Training Heart Rates

[CharleCarroll]

Training Heart Rate Range

Aerobic sports, like rowing, get the best results, with relative very boring training, the bulk should be long, lower rated, certainly not 26/30. More 18/24. Improvements will be little per session, but after the first gains, improvement will be little. Olympic athletes train years, to improve a few %.

Rowing is not fancy, it’s doing the same thing over and over. Doing lots of anaerobic work will not help, on the contrary, it will hinder your aerobic fitness. (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=160211)

But what I want to know is whether this is true. Consider the following article, 7 Reasons to Include Intervals in your Workouts, from Concdept2:

As we follow the research on exercise and health, we’re finding more and more reasons to incorporate intervals into our training.

Interval training means alternating between bursts of high-intensity work and periods of rest or easy effort. The work intervals do not need to be long—they can be as short as 10 seconds—but you should put good effort into them. Then rest for up to several minutes before doing the next one.

1. Effectiveness

A growing body of research is showing that interval workouts are effective at improving fitness—often more effective than longer steady state work. Specifically, several studies have looked at the effectiveness of Tabata intervals (see sample workout below).
The PM5 allows you to program a wide variety of interval workouts.

2. Variety

Long steady work can get boring. Some people thrive on the data provided by the PM; others need entertainment. Interval workouts provide structure and ask you to vary your intensity regularly, which goes a long way to preventing boredom! Vary your exercise routine by including several interval workouts and several steady-state sessions in the course of a week.

3. Time-efficiency

Given the research showing that intervals are at least as effective as longer steady-state intervals, they are a time-efficient way to get in an effective workout. Even if you only have a half hour, don’t give up on getting in a workout. No excuses!

4. Weight loss

Because of the higher intensity of interval work, you will burn more calories for longer after your workout than with lower intensity workouts. This is called EPOC, Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption.

5. Blood sugar control

High intensity intervals appear to be effective in controlling blood sugar and improve insulin sensitivity. This may be of special interest to diabetics and those with pre-diabetic conditions.

6. Blood pressure control

Another recent study showed that HIIT can improve several measures of cardiovascular health including blood pressure.

7. Anti-aging

If all the other reasons aren’t enough, recent research compared different types of exercise and found that while all exercise was beneficial, interval training had the greatest positive effect in reversing, or improving certain affects of aging at the cellular level. While we can’t expect to really turn back the hands of time, it’s worth slowing them down with some interval training.

Workouts

Always spend at least 5 minutes warming up before beginning an interval workout.

Tabata intervals: 8 x (20” max, 10” easy). It’s a 4 minute workout that accomplishes a lot. The PM can even help you with Setting Up a Time Interval Workout.
Minute on/minute off: alternate between 1 minute at good intensity and 1 minute very easy. Start with 10 minutes total, and increase toward 20 minutes as you are able. If you’re just starting your training, and/or are dealing with any health issues, it’s always advisable to check in with your medical professional.

References

On HIIT, from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM):

http://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/high ... f?sfvrsn=4

Interval Training and Blood Pressure:

https://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/v31/ ... 1662a.html
Intervals for Aging Muscles:

[JerekKruger]

The comments you quoted are talking about the best way to improve performance. They draw on work by people like Stephen Seiler (e.g. http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.pdf) which seems to show that the most effective way to train for primarily aerobic sports (a 2k row is at least 70% aerobic, more like 80%) is a polarised training plan, where 80% of the athletes training is done at low intensities and 20% is done at very high intensities. This is how most top endurance athletes across a range of sports train.

The Concept 2 and the ACSM articles don't contradict this. For example the ACSM article has this to say:

HIIT workouts are more exhaustive then steady state endurance workouts. Therefore, a longer recovery period is often needed. Perhaps start with one HIIT training workout a week, with your other workouts being steady state workouts. As you feel ready for more challenge, add a second HIIT workout a week, making sure you spread the HIIT workouts throughout the week

These aren't going to form the bulk of your training unless you're training very little.

As for the hypertension article, it doesn't really have anything to do with performance.

[Dangerscouse]

Personally I never found HIIT to be a very effective fat burner and I did it regularly years ago e.g. 15 mins with 10x 30 secs on as fast as possible and 45 secs off.

Steady state and long sessions, 30km and above is my guess, at a HR of circa 130-135 has had the fat melting off me. As a 44 year old, this is supposed to be difficult to do but it's only happened since July of this year and admittedly circa 1.5 million metres has done the trick.

