New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[bisqeet]

hmmm..

i always keep the same SPM - just the power differs. doesnt matter if im doing 1:30 or 2:15 pace.

That's a very difficult way to do it. The rate is controlled by the changing the recovery to drive ratio, which is easy to do. To change the power, you have to change the length and/or time of the drive. Messing with either of those requires technique changes - not an easy way to go.

Bob S.

yes, its mostly legs that do the work on the acceleration of the drive. the recovery is longer tho to compensate. will try a 5 k @30 spm to compare.
at just over 6"6 i doubt i will be able to efficiently row longer distances at much more than that...

[Bob S.]

yes, its mostly legs that do the work on the acceleration of the drive. the recovery is longer tho to compensate. will try a 5 k @30 spm to compare.
at just over 6"6 i doubt i will be able to efficiently row longer distances at much more than that...

At your height, my guess is that 28 spm would be an optimum for the 5k. For the 2k, 30 spm or a tad higher would probably do fine.

[Carl Watts]

hmmm..

i always keep the same SPM - just the power differs. doesnt matter if im doing 1:30 or 2:15 pace.

Actually you want to keep the same power and change the spm, it works better, hence you train a lot at 20spm at a decent pace and then simply rate up. Increasing the rating at the same power per stroke then increases the pace.

Its not quite as simple as that, you still need to be doing some race pace interval work to get used to those higher ratings for the best possible PB's.

I did have a nice Excel spreadsheet with lines of equivalent pace vs rating which translated to the equivalent perceived intensity. Not the right numbers but say 2:01 at 20spm is the same as 1:59 at 21 spm as far as your body is concerned.

Bottom line is that if you can pull low spm with fast pace and sustain it your doing much better than someone at the other extreem that has to race up and down the slide to produce the same pace.

[Edward4492]

Carl I could not agree with you more. I've been doing all of my rojabo work outs at a target of 9 w/s and have been coming in at around 9.25 to 9.5. So as the rate requirement for the work out goes up the w/s stays the same, theoretically the same stroke. I also do some 20r 200w work outs but they require more recovery and seem to take quite a bit of effort. All of my PR's have been set at right around 10w/s. When I'm coaching crossfitters or gym-goers who want to improve I always tell them the same thing. If your pulling at a 36r at 200watts, how fast will you have to pull to hit 300w? And of course it should be obvious that one cannot simply go from 20r/ 200w to 30r/ 300w, there's a huge energy cost there that must be paid. But I find the low rate, high wattage (relatively) will carry over as you train for more speed.

[bisqeet]

hmmm..

i always keep the same SPM - just the power differs. doesnt matter if im doing 1:30 or 2:15 pace.

Actually you want to keep the same power and change the spm, it works better, hence you train a lot at 20spm at a decent pace and then simply rate up. Increasing the rating at the same power per stroke then increases the pace.

Its not quite as simple as that, you still need to be doing some race pace interval work to get used to those higher ratings for the best possible PB's.

I did have a nice Excel spreadsheet with lines of equivalent pace vs rating which translated to the equivalent perceived intensity. Not the right numbers but say 2:01 at 20spm is the same as 1:59 at 21 spm as far as your body is concerned.

Bottom line is that if you can pull low spm with fast pace and sustain it your doing much better than someone at the other extreem that has to race up and down the slide to produce the same pace.

thanks carl, some good Infos there.

[bisqeet]

yes, its mostly legs that do the work on the acceleration of the drive. the recovery is longer tho to compensate. will try a 5 k @30 spm to compare.
at just over 6"6 i doubt i will be able to efficiently row longer distances at much more than that...

At your height, my guess is that 28 spm would be an optimum for the 5k. For the 2k, 30 spm or a tad higher would probably do fine.

Thanks Bob, I've been trying to correlate some data as this has been a topic of mine for a while.
I usually finish off by doing a capped HR 5k / 10k usually at about 140bpm:
I tried doing this at different spm (26/28/30) and comparing the pace. the data would agree with you well educated guess...

I just checked my 2k PM (7:07) which was 26 SPM - might have to redo it sometime after i get used to 30+ for the sprints

[Balkan boy]

Bisqeet,
I've also been doing what you've described above. I kept a 22-25spm for 1:40/500m or 2:30/500m.
I'm just starting to use higher SPM (28-30) for hard intervals. I'm still experimenting and searching for the optimum rate:power, although, above 30spm I feel like I'm freewheeling. I'm 189cm tall.

[hjs]

yes, its mostly legs that do the work on the acceleration of the drive. the recovery is longer tho to compensate. will try a 5 k @30 spm to compare.
at just over 6"6 i doubt i will be able to efficiently row longer distances at much more than that...

At your height, my guess is that 28 spm would be an optimum for the 5k. For the 2k, 30 spm or a tad higher would probably do fine.

Did not know you height, with 6,6 it should be a hit lower. For a full stroke and higher rate should be very fit at that height.

[Carl Watts]

Carl I could not agree with you more. I've been doing all of my rojabo work outs at a target of 9 w/s and have been coming in at around 9.25 to 9.5. So as the rate requirement for the work out goes up the w/s stays the same, theoretically the same stroke. I also do some 20r 200w work outs but they require more recovery and seem to take quite a bit of effort. All of my PR's have been set at right around 10w/s. When I'm coaching crossfitters or gym-goers who want to improve I always tell them the same thing. If your pulling at a 36r at 200watts, how fast will you have to pull to hit 300w? And of course it should be obvious that one cannot simply go from 20r/ 200w to 30r/ 300w, there's a huge energy cost there that must be paid. But I find the low rate, high wattage (relatively) will carry over as you train for more speed.

Well basically you cannot continue to just rate up for more pace, its as simple as that. Not only that the energy you begin to waste just going up and down the slide goes through the roof and you simply cannot spare it. Of course its all relative, if you can say rate 36spm at like 1:46 pace for a whole full marathon then I'm not going to argue with you that your doing the wrong thing but for many people taking up the Erg for the first time in their 40's its a different story, we all commonly make the same mistakes and I too was trying to row at 27-28spm for everything.

The interesting thing about the free spirits heartrate calculator is it also links your rating or spm to the intensity of your rowing. Therefore you can assume that your rating should be linked to your pace to maximise your best possible PB.

http://www.freespiritsrowing.com/conten ... /hr-bands/

[bonefixer]

Another one bites the dust!

My old 1000m best from 13 years ago went this morning - 3:14.6

Aimed for 3:15, as previous best was 3:15.4. Splits of 1:37.5/37.0/38.0/37.0/36.7 - never in doubt, but pretty much emptied the tank. Doubt there's much more in me for this one at the moment.

[Galeere]

Well done Bone, congrats to yet another PB!

[Edward4492]

Nice PR, bonefixer! Really feels good to beat our younger selves.

[Griparn]

Congrats bonefixer! Well done.

[Rockin Roland]

I've just completed and logged a 30 minute workout in the 50-59 age group. Distance covered in 30 minutes was 8475 m @ 1:46.1 average pace. That makes me the officially approved number 1 in the rankings. Next stop is the 10,000 m which I'm going to have a crack at next week. The number 1 spot looks quite doable so I should be ok in getting that one too. I'm going to have a go at all the times/distances except the marathon.

[Bob S.]

Terrific, Roland! Keep them coming! Are you entering your results in the nonathlon?

Bob S.

Added note in edit: I see that you have the disadvantage of being well along in your age category. That makes it even more impressive.