Training Question

[rufiedog]

Hi All

I've been rowing for 1 year. I was active before I started but never committed to improving my 2K time. I am 59 years old. My goal is a faster 2K Most my focus throughout the last year of training has been L4 intervals, squats, and deadlifts. Everything else seems to be recovery Typical week has looked like this

Day 1 6x500R3:00, or 4x750R3:30 and sometimes 3x1000R4:00. I start out with something I know I can do and slowly build up to a new PR throughout the course of 4-5 weeks, then back off and start over again. Typical L4 session progresses like this :
4x500R3:30
4x583R3:30
4X666R3:30
4X750R3:30
pace stays the same throughout

Day 2 and 3 are UT2 sessions (no more than 70% max. HR)

Day 4 is a weight lifting session consisting of mostly compound lifts (squat, dead. pull up, bench press) Most are 2x15 reps

Day 5 is another UT2 session

Day 6 either UT2 or another L4 if recovered

Day 7 is another UT2 session

This has worked well over the course of a year as I've lowered my average split on L4 intervals about 5 seconds, and continue to get stronger on my lifts. I can feel the progress starting to come to an end though.

Here is my question

My L4 sessions require 2 days of recovery ( hence UT2 the following 2 days) and most the time require 1-2 days recovery after a weight session. Somewhat polarized. lots of hard stuff and lots of recovery with nothing in-between Would it be beneficial to figure out a way to get in some UT1? Having L4 and weight lifting session as focus makes it hard to get in UT1 sessions do to fatigue. I like the goal of improving L4 sessions and weight lifting because they are progressive and fun but also require a lot of fast twitch fibers which are lost with age if not maintained

Any comments would be appreciated. So nice to hear other people opinions

[hjs]

Won’t comment on the training, without numbers there is not much to say. But if you are improving and like what you are doing, why change?

Re L4, don’t know where you got this term from, but if its from the wolverine plan, you are not doing L4, but L1. L4 would be low rate work, with rate changes, based on your 2k pace. L1 shorter speed work, L2 longer intervals, L3 longer free rate continues work.

[rufiedog]

YES Should be L1 NOT L4

Thanks for pointing that out!

[hjs]

YES Should be L1 NOT L4

Thanks for pointing that out!

was just wondering where it came from. Easy mistake to make. could have made it myself.

Re it being hard, yes it is. Also the combi speedtraining/weights is not easy. And also being a 50 er, age is also not helping.

Maybe a tip. You could during the year, focus a certain aspect. Say in 6 week blocks.
At times you could focus on strenght/weights. This does not go well with speedwork.
Other side, peaking for a 2k test/race does not go well with hard weights.
So yes, keep doing everything, but per block focus on a certain aspect. While “maintaining” the rest.

[mitchel674]

You do a lot of UT2 sessions each week. Are these long steady state rows? How many meters are you putting in for each of these and total each week?

I ask because if you are doing a large volume of UT2 work and just one day of intervals, perhaps you are not allowing yourself enough rest. If 5-6 of these UT2 rows are 10k or longer, would you consider doing just 4 of those and adding a hard row at a shorter distance like 5k at UT1? That seems like what your current plan is missing.

[mromero680]

I agree with HJS. Periodization is the only thing that made me row for 12 months straight this year. Every other year I went as hard as I could for as long as I could until I blew and then I switched to the bike for six months. I finally decided to plan my year in training blocks with different focus in each block and different priorities. Made all the difference.

[rufiedog]

You do a lot of UT2 sessions each week. Are these long steady state rows? How many meters are you putting in for each of these and total each week?

I ask because if you are doing a large volume of UT2 work and just one day of intervals, perhaps you are not allowing yourself enough rest. If 5-6 of these UT2 rows are 10k or longer, would you consider doing just 4 of those and adding a hard row at a shorter distance like 5k at UT1? That seems like what your current plan is missing.

Great question! Not much volume mostly because of the fatigue. UT2 sessions are 1 hour long, never longer. Would say I get less than 50K meters total per week

The UT1 suggestion is a good one but realistically Id have to substitute with a weight session or a L1 session. Not sure doing so would be good
Substituting a UT1 session with UT2 would lead to fatigue at a point of having to take lots of time off to recover

[rufiedog]

YES Should be L1 NOT L4

Thanks for pointing that out!

was just wondering where it came from. Easy mistake to make. could have made it myself.

Re it being hard, yes it is. Also the combi speedtraining/weights is not easy. And also being a 50 er, age is also not helping.

Maybe a tip. You could during the year, focus a certain aspect. Say in 6 week blocks.
At times you could focus on strenght/weights. This does not go well with speedwork.
Other side, peaking for a 2k test/race does not go well with hard weights.
So yes, keep doing everything, but per block focus on a certain aspect. While “maintaining” the rest.

Very good suggestion. I'm going to give this some thought. The thing I don't like about switching to another aspect is losing what was gained on the previous aspect ( block) But perhaps no way of getting around it

[rufiedog]

I will add that from an older guys standpoint I'm not sure leaving out L1 intervals and weight training from ones regiment is a good idea. Its the two activities which activate fast twitch muscles fibers. The L1 intervals flood the entire system with good stuff. I am on a high all day long after completing the session, especially if I hit my intended pace. Nothing quite like it

[jamesg]

My goal is a faster 2K

What's your typical Power/Rating now in 2k and in training?

Pulling a good 2k, say 7 minutes, is a question of simple arithmetic: it's 300W, and if we pull a 7 Watt stroke (Power/Rating), we'd need to rate 300/7 = 42, which is unlikely. A 10 Watt stroke would let us do it at 30, which leads to far lower inertial losses, so is much easier. So that's what we train: the stroke, at all ratings, and the ability to do 200 of them in quick succession, aka endurance.

