watts per stroke vs stroke rate for max efforts

[aussie nick]

I'm interested in understanding the thoughts of experienced/competitive rowers about balancing power per stroke vs stroke rate when at max or very close to max efforts. I might not be phrasing this correctly and I might be rambling a little below, but I hope the topic is clear?

where this has come from is that on reviewing recent time trials and max effort interval sessions with the same events from 9 months ago when I was at my previous peak, I've noticed that with relatively similar times, my stroke rate is several strokes per minute faster....with a corresponding reduction in the watts per stroke.

egs
a 5k tt improved 7 seconds from Oct 21 to June 22 but the sr went from 23 to 26
a recent 500m interval session averaged 1.36.2...the same as Oct 21 but the stroke rate increased from 32 to 35
a 4x1k 5r last Oct was 1.42.2/500 at sr 29, a recent one was 1.41.8 at sr 32
my 1k PR in March was 3.09.4 at 37 sr, the previous PR of 3.09.8 in October was done with 34

other factors/info.
I should be stronger now...I'm doing lower body and and power lifting once a week which I wasn't last year
I've noticed I'm HDing a lot more often with max efforts than I was last year

Obviously the easiest thing to say is 'keep the stroke rate high but increase power per stroke' and yes...that's the ultimate goal and also there's an element of 'the most important thing is that you're going faster'. But I feel like my progress has plateaued with a worrying increase in the number of HDs. As someone who has serious aspirations to improve my 1k and 2k times and make them very competitive for my age group, I'm interested in any learning, perspective or advice on whether my increased sr might actually be putting more stress on my conditioning while not really increasing my speed. Moving forward, should I attempt to be more focused on power per stroke, even if that means a slight drop in stroke rate to help drive more gains?

again...apologies if this hasn't been expressed particularly succinctly

[max_ratcliffe]

Interesting data Nick.

Without venturing any sort of helpful answer (Martin and Cam will obviously be more useful than me on this topic) I think that none are at an excessive SR. 22 is too low for a 5k pb and was leaning too much on power target than fitness. The SR for the other pieces also look about right.

Have you actually got stronger in a way that helps rowing? There's a piece somewhere on Rowing Stronger that suggests iirc that focusing on 1rm (or 20rm for that matter) isn't the way to go.

[aussie nick]

Interesting data Nick.

Without venturing any sort of helpful answer (Martin and Cam will obviously be more useful than me on this topic) I think that none are at an excessive SR. 22 is too low for a 5k pb and was leaning too much on power target than fitness. The SR for the other pieces also look about right.

Have you actually got stronger in a way that helps rowing? There's a piece somewhere on Rowing Stronger that suggests iirc that focusing on 1rm (or 20rm for that matter) isn't the way to go.

I haven't read that piece (but it sounds interesting...is Rowing Stronger a book?), but I do think the main lifts I'm doing are complimentary to rowing. I power clean, deadlift, barbell row and push press every session (sadly, I've had to cut out squatting). To be honest, there's a limit to the gains one can make lifting once a week and I'm not lifting to overload given my rowing schedule, but all things being equal, I would expect the 1x per week session to be improving my power activation more than when I was only doing upper body lifting last year....even if only slightly

[max_ratcliffe]

Interesting data Nick.

Without venturing any sort of helpful answer (Martin and Cam will obviously be more useful than me on this topic) I think that none are at an excessive SR. 22 is too low for a 5k pb and was leaning too much on power target than fitness. The SR for the other pieces also look about right.

Have you actually got stronger in a way that helps rowing? There's a piece somewhere on Rowing Stronger that suggests iirc that focusing on 1rm (or 20rm for that matter) isn't the way to go.

I haven't read that piece (but it sounds interesting...is Rowing Stronger a book?), but I do think the main lifts I'm doing are complimentary to rowing. I power clean, deadlift, barbell row and push press every session (sadly, I've had to cut out squatting). To be honest, there's a limit to the gains one can make lifting once a week and I'm not lifting to overload given my rowing schedule, but all things being equal, I would expect the 1x per week session to be improving my power activation more than when I was only doing upper body lifting last year....even if only slightly

Rowingstronger.com and yes also a book. The author used to post here as Strengthcoachwill. I had a quick look at lunch time but couldn't find the comment I was looking for. It's a good site and well worth reading his articles, which are all free.

[Sakly]

Hey Nick, I asked the same question to myself.
I think it depends on individual conditioning if a higher stroke rate (obviously with dropping watts per stroke) gets you faster and if you can maintain it without HD.
I seem to be more conditioned on the cv side as I could up the rate of my 5k PB from 28 to 33, drop the time by 11s and felt way better after the row - on previous PB I nearly died at the end. So high rating with lower power worked much better for me in this case.
You seem to perform better on the strength side as you are taller, more than 10kg heavier and have the strength to pull hard on a low rate which does not knock off your cv system.

