New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[jackarabit]

@ G-dub

I guess a fellow, any fellow, could have a rate-restricted PB if he was a mind to.

[G-dub]

@ G-dub

I guess a fellow, any fellow, could have a rate-restricted PB if he was a mind to.

Looking at Doc's resume, I would say that he can log anything he wants wherever he wants!

[jackarabit]

@ G-dub

I guess a fellow, any fellow, could have a rate-restricted PB if he was a mind to.

Looking at Doc's resume, I would say that he can log anything he wants wherever he wants!

Perhaps? Diverging opinions here. http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=99644

[left coaster]

Interesting perspectives Lee and Shawn, nice to have some bright minds on the forum. From my perspective one of the most important aspects of healthy neurological aging is VO2 max. What I'm less clear on is how best to measure this and the distance work needed to build it. Do either of you have any thoughts on this? Are you actually building VO2 max with the shorter sprint pieces, I'm not clear on how this works from a physiology perspective.

I've done a few different VO2 max estimations/tests and consistently perform somewhere in 50-55 range. This seems odd to me as my longer distance endurance capacity is relatively weak compared with others on this board, but for my age a VO2 max in the 50's is something to be happy about. Or at least this is what the norms charts indicate, I have not researched the details of their development. I realize that a lab test is best but it is very unlikely that I'll ever do one.

Feedback from the medical pro's would be great!

Shawn, you may find this 'lumberjack' story amusing: I have an uncle who is 6'7" and built a bit like you. He's older now but for years was the world champion tree climber in the logger olympics. You need some serious sprint capacity to pull that off, something that is quite rare in a tall person. As he's aged he didn't keep up the muscle mass and as he moves through his late 50's his posture is starting to collapse a bit. I think he may end up with orthopaedic troubles when he's older, something that I must assume plays into your decision to focus on maintaining muscle mass as you age.

[Bob S.]

@ G-dub

I guess a fellow, any fellow, could have a rate-restricted PB if he was a mind to.

The one sure way to get a PB is to do a distance or time that you have not done yet. Like 2016 meters this year, 2017 meters next year and so on. This gives you a new PB each year until the year 5000. Double up on that program by doing a 20:16 this year and so on - good until the year 3000.

Bob S.

[RBFC]

VO2Max has a genetic component as well. You may be gifted in this regard, and that's a wonderful bonus.

There are several straightforward medical explanations for increased muscle mass as a contributor to reduction of early-onset senescence. Orthopedically, increased strength greatly reduces the incidence of osteoporosis and also one of the great "life-enders", a broken hip from a fall. Studies suggest that many broken hips are caused during a loss-of-balance episode that could be prevented if greater leg and core strength were present. Most falls include the last-ditch "stab" with a leg to catch one's balance, and the awkward position of the leg and its inadequate strength actually break the hip more often than the impact of the fall. I understand that the threshold for weakness in these incidents may not affect a large percentage of rowers, regardless of their distance preference.

The other major contributor to anti-aging through strength training is the maintenance of increased basal metabolism, more muscle to feed. This body composition effect staves off the trading of fat for muscle as we age: "I weigh the same as I did in high school, but I don't look the same..." Strength allows us to participate in more activities as we age, and helps to prevent all sorts of injuries.

An added bonus is the effect on the heart and circulatory system produced by "redlining". The extremely high intra-aortic blood pressure spikes seen during heavy lifting, etc help to maintain the elasticity of the vasculature, especially that of the ascending aorta. While the pulse pressure of a heartbeat cycle (difference between systolic and diastolic pressures) is quite large in the aorta right outside the ventricle, blood flow is almost pulseless in fine capillary beds due to the continued damping effect of the elastic vasculature. Aging is often accompanied by calcification of the vessels, "hardening of the arteries". Calcium deposits in the ascending aorta (just leaving the heart) can break loose and lodge in the cerebral vasculature, causing a stroke. This type of stroke is not treatable with "clot-busters", as it's basically a piece of rock causing the blockage.

I could continue well beyond the attention span of most here, but will simply state that a well-planned health program will include dynamic high-intensity exercise that is not merely guided by heart rate. I've operated the heart/lung machine for open heart surgery for over 36 years, and have directly looked at hearts of living subjects that support much of what I describe.

Shawn, keep it up.

Lee

[jackarabit]

Bob S posts:

The one sure way to get a PB is to do a distance or time that you have not done yet. Like 2016 meters this year, 2017 meters next year and so on. This gives you a new PB each year until the year 5000. Double up on that program by doing a 20:16 this year and so on - good until the year 3000.

