Sprints and Stuff- training/questions 1k and below

[Shawn Baker]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA5ylQ6DWy7/

Also more Sam Loch heresy

[hjs]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA5ylQ6DWy7/

Also more Sam Loch heresy

he Shawn, don,t you pull 105 ish also. Should be enough for an "easy" 2.47

[Shawn Baker]

I'm also almost 50

And besides you're doing a bunch of SS- where's your 2:47

[hjs]

I'm also almost 50

And besides your doing a bunch of SS- where's your 2:47

Ut1, not slow enough, and way to low volume.

My 2.47 is in the past When I didn,t erg. Plus I a weak, can,t pull sub 1.10 with a gun on my head.

And age is not relevant, you pulled that low pull also now. I did see Sam did not use max drag, that makes it more impressive.

[Shawn Baker]

I like the "age not relevant part" (Bob S, if you can just up your LSD volume you should be sub 6 soon )

So you think if you did even more slower volume your 1k time would get better? Row 2hrs a day at 2:05 for a good 1k?

Why didn't Sam have a better 1k back in the day when he was doing tons of LSD? (I'm going to go out on a limb and say he wasn't strong enough )

[hjs]

I like the "age not relevant part" (Bob S, if you can just up your LSD volume you should be sub 6 soon )

So you think if you did even more slower volume your 1k time would get better? Row 2hrs a day at 2:05 for a good 1k?

Why didn't Sam have a better 1k back in the day when he was doing tons of LSD? (I'm going to go out on a limb and say he wasn't strong enough )

I say I we have two people with the same low pull, the are alike, nomatter what age.

I think power is pretty important on the 1k, but everything else the same, with better fitness my 1k would be better.

Don,t know exactly what he pulled on those days, but common, he is talking bull a bit. Every sub 6 er I have seen pulls sub 1.20 with one hand. The problem is a bit, otw guys never ever do 1ks. Its aways from the longer side. They sometimes do 1k r 24. That is done in 2k free rate pace. So a 5.40 ish toprower, should pull 2.50 rate 24. 2k drag.

Also top rowers pull 15.00 flat on the 5k. 5x a 3.00 1k with zero rest for the slow readers . For some reason I think that will also give a pretty ok 1k alone. I could be wrong though.

[Shawn Baker]

Henry, Let's just hypothetically say me or likely Dirk can break the 1k record next year (2:54)- neither of us do much in the way of LSD and utilize primarily a strength based and hard interval approach- does that not provide some relevance to that style of training?- the age group records are probably more relevant in this case because everyone good mostly ranks their score (unlike the Olympic guys in the 20-29 class) - let's say I spend a year doing 80% SS work and I lose 15% of my strength (which took me 15 years to builds and another 20 years to try and maintain it) am I better off if I struggle then to pull 1:15- how does that effect my 500 or 100 or 1k- not to mention the health implications of being weaker- I think there a some additional considerations when we talk about "old" guys. And I know you agree with keeping strong but it is still worth mentioning.

[G-dub]

Didn't the guy on the video say that he should have done alactic work when doing his SS? That was the conclusion I got out of it - that SS isn't bad but you need to stay on the power or you lose it.

"When I was rowing full time there were long stretches whereby anything sub-1:20 required superhuman effort. This indicates a certain something about how volume beyond a certain extent without regular alactic output will develop aerobic fitness, but will blunt power. I believe this is detrimental regardless of race distance".

[gregsmith01748]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA5ylQ6DWy7/

Also more Sam Loch heresy

Doesn't look heretical to me. I completely agree that ONLY doing SS without alactic training blunts power.
What I do think is heretical is thinking that ONLY alactic training works for anything longer than a minute.

[hjs]

Henry, Let's just hypothetically say me or likely Dirk can break the 1k record next year (2:54)- neither of us do much in the way of LSD and utilize primarily a strength based and hard interval approach- does that not provide some relevance to that style of training?- the age group records are probably more relevant in this case because everyone good mostly ranks their score (unlike the Olympic guys in the 20-29 class) - let's say I spend a year doing 80% SS work and I lose 15% of my strength (which took me 15 years to builds and another 20 years to try and maintain it) am I better off if I struggle then to pull 1:15- how does that effect my 500 or 100 or 1k- not to mention the health implications of being weaker- I think there a some additional considerations when we talk about "old" guys. And I know you agree with keeping strong but it is still worth mentioning.

I think you guys both can pull that to begin with.

Other point, you guys are both big, lean mass I talk about. Ofcourse thats possitive, pound for pound that makes it a lesses result, the machine doesn,t know ofcourse. But a bigger man needs less fitness on the erg.

For 1k, raw speed and more fast fibers help, certainly relative to the 2k. I certainly don,t think you guys should do a lot of slow long distance work, some yes, but you certainly should keep your strenght. And if you now pull 1.06/7 you will certainly not fall back to 1.15, you can relative easy stay below 1.10.

The 100 needs ofcourse an as good as possible low pull, the 500 less so. You now die horribly in the 500, less top speed and more endurance can yield the same or better result.

And yes, you know I believe in staying strong and me liking discussions or thinking out loud. Staying strong is important, but in the long run we will get weaker slowly, you should try to stop that, but within reason, at some trying to hard will get us injured. I myself am a good example. Easy injured, my weakpoint, so I have to be realistic. For you atm, I think you do to much speed, its not needed. With less you proberly good get the same results. But I know you look doing it.
What you don,t do is hard, short rest stuff. Which is brutal. Could be included a bit.