Both can lead to good results - see our 5ks, only few seconds apart. If you can increase your cv capacity, you will be able to increase rate without dropping watts per stroke so much I think. So I would assume working on cv system would help you to get to more stable rows with less HDs.

[jamesg]

It's likely best to have a range of Rate/Work combinations available. Marston suggested this years ago on the uk forum, saying a long TT might be best done at a higher rate and lower work than a training piece. After all the aims differ: train hard, race easy.

[Tobias Stoehr]

Ideal stroke rate for me on 2k is ~34 and on 5k ~30.

It's easy to see that stroke rate helps if you take the typical 30min rate 20 test. Do it max effort at rate 20. Next week max effort at r22. You'll find if you go rate 22 you're about 1 split faster. It eventually levels off. For a 30min rate 28 is a great rate. Obviously pressure is lighter though than at r20!

[winniewinser]

Ideal stroke rate for me on 2k is ~34 and on 5k ~30.

It's easy to see that stroke rate helps if you take the typical 30min rate 20 test. Do it max effort at rate 20. Next week max effort at r22. You'll find if you go rate 22 you're about 1 split faster. It eventually levels off. For a 30min rate 28 is a great rate. Obviously pressure is lighter though than at r20!

Big engine to rate that high for that long

[Tsnor]

You can get a feel for "elite ideal" stroke rate by looking the the Olympic stroke rate data. Oars can be adjusted to have greater or lessor mechanical advantage, so rower really can choose their stroke rate. To bad C2 doesn't publish SPM data for ranked workouts.

Olympic athletes experiment and choose what works the best. If they are typically 35-40 SPM over 2k then that's close to ideal.

There are year to year fluctuations and some trends. Wind (headwind vs tailwind vs crosswind) can impact boat speed which will directly impact stroke rate. Stoke rate have tended up until Rio where they came down a bit. The author here gave additional data at the usrowing coaches conf, google "Valery Kleshnev youtube usrowing" to find it. http://biorow.com/index.php?route=infor ... in%20lower.

FWIW I've never been in a boat that hit 40 (start/sprint) or based (most of race) higher than 32-34. We set the stroke rate based on what makes the boat faster (skill limited). Higher SPM is always slower at some point. You just end up waving the oars around and not getting any power.

[aussie nick]

You can get a feel for "elite ideal" stroke rate by looking the the Olympic stroke rate data. Oars can be adjusted to have greater or lessor mechanical advantage, so rower really can choose their stroke rate. To bad C2 doesn't publish SPM data for ranked workouts.

Olympic athletes experiment and choose what works the best. If they are typically 35-40 SPM over 2k then that's close to ideal.

There are year to year fluctuations and some trends. Wind (headwind vs tailwind vs crosswind) can impact boat speed which will directly impact stroke rate. Stoke rate have tended up until Rio where they came down a bit. The author here gave additional data at the usrowing coaches conf, google "Valery Kleshnev youtube usrowing" to find it. http://biorow.com/index.php?route=infor ... in%20lower.

FWIW I've never been in a boat that hit 40 (start/sprint) or based (most of race) higher than 32-34. We set the stroke rate based on what makes the boat faster (skill limited). Higher SPM is always slower at some point. You just end up waving the oars around and not getting any power.

thanks and yes, that's the crux of my issue/ the question. How to balance the marginal speed advantage of rating slightly higher vs the marginal disadvantage of each of those strokes being slightly less powerful. I guess ultimately, hat 'graph' is going to look a little different for each athlete dependent on their own physical/fitness profile and it's up to me to learn what is the best for me...while of course also attempting to improve my ability to pull harder and rate higher

[btlifter]

You can get a feel for "elite ideal" stroke rate by looking the the Olympic stroke rate data. Oars can be adjusted to have greater or lessor mechanical advantage, so rower really can choose their stroke rate. To bad C2 doesn't publish SPM data for ranked workouts.

Olympic athletes experiment and choose what works the best. If they are typically 35-40 SPM over 2k then that's close to ideal.

There are year to year fluctuations and some trends. Wind (headwind vs tailwind vs crosswind) can impact boat speed which will directly impact stroke rate. Stoke rate have tended up until Rio where they came down a bit. The author here gave additional data at the usrowing coaches conf, google "Valery Kleshnev youtube usrowing" to find it. http://biorow.com/index.php?route=infor ... in%20lower.

FWIW I've never been in a boat that hit 40 (start/sprint) or based (most of race) higher than 32-34. We set the stroke rate based on what makes the boat faster (skill limited). Higher SPM is always slower at some point. You just end up waving the oars around and not getting any power.

