Drag Factor

[aussieluke]

Just think about it this way: do any of the top rowers or indoor rowers use max drag for anything other than peak power tests or very short sprints?

If it was a good way to train to get stronger and faster, then everyone would be doing it by now - these things have been around for decades.

It's the same reason cyclists don't go everywhere in top gear, runners don't train in weighted shoes, tennis players don't train with iron rackets and lead balls, and basketballers don't practice three pointers with medicine balls. No doubt over time everyone has tried everything and that sort of thing doesn't work.

Instead most professional or top level rowers will use a normal drag because that is what works.

The damper goes up to ten so you can adjust it up to a normal drag range even when the machine is old and cruddy - otherwise all commercial gym ergs would be unusable.

[crazyrower]

Just think about it this way: do any of the top rowers or indoor rowers use max drag for anything other than peak power tests or very short sprints?

If it was a good way to train to get stronger and faster, then everyone would be doing it by now - these things have been around for decades.

It's the same reason cyclists don't go everywhere in top gear, runners don't train in weighted shoes, tennis players don't train with iron rackets and lead balls, and basketballers don't practice three pointers with medicine balls. No doubt over time everyone has tried everything and that sort of thing doesn't work.

Instead most professional or top level rowers will use a normal drag because that is what works.

The damper goes up to ten so you can adjust it up to a normal drag range even when the machine is old and cruddy - otherwise all commercial gym ergs would be unusable.

this always intrest me. the way how people think about power and speed.

let me give you an example. who is more strong. someone who runs a marathon running from the bottom of the mountain to the top. or someone who runs a marathon on a flat surface? who is more strong? who is faster? does it really matter? we know many people can run a marathon on flat surface. fast times, slow times. but how many can run from the bottom of the mountain to the top? slow times or fast times? much more will fail running up the mountain,then the ones doing it on a flat surface.

look at for example formula 1 racing. who is the best driver on the grid? many would say Lewis hamilton. yet rosberg became the champion. not to mention the mercedes is the better car.

cycling, racing, rowing. we all depend on equipment, were every equipment is different. so why care about times? even outside rowing. were weather conditions change. were there is so many different equipment. why care about speed?

about power. i have a guy in the gym that can squad 150 kilograms. i can not do it. . yet when i asked him to do 10 times a serie of a deadlift, squad, and raise the weight of a 15 kilogram sandbag over his head. he could only do 3 series and was exhausted. yet i can easily do 20. so what is strong? me or him? i have no idea.

so what is strong what is fast? were daily conditions differ so fast. outside or inside. were mental conditions change so fast. one can hear his father died and set a terrible time. yet we know he could do better but mentally he was broken.

today the sailing record around the world was broken with 8 days? why? the weather conditions were favourable. but was he really fast? when you have better boats, better equipment? i have no idea you tell me.

[hjs]

We are on a rowing forum, rowing is never uphill, its flat.

The same for running, thats on flat, hills races are a different.

Using a high drag is fine if you want, go ahead, but most people care about the fastest result on the erg. You also row with one hand, or one leg, strap a backpack on, or whatsver. 90% of the people don,t care about that, they care about being the most efficient on the erg or water.

High drag is used 500 meter and shorter is a lot about power, high drag here helps. Rowing a marathon is pure aerobic fitness, strenght plays no role. Wr is 142 pace, go a nice target

A cross country skier erged a marathon at max drag, rate 30, pulling a 1.45 av, also a respectable row.

[left coaster]

it's not really good practice jumping on stuff and just setting everything to the highest level. Good way to get injured tho!!

Resistance on the erg does not come from setting the damper on max anyway. I'm sure we have covered this before in one of your other posts/threads.

This made me laugh, so true! Set the DF on 10 and pull nice and slow and you'll hit a pace around 2:07. If I set my drag lever on 8 I can casually lean my body weight back and pull 2:05 with relative ease until I get bored.

The mechanics/physics of the erg necessitate thinking both in terms of drive speed and power. Set the drag real low, drive super fast and boom! there's the work/power and you're rowing 1:45 or better.

