first time posting - still trying to figure things out

[jackarabit]

Here’s the pace and power summary of John’s exemplary sub-3hr. FM:



Take a glance at average power. Divide power by John’s stated av. rate of 29/30 spm:

173/29=Stroke power index of 5.96 (round to 6.0)

173/30=spi of 5.76 (round to 5.8)

If the OP does John’s time with John’s average rate, he’ll need to improve his current stroke worth 4.4W to produce John’s 6W stroke. So, should he train his stroke power at 28-30 spm or at much lower rates from 18 to 22 spm? 18-22 is the conventional answer.

Why?

1) Places limits on physiological stress and encourages faster recovery and more training sessions. (Think high amplitude efforts performed at low frequency.)

2) Encourages the rower to concentrate on execution of a productive stroke rather than on maintenance of an ill-considered thrash.

Stroke power is the multiplicand and rate the multiplier. First order of business of training is to produce a powerful stroke. Maintaining base power at higher rates comes second. One may of course race any way one wishes.

[gooseflight]

Don't try to take the bike analogy too far. It falls over fairly quickly.

On a bike there is a direct relationship between speed, cadence and gear size. This doesn't apply on the rower. On the rower you can row at any pace [speed] at any stroke rate [cadence] at any drag factor (DF) [not a gear].

The rower [ergometer] measures work and converts it to pace. ~300W is 1:45 pace/split. You can pull 1:45 at 22 spm on DF 120. You can pull 1:45 at 30 spm on DF180. It's the same amount of work.

On the mechanics of the stroke: no pause at the catch or at backstops. The action is continuous. No need for straps to get back up the slide. If there were, strapless rowing would be impossible. Just go through the phases: hands away, rock your torso over your hips and finally bend the knees. You arrive back at the catch quite naturally. You can only really control stroke rate on the recovery. Drive time doesn't vary that much.

[dailob]

Regarding the handle pulling you back to the catch position: That will probably not happen.

What should happen when you row strapless is:

• You start by making a firm drive with your legs, and then continue by bending a bit backwards in the hip.

• Now your whole body is travelling backwards on the rail. You have spent quite a lot of energy on accelerating your body to that velocity.

• If you now start braking by pulling with your feet, all that energy is just wasted.

• If you instead start braking by pulling with your arms, the braking force will go into the handle where it will count.

• When you reach the end of the drive, the seat should be at rest.

• And since the rail is sloped, you can just sit and wait for gravity to do its work so you end up in the catch position again.

One of the important parts of this exercise is the timing of your arms. You will need the entire movement range of your arms to brake your body. So if you have started bending your arms too early, you will not have enough arm movement left for braking, and you will end up on the floor behind the rower.

thank you very much for this!

my rowing technique pretty much consisted of:

• explode with the legs, back at 1 o'clock position,

• when legs are almost at full lockout, pull with back

• when back is almost at 11 o'clock pull with arms

• thrust arms forward

• bend hips

• and finally bend legs using the straps to pull foward

couple of nuance questions:

the only time my arms are in lockout position is at the catch?
are my legs ever in lockout position at the end of the drive?

Don't try to take the bike analogy too far. It falls over fairly quickly.

On a bike there is a direct relationship between speed, cadence and gear size. This doesn't apply on the rower. On the rower you can row at any pace [speed] at any stroke rate [cadence] at any drag factor (DF) [not a gear].

The rower [ergometer] measures work and converts it to pace. ~300W is 1:45 pace/split. You can pull 1:45 at 22 spm on DF 120. You can pull 1:45 at 30 spm on DF180. It's the same amount of work.