How very iterative, Bob! Ok, got my socks off lez see here. Wow I never noticed I'm polydactyl. That really sucks! So uh 97,984m elbow room on the monitor and roughly 600' . . . ring ring ring Oops, phone, gotta go. I think you're close. Check your math[s] and I'll get back with you tomorrow.

[left coaster]

An added bonus is the effect on the heart and circulatory system produced by "redlining". The extremely high intra-aortic blood pressure spikes seen during heavy lifting, etc help to maintain the elasticity of the vasculature, especially that of the ascending aorta. While the pulse pressure of a heartbeat cycle (difference between systolic and diastolic pressures) is quite large in the aorta right outside the ventricle, blood flow is almost pulseless in fine capillary beds due to the continued damping effect of the elastic vasculature.
Lee

Lee, this is an interesting observation and not something I had fully considered. I'm a phd candidate (mid-career) in an interdisciplinary aging program that bridges psychology, exercise science and nursing. The falls info is very familiar, specifics of cardiac info is new to me. Thanks for that. I'm involved in a project currently that analyzes spatial, temporal and variability aspects of gait to predict risk of falls and cognitive performance. It's interesting how higher order cognitive function, like executive function/divided attention, interacts with gait as we start to age. In addition to your statement about core stability playing a role in predicting falls, so does the ability to manage divided attention situations -- especially when we're walking around!

I still wonder though, can we use HIIT training to increase VO2 max. In addition to muscle fitness and related benefits, VO2 max in old age is associated with better CNS white matter integrity and greater cortical volume. The right balance between building muscle mass and VO2 max to promote healthy aging is something we need to know more about.

The other thing I wonder is if absolute VO2 max and longer distance endurance capacity may be different, i.e. can you have a very high VO2 max, but not very good 5 or 10K endurance?
Cheers,
Tim

[Balkan boy]

I'd like to see this discussion about aging and exercise continued in it's own thread.
I'm begging to work for a physio practice as a trainer, and most of the patients are over 50 years old.
I'm curious about where are the most useful zones for weight and aerobic training in terms of actual weight and volume.

[hjs]

Lee, this is an interesting observation and not something I had fully considered. I'm a phd candidate (mid-career) in an interdisciplinary aging program that bridges psychology, exercise science and nursing. The falls info is very familiar, specifics of cardiac info is new to me. Thanks for that. I'm involved in a project currently that analyzes spatial, temporal and variability aspects of gait to predict risk of falls and cognitive performance. It's interesting how higher order cognitive function, like executive function/divided attention, interacts with gait as we start to age. In addition to your statement about core stability playing a role in predicting falls, so does the ability to manage divided attention situations -- especially when we're walking around!

I still wonder though, can we use HIIT training to increase VO2 max. In addition to muscle fitness and related benefits, VO2 max in old age is associated with better CNS white matter integrity and greater cortical volume. The right balance between building muscle mass and VO2 max to promote healthy aging is something we need to know more about.

The other thing I wonder is if absolute VO2 max and longer distance endurance capacity may be different, i.e. can you have a very high VO2 max, but not very good 5 or 10K endurance?
Cheers,
Tim

Use it our lose it, as people get older they less and less get active, certainly with anaerobic work. So the fastmuscle fibers suffer the most.

Vo max, very much a genetic thing. And which athletes have the highest? People who do lots of aerobic work. Not sprinters/gameplayers.

Hit is fine for general fitness, but certainly not for vo2 max on itself. Hit s very much anaerobic, which by definition does not help building aerobic capacity.

The whole Hity thing is bizar to begin with. Its stams from a Japanse skating coach, if there is one thing the Japanse are bad in its aerobic fitness. And I would know, being dutch, skating country nummer 1 in the world. At the last olympics we got 70% of all medals. Which nomatter what says something about the way the Dutch train and taper. I derail.

Hitt is crap if thats your main goal, for general health once or twice a week its fine. But to train and mentain your aerobic system, you have to train that aerobic system, full aerobic. On top of that train your fast muscles. With far less volume.

Look at a guy like Shawn, I am neutrale, from short to fm, everything done at the top is great. Beyond fm not, and slow marathons also mean zero to me. Derail again.

Guys like Lee and Shawn go for speed, erging below 500 meters is mostly power. 2k and beyond is mostly aerobic. Power is seldom the weak link here.
That said, Shawn proberly does to much speed work sometimes. A guy like Rob Smith, 1.13 500 meter. Only erged twice a week, the rest was weights and conditioning. The secreet of a fast 500 is and being fast enough and getting going beyond the 60 seconds. Shawn has enough raw speed, his week link is the beyond a minute.
If you see how Smith ended his 500s, still fully going. The powerlifters, fully die. With much more raw strenght and power.

