Pondering the Beginner Pete Plan

[mitchel674]

Hang in there @dalos and try to get at least the three mandatory rows in each week.

I've been rowing all 5 sessions each week. It takes a bit of juggling with my tennis and gym workouts, but I find those extra two sessions a bit lighter than the core pieces. Pete was merciful there!

Week 9 started yesterday with the 9km row at 22spm. I was aiming for 2:21 and wound up at 2:20.8 for what felt like a nice, easy row.

[aegis]

Cheers for that, I was interested in what ERG zone used and it seems to be the Karnoven zones. (slightly different to the UT2,1,AT,TR,AT I use).

I started at 9:12.7 and with some technique improvements had a 8:38.5 2k. I'd like to be sub 8 and <75kg by the end. Pretty modest by the standard in here, even when I have 20+ years on some of you!

Between work and kids I've been struggling to keep to schedule. Been eating clean though so main gains were on body measurement rather than spit times last few weeks. Week 5 Day 3 (+2 easing in weeks) and I've gone from 27.1% BF to 23.0%, 4.6kgs of pure fat gone. (LBM is basically unchanged, even slightly up if anything). Much better than my first time around when I was losing 50-50 of each. Looking like I might hit the weight goal sooner than expected and with a better %. Can Start working on maintaining and body composition then.

I started taking more time to work out back in August last year, I'm not grossly overweight per se then 81kg (178cm) but just wanted to improve general fitness. At the beginning I just did jumping rope because it was extremely efficient in terms of weight loss and time spent, within a few months I dropped to about 74kg. Erging started around Mar this year when I started returning to office and no one was using the erg , I used it twice weekly and couldn't really follow the Pete plan since it asks for minimum 3 times a week. Early May I decided to get my own erg and haven't looked back since. Nowadays I use the erg during lunches or early morning weekends and use my office gym for strength training. Other positive things that has happened was being able to go off beta blockers for my hypertension although it has made heart rate training difficult as I had to try and find my max HR (was 184 now 197) again. BTW, max HR tricky to find outside of a lab using regular calculators, as your fitness improves you may find that you can push yourself that little more during intervals. I thought I was at my max at 194 but a week later I saw 197, I'm 43 and the various calculators gives me a max max hr of 184, the usual 220-age is 177 which will completely throw the zones off!

[thaloun]

Hey folks newish rower checking in. I don't recall where I saw the Pete plan posted first but it was highly regarded by the person who showed it to me and the name stuck so it was easy to find once I started this push to get back in to shape.

Current status is M, 39, 5'11" 193lb, starting from close to nil fitness level with previous exercise for several years amounting to medium intensity walks with the dog.

My first workout back on the rower since my crossfit days almost a decade ago I naturally made the largest of newbie mistakes and went too fast sitting at 187bpm for the last half of a 2.5k session at 2:20 pace. That sucked haha. I thought I was taking it easy as I had hazy memories of doing 1k sprints in the crossfit gym at 1:40 pace which maybe I did but I clearly have a ways to go to get back there!

After slowing the pace to 2:30 and 'redoing' week 1 several times getting the distance up I am now in week two and did the first 5500 session at a consistent 2:27 split. Previous distance sessions were at 2:30 but I did the last 1k of the last 5k one at 2:25 which felt good, and 2:27 today felt tougher but manageable.

Anyways not too much else to say but I think I'll keep reporting in periodically as I progress through the regimen.

[mitchel674]

Hey folks newish rower checking in. I don't recall where I saw the Pete plan posted first but it was highly regarded by the person who showed it to me and the name stuck so it was easy to find once I started this push to get back in to shape.

Current status is M, 39, 5'11" 193lb, starting from close to nil fitness level with previous exercise for several years amounting to medium intensity walks with the dog.

My first workout back on the rower since my crossfit days almost a decade ago I naturally made the largest of newbie mistakes and went too fast sitting at 187bpm for the last half of a 2.5k session at 2:20 pace. That sucked haha. I thought I was taking it easy as I had hazy memories of doing 1k sprints in the crossfit gym at 1:40 pace which maybe I did but I clearly have a ways to go to get back there!

After slowing the pace to 2:30 and 'redoing' week 1 several times getting the distance up I am now in week two and did the first 5500 session at a consistent 2:27 split. Previous distance sessions were at 2:30 but I did the last 1k of the last 5k one at 2:25 which felt good, and 2:27 today felt tougher but manageable.

Anyways not too much else to say but I think I'll keep reporting in periodically as I progress through the regimen.

Welcome to the thread!

Please report in with your progress. Watch a few technique videos and make sure your form is correct before you go much further. Folks who learned to row at crossfit generally don't have the best rowing technique.

[Rowan McSheen]

Indeed welcome, Thaloun. Don't get too carried away with those steady rows, they lengthen pretty rapidly ... I'm in week 3 and I'm gradually slowing on these as I go by effort (heart rate) rather than pace. You don't mention how many strokes per min you do them at. I think Pete advises 22-24 spm. You may not be at your old HIIT level yet but with your stats you should be able to improve fast.

Week 3 session 4 done, 5000m at same pace as previous 6000m but speed up a little in the final 1000m. Done at 2:18.0 and then 2:15 and felt good.

[Tsnor]

...
My first workout back on the rower since my crossfit days almost a decade ago ...