I would also slightly dispute the slow gains. I have made very rapid gains in the past five months of training for my 12 hour rowing event e.g. I took off just over 10 minutes off my 75km PB that was only set two weeks ago.

Totally agree with Tom's comments and make sure you follow the 80/20 rule. I would say that defo does work

[gooseflight]

You pose the same question here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=160211

What are you looking for? Health benefits or a fast 2K?

Any exercise is good for you. The optimal programme for power/endurance sports is periodised training -- significant volume of boring, repetitive, long, slow distance work. Not so bad if you're amidst some scenery on a bike or in a boat. Follow that up with speedwork -- intervals -- in the ratio 80/20 and reap the benefits.

Jury is still out on the Tabata stuff. There is some evidence that only some of us are pre-disposed [genetically] to gain from this type of training.

[JerekKruger]

Jury is still out on the Tabata stuff. There is some evidence that only some of us are pre-disposed [genetically] to gain from this type of training.

I also vaguely remember reading that a follow up study showed the improvements to VO2 max levelled off after a relatively short time of doing Tabata's protocol (something like eight weeks). Like most of this sort of training it probably works well as a sharpening tool after months of solid aerobic training, but is probably not a great tool to use year round.

[NavigationHazard]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4621419/

Worth a read. The short version is that it's complicated: people are different; the demands of one sport aren't necessarily the same as another's; what elite athletes report doing isn't necessarily what admittedly limited physiological studies suggest might be optimum; there's the very large question of whether training to win at the elite level is appropriate for the fitness-seeking population; nobody as yet knows much about the long-term effects of HIT, whether as a stand-alone strategy or in conjunction with other methods; etc.

Consequently, an “optimal” TID [Training Intensity Distrbution] cannot be identified, and future prospective randomized investigations conducted over extended time-periods will have to be designed to address this question.

Stoggel and Sperlich, "The training intensity distribution among well-trained and elite endurance athletes." Review in Frontiers in Physiology 2015:6, 295.

[JerekKruger]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4621419/

Interesting read indeed. Relevant to the thread at hand is this:

Approximately two HIT sessions·wk−1 have been proposed to stimulate performance adaptations without inducing chronic stress (Seiler, 2010). While it was shown that an increase from one to three HIT sessions per week was not accompanied with further performance benefits, such an increase did result in greater subjective muscle stress, plasma epinephrine, and reduced sleep quality, all indicators of impending overtraining (Billat et al., 1999).

and

Additionally, condensed HIT over a longer period (9 weeks) may lead to a loss in body mass in well-trained athletes (Stöggl and Sperlich, 2014) which may also negatively impact health.

Of course this is in high level athletes who will really emphasise the H in HIT and who are far closer to their genetic potential, so it might be different for amateur athletes training at a much lower level.

What's noticeable though is that across all the different training intensity distributions the bulk of training still seems to be low intensity. The main difference is in how much threshold training people do.

[CharleCarroll]

In retrospect it was probably rude of me not to have introduced myself back in late January when I first posted.

Briefly, in early 1998 I started working out on a Model C with a PM2. Since then I have had 3 back surgeries — a cervical fusion, a laminectomy, and a lumbar fusion in that order. After the laminectomy, which was in 2000, I started using slides because it reduced strain on the lower back. In January 2005 I took my first novice on water sculling lesson. Since then, until I started having serious problems with my back, I primarily rowed on water.

March 30th 2015 was the last time I was on water, partially because I was having trouble walking, but mostly because of commitments, which left me with insufficient time to get to my rowing club. This is when I went downstairs to the erg room and started cautiously working out. I say “cautiously” because the back pain was becoming worse. By January I was using a cane and could barely walk, although I could still erg.

Being able to erg but not walk deserves a comment. After I decided to seek medical help it took about three months to diagnose the problem and find a surgeon. From the moment my surgeon first walked into the examining room I knew who I wanted to do the surgery. He shook my hand, introduced himself, placed my chart on a table, glimpsed at it, and said, “Can’t walk! But I bet you can still row.” “How do you know that?” I asked. “Backs are tricky things,” he answered. Turns out he had rowed freshman year at MIT.

Ok, so I had the lumbar fusion in March 2016. I began erging again that september, and bought the Dynamic Erg in January 2017. The dynamic has played an essential role my recovery ever since.

