2K test and exercse induced asthma

[ampire]

Another 10k this morning, 5x2k at 160-164bpm, and absolute no constriction, no inhaler. I'll take that over better time any day. I'm not sure what's finding how close I can get to the limit, or what's improving. I know I'm improving a bit because the times are creeping down and the recovery is getting shorter (too short sometimes. I usually make 120bpm my recovery point - if I'm going at 150-160bpm then recovery is around 1:30-1:45 now, but if I hit 180 it goes up to 4m or so. But I'd still expect constriction to occur at similar heart rate numbers, regardless of conditioning level (with the same HR corresponding to more work/better times as conditioning improves.)

Nice work. Just keep at it! Don't be tempted to over pace yourself, just let the progress come gradually.

[nates]

Yeah, that's why the watts jumps around on the log thread. Ohh I'm pushing 2:30, oh wait HR creeping up past 164. Watching the watts seems to be the quickest responding / smoothest control parameter. HR lags a bit and leads to some hysteresis, pace tempts me to compete with the internet and will take you out of the zone if you're HR capped. I was rowing alongside someone else this morning, and he had the damper cranked and was thrashing the machine to death, probably 35-40 s/m, but our times were almost identical (and I'd have beat him if I hadn't had that heart rate cap).

[ampire]

Yeah, that's why the watts jumps around on the log thread. Ohh I'm pushing 2:30, oh wait HR creeping up past 164. Watching the watts seems to be the quickest responding / smoothest control parameter. HR lags a bit and leads to some hysteresis, pace tempts me to compete with the internet and will take you out of the zone if you're HR capped. I was rowing alongside someone else this morning, and he had the damper cranked and was thrashing the machine to death, probably 35-40 s/m, but our times were almost identical (and I'd have beat him if I hadn't had that heart rate cap).

I think as we get more used to doing steady state sessions we will have an idea of what pace for what time constitutes what heart rate average. I am finding 2:08 pace gives me an average of ~155BPM for 30 minutes, which seems like a decent training session, but that then when stretched to 60 minutes, I creep to average ~165BPM which is far too high for my goal. I am reluctant to reduce pace to stay under 160 BPM so I am going to use a pace that keeps the session average in the zone I desire. I am going to need to get more disciplined with my pacing.
A more conservative hour long session today at a pace of 2:13 average resulted in average 142BPM and I don't observe much creep, it reaches 140 and stays there for 60Mins.
So for now, I'll probably stick with 2:13 for my steady state pace. I'll leave the bravado for the HIIT day (Saturday) when I will try for 8x1:45/500/2r. Not sure what DF to use for the HIIT, I do the steady state at only 95. For my 2K, I used 125, but I have gotten used to the lower DF in the month since.

[nates]

Intervals today. 15x1:00/vr(120bpm). After a while I started using 125bpm for the recovery point, as I'd reach 125bpm in < 2min, but 120 could take 3-4 min. I wasn't seeing as high a peak HR as my 45s intervals and was just hitting the wall more. No wheezing though, even though I topped out at 180bpm. I tend to top out at the end of the interval, so that's only a few seconds at those peak rates. Pulling around 220w for the interval topping out at 180bpm.

[nates]

We all have our limits, and rowing is a good way of finding them,

I am totally stealing this!

[nates]

Last thursday I rowed my 5x2k in 50:11.3, avg HR 165. Today I rowed it in 48:05.9, avg HR 166. I was getting some light wheezing though even when the HR and perceived exertion really wasn't that bad. (I did have some crud last week - perhaps that's why.)
But shaving two whole minutes off at the same HR is super exciting! It wasn't just trying harder - it's real improvement!

I might need to get checked out at the doctor though... this weekend I noticed a bump growing on either side of my shoulders. They're oddly symmetric. Plenty of rowers in a lot better shape than I am have them too though, so it's probably nothing horrible.

[ampire]

Last thursday I rowed my 5x2k in 50:11.3, avg HR 165. Today I rowed it in 48:05.9, avg HR 166. I was getting some light wheezing though even when the HR and perceived exertion really wasn't that bad. (I did have some crud last week - perhaps that's why.)
But shaving two whole minutes off at the same HR is super exciting! It wasn't just trying harder - it's real improvement!

I might need to get checked out at the doctor though... this weekend I noticed a bump growing on either side of my shoulders. They're oddly symmetric. Plenty of rowers in a lot better shape than I am have them too though, so it's probably nothing horrible.

Nice gains, it comes fast at first. You will probably improve quite a bit more too.

[ampire]

New rower here - got started in earnest mid January. Old PB for 2k was 9:29. It was HR capped (160) but this morning wasn't really but a few beats over that - 8:48! Made up for wasting most of the workout time fiddling with ErgIQ and trying to get it to work.

Nice! 8:00 should come soon!

Great - but I must say I'm disappointed that I was really expecting increased fitness to mean that I could do more work with the same effort. Instead it just seems like I'm able to do more effort. But it sucks a lot harder when you do it. The units of suck per watt haven't really changed.

When you talk about unit of suck per watt and being able to do more effort versus doing more work with the same effort, it sounds to me that your anaerobic fitness has greatly improved but your aerobic fitness hasn't improved as much as you expected.

Training excessively in a moderate intensity too frequently can be a trap that leads to diminishing returns. Some call it the "black hole of aerobic fitness". The current popular training model is Seiler's polarized model, 80% low intensity steady state that is below the aerobic threshold, and the remainder 20% high intensity interval training. Training around 165 BPM might be training with too much intensity.

