More beginner questions

[buzbee]

Hi, yet another new guy here with some questions. I've been reading this forum and now understand that pretty much everything I've been doing is wrong (damper set to 10, rate way too fast, etc.). So, my plan is to back up and focus on form and building a strong base.

What I'd particularly appreciate are some suggestions about what metrics to track. I'm a fairly data-centric guy, and find motivation in collecting and tracking metrics that show improvement. It seems to me that given my untrained beginner state, focusing on split or race times right now could be counter-productive. I could easily imagine seeing my times improve in the beginning while my form gets worse. So, perhaps I should track some other metrics for now that might better reflect improvement in stroke form and/or aerobic base. But, what would some good ones be?

Some background in case it matters: I'm 60, male, 5'11", 210 pounds with a desk job on the verge of retiring. Following a health scare 5 years ago, I've been pretty religious about hitting the gym before work 3-4 days a week. I was never, nor will ever be, an elite athlete. But, my general fitness probably isn't as bad as most aging, overweight desk jockies I see. Over the last year or so I've focused on weight training. Based on the calculators, my deadlift 1RM is around 340 pounds and my barbell squat around 240 pounds. Rotator cuff issues prevent presses.

My immediate goal is to drop 20+ pounds and build my endurance. I find the rowing machine easier on my knees than running, so I plan to make it the centerpiece of my workouts. I've used the one at the gym off and on over the last month and plan to buy one for my home. To get a feel for where I'm starting, I just did a 10K as fast as I could. It was very ugly, super painful, and my heart rate ended up going higher than I thought possible. I won't try that again until I have a solid base and proven good form.

[FWIW, today's 10K row here: https://log.concept2.com/profile/203297/log/37336264]

So, back to the question: what would be some good metrics to track when concerned primarily with form and aerobic base? What do you folks track?

Perhaps:

• hold stroke rate and 500M time constant and track average heart rate?

• hold 500M time constant and track (hopefully declining) average stroke rate?

• hold HR constant in a fixed-time session and track meters rowed?

Thanks,
...Bill

[MartinSH4321]

Hi, yet another new guy here with some questions. I've been reading this forum and now understand that pretty much everything I've been doing is wrong (damper set to 10, rate way too fast, etc.). So, my plan is to back up and focus on form and building a strong base.

What I'd particularly appreciate are some suggestions about what metrics to track. I'm a fairly data-centric guy, and find motivation in collecting and tracking metrics that show improvement. It seems to me that given my untrained beginner state, focusing on split or race times right now could be counter-productive. I could easily imagine seeing my times improve in the beginning while my form gets worse. So, perhaps I should track some other metrics for now that might better reflect improvement in stroke form and/or aerobic base. But, what would some good ones be?

Some background in case it matters: I'm 60, male, 5'11", 210 pounds with a desk job on the verge of retiring. Following a health scare 5 years ago, I've been pretty religious about hitting the gym before work 3-4 days a week. I was never, nor will ever be, an elite athlete. But, my general fitness probably isn't as bad as most aging, overweight desk jockies I see. Over the last year or so I've focused on weight training. Based on the calculators, my deadlift 1RM is around 340 pounds and my barbell squat around 240 pounds. Rotator cuff issues prevent presses.

My immediate goal is to drop 20+ pounds and build my endurance. I find the rowing machine easier on my knees than running, so I plan to make it the centerpiece of my workouts. I've used the one at the gym off and on over the last month and plan to buy one for my home. To get a feel for where I'm starting, I just did a 10K as fast as I could. It was very ugly, super painful, and my heart rate ended up going higher than I thought possible. I won't try that again until I have a solid base and proven good form.

[FWIW, today's 10K row here: https://log.concept2.com/profile/203297/log/37336264]

So, back to the question: what would be some good metrics to track when concerned primarily with form and aerobic base? What do you folks track?

Perhaps:

• hold stroke rate and 500M time constant and track average heart rate?

• hold 500M time constant and track (hopefully declining) average stroke rate?

• hold HR constant in a fixed-time session and track meters rowed?

Thanks,
...Bill

Hi Bill and welcome to the forum.
Your 10k looks pretty impressive, especially as you are a 60yo rowing beginner, congrats!
To drop weight and build up endurance long steady state sessions should work best (30-60min), mixed up with some interval trainings and harder but shorter distances (5k-30min). If your plan is to lift weights too I think 1-2 hard rowing sessions are enough, the rest long distance at UT2 level (60-70% of max heart rate) with low spm (18-22 is often said to be good). They won't feel painful and you may think "it's too easy, i can do harder", but it's best for endurance (and preventing from overtraining). There are some good explainations for UT2 in this forum for more information.
I'm a "data centric guy" too and track all workouts, for rowing I use ergdata (I don't know if you already use a tool like that). After some time you'll see improvements like this:
- dropping average heart rate (AHR) for same distances, pace/watts and spm
- faster pace/watts for same time and AHR
- when doing time trials (TT): personal bests from time to time

I hope my answer helps you, there are a lot of (more experienced) rowers here with helpful advices.

[Dangerscouse]

Hi Bill, welcome to the forum.

I think all three of those suggestions are worth using, as all three will bring different benefits. The HR capped session is good as it helps you forget about the time and wanting to go faster. It will be tough but you should do a 2k as a marker for your pace. Steady state is usually prescribed as 2k pace plus 20-25 secs. From your 10k I'm guessing this will be about 1:52-1:54 pace

Also try and understand your RPE (rate of perceived exertion); I use 1-10 but I think officially it goes up to 14. There will be lots of reasons why some days are harder than others so it's important to get lots of metres rowed so you can tell the difference.

