Ideal km target for junior rower

[CharlieV453]

Hi there,
I'm a soon to be 17yr old rower competing at a relatively high level trying to break into the GB J18 team.

I've been putting in a lot of sessions (2 a day) 6 days a week including weights, UT2 and recovery sessions for the most part of the past 4 months trying to improve my fitness.

However I haven't been seeing much if any improvement in aerobic workouts. My 5k split has gone backwards (although there are other factors playing a part in this like pieces being done alone at home) and my UT2 split has had no improvement for the same HR over a period of a fair few months

I'm normally doing about 5 UT2 sessions a week of on average about 15k in a session so about 70k of UT2. Should I be doing more UT2 miles with the main intention of improving my fitness and aerobic base (my main drawback as of the moment I believe) or might I need to look into changing other aspects of my training?


Thanks,

Charlie

[Cyclist2]

My immediate thought is to mix in some short and medium length intervals. It sounds like you're getting a little stagnant, hitting a plateau. Intervals will stimulate different muscles and ramp up your CV system (not to mention your mind), maybe get you back on an upward trend. Perhaps try something like the Pete Plan: https://thepeteplan.wordpress.com/the-pete-plan/.

Good luck and remember; have fun!

[jamesg]

Tell us about your height and typical current work: Watts and rating.

How much time do you spend afloat and in what type of boat? Have you raced at school or anywhere else?

[CharlieV453]

My immediate thought is to mix in some short and medium length intervals. It sounds like you're getting a little stagnant, hitting a plateau. Intervals will stimulate different muscles and ramp up your CV system (not to mention your mind), maybe get you back on an upward trend. Perhaps try something like the Pete Plan: https://thepeteplan.wordpress.com/the-pete-plan/.

Good luck and remember; have fun!

Thankyou that's a good idea. Looking back on my training that is something that was missing and my confidence and mental strength has dipped significantly so that could be a big part of it

[CharlieV453]

Tell us about your height and typical current work: Watts and rating.

How much time do you spend afloat and in what type of boat? Have you raced at school or anywhere else?

Hi there one 6'2/188cm and normally do UT2 at 20spm for a minimum of an hour up to an hour and a half. Split seems to be a 2:00 to a 2:02. Hope that helps

[nick rockliff]

If your doing 12 sessions a week but only 70k UT2, what else are you doing?

[jamesg]

Sure. Doing the same thing continuously does not lead to improvement; you have to update continuously. Training means improving the waste removal system, since this is what stops us. If it's at a certain level, what can make it get faster still?

See any training plan here, they're all progressive:

http://3.8.144.21/training/interactive

I don't know if British Rowing runs any induction tests nor when, not even if they want to see you wet or dry. Your club/coach should know all about it.

[CharlieV453]

If your doing 12 sessions a week but only 70k UT2, what else are you doing?

Previously I was doing more UT2 probably about 6 sessions a week on the erg with 3 on the water sessions aswell and a couple of weights sessions. More recently with covid it's been a lot more weights, more of a body building style which isn't ideal for rowing obviously but it gives me something else to do to stop it being mind numbingly boring. This means im now on about 6 sessions a week of UT2 in different forms (cycling erging and running) and 6 of weights.

[Tsnor]

IF your splits are going soft on you then read about the symptoms of overtraining. If you have them take a week off then start up again. https://www.healthline.com/health/signs-of-overtraining

IF you do not have symptoms of overtraining then you have plateaued. Mix up workload. Try two pieces of hard intervals per week mixed with really slow UT2. Verify that you can actually talk in sentences during your UT2 -- if not then you are going too hard.

IF the above two cases do not help you then look for a training partner or some other way of making rowing fun again. Losing the joy is another reason for what you are seeing. Winter challenge and whatever the January thing was called helped me.

re: "..Ideal km target for junior rower.." studies show that more is always better as long as you are safely under the first anaerobic threshold -- as long as you are going slowly enough that lactate levels are constant. That said 12 sessions a week is a lot. I hope all but 2 are slow.

[CharlieV453]

IF your splits are going soft on you then read about the symptoms of overtraining. If you have them take a week off then start up again. https://www.healthline.com/health/signs-of-overtraining

IF you do not have symptoms of overtraining then you have plateaued. Mix up workload. Try two pieces of hard intervals per week mixed with really slow UT2. Verify that you can actually talk in sentences during your UT2 -- if not then you are going too hard.

IF the above two cases do not help you then look for a training partner or some other way of making rowing fun again. Losing the joy is another reason for what you are seeing. Winter challenge and whatever the January thing was called helped me.

re: "..Ideal km target for junior rower.." studies show that more is always better as long as you are safely under the first anaerobic threshold -- as long as you are going slowly enough that lactate levels are constant. That said 12 sessions a week is a lot. I hope all but 2 are slow.