Personally, I like to move fast on the erg so I set the DF lever on my immaculately clean machine that I vacuum out regularly at 4.75 - 5 for anything beyond 2K. I think it comes down to individual physiology and how we like to move. Want to move slow, with a high DF, super-cool, want to move fast with a low DF, fantastic Then there's some genetic outliers like Shawn who move fast with the DF maxed -- it's possible but requires lots of power, although I'm not sure he's done anything more than 1K at a time in the last year .

[GJS]

I know this one has been beaten to death. But a recent work out got me to thinking. Doing (for example) 5000m @ 20r/ 200w at a 93drag compared to a 100 drag. Is there any advantage to rowing (from a training or strength building stand point) at the heavier drag? I know these are very low drags by most standards. And I have to go with heavier drags for the short stuff, under 500m, as there seems to be a limit as to how hard I can pull on the low drag (around 1:30 for a few strokes).

By any definition the amount of work done is identical (200w 20r; I would assume length per stroke). But the higher drag feels extremely heavy to me. I'm just wondering if there's any value to staying with the higher drag for the 20r sessions. Will it make me stronger?

I think you row otw, Edward?
Accustomed to these v low drags, do you not find the single pretty lumpy?

( Erg v otw equivalences here: http://www.biorow.com/RBN_en_2011_files ... News01.pdf)

I don't know whether those in the know are in the business of upping drag on the erg to foment strength (Heavy Tens aside) but do know they do stuff otw - likely not a huge amount - that might be thought similar: bucket dragging; having a portion of the crew propel the bigger boats while others rest. Jurgen Grobler - along perhaps with his contemporaries - has moved on from buckets yet still uses a different method to purposefully curtail the run of the boat between strokes. (Most elite rowers do a fair bit of weight training so strength development is partially/largely covered by that, you would think.)

I hate the feel as it goes above 130 and tend to stay around 115. Something feeling wrong is no argument that it is wrong, however.

[Edward4492]

Gary, I'm something of an anomaly in that I never rowed OTW until this past year. I came to it with a very heavy erg background (7 million meters the past 3 years, sixteen erg competitions, three CRASH B's, etc).Backwards from most. I logged 900k, mostly in a single, but I'm pretty much a novice. I don't know if I'm even good enough OTW to know the difference between a good stroke and a lumpy stroke. I have a very explosive quick jump out of the catch on the erg, on the water I'm much more deliberate. I think when the blades catch the water the resistance slows me down. I also noticed when I came off the water it took me a few weeks on the erg to start getting my "erg speed" back. At first, 2:00 pace for even a 1000m felt extremely challenging. So, who knows? I kind of look at erging and OTW rowing as two different sports. It may also explain why a lot of OTW rowers don't always go fast on the erg (excluding of course the national and olympic team guys and girls). It's two different things.

Oh, and for the record. I am completely hooked on OTW. Just recently bought a nice, used and freshly painted 1997 Pocock single. The erg has become secondary.

[gooseflight]

93drag compared to a 100 drag

I don't think I would notice a seven point difference in DF.

When I was using ErgMonitor a few years ago I was surprised to see that DF can actually fluctuate during a row, even by as much as four or five points. (Or was that a software generated fluctuation?)

[GJS]

You insensitive beast, Roy

Good luck with your rowing, Ed. I think the truth is that most of make pretty gross assumptions about what the elite folk do and have little knowledge of the details. Rowperfect have some decent podcasts online - Youtube is the best place to hear them - and you can pick up some intriguing nuggets. Certainly, now I recall, Drew Ginn mentions that the erg is a very useful training tool not least because you can readily change the drag, both up and down ( to produce different training stimuli).

[gooseflight]

You insensitive beast, Roy

[jackarabit]

Retired Cornell crew coach John Dunn does ONLY strength training at low rate and high drag (whatever number he gets with the shutter wide open) on the erg.

[James_Chelt_UK]

Drag between 110 and 140

Put it on max 200 plus for 3x3min3r spm 18 sessions