Plateauing

[[old] Barry Delaney]

Curious about other people's experience with the dreaded plateau. Have been erging about 8 months, 4 days, 42K a week. I'm 40, and probably in the best aerobic shape of my life because of the erg. I've made dramatic improvements, but have hit the wall recently. I realize at a certain point I will have to accept my limitations and erg for the physical benefits more than the pursuit of ever lower times, and am curious at what point others have made this switch. The mental part is also clear to me. The more I do this, the more I realize the price to be paid for the lower time. The look on my wife's face after my last 2k pb (two weeks ago, 6:43.6) was a combination of concern and pity. Not really in my nature to stop trying to lower the times, but a man of course has to know his limitations.

[[old] jamesg]

I wouldn't call it dreaded. The idea of exercising is to get from one plateau to another that lets us live better - even half an hour a day will probably put us into the fittest 1% on the planet in this obese, drinking, smoking and desk, sofa and car-driving age. Keeping fit gives us a sight more than a pb or a medal.<br><br>Times are just an index - there's not much we can do about our age or oxygen transport capacity. So our challenge is to see how long we can stay on that plateau - 30 years would be a good pb.

[[old] Carl Henrik]

HI<br>Compliments on the 2k time, that's great after only 8 months. Not the most enthusiastic response from the audience there though. After my last PB attempt the only comment from my audience was "You look like a snotball" and later "keep training"... I guess one can't expect appreciation for the effort every time. <br><br>Soon I will have erged for a year. Before that I had no aerobic training. I have also seen quick improvements. After only 5 months I pulled 4x1k at 346w with 4:15 rest and was excited about trying to PB 350w (6:40) on a 2k soon, since I was steadily increasing with 5w a week doing the intervals. Then I got sick and did a bad recovery, it was so slow that I had to change from seeking better times to just training. I don't think as much about training now, I just do it. <br><br>my weekly workouts:<br>2 on water 10k+ steady<br>1 on water 8k technique<br>1 on water fartlek 9k<br>1 hard 10k erg<br>1 running 6 9.3k<br>1 strength session (abs, pecs, triceps, anterior deltoids)<br><br>Strangely the distance I have improved most at training like this is the 500m even though I was expecting it to get worse due to no strenght training for legs/biceps/back, and due to not having much gains in longer distances (but maybe I'm just woussying there). Also I try to have as much fun with the CV ability as possible, that's one reasonn why I have also thrown in a running session. <br><br>Don't know if any of this was of interest, but since I wrote it, there you go

[[old] afolpe]

i'm in a very simmilar (metaphorical) boat. started back in october and got a lot of pb's at first. i've been completely concentrating on 30 min, 10K and 60 min pieces, trying to get some sort of aerobic shape going. i mostly use the c2 to crosstrain for kayaking, and i think it's been great for that. did a 2K early on and haven't repeated it since. anyway, i've also been a bit plateaued for a while, but lately feel like i am working out of it by concentrating not so much on setting pb's all the time (although i did recently at 30 min) as on consistency. i've gotten now so that i almost always can maintain a sub 2:00 pace for my whole workout, whereas before i could pb at under 2:00, but had a tendency to do longer pieces slower. i'm thinking that maybe in october i will start working on my 2K, after i have a good base. <br><br>i really like that idea of trying to plateau for 30 years!! that's a great motivator.<br><br>andrew<br><br>37M 5'11", 180#<br>5K- 18:10, 30 min- 7850, 10K- 38:27

[[old] TomR/the elder]

Change your routine for a while. You might think about easing off the faster-paced work and extending your sessions. Give you body a bit of a break for 6-12 weeks. If you don't have distance trainiing in your background--runnning, cycling, or some such--some longer, moderate work could be helpful. The body takes years to adapt to endurance training. You might temporarily lose a little ground on the 2k time, but you could come back in the fall refreshed and better prepared to go to the next level. Your best times could still be ahead of you, an idea that will, no doubt, erase the look of concern from your wife's face.<br><br>Tom Rawls

[[old] DIESEL]

hi guys, <br><br>There are many things that could be contributing to your "stagnant" times. <br><br>- diet <br>- rest <br>- training scheme <br>- technique flaws <br>- physical limitations (i.e. key muscle/muscle groups that are weak, haven't put in enough work to take your times to that next level) <br>- overtraining <br>- outside factors (work stress, family stress) <br><br>however, I would honestly address all the issues I just listed, before you say you've hit your "genetic limit." If you had been erging for 20 years already then you'd have a point. But you've only been an erg-jockey for 8 months, so I think it's a combination of some or all of the above. <br><br>You haven't really given us enough information that we could use to zero in on what factors are holding your times up. So maybe review this list and get to thinking if you can come up with some theories. <br><br>You may also want to consider that the body goes in cycles - sometimes you'll be slow as hell for a few months, and then all of a sudden, you just blow up and your times start dropping again. <br><br>Again, way too many (frustrating) variables to know for sure. Help us out and give us more info. <br><br>peace, <br>D

[[old] Barry Delaney]

Actually its not something I'm particularly concerned about, was more curious about other's experience relative to when they came to a plateau. For me I believe its a question of being able to pay the price if I want the lower times. More a slowing of progress than anything else. TomR, most of what I do is around 1:54 and longish. Really the only time I do short distances at fast paces is for time. Don't like it much, as compared to the longer stuff where the rhythm can be very enjoyable. I like the idea of a 30 year plateau as well, and recognize I have no Dwayne K. Adams times in my future. Which is also ok, I couldn't be more thrilled that at 40 I've found a machine I like this much. Just posting this topic made me go after my 5k this morning, knocked off 1.1 seconds down to 17:54.8. Not much improvement, but hey.

[[old] Barry Delaney]

Meant to say willing to pay the price.

[[old] afolpe]

One other thing to keep in mind about plateauing- are you plateauing in everything or just the erg? I realize that a lot of people on this site use the erg as their primary exercise modality/ sport, but there are at least a few of us, I hope, who are using it as a cross training tool. So, for example, although I only have so much time to devote to improving my erg times and have therefore flattened out my improvement, the erging has done great things for my surfski and kayak times, where I feel like I'm improving all the time. Either way, I think that just getting yourself out exercising hard most days of the week is a reasonably decent accomplishment, even if the PB's don't come all that often.<br><br>Andrew