Be cautious building up your efforts. Your core, back, arms, and hands are not as strong as your legs, but need to deliver all the load from your legs to the handle. You really want to ease into this for a while to let your back, hands, etc. get a bit stronger before you push. The parts supporting repetitive motion (e.g. hip rocking from 1:00 to 11:00 and back) also need time to acclimate to the load even when done lightly.

NOW is a great time to focus on form with short/light workouts. In a few weeks (4-6?) you should be in a much better place to start the BPP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ82RYIFLN8

People get stronger with "progressive overload". For best results you want to turn the crank up slowly over time. You will get stronger with the short/light workouts, then you'll continue to gain as you roll into the BPP.

[Rowan McSheen]

Optional 5th workout of week 3 done: 6 x 500m 2 mins rest, instrux are to start out 1 sec faster from this workout in week 1 and see how you get on. That meant aiming for 2:00-ish. To my surprise, done at 1:59.8 and even then I eased off during the final 100m of each rep to avoid going too fast and struggling in future, incremental gains and all that. So that was very gratifying. I don't see values starting with a 1 on my PM that often!

[aegis]

I did the week 7 intervals (7*500m) and was able to go 2s on avg faster than the week 1 (6*500m) intervals, I try each rep with stroke rate in low 30s then settle on 28.

When starting from a stationary flywheel, am I right to say one should start with shorter stroke length just to get the flywheel moving before going with higher power output? Tried also a higher df today, seems like power is increased at the expense of fatigue building up faster in the legs.

Feel free to suggest strategies for optimising 500m intervals!

[Ombrax]

When starting from a stationary flywheel, am I right to say one should start with shorter stroke length just to get the flywheel moving before going with higher power output?

Correct. Shorter stroke length and higher stroke rate to get things up to speed as quickly as possible, then settle into your standard rhythm.

(but be careful you don't mess up your back or anything else)

[Rowan McSheen]

(but be careful you don't mess up your back or anything else)

Which is why I dislike standing starts and try to avoid, although of course you have no option for the first rep. I usually start paddling to get the flywheel moving in the 10 seconds or so before the next rep starts but without pushing too hard. The PM doesn't seem to cope too well with this and often gives me an anomalously fast pace for the first "hard" stroke of the rep, but it settles down after that.

Anyhoo ... Will start week 4 shortly but today was some UT2, 12000m done as 2 x 6000m rather than 3 x 4000. Overall pace was slower but came in pretty much exactly as 2k + 25 so I'll settle for that.

[Tsnor]

(but be careful you don't mess up your back or anything else)

Which is why I dislike standing starts and try to avoid, although of course you have no option for the first rep.

I don't do it, but Eric Murray uses variable intervals to put in a 1 min intro section to get the flywheel moving so that he doesn't need to hit a stopped flywheel full force.... example 19:40 into this piece he programs his PM5 for 40 seconds on, 20 seconds off with 1 min to start the flywheel.... https://youtu.be/KDU4_v1DLms?t=1180

[Rowan McSheen]

I don't do it, but Eric Murray uses variable intervals to put in a 1 min intro section to get the flywheel moving so that he doesn't need to hit a stopped flywheel full force.... example 19:40 into this piece he programs his PM5 for 40 seconds on, 20 seconds off with 1 min to start the flywheel.... https://youtu.be/KDU4_v1DLms?t=1180

Thank you! The PM5 seems pretty rudimentary at first glance but it's been well thought through. I will have a go at that trick.

Week 4 begins with 6500m. As usual done as UT1, pace and hr same as last week's 6000m's so all is good.

[Rowan McSheen]

I used Tsnor's tip for the PM5 for the 3 x 1000m session of BPP week 4. And it worked like a charm. Thank you again, kind Sir!

Target pace is the same as the 500m reps in week 1, ie 2:01.2. Done at 2:00.8. I don't think I could have done another at that pace. This is my least favourite session and one on which I usually struggle, so pleased with this morning's work.

[thaloun]

Checking in as I begin the week 3 workouts from the plan. I've adjusted the display to show the force graph during the stroke and I spend my concentration during the endurance workouts between keeping my target pace, having a smooth balanced parabola, thinking about my form, and watching whatever's on the tube.

I always have to concentrate and not let my splits creep too fast. If I lapse I always find myself going to fast. Keeping a lower stroke rate where I can't pull much harder sort of helps? My goal split for this workout was 2:27:

https://imgur.com/a/lci0PTI

Which I know is slow probably even for newbies but it keeps me at what I feel is a pretty sustainable hr. You can see how much higher it was with the 5500M workout just a week earlier. So I plan to keep this pace for all the endurance sessions in the plan for the time being and see how the intervals go.

I even had time to throw in the fourth workout last week which was nice, but have a small trip out of state the rest of this week which hopefully shouldn't interrupt things too much.

[Dalos]

Always someone slower! My SS is at 2:34 or thereabouts. I did read somewhere though that you need to settle in for 15-20 mins sometimes before you hit your true SS (if going for 60-90 mins). Notice I tend to hit my HR cap around that time and then my times drift, sometimes up to 4-5 seconds by the end, with HR stable, how much and how long varies though. Opted to keep HR stable and let times drift rather than vice versa.

A week off with me with the Flu, and had to finally start taking medication for Hypothyroid which has sent my resting HR wonky (was 61 historically, dropped at 45-50 with my thyroid shot, has been 65-70 this last week) and left me feeling a bit all over the place. Will see over the longer term if that impacts times given it is causing anemia as well and can cause muscle weakness, body composition issues etc.

Into week 6 now at least, plan is starting to catch up with the meters I was doing at steady state so will be back in alignment soon.