Beginner's Spi

[old] KMurphy · Post by **[old] KMurphy** » October 12th, 2004, 12:01 am

Hello everyone. I've still just getting started with indoor rowing (only 2+ weeks so far) and thanks to everyone's help I'm off to a lot better start than I otherwise would be. My 2k is at 7.37.7 so far. Today I did an 8K interval session where I did my best SPI for 500m and then did recovery rowing for 500m at around 21 spm 110DF and strapless. The highest SPI I could generate for 500m was 10.3. If you look at single pulls I could generate only 11 SPI. Even strapping in and changing the DF higher I am not really getting any strokes more powerful then that 11 SPI. Endurance wise my best continuous row so far (SPI wise) has been 35' at about 8 SPI at 19 spm. What I'm wanting to know is it more likely that I"m at about the SPI good form would indicate for a beginner or is it likely I'm still not getting the leg drive down right. At no time has my legs really felt any 'burn' like in weight lifting or been sore the next day. On the other hand I have been sore a couple times early in the traps (bad form) that I've fixed and in the back muscles between shoulder blade area (not lower back). As a crude strength measurements. 106 KG bench press 158 KG deadlift 90 KG (10 reps) squats My training thoughts are to work on technique and endurance (60') at lower 20-24 spm and work on improving SPI over time. I figure it would be pointless to work bad form at even higher rates. Kenneth Murphy 32M 6'5" 111KG 2K 7.37.7

[old] travisshue · Post by **[old] travisshue** » October 12th, 2004, 2:43 am

I new to rowing too(3 weeks) and by no means an expert, but Id say you ought to be able to get higher SPI than 11SPI. The best Ive done is 17SPI. Im 32 kilos smaller than you so the only thing I can conclude is that your just not throwing enough oomph. Your using low deflection so the beginning of the leg drive has to be an absolute explosion. Try to generate force at the beggining of the drive just like you would explode on the second pull of a clean. 24M 79.5Kilo 165KG Deadlift 100KG BenchPress 100KG Olympic Squat

[old] jamesg · Post by **[old] jamesg** » October 12th, 2004, 2:56 am

You said it all, technique and endurance, 60' @ 20-24. Not bad as a daily regime for the next 60 years to keep fit and control weight. There's no hurry, indeed better not, we're not just muscle. "Burn" has nothing to do with CV work and the no-pain-no-gain days are long forgotten. Since when was messing about in boats supposed to be painful? There's no market for pain for lack of buyers, so why bother having any to sell? From your numbers it seems you did the 2k at a Watt/rating ratio of 8. Suggest you stick to this ratio for now, at the lower ratings: 20-160W, 24-190W. It'll adjust on it's own (your stroke will get longer and harder) and you'll be surprised at what you can do a year from now. You'll easily be able to reach my ratios. I pull around 60% of my height (catch to release) and 60% of my weight at 27 in a 2k test. At these ratios and 30 rating, your 2k time will be around 6:50. This considering a BMI of 24-25 (90-95kg).

[old] tomhz · Post by **[old] tomhz** » October 12th, 2004, 6:56 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (jamesg @ Oct 12 2004, 06:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I pull around 60% of my height (catch to release) and 60% of my weight at 27 in a 2k test.  </td></tr></table> James, I agree with you. Technique makes a big difference. The above quote from your post hits a nail: SPI is exactly that: "FORCE"x"DRIVE LENGTH" When you draw a graph of SPI against time of a time trial (using Rowpro or ErgMonitor), it nicely corresponds (better than just pace vs. time) with the "feeling" during the race. Maybe a strong finish, or just fading to the end. Very instructive. Tom

[old] Mike McGuirk · Post by **[old] Mike McGuirk** » October 13th, 2004, 11:36 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (tomhz @ Oct 12 2004, 06:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>When you draw a graph of SPI against time of a time trial (using Rowpro or ErgMonitor), it nicely corresponds (better than just pace vs. time) with the "feeling" during the race. Maybe a strong finish, or just fading to the end. Very instructive.  </td></tr></table> Tom, Interesting idea to plot SPI vs. Time. How do you do that in the two programs you mentioned or do you first export data to Excel and plot it there? MM

[old] Mike Niezgoda · Post by **[old] Mike Niezgoda** » October 13th, 2004, 10:27 pm

Mike, There is a view in ErgMonitor that can plot SPI (and other metrics) over the workout segment instead of just stroke by stroke. It doesn't come up by default, but you can get to it by using the View->Metrics Plot. You can arrange the windows so you can see it real-time while rowing, or you can view it after your workout for analysis. - Mike Niezgoda

[old] tomhz · Post by **[old] tomhz** » October 14th, 2004, 6:13 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Mike McGuirk @ Oct 13 2004, 03:36 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> [Tom, Interesting idea to plot SPI vs. Time. How do you do that in the two programs you mentioned or do you first export data to Excel and plot it there? MM  </td></tr></table> Mike is right about Ergmonitor. He should know. He created it. About rowpro. Indeed, I export from the database and convert to CSV (with row2csv.exe) and produce a graph in Excel. Tom

[old] Mike McGuirk · Post by **[old] Mike McGuirk** » October 14th, 2004, 9:30 am

Got it - thank you Mike and Tom. MM P.S. Tom, your row2csv is working great last two workouts - no errors. Slick! Going to D/L RP 1.7 today. Hope it has native 'export to Excel ' support. I can dream, can't I? P.P.S. Mike, if EM had HR capability, you guys would get the Gold!