I'm curious - having not been on a boat I wouldn't know - but I would have assumed that the higher technical demands of being on a boat would make effective (very) high rating much more difficult than on an erg, no?

[Tony Cook]

You can get a feel for "elite ideal" stroke rate by looking the the Olympic stroke rate data. Oars can be adjusted to have greater or lessor mechanical advantage, so rower really can choose their stroke rate. To bad C2 doesn't publish SPM data for ranked workouts.

Olympic athletes experiment and choose what works the best. If they are typically 35-40 SPM over 2k then that's close to ideal.

There are year to year fluctuations and some trends. Wind (headwind vs tailwind vs crosswind) can impact boat speed which will directly impact stroke rate. Stoke rate have tended up until Rio where they came down a bit. The author here gave additional data at the usrowing coaches conf, google "Valery Kleshnev youtube usrowing" to find it. http://biorow.com/index.php?route=infor ... in%20lower.

FWIW I've never been in a boat that hit 40 (start/sprint) or based (most of race) higher than 32-34. We set the stroke rate based on what makes the boat faster (skill limited). Higher SPM is always slower at some point. You just end up waving the oars around and not getting any power.

I'm curious - having not been on a boat I wouldn't know - but I would have assumed that the higher technical demands of being on a boat would make effective (very) high rating much more difficult than on an erg, no?

I’m not a fine boat rower but rowed and coached in fixed seat traditional boats. You are certainly right with a crew. I used to do a little exercise of increasing rate with my crew until timing and technique went to pot. 36 SPM was about it for our level of ability, and even then after a few minutes as fatigue set in that could not be sustained.
I had a video once of my ladies crew rowing at 32SPM overtaking a rival crew rowing at 36.
The top crews in our sport could row at about 40 SPM over a 10 minute race.

[JaapvanE]

I’m not a fine boat rower but rowed and coached in fixed seat traditional boats. You are certainly right with a crew. I used to do a little exercise of increasing rate with my crew until timing and technique went to pot. 36 SPM was about it for our level of ability, and even then after a few minutes as fatigue set in that could not be sustained.
I had a video once of my ladies crew rowing at 32SPM overtaking a rival crew rowing at 36.
The top crews in our sport could row at about 40 SPM over a 10 minute race.

So a slower row (SPM) might give you a faster boat.

40 SPM is quite fast, I guess that the fixed seat removes the leg drive and thus leads to a higher SPM?

[Tony Cook]

I’m not a fine boat rower but rowed and coached in fixed seat traditional boats. You are certainly right with a crew. I used to do a little exercise of increasing rate with my crew until timing and technique went to pot. 36 SPM was about it for our level of ability, and even then after a few minutes as fatigue set in that could not be sustained.
I had a video once of my ladies crew rowing at 32SPM overtaking a rival crew rowing at 36.
The top crews in our sport could row at about 40 SPM over a 10 minute race.

So a slower row (SPM) might give you a faster boat.

40 SPM is quite fast, I guess that the fixed seat removes the leg drive and thus leads to a higher SPM?

Indeed. The crew adds the timing issue - one out of sync will slow the boat. Sometimes the best crew isn’t the 6 fittest.
There is some leg drive with a sort of rock over the hips/ slide on the seat. At the catch the knees are bent to about 135 degrees.
I also do some surf boat rowing. Those have fixed smooth seats but the technique is full leg drive and slide over the seat. Needs bare skin on a wet seat.

[Tobias Stoehr]

You can get a feel for "elite ideal" stroke rate by looking the the Olympic stroke rate data. Oars can be adjusted to have greater or lessor mechanical advantage, so rower really can choose their stroke rate. To bad C2 doesn't publish SPM data for ranked workouts.

Olympic athletes experiment and choose what works the best. If they are typically 35-40 SPM over 2k then that's close to ideal.

There are year to year fluctuations and some trends. Wind (headwind vs tailwind vs crosswind) can impact boat speed which will directly impact stroke rate. Stoke rate have tended up until Rio where they came down a bit. The author here gave additional data at the usrowing coaches conf, google "Valery Kleshnev youtube usrowing" to find it. http://biorow.com/index.php?route=infor ... in%20lower.

FWIW I've never been in a boat that hit 40 (start/sprint) or based (most of race) higher than 32-34. We set the stroke rate based on what makes the boat faster (skill limited). Higher SPM is always slower at some point. You just end up waving the oars around and not getting any power.

I'm curious - having not been on a boat I wouldn't know - but I would have assumed that the higher technical demands of being on a boat would make effective (very) high rating much more difficult than on an erg, no?

Boat ratings are a bit higher than erg ratings (unless you use a dynamic erg or slides that is), as the body basically does not move that much in a boat but it is the boat which glides back and forth under the rower and changes speed.