RowPro Training Plan Codes

[john_n]

Does anybody have a lot of experience using the training plans generated by RowPro? If so then maybe you can explain what a couple of the codes mean. The complete listing of codes used in RowPro training plans is shown in the screenshot below.

The two that I'm wondering about are TL and SP. The rest of them seem to be self-explanatory.

TL refers to "UT" HR but I don't know what that means. I've heard of "UT1" and "UT2" as levels of power expressed as a % of a person's 2K TT power in watts. And power or a percentage of power in watts would more sense than HR, since HR keeps climbing from start to finish when I do a 2K TT.

And the other one, "SP" which is supposed to be "80-85% pressure". I asked RowPro and got no answer. But I didn't expect an answer, because they just code the software, they don't design training programs.

Can't find it in any of the RowPro documentation.... 80-85% of what?? "Pressure"?? My PM doesn't have a readout in "pressure." It only gives readings in Watts, pace and calories/hour.

If you are as puzzled as I am about what those two codes mean, then your comments are welcome and will be of some comfort, but I'm hoping there is someone here who has a definitive answer.

[jackarabit]

Hey John. Thought you'd gone to ground there. Good to hear from you.

I don't remember seeing those abbreviations elsewhere, not in O'Neill & Skelton or Flood & Simpson indoor rowing guides. Hard to calculate percentage of the unquantifiable! Could pressure equate to force on the rower handle? ErgData has optional readouts of peak force and average force in kg.or lbs. 3/4 pressure could mean a WAG but 80-85% suggests precision in determnation.

[lwtguy]

It's something you'd hear a lot in coached sessions OTW. It's really just a rough estimate of what you think your "max" pressure would be at a given rate on a given day. My half pressure could roughly be 2:15 at a 24, or 2:00 at a 30. It's nowhere near an exact science.

Here's a decent example. You can do a max 2K. Let's say it is 7:00 done at 30 spm. Your 80-85% would be in the 7:20 range. Doing one of these would be challenging, but comfortable. Doing a second or a third one at 7:20 would be very tough.

[jackarabit]

So percentage pressure appears to relate to or be derived from the commands on the engine room telegraphs of large steam and ICE-powered vessels: SLOW AHEAD, HALF AHEAD, etc. And rate in spm of an oar is closely analogous to the rpm of a prop.

[john_n]

Hey John. Thought you'd gone to ground there. Good to hear from you.

I don't remember seeing those abbreviations elsewhere, not in O'Neill & Skelton or Flood & Simpson indoor rowing guides. Hard to calculate percentage of the unquantifiable! Could pressure equate to force on the rower handle? ErgData has optional readouts of peak force and average force in kg.or lbs. 3/4 pressure could mean a WAG but 80-85% suggests precision in determnation.

Thanks Jack,

I had to stop doing the Pete Plan for a while and couldn't do any rowing at all for 3 days, after lower back pain suddenly occurred one cold morning when I was doing 500 meter intervals. Had difficulty standing up straight. But after 3 days the pain subsided and I was able to row again, very slowly. When the pain completely disappeared, I decided to try one of the RowPro-generated training plans instead of Pete Plan. I like it, but the main thing is that it lays out what to do every day.

Saw you in a nice video on youtube of recent CRASH-B sprints. It looked like a lot of fun for everyone there. You've probably seen that video (the screen shot below is from that video). Toward the last part of the video, it also showed the finish of Lindsay Hay's 2K in which he was 2nd behind a California rower. I look at CRASH-B videos for inspiration...



Yes - those two codes in the training plan leave a bit to be desired. It may be vague on purpose. The HR zones it puts on the screen all seem too low, also and there's no way to adjust them by manually entering key data such as a person's actual, known HRmax.

On the digitalrowing.com website where they talk about the RowPro training "templates" they say this: "These plans are created by training guru Jon Ackland of Performance lab International.   Jon’s a world expert in remote training, i.e. without the trainer being there..."

I looked on Amazon and found a few books by probably the same guy, Jon Ackland. So I ordered one this morning which he wrote on the topic of endurance training. Hopefully, it will throw some relevant light on the subject of what those two codes mean in the training program.

[john_n]

It's something you'd hear a lot in coached sessions OTW. It's really just a rough estimate of what you think your "max" pressure would be at a given rate on a given day. My half pressure could roughly be 2:15 at a 24, or 2:00 at a 30. It's nowhere near an exact science.

Here's a decent example. You can do a max 2K. Let's say it is 7:00 done at 30 spm. Your 80-85% would be in the 7:20 range. Doing one of these would be challenging, but comfortable. Doing a second or a third one at 7:20 would be very tough.

Thanks for the answer from your personal experience where I've never been (neither OTW in a real racing boat nor involved with a professional coach).

That's one possibility that came to mind, that the codes are vague because it is subjective.

I suppose if a person wanted to feel they had more precision in doing a specific % of max 2K effort, the concept2.com calculator for converting pace to watts could be used and the % could be applied to whatever the watts is for a person's max 2K pace.

[lwtguy]

It's something you'd hear a lot in coached sessions OTW. It's really just a rough estimate of what you think your "max" pressure would be at a given rate on a given day. My half pressure could roughly be 2:15 at a 24, or 2:00 at a 30. It's nowhere near an exact science.

Here's a decent example. You can do a max 2K. Let's say it is 7:00 done at 30 spm. Your 80-85% would be in the 7:20 range. Doing one of these would be challenging, but comfortable. Doing a second or a third one at 7:20 would be very tough.