Training plans for 2k racing such as the Interactives are progressive, using 3 week blocks. Each block gets longer within itself, but shorter and faster from one block to the next. They're consequently very varied too, we hardly ever get to repeat the same work, which is important for racing.

Examples from a Level 4, 5x26 program:
Week
1 TEST 36'UT2 2x15'UT1 45'UT2 3x12'UT1
2 3x11'UT1 48'UT2 2x20'UT1 54'UT2 3x15'UT1
3 3x14'UT1 57'UT2 4x12'UT1 60'UT2 5x10'UT1

13 TEST 3x12'UT1 2x5'TR 3x13'UT1 2x8'AT
14 4x1.5'AN 3x15'UT1 4x3'TR 3x14'UT1 2x9'AT
15 6x1'AN 4x12'UT1 5x3'TR 3x15'UT1 2x10'AT

24 8x45s AN 4x13'UT1 4x4'TR 2x18'UT1 3x12'AT
25 3x1'AN 2X10'UT1 2x3'TR 2x9'UT1 1x10'AT
26 1x3'TR 2x8'UT1 3x1.5'AN 3x45sAN RACE

UT2-1 should be at 18-23, AT 27, race 30-40 with power in roughly in proportion to rating.

Doing weights seems to need two days rest every time. However to use any additional strength, you'd need endurance and maybe better technique too, so these must also be trained.

Technique can usually be seen from height and the Watt/Rating ratio.

Endurance basically means waste removal, and this is a cell function, so they have to grow in number. This does not happen if we replace training with weights, which consequently will likely make us slower, short term at least.

[hjs]

I will add that from an older guys standpoint I'm not sure leaving out L1 intervals and weight training from ones regiment is a good idea. Its the two activities which activate fast twitch muscles fibers. The L1 intervals flood the entire system with good stuff. I am on a high all day long after completing the session, especially if I hit my intended pace. Nothing quite like it

100% correct. Keeping our fast fibers is very important. A very important aspect of aging is just this. Train those as long as possible.

[mitchel674]

You do a lot of UT2 sessions each week. Are these long steady state rows? How many meters are you putting in for each of these and total each week?

I ask because if you are doing a large volume of UT2 work and just one day of intervals, perhaps you are not allowing yourself enough rest. If 5-6 of these UT2 rows are 10k or longer, would you consider doing just 4 of those and adding a hard row at a shorter distance like 5k at UT1? That seems like what your current plan is missing.

Great question! Not much volume mostly because of the fatigue. UT2 sessions are 1 hour long, never longer. Would say I get less than 50K meters total per week

The UT1 suggestion is a good one but realistically Id have to substitute with a weight session or a L1 session. Not sure doing so would be good
Substituting a UT1 session with UT2 would lead to fatigue at a point of having to take lots of time off to recover

So, you are doing 4-5 hour long UT2 sessions each week? What is you pace for these sessions?

I still think you could consider dropping to 3 hour long UT2 sessions and then add a fixed distance UT1 row (5-6k). This coupled with your interval day would give you great variety each week and add 1-2 days for recovery.

[Dangerscouse]

Substituting a UT1 session with UT2 would lead to fatigue at a point of having to take lots of time off to recover

The rule for UT2 is that your pace should be sustainable enough to not leave you exhausted, and some people even use them as a replacement for a rest day, so are you sure you're not going too fast?

[rufiedog]

Substituting a UT1 session with UT2 would lead to fatigue at a point of having to take lots of time off to recover

The rule for UT2 is that your pace should be sustainable enough to not leave you exhausted, and some people even use them as a replacement for a rest day, so are you sure you're not going too fast?

This is an excellent observation. Its actually taken me a year to come to the resolution you just stated. I started out at a 2:16 pace which was too intense. Continued to leave me exhausted. Its now 2:20-2:21 pace which I'm not sure helps with recovery but doesn't add to the exhaustion. Promotes a steady 125-130 HR which is around 70% of my max HR (185-190)

[rufiedog]

You do a lot of UT2 sessions each week. Are these long steady state rows? How many meters are you putting in for each of these and total each week?

I ask because if you are doing a large volume of UT2 work and just one day of intervals, perhaps you are not allowing yourself enough rest. If 5-6 of these UT2 rows are 10k or longer, would you consider doing just 4 of those and adding a hard row at a shorter distance like 5k at UT1? That seems like what your current plan is missing.

Great question! Not much volume mostly because of the fatigue. UT2 sessions are 1 hour long, never longer. Would say I get less than 50K meters total per week

The UT1 suggestion is a good one but realistically Id have to substitute with a weight session or a L1 session. Not sure doing so would be good
Substituting a UT1 session with UT2 would lead to fatigue at a point of having to take lots of time off to recover

So, you are doing 4-5 hour long UT2 sessions each week? What is you pace for these sessions?

I still think you could consider dropping to 3 hour long UT2 sessions and then add a fixed distance UT1 row (5-6k). This coupled with your interval day would give you great variety each week and add 1-2 days for recovery.

Great suggestion. I'm definitely towing the exhaustion line doing what I'm doing now though. Pretty sure substituting a UT2 session for UT1 would eventually push me over. Slowing UT2 pace from 2:16 to 2:20 helps which is now 70% of max HR. Perhaps slow UT2 sessions down to 60% max HR add substitute one of them for UT1 like you suggest. Might work. Going to give it some thought