Investigating Race Starts

[btlifter]

As I see it, to be as efficient as you can on the PM5, you need to get to a steady flywheel speed as soon as possible. So exploding at the start to get that flywheel up to speed would be most effective from theory. Whether people can do that, I guess it would depend on the person holding the handle....

That would also seem logical from a subjective perspective also, i.e. the fastest time is achieved when the speed is higher for longer, assuming of course that having achieved max speed that it can be maintained for the distance required.

The key is how to achieve max speed of the flywheel as quickly as possible. I had always assumed that it was likley to be a combination of short strokes, and using a 'relatively' high DF, which is what i had always tried based on typical responses on forums such as this about race starts, this thread has made me wonder how best to achieve the max as quick as possible.

I have a bit of experience with sprints & races.

My observations have led to an incredibly simplistic conclusion, whether 100m or 10k: get into my "race stroke" asap.

*caveat - sometimes I will pull a bit harder/faster for the first 5-7 strokes, as there's an ATP energy system "use it or lose it" conponent involved*

[GlennUk]

I have a bit of experience with sprints & races.

My observations have led to an incredibly simplistic conclusion, whether 100m or 10k: get into my "race stroke" asap.

*caveat - sometimes I will pull a bit harder/faster for the first 5-7 strokes, as there's an ATP energy system "use it or lose it" component involved*

Thanks for the observation, given the short amount of time we hope to be rowing for such sprints, it is clear that getting up to 'cruising speed' as quickly as possible is the key to getting the best you can. Whatever our abilities taking 2-3secopnds to get up to speed means you can never recover that lost time. Unlike other events where in principle it is possible make up time further in the event, assuming one has not used up all ones reserves before hand, not a good strategy, even for erging a 100K IMHO.

I am yet to try any particular strategy, all of my previous attempts at sprints have been based on the few short strokes, followed by max i can sustain (at least in theory) and as high a spm as possible.

However, for me I find spm above 40 difficult to maintain, possibly because I don't practice, but looking at my logbook i noticed my current 100m all time PB was set as part of Nov 2021 CTC which was a minute TT, the first 100m followed by an all time PB for the minutest, average 39spm over the minute.

This thread has made me think about the best strategy for me, both in terms of the start and the rest of the sprint.

Clearly having a high stroke rate can work, assuming that the combination of power/stroke length are not comporeoisied too much. I suspect that if i try to rate higher that i might find the stroke efficiency drops and in effect slows me down, rather than using a slightly slower, but more powerful, full length stroke. If when i practice find i can stroke at 50-60spm (one of The Diamonds posted a 16.4 at 55spm this AM on FB) as some i have seen post do, then maybe that would be the right strategy for me, if i find it to be my limiting factor then i need to adopt a different strategy.

[Tobias Stoehr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyN9E417AIQ

All strokes the same length and frequence for JDS. First pull max force. From stroke 2 on settle to goal pace.

[GlennUk]

All

After looking at this thread back in Aug i started training to improve my 100m pb of 17.0s, beginning of October, and thought id post my findings into the starts.

1st im 61MHW but a pretty small one, at 1.8m and 90kgs (although i reckon about 7-10kgs of that is 'soft muscle' and id be better off without it) should probably be 80-85kgs i reckon.

I have been practicing race starts, typically 10x race starts with a standing flywheel, the interval is the time it takes for the flywheel to stop spinning, typically c.1:45-2:00mins.

I have juggled with the DF, removing the mesh around the fan which allows me to adjust the DF sigfnicnalty above 200. I am currently working at 220 and i have found that increasing signfciantly above this is detrimental to the start for me at the moment.

I have also been dead lifting/squatting and doing upright rowing. I haven't lifted any significant weights for a while so built up from a pretty low base lifting about 45kgs for the DL/squats to get used to lifting and to try to develop my technique. Over the past few weeks i am now lifting 90kgs in both dsicplines, with reduced numbers of reps/sets.

What i have found is that 1st and foremost, with a DF of the order of 200 i cannot pull long strokes and get anywhere near max pace/power in any useful time period for sprints.

I therefore use a combination of short strokes, moving the full lenght strokes once i have got up to speed. It seems to me that for high DF/very short sprints, the opon to use long strokes form the off is detrimental and probably not just for me. It seems to me that it takes pretty much c.50m to get up to full speed.

I am not sure if i have this right, but if i was powerful enough to pull long strokes at the high df typically used for short sprints, then if i took shorter but more strokes, i would likley be able to put more power into the chain overall and hence get a faster start c.f. just using long strokes.

Full storks may be ok for longer events, but given my experience so far that the start of a 100m effectively takes up c.50% of the total distance, that the only option is to use shorter strokes to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

So far after about 6 weeks training, i have reduced my pb to 16.3S, but that was the final race start of a set of 10 (i.e. i had already done 9 starts)

[Erik A]

All

After looking at this thread back in Aug i started training to improve my 100m pb of 17.0s, beginning of October, and thought id post my findings into the starts.

1st im 61MHW but a pretty small one, at 1.8m and 90kgs (although i reckon about 7-10kgs of that is 'soft muscle' and id be better off without it) should probably be 80-85kgs i reckon.

So far after about 6 weeks training, i have reduced my pb to 16.3S, but that was the final race start of a set of 10 (i.e. i had already done 9 starts)

soft muscle lol love that. i also have a bit of that as well.
and congratz on the new PB

[GlennUk]

HI ERik

and a belated thank you for the message, have since done a specific TT and am now at 16.0 dead for the 100m, Im still looking at the start as the most critical issue for me to address, so am planning on doing a few more weeks before returning to my usual training. looking at reducing the DF to see ifi can improve the start signfciantly.

We shall see.