On the mechanics of the stroke: no pause at the catch or at backstops. The action is continuous. No need for straps to get back up the slide. If there were, strapless rowing would be impossible. Just go through the phases: hands away, rock your torso over your hips and finally bend the knees. You arrive back at the catch quite naturally. You can only really control stroke rate on the recovery. Drive time doesn't vary that much.

due to my inexperience, the only metaphor i could think of when i first pulled on a damper setting of 1 vs. a 10 was a bike and it's gears.

i didnt even know that strapless rowing was a thing... TIL

Here’s the pace and power summary of John’s exemplary sub-3hr. FM:

Take a glance at average power. Divide power by John’s stated av. rate of 29/30 spm:

173/29=Stroke power index of 5.96 (round to 6.0)

173/30=spi of 5.76 (round to 5.8)

If the OP does John’s time with John’s average rate, he’ll need to improve his current stroke worth 4.4W to produce John’s 6W stroke. So, should he train his stroke power at 28-30 spm or at much lower rates from 18 to 22 spm? 18-22 is the conventional answer.

Why?

1) Places limits on physiological stress and encourages faster recovery and more training sessions. (Think high amplitude efforts performed at low frequency.)

2) Encourages the rower to concentrate on execution of a productive stroke rather than on maintenance of an ill-considered thrash.

Stroke power is the multiplicand and rate the multiplier. First order of business of training is to produce a powerful stroke. Maintaining base power at higher rates comes second. One may of course race any way one wishes.

maybe it's me but your post in a way contradicts what the below posters have said?

Using an optimal stroke rate is very important for any race, especially a marathon.
I would not use a slow rating, but instead of that just use the rating that feels easiest and most comfortable.
Plus, for a marathon, a slow rate and/or high drag would burn your energy quickly, and a higher rating would help you conserve.

My first marathon, at age 56 and 143 pounds was 2:58, with a drag factor of 77, and 29 to 30 spm.

I agree with John, a high rated FM isn't an issue if that feels comfortable. There's no 'one size fits all' in rowing and I have tried all sorts of speeds, drags and rates, it's too subjective to be prescriptive.

using numbers is a quantitative measure that can be easily compared to efficiency and power so to place some weight on the feels of comfort may produce quantitative numbers that do not seem efficient and powerful... obviously i could be wrong since i didnt do any math using John's numbers





is it possible to have a /500m time of 2:10 or below with a high s/m? that was my original mindset which after a few 5k sessions, i couldn't figure out why some low 20 s/m had a faster /500m lol i guess after looking at John's information provided by Jackrabbit... i guess the answer is yes?

for what it's worth, in addition to the numbers in my signature, i also go to the gym and perform powerlifting movements, bodybuilding style workouts, and started dabbing in weightlifting... not sure how much that information helps but it looks like it's mainly my technique that i need to refine.

i really appreciate the responses, and thank you all for being patience with my millions of questions!

[Allan Olesen]

Regarding lockout
I am unfamiliar with this expression. You mean fully stretched?
If yes, your arms should be fully stretched for the first part of the drive and the last part of the recovery. Not just at the catch.
I stretch my legs fully during the drive.

Regarding stroke rate
The apparently contradictory statements may not be contradictory after all. It is important to discern between what you do at training effort and what you do at race effort.

When you are racing, you use the combination of stroke rate and energy per stroke which gives you the highest power output for the duration of the race. Power = stroke rate * stroke energy.

For example, if you race at 320 Watt at a stroke rate of 32 strokes per minute, your stroke energy is 320/32 = 10 WattMinutes per stroke.

When you are training, you will much of the time train below race effort. So the question now becomes:
Should I reduce my power by reducing stroke rate or by reducing stroke energy?

There is a pretty broad consensus that the answer to that question is: Reduce your stroke rate.

If you maintain stroke rate and reduce your stroke energy, you may end up with a sloppy stroke.

This consensus even seems to be shared by those who doesn't consider stroke energy. If you look into Mike Caviston's Wolverine plan, it doesn't mention stroke energy. It doesn't even mention power. His L4 workouts are all about recommended combinations of pace and stroke rate. According to Mike Cavistion himself, these combinations were not found by calculation. They were found by testing what felt right. However, if you do the calculations on these combinations of pace and stroke rate, you will see that they result in an almost constant stroke energy across the different stroke rates. And this stroke energy is approximately the stroke energy that you would use for a 2k race at 32 SPM at max. effort.