For 100 meter its different, the aerobic component is roughly zero.

[mwalsh]

This seems about as good a place as any to say "Hi!". I started erging about 3 weeks ago, when I joined a gym with a single, older model D (blue fan shroud). It’s pretty thrashed in that the chain is all rusted up and it slips a bit when pulled hard, but it’s all I got and I don’t see this particular gym spending any money to refurb it. Extended family all row OTW (wife’s Grandson for his college crew) and they have a pretty new model D at their house.

I’m in my mid-50s, 5’8”, and 205lbs. Significant beer gut aside, I’m a fairly fit guy in that I hit the treadmill (my own Sole F80) for 5 miles each and every morning. Or at least my legs are pretty buff. However, exorcising the beer gut just hasn’t been happening with treadmill based cardio, which is why I found myself looking at erging as an alternative to work other muscle groups. I also started swimming for 30 minutes daily and doing a bit of strength training on the gym's Cybex machines.

My 2k time has gotten a bit better since I started out, going from 9:40 then to a PB of 8:38.8 now. My splits are pretty consistent at ~2:09 for each 500m, likewise my SR at 32-34spm. I set the drag factor to around 132, based on a post I saw on here indicated for a guy my size, and that is about a 6 on the damper for the gym’s erg.

My wife’s grandson, who is 20, 6’5”, 210lbs, and has a PB of 6:11.8 suggests capping at ~24spm. Though I honestly don’t know what I’m talking about, I contend that such a low rate may be unattainable for a guy of my size while keeping any kind of decent time. However, I do think I could maybe get down to a rate slightly under 30spm with time and practice. What do you guys think on that?

For now my 2k goal is just shy of 8 minutes. I'm not especially interested in rowing other pieces, even though I recognize that might well be beneficial. Just a "hit it and quit it" Test every time I erg.

I'd also like to get a C2 of my own. I’m not sure I could make the investment in a brand new one right now, but I’m certainly scouring all corners of the Internet to try and find a cheap used C or D (saw a couple at $350 around 100 miles away in just the last two days, but haven’t been able get to them fast enough). I don't like gym equipment for the reason previously outlined and REALLY hate waiting on people who clearly have no clue what they're doing, which is how I ended up with my own treadmill in the first place.

[PaulH]

Hi mwalsh,

Ask your gym if you can oil their C2's chain - pull the chain out until it stops (it's surprisingly long!) and use a little light oil on a cloth to wipe it down. That alone may get rid of the skipping, and certainly won't do any harm.

Your wife's grandson sounds smart! If you're going so slow (relatively, don't be offended) at such a high rating it's probably because your technique is wrong. Check out the videos on C2's site, post a video on a thread here, or perhaps ask your wife's grandson for some coaching. There's a good chance you'll find that you're spending a lot of energy moving yourself up and down the rails, and not enough moving the handle!

Good luck with getting fit(ter) - it's a problem I can very much sympathize with.

Cheers, Paul

[jackarabit]

Mwalsh, implement your wife's grandson's advice to restrict stroke rate sub-25 spm in trainng pieces. Out of the mouths of babes! If he's kind enough to advise you on technique, listen don't contend. If he has the commo skills to reveal the source of the 6:11 chops, you may get to 8:00/2k. Has he dropped a casual hint that an unvaried series of 2k tests is not effective prep for a 2k TT? If so, don't even ask. Great coaching resources in your family! Don't resist exploiting them to your advantage. Ok, you can check the consensus here occasionally.

[Balkan boy]

[
Hit is fine for general fitness, but certainly not for vo2 max on itself. Hit s very much anaerobic, which by definition does not help building aerobic capacity.

Hitt is crap if thats your main goal, for general health once or twice a week its fine. But to train and mentain your aerobic system, you have to train that aerobic system, full aerobic. On top of that train your fast muscles. With far less volume.

I agree about the HIIT.
A few years ago I thought it was the best way to train. I was panting for breath and exerting the muscles at the same time, so it must be better then just weight lifting or just 'cardio'.
After a lot of reading I now see the error in that.
I'm appreciating more and more how simply the top athletes train.

[RBFC]

Lee, this is an interesting observation and not something I had fully considered. I'm a phd candidate (mid-career) in an interdisciplinary aging program that bridges psychology, exercise science and nursing. The falls info is very familiar, specifics of cardiac info is new to me. Thanks for that. I'm involved in a project currently that analyzes spatial, temporal and variability aspects of gait to predict risk of falls and cognitive performance. It's interesting how higher order cognitive function, like executive function/divided attention, interacts with gait as we start to age. In addition to your statement about core stability playing a role in predicting falls, so does the ability to manage divided attention situations -- especially when we're walking around!