Unfortunately, building aerobic capacity takes a long time. It may take longer to start pushing impressive splits, but doing steady state gradually increases your aerobic fitness level to decrease the amount of suck.

With an 8:45 2K time, you might find the ideal steady state pace to be something like ~2:45/500 and that would probably put you in a good heart rate, but you'd have to try it to find out. If your max heart rate is 187, you'd want to be at <135 BPM. UT2 is supposed to be 50-70% MHR.

As an example, I have been doing a 5 day schedule, which includes 4 days of steady state and 1 day of intervals. The steady state pace I am using is generally something like ~2:08 to 2:20, depending on the duration (2:08 for a single 30 min, or 2:20 for 1 hr 15min), which is much slower than my 2k (1:46) or 5K (1:53) pace, but doing it much faster than that generates a heart rate over 160 that indicates I am in that counterproductive zone. I have been targeting more like a <140 BPM heart rate, as my max heart rate is ~192. Training at this lower intensity gives me some reserve to really push it harder on the interval day, whereas if I trained at 160+ BPM all the time I'd be too burned out to push the interval day truly hard.

These two were helpful for me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Rowing/wiki/steady_state (the heart rate guidance is higher because it is for younger athletes)
https://www.peakendurancesport.com/endu ... ity-wrong/

[nates]

The thing is 150 is almost "ho hum are we there yet?" I try to keep the max HR sessions to two days a week, and one of those on Friday (since I generally don't work out on Sat/Sun). I eventually will tire. I'll try keeping steady state days to 140 for a while. Although right now this is as much about burning off cheeseburgers as improving, the goal of the intervals has been to increase the volume of cheeseburgers/hr on steady state days.

Also - week after next, wife/kid are out of town - I was really hoping to be able to crank out some volume that week, and for that I'll definitely try to keep the HR down to keep from having to take a few days off.

[ampire]

The thing is 150 is almost "ho hum are we there yet?" I try to keep the max HR sessions to two days a week, and one of those on Friday (since I generally don't work out on Sat/Sun). I eventually will tire. I'll try keeping steady state days to 140 for a while. Although right now this is as much about burning off cheeseburgers as improving, the goal of the intervals has been to increase the volume of cheeseburgers/hr on steady state days.

Also - week after next, wife/kid are out of town - I was really hoping to be able to crank out some volume that week, and for that I'll definitely try to keep the HR down to keep from having to take a few days off.

Ya I hear that its very boring and it doesn't feel like much is being accomplished. But aerobic steady state uses body fat via fat oxidation as the energy source, so it may be more effective for cheeseburger/hr.

[nates]

I take back the boring bit. Treadmill tonight. 1hr walking keeping it at or under 130bpm. 2x30min with a break to go refill, grab something to watch.

Trying to fill in low intensity aerobic on the treadmill cause 1) it's different (both mentally and wear/use/injury mechanism), and 2) my treadmill might be old and crude but it's not nearly as much of a letdown as my rower. Especially with an external HRM.

Interestingly enough, yesterday's RHR was 59 (it varies quite a bit. Last week I was sick and it was creeping up into the 70's. Also after two days off it begins to creeps up until the day after the next HIIT session when it resets.) But 70% HRH method is 149.

I will say that 130 walking felt more or less like 150 rowing.

[ampire]

When I started really pushing hard on the hard days, I start to really need the easy days. Still not feeling recovered from doing a max effort 5K earlier this week so I did an hour R23 at 2:25 / 130 BPM today. Slower than usual for that heart rate but I want to do active recovery.
I've read that the average rec athlete trains too hard on the easy days and too easy on the hard days so I've been trying to reverse that.

[nates]

With an 8:45 2K time, you might find the ideal steady state pace to be something like ~2:45/500 and that would probably put you in a good heart rate, but you'd have to try it to find out. If your max heart rate is 187, you'd want to be at <135 BPM. UT2 is supposed to be 50-70% MHR.

Pretty spot on: This morning's 1 hr (nearly) continuous row:
HR: 132 (avg)
Pace: 2:44

And I may just have to say screw the aerobic training. It doesn't provide the post-workout bump, but now I'm still tired and sleepy from waking up at 4:50. I might have to return to 150-160 bpm rows in the morning and save the 130bpm slogs for the treadmill in the evening.

[ampire]

With an 8:45 2K time, you might find the ideal steady state pace to be something like ~2:45/500 and that would probably put you in a good heart rate, but you'd have to try it to find out. If your max heart rate is 187, you'd want to be at <135 BPM. UT2 is supposed to be 50-70% MHR.

Pretty spot on: This morning's 1 hr (nearly) continuous row:
HR: 132 (avg)
Pace: 2:44

And I may just have to say screw the aerobic training. It doesn't provide the post-workout bump, but now I'm still tired and sleepy from waking up at 4:50. I might have to return to 150-160 bpm rows in the morning and save the 130bpm slogs for the treadmill in the evening.

Yeah I got the pace by looking at this lactate band spreadsheet http://www.machars.net/ltb.xls, not sure origin of it, I think its a Dr. Hagerman creation. Either way the the UT2 suggested pace for 8:45 2K is 2:45. I have found it to be very accurate at correlating my 500, 2K, 5K, etc.
If you like the 160 BPM rows stick with them, you will probably continue to get good gains and its what you enjoy and that makes a big difference