Thanks for the answer from your personal experience where I've never been (neither OTW in a real racing boat nor involved with a professional coach).

That's one possibility that came to mind, that the codes are vague because it is subjective.

I suppose if a person wanted to feel they had more precision in doing a specific % of max 2K effort, the concept2.com calculator for converting pace to watts could be used and the % could be applied to whatever the watts is for a person's max 2K pace.

Exactly, although I don't think it's meant to be precise; just more a less a ball-park estimate. Half pressure is roughly equivalent to UT3 at least from my experience. When we were told to do 85%, we just did full pressure anyway so we could stay ahead of the other boats in practice

[jackarabit]

My wife shot the C-B video. No one else would waste 5' on old Jack and remain awake to capture the Cooper/Hay battle.

75% of max 2k watts is certainly above UT HR band performance in the training intensity guide that I use.

Please let us know if Mr. Ackland presents a remotely useful gloss on his confusing glyphs!

Thinking musical rendition terms such as andante, allegro, presto would serve as well as percentage pressure.

[john_n]

... Please let us know if Mr. Ackland presents a remotely useful gloss on his confusing glyphs!

Thinking musical rendition terms such as andante, allegro, presto would serve as well as percentage pressure.

Okay Jack, I’ll drop a note in this thread or somewhere in the forum after I get the book to let you know if it shines some coherent light on understanding of the two glyphs in question.

But in the meantime, what you and LWTGUY have written are actually excellent answers and probably as good an answer as anything, for what I’m doing. When the training program calls for hard rowing, I might row hard or I might just row as easy as I feel that day and only put a priority on doing the distance of the training session. Sometimes when it calls for hard/presto rowing, I do part of it presto and then fade into the andante … or allegro.

Because I chose to buy a used copy from a third-party seller, the book will take a while to get here and ... I’m a bit of a slow reader so it may be a while, like a few weeks or longer ... to search through it and find the answers.

If it wasn’t for those two puzzling codes in the RowPro training plan, I might never have heard of Jon Ackland or any of his books. Here’s hoping its worth reading.

I try not to judge a book by its cover, but the cover of this particular edition of the book makes it look potentially worthwhile:

[john_n]

... Exactly, although I don't think it's meant to be precise; just more a less a ball-park estimate. Half pressure is roughly equivalent to UT3 at least from my experience. When we were told to do 85%, we just did full pressure anyway so we could stay ahead of the other boats in practice

LOL Yes... the urge to compete can overtake and override other rationale. That's where the fun is. I wonder, though, if the other boats in practice were doing the same thing and using full pressure to try to overtake you?

Like I told Jack in so many words... I won't stress about it. I don't always try to follow the training plan's instructions anyway. But it would be nice to know what I'm supposed to be doing, even if I don't try to row that hard.

[bisqeet]

... Exactly, although I don't think it's meant to be precise; just more a less a ball-park estimate. Half pressure is roughly equivalent to UT3 at least from my experience. When we were told to do 85%, we just did full pressure anyway so we could stay ahead of the other boats in practice

LOL Yes... the urge to compete can overtake and override other rationale. That's where the fun is. I wonder, though, if the other boats in practice were doing the same thing and using full pressure to try to overtake you?

Like I told Jack in so many words... I won't stress about it. I don't always try to follow the training plan's instructions anyway. But it would be nice to know what I'm supposed to be doing, even if I don't try to row that hard.

sounds like a good approach.

i tend to think a lot of the publications are written for the public as general and not as individuals.
as such some of the paces, rates etc. are gerneralised and are open for a little intepretation or adaption for the individual.
- in other words - nice, i'll stick to the frame of the plan but do my own stuff as i feel is necessary

[Rowan McSheen]

On the strength of that photo, years of erging have clearly worked wonders for Jack in terms of complexion and prevention of male pattern baldness.

[john_n]

i tend to think a lot of the publications are written for the public as general and not as individuals.
as such some of the paces, rates etc. are gerneralised and are open for a little intepretation or adaption for the individual.
- in other words - nice, i'll stick to the frame of the plan but do my own stuff as i feel is necessary

Everyone seems to agree and say so in their own way.

Many thanks for your perspective - I hope the book will be worthwhile but after reading these opinions I'm just going to relax and ... like you, Jack and LWTGUY all seem to be saying ... "do my own stuff"

[john_n]

On the strength of that photo, years of erging have clearly worked wonders for Jack in terms of complexion and prevention of male pattern baldness.

Hi Rowan. "Bald is beautiful" too, so Jack doesn't need to worry about that either way

It was vicariously very enjoyable to watch that video and others on youtube of the crash-b's.

[john_n]

Please let us know if Mr. Ackland presents a remotely useful gloss on his confusing glyphs!

The book by Jon Ackland arrived:

It is rather complicated in my opinion. The two pages shown in the image below are just two of at least a few dozen pages that relate to the topic:


After scanning some of what the author wrote about Karvonen formula used to calculate HR target zones I thought I could translate what I'd quickly scanned, to explain what the TL and SP codes in RowPro training mean.

But on closer examination ... what I thought I understood doesn't work out to what the training program seems to call for.

So it's going to take a lot more time, to read a lot more of the book... because so far I have found no easy answer which would be a direct mention of either "Tempo Load" or "Slow Pressure" in the index or in the pages I've examined and if the author mentions RowPro and its training plan, he didn't list it in the very short index at the back of the book.