And looking at strenght and the erg. If we compare us, 100, you a lot faster, 1 min/500 I get closer. 1k, not 100% sure you beat me. Etc.. Healthwise, not absolute but relative performance matters. I do believe in staying relative lean, strong and having a good aerobic fitness all in one.

Ps the 1k record... Our canadian friend is also 49....., I "fear" he will pull a whole string of records when he hits 50......

2td ps when starts that Lazy Dirk pulling hard again

[Bob S.]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA5ylQ6DWy7/

Also more Sam Loch heresy

Old habits never die??? I see that he rowed starboard, at least he is listed as being 7 seat at London. That certainly fit. In that video he was still rowing starboard - right leg goes out and left leg goes straight. Right arm goes between the knees to follow a non-existing curve of a phantom oar. Fascinating - I have never seen that before in an erging video.

[left coaster]

Is there a way to get the C2 to record low pull? Alternatively I need to dual task and watch the monitor while going flat out -- that's definitely going to slow me WAY down HAHA

[Shawn Baker]

Well, looks like some interesting discussion!!

Greg let's say you spend 3 years closely monitoring lactate to ensure you're staying below 2.0 mmol, let's say that despite this you can't move your 2k PR much (say 1-2 secs) despite countless hours of steady state work. Now what? Let's say your best low pull is 1:23 and somehow you can magically bring it down to 1:17, what would you speculate would happen to your 2k potential then?

Now let's talk about the sprinting stuff- I'll use just myself as an example so there is no need to try and guess what someone like Sam Loch is subtlety implying beneath his otherwise obvious remarks- I currently do an abysmally small percentage of my work as SS stuff- I'd estimate 25% and the majority of that currently is walking on a treadmill wearing a 50lb vest- is this enough SS for me to potentially break the 1k world record in 10 months or do I need to do a bunch more of it, and if so how much?

Henry, I doubt I could hang on to 1:10, after training now for 35+ years I have a fairly good idea of what works for me. I tried almost every training style imaginable and for me frequent brief bouts of higher intensity work produces the best results when considering speed and strength. I've pushed it hard now for those entire 35 years and have never had a significant injury or have been forced to take time off- maybe luck or maybe knowing what I am capable of.

As far as Benko goes (and I'm not sure he's Canadian) I think 2k+ are likely his- 100m-1k are up for grabs (also I turn 50 first out of all you guys )

[mdpfirrman]

I personally have learned a lot from all of you. I do hate all the bickering back and forth though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWOL-Rw6kt8

Here's a video of Gary Holman breaking the WR for 500m for lightweights 40 to 49. He's since broke it again (he's the current record holder). Does he do 500 lb deadlifts? Hard to say. There's a kid at my gym that's 175 and looks like a stick and can dead lift 500# (I've seen it). Sometimes with power lifters, looks are deceiving. Seems like he's not got much fat on him. I certainly wouldn't bet against you Shawn breaking the over 50 WR. This video though I think is the contrast to Loch.

[gregsmith01748]

Shawn: I think the idea of doing nothing but <2.0mmol lactate rowing is only a good idea if you are rowing for "fun and fitness". The idea that anyone would come anywhere near their potential for any distance shorter than a half marathon with that approach seems ridiculous to me. What I do believe is that the maximizing performance on any distance longer than a minute requires that multiple energy systems need to be trained.

How you do the training is an interesting question. You can still make improvements in aerobic performance with more intense exercise than <2.0mmol/l rowing, however you are also tapping into other energy systems and potentially increasing recovery time (especially for older rowers). And for 1K sprints, which is the topic here, I think that even though there is roughly similar contribution from aerobic and anaerobic energy systems during the row, it is massively more important to build strength, power and especially lactate tolerance.

I think the method that you have pursued in the past of identifying a target pace for a specific distance and then see how long you can hold that pace is an intriguing way to engage and train all the energy systems that would be used in the real thing. I do think that there is also some role for aerobic work, but I think for sprints training, it is probably better to work shorter distances just below the lactic threshold (like <4.0).

The challenge in my mind is that my reading seems to indicate the initial rate of improvement and how quickly you plateau is directly related to the distance being trained. So, improvements in alactic capability happen quick (within a few weeks), anaerobic within a month or two, and aerobic takes a long time to both develop and plateau. So, in general, my strategy for training for sprints would be to periodize to try to get all cylinders firing for a specific race or time. I think that a small portion of training (<10%) should always be at high intensity, even in base training periods, and as you approach competition, the training volume decreases and the intensity increases.

I don't want you to cast me as someone who thinks that you can set a world record on the 1K by grinding out 100K a week at <2.0mmol lactates. I certainly don't. But, by the same token, I also believe that you can't break a 1K world record on a steady diet of weight lifting and 1 minute sprints. To carry that much power through nearly three minutes of rowing requires:
1. Sufficient muscle mass that you can generate the needed power.
2. Sufficient alactic capability to blast the start of the piece without immediately creating a huge surge of lactate
3. Sufficient lactate processing capability to incrementally retard the rate at which lactate is thrown off by hard working muscles.
4. Sufficient lactate tolerance so that you don't cry like a baby or puke your guts out when the wall of lactate hits you around 400m.

I think aerobic training only helps with number 3, but there are a number of ways to train it beside doing a lot of slow rowing.