Lastly I should mention that I have no significant athletic talents. I am small as rowers go — only 5’ 5” and weigh 155 lbs. No one will ever marvel at my erg scores. And in 25 days I will have my 70th birthday.

But I love to row, and I am fit, and I enjoy thinking about rowing.

Someone asked what I was looking for. The answer is simple.

1) to be healthy
2) to move a boat well
3) to realize my full potential

I have posted about heart rates because I am interested in the relationship between workout intensity and the above three goals. Specifically I am interested why some experts are so strongly convinced that the bulk training on an erg should be boring and long at 18/24 strokes per minute, especially because this directly contradicts statements from other experts and my own experience with erging and on-water rowing.

I have built up to erging 2 x 6000 meters a workout. It has become my daily workout since August. Also for months now I have been experimenting with different stroke rates and intensities. Here is what I wrote about yesterday’s workout:

“For the first 30 minutes I rowed at 20-24 spm. The next 30 minutes I rowed at 26-30 spm. Concept2 maintains that a good target stroke rate for most workouts will be in the range of 24–30 spm. I am inclined to agree.

“When I row at low Cadence the pace becomes annoyingly slow. The way to increase the pace is to pull harder. But when I pull harder I feel pain in my back. When, however, I row at a higher cadence the pace picks up without my having to pull harder. So at the higher cadence I avoid back pain while staying within a light to moderate heart rate zone, row at a higher pace, and enjoy a more satisfying workout.”

While low stroke rates are a very serviceable tool for teaching technique and control, are they the right tool for measuring intensity?

[hjs]

Re ratings, those are relative to your race rating. For a 5.5 rower 18 is very low.

The idea is to use a stroke that looks like your racing stroke. Simply example, if you rate 30 at 2k speed, and use 18 in training, you pull 60% of your racings watts.

Given your height, age, backtrouble you probably should rate higher.

In general you should be able to pull decent splits at lower ratings, if not, you lack strenght.

Re advice concept2, thats not for racers but for people who use the ergo as a general trainingtool.

[CharleCarroll]

The idea is to use a stroke that looks like your racing stroke.

For my high cadence pieces the force curve shows peak force early in the drive with very small fluctuations between negative and positive peak velocities during the drive. Drive time is about .55 secs.

For low cadence pieces peak force comes later in the drive; however, while the force curve remains smooth, the fluctuation between positive and negative peak velocity is steeper and drive time climbs to .70 secs.

I suspect that this comes as no surprise to you. Am I correct in thinking that you are suggesting that I reproduce the high intensity force curve in my low intensity pieces? Drive harder/recover slower for low cadence pieces!

One thing my heart monitor shows is that when I use the same drive time for low cadence pieces as I do for high cadence pieces my heart rate also remains the same. So using heart rate as the measure of intensity, I am not changing intensity at all when I change cadence — that is, if I want my low cadence stroke to look like my high cadence stroke.

In April of 2005 I had my first lesson Christian Dahlke. I mention this because Christian Dahlke was coached under the East German Program. I had a number of lessons with Christian and very shortly he became a good friend.

Of course I asked Christian about his training under an East German System. Christian said it was basically 3 hours in the morning and two to three hours in the afternoon and was 92% aerobic.

Now I mention Christian not only because was he coached under an East German System, but also because his LM8+ at 1992 World Rowing Championships in Montreal set the World’s Record for a 2k that has yet to be broken.

The point is, as I understand it, the East Germans used heart rate — not stroke rate — as a measure of intensity in their workouts. Of course all this is on water. But I don’t understand why it should be different on an erg.

[Steve-BPRC]

Hi Charles,
Christian Dahlke is a gifted coach, as well as a tenacious ambidextrous competitor. As I recall, among other career highlights, he stroked the German ltwt 8+ to silver from the bow (stbd) side in the 2002 worlds and to gold in 2003 from the stroke (port) side.
He coached me on the water and on the erg. On the former his profuse though unmerited praise was very welcome.
But I digress.
On the erg, his advice to me was to concentrate on long sessions at low spm and high drag - e.g., 18 spm at drag > 180. And he mentioned that one way he tested his pre-elite tutees was on their 5k erg at <= 20 spm.
- Steve Schaffran

[hjs]

> The idea is to use a stroke that looks like your racing stroke.

For my high cadence pieces the force curve shows peak force early in the drive with very small fluctuations between negative and positive peak velocities during the drive. Drive time is about .55 secs.