[jamesg]

Form: Watts/Rating is the amount of work in each stroke, so is a measure of Form. 8 to 10 should be enough.

Since stroke Work is also Length x average handle Force, form is governed controlled by applying standard rowing style, as shown in the C2 technique video. This style ensures that the legs do most of the work, so injury risk is limited. Don't try to make your back do large amounts of external work, that's not what it's for.

Endurance: power level = W/kg ± 2 is enough. We can consider a nominal weight such as BMI=23, since this level lets us keep going without exhaustion, so repeat tomorrow.

Rather than just doing 10k a day, schedules such as those shown in the Interactives offer plenty of choice (total weeks, prior work, basic pace and days per week) using both progression and wave theory. If not interested in racing, the first half or so of a 26 week schedule can be repeated indefinitely, with occasional 2k tests to update power bands.
https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive

[buzbee]

Many thanks! Now I guess I just need to start collecting enough data points to find those meaningful trends.
...Bill

[David Pomerantz]

Bill,
You really piss me off. I’m 4 years younger than you, 6’1””, same weight. I’ve used the erg on and off for something over 25 years. A good solid row at age 40ish for me was probably 10K/40mins. When I did a lot of running and tennis when I was younger, I did much better on rower. For last two years I’ve exclusively rowed on the erg. My times are nothing like your 10K! I’ve been using RowPro for last year and a half, and it accomplishes the variety of workouts described above. I like it a lot. But I got to admit, I haven’t seen the improvements I was hoping for. I’ve been hoping to get a time like yours! I do sometimes wonder if I’d get in better shape just beating my brains out every row at 2:00/500 until I can hold that for >=20mins. The thing I’ve likes about RowPro is that by forcing me into the low HR workouts and providing variety, the burn out potential is really minimized. Think I’ve basically rowed every day for 1 1/2 years now and have pretty much looked forward to every session. Great job Bill. Eager to hear about your progress.

Dave

[buzbee]

Hi all, back with an update.

Things are going well - put in a lot of meters since my last message (175,000) and am enjoying the early beginner gains.

MartinSH4321: have been taking your advice to focus on long and slow sessions. Standard session now is HR-capped 60 minutes. Not entirely sure of my max HR, but from my guess I try to do these at UT2, rate 18. They do feel awfully slow, but have added 1 or 2 hard intervals (8x500 with 2 minute rest and 4x1000 with 5 minute rest) a week to mix things up.

I've tried two styles of the 60-minute UT2, rate 18 sessions. First starts off rowing moderately aggressive until the HR reaches the top end of UT2, and then I back off on the stroke force to keep it in the band while maintaining rate 18. I've found these a little difficult to manage because I seem to flail around chasing the HR number. The other style I've tried lately is to just take the average pace from the first style of UT2 session and just do the entire row at that pace and rate without worrying about HR. For those the focus is on consistency, but I think I do push into UT1 for the last portion. Is that a bad thing?

Dangerscouse: I can see the benefit of understanding perceived exertion. I'm getting better at predicting my HR. Another marker of exertion that I've noticed on my long rows is the occasional need to take a 2nd breath on a stroke. That seems to correlate with approaching the middle of UT1.

I'll confess I've been a bit hesitant to try a proper 2K time trial. I foresee a lot of pain there and am getting really skilled at making up excuses to put it off.

However, today I did have a session that I'll count as a time trial. I'd planned on doing a hard (AT/TR) 5K, but wasn't sure how to pace it. Per jamesg's suggestion, I've also been trying to get a consistent stroke power of 8+, so I thought I'd start at just under a 2-minute split which I think would mean a rate of 25/26. The first 1000 meters at 1:59.4 felt a little easy, so I started ramping up the pace. From there, it went 158.3, 157.6, 155.8 and 152.5. Ended up at 19:27.3, average pace 156.7, rate 27 and SPI 8.15 and I'm pretty sure I could have done it a fair amount faster.

Pretty happy with that. I chose not to sprint at the end because my focus was consistent solid strokes. Also, that gives me confidence that when I choose to go for a new 5K PR I will succeed. Here's the graph: https://log.concept2.com/profile/203297/log/37750671

jamesg: Thanks for the suggestion to work on stroke power. I'm beginning to see the value of having a solid stroke and using rate to adjust pace. I've got quite a ways to go, though, on the fitness scale before I can fully do that. For my long r18, UT2 rows, my strokes are well below 8. If I try to pull harder or rate up, I quickly move into UT1.

I'm planning to take on a formal training plan in early May - either the interactive or one of the Pete plans. My happy news is that I'm officially retiring in three weeks, and a shiny new Concept2 Model D arrives on Monday. I figure that I need to do something to keep me busy in retirement, or else my lovely bride will assign me some tasks of her own choosing .

David: For what it's worth, although I consider myself a beginning rower I have done some erg work in my past. Roughly 25 years ago, I bought a Model C to supplement running. As a bachelor, I kept it in my living room. When then-girlfriend moved in, the Model C got stored upright in the corner. When girlfriend became wife, it moved to a spare bedroom. After baby #1, it moved to a storage room. Baby #2 bumped it to the garage, where it largely gathered dust. Got rid of it 10 years ago. Interestingly, my old online logbook from 2005/2006 was still around and I managed to find the password.

Kids have all since grown up and moved away, so I get to claim a spare bedroom again (at least until guests come for a visit..).

Anyway, continuing thanks for the suggestions and advice.

[Dangerscouse]

Good to hear you're making progress.

A 2k TT will be horrific but they are important to do. Make sure to keep doing a variety of distances and rates so as not to get too rusty at longer, slower distances or faster, harder sessions. They all serve a purpose and need constant attention, not only in terms of fitness but for confidence too.

Have fun with the new erg