I have experienced overtraining before and I don't believe I'm in the same situation. However I am experiencing a couple of symptoms, loss of motivation, perceived increase in exertion and lack of improvement however I think all of these are most likely due to lockdown and the inability to see and train with friends.
After the 5k next week for trials I will be taking a week mostly off anyways so if I was overtraining hopefully that should sort it out.

After that I will try mixing in more intervals, which in hindsight is something I was neglecting.

Not much I can do about training partners I'm afraid, I try to use zoom but it's not the same. Fingers crossed the new restrictions allow for outdoor sport to resume here.

And yes, the vast majority of my sessions were either focused weights or UT2 with very few intense workouts. I will try to increase the miles after the test and make sure they're at the right intensity. I use a HR montior to keep UT2 at the correct intensity but towards the higher end. Might be worth dropping the HR half a dozen pips maybe?

[Dangerscouse]

I use a HR montior to keep UT2 at the correct intensity but towards the higher end. Might be worth dropping the HR half a dozen pips maybe?

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Have a play around, and see what happens. I have massively benefited from dropping my easier sessions to circa 68-70% of MHR, but I have also included intervals and circa 80-85% sessions.

[iain]

Have you increased your weight training in duration or exertion? This may mean your muscles are always tired and unable to perform at their highest level. It might be worth cutting baclk a little on this for a week and seeing what effect that has on your rowing performance. I would also say that training 60-90 mins at 20SPM is not an easy session if you are maintaining a full stroke. Especially if you are including more intense sessions, I would suggest lowering this to R18. But we are making suggestions in the dark, don't you have a coach or experienced rower that knows you to bounce ideas off? They will be in a much better place to help than we are with partial information and inevitably making many assumptions.

[CharlieV453]

I use a HR montior to keep UT2 at the correct intensity but towards the higher end. Might be worth dropping the HR half a dozen pips maybe?

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Have a play around, and see what happens. I have massively benefited from dropping my easier sessions to circa 68-70% of MHR, but I have also included intervals and circa 80-85% sessions.

All my easier UT2 sessions are at almost the exact same as yours (68-70%) but the intervals seem to be my missing ingredient in my general training however am doing significantly more at the moment due to an upcoming 5k test

[CharlieV453]

Have you increased your weight training in duration or exertion? This may mean your muscles are always tired and unable to perform at their highest level. It might be worth cutting baclk a little on this for a week and seeing what effect that has on your rowing performance. I would also say that training 60-90 mins at 20SPM is not an easy session if you are maintaining a full stroke. Especially if you are including more intense sessions, I would suggest lowering this to R18. But we are making suggestions in the dark, don't you have a coach or experienced rower that knows you to bounce ideas off? They will be in a much better place to help than we are with partial information and inevitably making many assumptions.

Sadly not I've only recently moved club so my coach doesn't know much about me and sets training for my squad as a whole rather than individually so I've tried to adapt a basic program for myself to try and keep improving. We get relatively little input training wise with more of a tech focus, with even less ut2 set than I do now.

I have upped my number of weights session though, but it's rarely a full body workout and more often an isolated workout, say arms or back and chest etc. in an aim to keep most of my body up and running. Initially I would be sore the next couple of days after but after a while it just faded away and I normally feel fine the next day (but obviously muscles won't quite be at peak performance.

We normally do most of our UT2 at r20, just from force of habit I'd assume as it seems to be a staple rate for a lot of low rate training but I will give r18 a try for a while and see if that makes any difference.

[Dangerscouse]

All my easier UT2 sessions are at almost the exact same as yours (68-70%) but the intervals seem to be my missing ingredient in my general training however am doing significantly more at the moment due to an upcoming 5k test

Possibly you're going too slow. I have anecdotally heard people say about going slow has only made them slower, and I know of quite a few really good rowers who don't do much slow rowing at all.

Doing intervals and some 'grey zone' longer distances might be useful. I do suspect a fairly big part of the issue is in your head, and the change of circumstances, from rowing with a crowd and the associated camaraderie that comes with it, to rowing alone has taken its toll. Your mind can be your biggest supporter, or your biggest enemy if you don't focus on managing those negative thoughts.

Do you have some doubts and fears before you row atm? Are you subtly expecting it to be boring, and/or unsuccessful? Do you have to drag yourself on the erg? Is your inner chimp (bad inner voice) trying to convince you to do something else?

Seasonal differences can also affect people, along with natural cycles of form and motivation that we all have to wrestle with.

There's a few strands of possible issues at play here, but if you adapt your training for a few weeks, that should be long enough to see if that's an issue, and see some improvement. If you want some mental strength training, I highly recommend Dr Steve Peters 'The Chimp Paradox' and James Clear 'Atomic Habits'. Both books are extremely useful in advising on easy ways of addressing your innate ability to undermine your own efforts.