[old] Daren C · Post by **[old] Daren C** » October 14th, 2004, 2:13 pm

RowPro 1.7 does indeed have a native CSV export. You will get something like this: </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>CODE </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'> Date,TotalTime,TotalDistance,AvgPace,Unit,Origin,TotalCals,DutyCycle,Type,Format,Slide,Session_Id,Rowfile_Id,Offset 13/10/2004 17:43:39,439200,2000,0.2196,1,1,148,33,6,"2,000 meters",False,0,,1 Offset,Session_Id Time,Distance,Pace,Watts,Cals,SPM,HR,DutyCycle,Rowfile_Id 604,3,0.3122734,91.95029,0.2484431,59,0,0.4, 2504,11,0.2344166,217.3666,0.7768982,31,0,0.4, 4403,20,0.2244415,247.656,1.471526,31,0,0.4, 6407,29,0.2212735,258.446,2.124295,30,0,0.4, 8399,38,0.2247839,246.5258,2.782064,30,0,0.4, 10403,47,0.2245622,247.2566,3.434901,30,0,0.4, [...] (stroke data) Type,Time,Distance,AvgPace,AvgWatts,Cals,SPM,EndHR,Rowfile_Id 3,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, 2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, 1,22900,100,0.229,233.1587,7.012736,29,0, 1,45000,200,0.221,259.4067,7.322308,30,0, 1,67200,300,0.222,255.917,7.281377,30,0, 1,89500,400,0.223,252.4896,7.241108,30,0, [...] (split data)  </td></tr></table>

[old] Mike McGuirk · Post by **[old] Mike McGuirk** » October 14th, 2004, 2:44 pm

I saw that Daren and got all excited - only to discover that the export has no HR data, which is very important to me. So hopefully row2csv will still work on the 1.7 .row files. It appears that RP 'export to CSV' writes the 'someone else' export file, which has no HR instead of the more complete 'myself@home' file. MM

[old] Daren C · Post by **[old] Daren C** » October 14th, 2004, 3:02 pm

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Mike McGuirk @ Oct 14 2004, 07:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> I saw that Daren and got all excited - only to discover that the export has no HR data, which is very important to me. So hopefully row2csv will still work on the 1.7 .row files. It appears that RP 'export to CSV' writes the 'someone else' export file, which has no HR instead of the more complete 'myself@home' file. MM  </td></tr></table> Do you mean in my excerpt above? I wasn't wearing an HR monitor for that piece. There's a column for the data, and it's present in .row files, so I see no reason why it wouldn't be present. I rowed another 2k today, wearing my HRM, so I'll export that to CSV and check for you.

[old] Daren C · Post by **[old] Daren C** » October 14th, 2004, 3:12 pm

Sadly, it looks like you're correct, and the HR data isn't stored in the CSV export. That's a ridiculous oversight. row2csv should still work, since my PHP log parser still works on the 1.7 files. I had hoped it would be redundant now, but it seems not.

[old] tomhz · Post by **[old] tomhz** » October 15th, 2004, 7:03 am

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td class='genmed'>QUOTE (Daren C @ Oct 14 2004, 07:12 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> Sadly, it looks like you're correct, and the HR data isn't stored in the CSV export. That's a ridiculous oversight.  </td></tr></table> Hmmm....

[old] KMurphy · Post by **[old] KMurphy** » October 15th, 2004, 12:25 pm

Hehe, Back on to the original topic. None of you have mentioned how your SPI has changed over your rowing career. I can easily see how you can have improved what SPI you can maintain for a long distance, but can you give some examples of how your max SPI has developed over your rowing careers? For example. I can only manage about 11-12 SPI max currently for even just 10 pulls. Would I expect to be at say 13-14 in a year? Then 15-16 in two years from now? Is it like VO2Max where it platues fairly early and not much you can do to improve it? Thoughts welcome. KMurphy 6'5" 110kg rower lacking in power.

[old] jamesg · Post by **[old] jamesg** » October 15th, 2004, 4:44 pm

I've always done 2k at 27, so I can estimate the numbers quite easily. The first 2k was about 8:10, 3 years ago, or 190 W index 7. I reached 7:10, index 10.4 after a year. Latest was a few days ago, 7:21 or index 9.7 Wmin/stroke. There's a limit to SPI improvement: it's the product of force x length. Length (catch to release) is improved by technique and flexibility but it's unlikely to be more than 66% of your height. Even Olympic oarsmen probably don't pull at a force of more than 75% of their weight in a 2k, but they do it at maybe 40. Obviously implying plenty of cv capacity. Getting that is easier said than done: right age, 3-4 years of hard work and careful choice of parents. So keep at it, you can only control the hard work bit. Something's bound to happen. Pull long and hard and you can't go far wrong.

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