I still wonder though, can we use HIIT training to increase VO2 max. In addition to muscle fitness and related benefits, VO2 max in old age is associated with better CNS white matter integrity and greater cortical volume. The right balance between building muscle mass and VO2 max to promote healthy aging is something we need to know more about.

The other thing I wonder is if absolute VO2 max and longer distance endurance capacity may be different, i.e. can you have a very high VO2 max, but not very good 5 or 10K endurance?
Cheers,
Tim

Use it our lose it, as people get older they less and less get active, certainly with anaerobic work. So the fastmuscle fibers suffer the most.

Vo max, very much a genetic thing. And which athletes have the highest? People who do lots of aerobic work. Not sprinters/gameplayers.

Hit is fine for general fitness, but certainly not for vo2 max on itself. Hit s very much anaerobic, which by definition does not help building aerobic capacity.

The whole Hity thing is bizar to begin with. Its stams from a Japanse skating coach, if there is one thing the Japanse are bad in its aerobic fitness. And I would know, being dutch, skating country nummer 1 in the world. At the last olympics we got 70% of all medals. Which nomatter what says something about the way the Dutch train and taper. I derail.

Hitt is crap if thats your main goal, for general health once or twice a week its fine. But to train and mentain your aerobic system, you have to train that aerobic system, full aerobic. On top of that train your fast muscles. With far less volume.

Look at a guy like Shawn, I am neutrale, from short to fm, everything done at the top is great. Beyond fm not, and slow marathons also mean zero to me. Derail again.

Guys like Lee and Shawn go for speed, erging below 500 meters is mostly power. 2k and beyond is mostly aerobic. Power is seldom the weak link here.
That said, Shawn proberly does to much speed work sometimes. A guy like Rob Smith, 1.13 500 meter. Only erged twice a week, the rest was weights and conditioning. The secreet of a fast 500 is and being fast enough and getting going beyond the 60 seconds. Shawn has enough raw speed, his week link is the beyond a minute.
If you see how Smith ended his 500s, still fully going. The powerlifters, fully die. With much more raw strenght and power.

For 100 meter its different, the aerobic component is roughly zero.

I'll mention one more indisputable health benefit of lifting and all-out anaerobic work: the effect on cardiac muscle. Distance work acts to increase cardiac chamber volume, so that more blood can be pumped per heartbeat. Of course, this is a very beneficial effect. Heavy lifting causes the muscle of the heart wall to thicken (just like a lifter's other muscles), which is also beneficial. Either effect taken to the extreme, without a fair amount of the other, is not a good thing. For example, large chamber volume without a sufficient increase in wall strength is a disease process called dilated cardiomyopathy (a typical indicator for heart transplant). So, those who do not do some type of hard anaerobic work are not exercising optimally. Hyper-gravity forces on the skeleton, such as dynamic lifting or sprinting (running) cause adaptation of the bones to become stronger. This effect is almost non-existent in efficient machine-based sports such as cycling and rowing.

The HIIT exercise protocol mentioned above is the Tabata method. It was developed to improve the lactate clearance of Japanese speedskaters. Eight intervals of 20 sec work (done above VO2MAX level) separated by 10 sec rest intervals completes the routine. Done properly, it is brutally effective and extremely painful. The Crossfit crowd bastardized this protocol in their workouts, where they score only the lowest number of reps in one set, causing them to "game" this system by working sub-maximally and totally miss the intended physiological effect.

Rowing is almost unique in "endurance sports", by virtue of the postures and motions. Bringing both knees toward the chest and "crunching" poses unique challenges to breathing and circulation. The increased intra-thoracic pressure during the catch impedes venous return to the heart. The catch position also limits diaphragmatic excursion, depending somewhat on body type, reducing the ease of breathing. Rowing is a very technique-dependent sport as a result. It simply makes no sense to say "Michael Jordan is a great basketball player. Oh, yeah, what's his 2K?"

So, all this is to say that rowing is a great athletic activity, and those who excel at it are worthy of respect, just like athletes that pursue other specialties. We must not confuse specific sporting skill with optimal health/aging care.

Finally, some of the pro-rowing posters here speak from an elitest love of and defense of their sport. Talking down at others who have different fitness goals is energy wasted. My arm injury severely limits the endurance of the arm, while somewhat reducing the strength. So, instead of rowing for distance and causing multi-day dysfunction, I get my aerobic work by running. I have a resting pulse in the mid 40's. The negative comments by a few folks demonstrate a lack of tolerance and work against forming a collegial atmosphere. Making assumptions to defend your biases will only limit this community.

Lee