a sequence of 3 different 200 stroke intervals that I repeated twice.

200 - 4'@18, 3'@20, 2'@22, 1'@24
200^ - 1'@16, 2'@18, 3'@20, 4'@22
200v - 2'@16, 2'@18, 2'@20, 2'@22, 2'@24

So, anyway, the workout went well. I hit my stroke counts and ended up about 150m ahead of plan. At the end of the last 5 intervals, my HR was around 170, which is smack dab in the middle of my TR zone.

Great. So, what's the point of this workout?

To me, it seems like this is one of those workouts in the "black hole" that HR training books tell one to avoid. It was certainly too intense to be considered a UT1 workout, but not quite intense enough to be considered a good transport or anaerobic workout. It was taxing enough that I doubt I will be at my best for an L1 interval session tomorrow. So from that perspective, I wonder if I just wasted my time.

On the other hand, by keeping my L4 workouts in the UT1 range, I seem to be stuck in low rate sequences for long continuous L4 sessions. It felt good to work at 22 and 24 SPM and high stroke pressure for a change. Maybe by doing these intervals, I can nudge along my progress to higher stroke count a bit more.

I guess I am in a bit of a quandary. I have been looking at L4 as aerobic/recovery workouts between more intense L1, L2 and L3 sessions. Doing an L4 interval style definitely does not fit that bill. Does anyone out there have an opinion? Is it a good idea to include these interval style workouts in the plan going forward, or do you think it will reduce the effectiveness of the other workouts or lead to overtraining.

Any advice would be very welcome.

[Nosmo]

First I've only done the L4 intervals when I wasn't following the WP so take this with a grain of salt....

The simple answer is you did too many intervals at too high a stroke rating. If you averaged 19 spm it may have been fine.

The L4 Intervals are an advanced workout. No need to do them unless you are already doing high volume. They shouldn't replace your normal L4's but are to be added if you are already doing several continuous L4s. Look at what MC recommends in his post on Putting It All Together (see links at start of thread). He has recommended workouts for different numbers of training sessions per week.

As for it being aerobic/recovery. Really the continuous L4s are endurance. They are recovery for some physicological systems but not others.

And no your workout wasn't wasted because you learned something.

[jamesg]

The key to L4s is the work per stroke. This can be seen by analysing the tables in terms of Watts and ratings and their ratio; some Excel jiggery pokery is needed, because values such as 1:58 are formatted hours:minutes rather than minutes:seconds.

If I remember right, MC does not put HR training, in itself, at any high level of precedence; and indeed an L4 such as 10' 18-20-22-20-18 can take us from UT2 to near AT heart rates and back again all in the space of a few minutes.

L4 is I think, a numerical expression of the idea "train as you would race"; not a single weak stroke is allowed. For someone with a 2:00 pace 2k (200W at say 28-30 means 7 W'/stroke):

Pace.. W.. R.. W/R
2 30 104 16.. 6,5
2 25 115 18.. 6,4
2 20 128 20.. 6,4
2 15 142 22.. 6,5
2 10 159 24.. 6,6
2 05 179 26.. 6,9.

L3 and L4 make up around 90% of the Wolverine plan work; so evidently they are considered as absolutely essential, in themselves and I think also as the technical basis for rowing.

[gregsmith01748]

Nosmo and James, thanks for the replies, they were helpful. I think that you hit the nail on the head, if I were to do 2 a days, then fitting in some shorter L4 interval based work would be a good idea, but with a 6 session a week schedule, I basically need 3 days for L1, L2, and L3 sessions, and those need to be my priority in terms of sessions with really aggressive HR profiles. The other 3 sessions need to be focused on endurance and not so taxing that they impact performance on the higher priority workouts.

So, I might do intervals in the future, but I'll take your advice to heart. Maybe mix in a couple of fast ones in a session that is mostly lower stroke counts.

[gnu]

Totally confused...I DONT understand what the difference between L4 and L3 pace work.