[hjs]

Man, guys you are making it tough of the guy

Re stroke, there is a drive and a recovery both have no direct relation. Thats why can go fast or slow on any spm and or drag. As long as you put enough energy in the chain.
Spm is mostly recovery, can be done easy, gives a slow spm, of fast, high spm.

Re high rate, low rate training. The longer the distance you focus on, the less low rate work is needed. Rowing is mostly for otw 2k work. For that you need a certain stroke and technique and drag. Erging in itself does not have to be that way.

[jackarabit]

Training power in the stroke is synonymous with training the efficient activation of the body levers to perform a specific task called indoor rowing. So, “Yes, absolutely!” is the only possible response to the OP’s observation that his major problem is deficiency of technique.

[mitchel674]

Training power in the stroke is synonymous with training the efficient activation of the body levers to perform a specific task called indoor rowing. So, “Yes, absolutely!” is the only possible response to the OP’s observation that his major problem is deficiency of technique.

Agreed. This 32 year old male marathon runner at 200lbs is only producing an average of 120 watts. There has to be something wrong with his stroke technique. Very simple.

I'm a 54 year old 165lb weakling and I produce 150 watts on 5000m warm up rows.

[gooseflight]

is it possible to have a /500m time of 2:10 or below with a high s/m? that was my original mindset which after a few 5k sessions, i couldn't figure out why some low 20 s/m had a faster /500m lol i guess after looking at John's information provided by Jackrabbit... i guess the answer is yes?

Sure. As above, subject to a few provisos, you can row any pace/split at any stroke rate. No one, however, would advocate pulling 1:40 at 18 spm or 2:15 at 30 spm. A select few have probably done the former(?) and many, in error, the latter.

[jamesg]

is it possible to have a /500m time of 2:10 or below with a high s/m

Yes. 2:10 is 160 Watt. Power = K x Net stroke length x Average handle force x Rating, where K is g/60 or 0.1635

With a 1 meter net stroke and say 30 kg average pull (or 0.8m and 38 kg), you'd have to rate 160/(K*1*30) = 33.

So keep at it, trying to improve your stroke, both length and force.

[Ombrax]

is it possible to have a /500m time of 2:10 or below with a high s/m?

Absolutely.

Don't over-think the stroke rate. Keep it somewhere around 20-24 for most of your rowing, maybe a bit higher if you want to sprint at the end of a workout. Aside: Don't forget, the equation for HP of an engine is HP = a constant x Torque x RPM. Think of stroke rate as RPM. The higher the frequency of the application of the force (or moment) the more power you can put in. Same thing on the rower. However, you really don't want to rely only on high (say, 30 spm) stroke rates to generate your power. It's better to develop a powerful drive at a lower stroke rate.

Regarding rowing strapless, if you can't do it without flying off the back of the erg there's a problem with your technique, which you should work on improving. It's a sign that you're wasting energy that you should be putting into the handle (and thus the flywheel) not the straps. Straps are great when you're giving it 110% in a race, but other than that, aren't a critical part of the machine.

Good Luck

[sdr2017]

my rowing technique pretty much consisted of:

• explode with the legs, back at 1 o'clock position,

• when legs are almost at full lockout, pull with back

• when back is almost at 11 o'clock pull with arms

• thrust arms forward

• bend hips

• and finally bend legs using the straps to pull foward

c

You should be able to row strapless. If you are throwing yourself off the back of the rower (without straps) that is all wasted energy.

In the sequence you describe, I do not find myself "exploding with my legs". Rather, from the catch I straiten my legs, then open up my back and finally pull sharply with my hands. The entire movement is focused on pulling the handle back smoothly and quickly to the end of the stroke.

Let me suggest something to watch for. The exploding legs thing worries me. What happens to your arms and back during this motion? The handle should move just as far as your hips do with this first part of the stroke. If it does not, you might end up stretched over your legs a bit, which would mean you are not delivering the thrust to the handle. (A video would be great!). I try to stiffen my shoulders, let my arms hang relaxed, and then thrust with my legs to start the stroke. The entree stroke should be one smooth motion.

Good luck with your rowing. With your size and endurance you should be turning out fast times soon.