For low cadence pieces peak force comes later in the drive; however, while the force curve remains smooth, the fluctuation between positive and negative peak velocity is steeper and drive time climbs to .70 secs.

I suspect that this comes as no surprise to you. Am I correct in thinking that you are suggesting that I reproduce the high intensity force curve in my low intensity pieces? Drive harder/recover slower for low cadence pieces!



Of course I asked Christian about his training under an East German System. Christian said it was basically 3 hours in the morning and two to three hours in the afternoon and was 92% aerobic.

Now I mention Christian not only because was he coached under an East German System, but also because his LM8+ at 1992 World Rowing Championships in Montreal set the World’s Record for a 2k that has yet to be broken.

The point is, as I understand it, the East Germans used heart rate — not stroke rate — a.

If we use the same drag at various rates, the lower the rating, the longer the fan can stop spinning, this could be part of the difference in drivetime. Lowering the drag could help here, will keep the fan spin faster.

Think both rate and hf are used, not one of the 2. Keep the stroke strong but as the same time stay aerobic/keep breathing calm. Think in a boat, ratings will be lower at longer pieces because you need a complete full stroke. People using a higher rating on the erg use a stroke which could not be used otw. Recovery is often very rapid, and/or an incomplete stroke is used.

That said, I have seen people doing very well on not doing low rate work at all. Rowing is a power endurance sport. But in the end, talking about 2k, you only need a certain amount if strenght, for the rest its mostly aerobic fitness. Otw ofcourse also technique.

Low rate, high drag, like mentioned, sounds very demanding on the body. Although when hf limited it could be self limiting forcewise.

[NavigationHazard]

...For my high cadence pieces the force curve shows peak force early in the drive with very small fluctuations between negative and positive peak velocities during the drive. Drive time is about .55 secs.

For low cadence pieces peak force comes later in the drive; however, while the force curve remains smooth, the fluctuation between positive and negative peak velocity is steeper and drive time climbs to .70 secs....

It's not clear what you mean here. The force curve on a PM is exactly that: a graphic display of handle force. It has nothing directly to do with velocity. I'm guessing that what you're trying to say is that you get a more symmetrical curve at the higher rating? If so, as Henry says, the comparatively late peak is going to be because it's taking you longer to accelerate the flywheel at the catch. The longer the recovery, other things equal, the more its rotation will slow due to air resistance that's the erg equivalent of drag during the 'run' of a boat OTW. The late peak is bad OTW for a variety of reasons. It's less bad from a mechanical standpoint on an erg, but still less than optimum. In an ideal world you want to aim for much the same force profile regardless of rating.

Here's Kleshnev on late force peaks and why front-loading is good: http://www.biorow.com/RBN_en_2006_files ... News06.pdf

As I've pointed out in the past, this article was originally written in Russian and the translation is less than ideal. The thrust of the last sentence really should read something like "Athletes with a late force peak are more likely to [perform better] on [an] ergometer [than in a boat]." And it should be read as a condemnation of a late force peak in either case, not an endorsement,..,,.,

[JerekKruger]

Here's Kleshnev on late force peaks and why front-loading is good: http://www.biorow.com/RBN_en_2006_files ... News06.pdf

It might be due to the translation, but the line(as written):

... so sideward force does not produce any power and can not cause energy waste itself.

Is wrong. Anyone who has ever done any isometric exercises (for example the plank) knows that energy is expended doing them despite there being no apparent change in kinetic energy during the exercise. Of course there will be increases in kinetic energy as a result of this energy expenditure, most of which will end up as heat.

Similarly, in the case in the article, the force perpendicular to the motion of the boat is, essentially, an isometric contraction against the pin. So long as the pin doesn't break, there won't be any apparent change in kinetic energy but energy is being expended.

I'm also a little dubious about this part:

The back-loaded F1 requires double the peak power. In rowing this late power peak would overload the trunk and arms, which are weaker body segments than legs.

The legs aren't uniformly strong. Again anyone who has done both ass-to-grass squats and high partial squats (or indeed the equivalent with the leg press) will know that the legs are significantly stronger nearer to full extension than they are when the knee is more flexed. As such I'd imagine that the point in the drive where a person is able to generate the most force is somewhere between half and quarter slide, and not at the catch.

That said, I'm not saying the conclusions of the article are wrong necessarily, just that the argument itself doesn't seem convincing.

[Dangerscouse]

Blimey Tom, that's a very erudite response. Do you work in the fitness industry or study a sports degree?