L4= SS @ 16-22, 140-160 hr? Examples being 3x30, 100min erg...ect ect

L3= is steady state too? but continues? such as a 60min erg? Isnt this the same as L4? What the difference in how much you should be pulling on each and spm??

I thought L3 was 6k pace work like 2x4k at your 6kpace or around it or 10x3mins 30 sec rest at 6k pace.

someone PLEASE ASAP explain! thank you!!

[pmacaula]

Hi Gnu,
Mike C covers the differences between the levels pretty comprehensively in the original WP document (see first post in this thread for a link).
The key difference is that Level 4 has strictly set rates and associated paces and one starts the season at a very low average rate (such as 18spm) and very gradually increases this from week to week. You gain a lot of insight into how to vary rate and pace in a disciplined way. You never get a chance to settle into a 'groove' on a specific stroke rate or pace during an L4 workout, as it changes every 2 minutes (and sometimes every 1, 3 or 4 min)

Level 3 lets you get into a solid rate/pace groove for an extended period of time (duration of the workout). Starting at the right pace/rate and keeping to it to the end is the game.

If you are looking for more specifics, here are a few quantitative differences:

Level 3
Intensity = 85-90% of 2K reference pace
Work SPM = 24-28 (rate not specified
Duration should be 60' at tgt volume.

Typical workouts
Continuous 12K to 16K
2 x 6K
15 x 3 min
12 x 1250m

Level 4
Intensity = 80-90% of 2K reference pace
Stroke rate strictly set
Once at tgt duration, increase rate at 1stroke/10'/wk
Duration 40 to 70min.

Cheers. Patrick.

[gnu]

Caula,

Thank you so much for the help! for the Intensity = 85-90% of 2K reference pace. How do i go about calculating the target split? can I based it off of a 6k?

[Bob S.]

Caula,

Thank you so much for the help! for the Intensity = 85-90% of 2K reference pace. How do i go about calculating the target split? can I based it off of a 6k?

If you only have a 6k time to use as a reference pace, you can get an estimated 2k time by using the following calculator:

http://www.machars.net/#paulslaw

For most training plans, it is best to get a proper 2k time to use for reference, since they are based on that. But a Paul's law prediction is a pretty good approximation.

I did one as a sample, entering a time of 25:00.0 for the 6k, which gave a 6k pace of 2:05.0 and used Paul's Law to calculate a corresponding 2k time of 7:48.3, a 1.57.0 pace.

Screen shot 2011-08-29 at 6.48.24 PM.png (31.13 KiB) Viewed 9901 times

Bob S.

[pmacaula]

How do i go about calculating the target split? can I based it off of a 6k?

While I agree with Bob that you can use Paul's Law or some similar equivalence calculation, you should really do a max effort 2k. I know that it is an ugly and intimidating thing, but a reference effort at that distance is the starting point for ALL WP workout target paces. Next time you do a 2k, you can see how much of an impact the training plan has had.
It is pretty satisfying to see how much you have improved after a few months on the WP.

Cheers. Patrick.

[hjs]

How do i go about calculating the target split? can I based it off of a 6k?

While I agree with Bob that you can use Paul's Law or some similar equivalence calculation, you should really do a max effort 2k. I know that it is an ugly and intimidating thing, but a reference effort at that distance is the starting point for ALL WP workout target paces. Next time you do a 2k, you can see how much of an impact the training plan has had.
It is pretty satisfying to see how much you have improved after a few months on the WP.

Cheers. Patrick.

That said, taking a 6 k time and takes 6/7 seconds below that as a 2k can't that far wrong, so I do see that much. On the other hand if you are that scared of doing a 2k, the wp might not be for you. It takes weekly sessions of 2k intensity.

[gregsmith01748]

Hey, the link to the wolverine plan doc just went dead:

http://www.concept2.com/forums/wolverine_plan.htm

Anyone have nay idea why?

[Citroen]

Hey, the link to the wolverine plan doc just went dead:

http://www.concept2.com/forums/wolverine_plan.htm

Anyone have nay idea why?

Because C2 have got a funky new website design and cleary not all of the historic links have been re-instated.