Pondering the Beginner Pete Plan

[Dangerscouse]

The last two intervals were hard (I even touched my new max HR at 191) but I'm quite satisfied with the overall result.
Next week with the 7x500 I'll aim at 2:06 / 2:07.

You should be happy with that. You clearly were pushing it as hard as possible, which is always something to be proud of.

[winniewinser]

BPP W5S1 7KM...all good and HR comfortable.

29:50.2 7,000m 2:07.8 167 876 19 141
5:57.8 1,400m 2:07.7 168 877 20 131
5:58.3 1,400m 2:07.9 167 874 20 139
5:57.9 1,400m 2:07.8 168 876 20 145
5:57.9 1,400m 2:07.8 168 876 20 145
5:58.4 1,400m 2:08.0 167 874 20 145

[Dom82]

Week 7 Session 1 - 8000m

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	Watts	Cal/Hr	S/M	
40:48.7	8,000m	2:33.0	98	636	16	155
8:05.8	1,600m	2:31.8	100	644	17	146
8:12.2	1,600m	2:33.8	96	631	15	154
8:11.1	1,600m	2:33.4	97	633	16	155
8:09.9	1,600m	2:33.0	98	635	17	159
8:09.7	1,600m	2:33.0	98	636	16	161

[iain]

Dom, the way that the first stroke of an interval is timed can have a huge impact on the pace the PM5 calculates for that interval. And with really short intervals like 250m, a slow first stroke (not based on pull but solely on timing) is hard to recover from.

I believe that the PM records continuously to the end of the drive of a stroke. If you are doing a drive then it misses the acceleration prior to the start of that interval and only looks at the pace of the flywheel through the rest of the drive (ie it doesn't include a recovery or the slowest part of the drive). That is why it is much faster. Conversely, if you have finished a stroke then you only have the slower pace of the recovery until the next drive so little distance is recorded and the average pace is much lower (I think that the PM measures the number of revolutions but interprets them based on the monitoring of the slowing of the wheel when not being accelerated). When rowing at 17SPM this is for a few seconds that is a significant part of a minute (or the time taken for 250m). SPM can vary as well as adding an extra stroke when divided by less than a minute will be amplified in the recorded SPM (monitor records a whole number of strokes and divides by the time of the interval). As a result I don't like to set very short intervals as the results may not be representative.

[jrkob]

Week 7 Session 1 - 8000m

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	Watts	Cal/Hr	S/M	
40:48.7	8,000m	2:33.0	98	636	16	155
8:05.8	1,600m	2:31.8	100	644	17	146
8:12.2	1,600m	2:33.8	96	631	15	154
8:11.1	1,600m	2:33.4	97	633	16	155
8:09.9	1,600m	2:33.0	98	635	17	159
8:09.7	1,600m	2:33.0	98	636	16	161

Dom,
1) what was your "perceived effort" for this workout ? Could you have continued at this pace for a while ?
2) what did you do to warmup and cooldown ?

I'm asking because today I did Week 3 Session1 - 6000m and this is what it looked like. My pace is similar to yours. S/M and H/R... quite different. I was sweating profusely at the end and as was recommended to me before, I'll need to slow it down.
Hence the questions. Perhaps I should try to emulate your "perceived effort".

(I note from your other posts that you are 10 inches taller and almost twice my weight so I'm not trying to compare performance here . Not to mention that your technique is a lot cleaner than mine from the last video you posted)

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	S/M	H/R	
29:56.8	6,000m	2:29.7	21	164
2:28.8	1,000m	2:28.8	21	160
2:30.2	2,000m	2:30.2	21	163
2:29.8	3,000m	2:29.8	21	165
2:29.9	4,000m	2:29.8	21	167
2:29.8	5,000m	2:29.8	22	170
2:30.2	6,000m	2:30.2	22	169

[Dom82]

Dom,
1) what was your "perceived effort" for this workout ? Could you have continued at this pace for a while ?
2) what did you do to warmup and cooldown ?

I'm asking because today I did Week 3 Session1 - 6000m and this is what it looked like. My pace is similar to yours. S/M and H/R... quite different. I was sweating profusely at the end and as was recommended to me before, I'll need to slow it down.
Hence the questions. Perhaps I should try to emulate your "perceived effort".

(I note from your other posts that you are 10 inches taller and almost twice my weight so I'm not trying to compare performance here . Not to mention that your technique is a lot cleaner than mine from the last video you posted)

Code: Select all

Time	Meters	Pace	S/M	H/R	
29:56.8	6,000m	2:29.7	21	164
2:28.8	1,000m	2:28.8	21	160
2:30.2	2,000m	2:30.2	21	163
2:29.8	3,000m	2:29.8	21	165
2:29.9	4,000m	2:29.8	21	167
2:29.8	5,000m	2:29.8	22	170
2:30.2	6,000m	2:30.2	22	169

Hi,
I would start to say that in my case HR and perceived effort seem to closely match. The other thing is that my HR range is quite wide (min 60; max 191), probably due to my poor aerobic fitness.
So, even if my steady state HRs are high in absolute terms compared to HRs I see from other people, my SS sessions usually are in UT2 for the first 2500/3000m and then stay in UT1 for the rest of the workout. So most of the times I would definitely be able to row longer (difficult to say how longer, probably right now I could get to 10/12k without feeling particularly exhausted); there were a couple of sessions where I was happy that rowing was over (and HR ended it AT land), but I got the idea that it was because my SPM was too low.

As for comparison between my performance and yours, I would say that your 2:29.7 is quite different from my 2:33.0. I know that 3 seconds don't look like a big deal, but over 30-40mins they do make a difference. So, also considering the difference in height and weight, my suggestion would be to go slower (2:33, maybe 2:35 / 2:40). Otherwise it will be difficult to keep up with the plan as distances increase in the next weeks. And also you risk being too tired for the intervals sessions. But I'm a newbie, so don't give too much importance to my advice...

As for warmup: I always do some stretching and some basic legs/arms exercises before getting on the ERG. Then, if I plan to do fast intervals, I warmup for at least 10 minutes with SS speed and some fast accelerations. If I have a SS session, I keep warmup shorter and sometimes I skip it (I know that's not optimal, but sometimes I don't have the time to do everyhing). As for cooldown, I usually row 10/15mis at very low pace (3:00 or even slower).
Hope it helps

[jrkob]

Hope it helps

I does, thanks a lot.
Yes I think it was iain who suggested I slowed down to 2:35 and I will do that starting next time. You're quite right that this pace isn't sustainable if I need to increase 500m every week.

[iain]

As for comparison between my performance and yours, I would say that your 2:29.7 is quite different from my 2:33.0. I know that 3 seconds don't look like a big deal, but over 30-40mins they do make a difference.

For comparison, this is 104W rather than 98, a 6.8% increase in the power required (about 1.5SPM increase). Put another way for the average person they could row about 50% longer at that slower pace!

As your priority is health rather than absolute performance and slower SS achieves this better, I think it goes without saying that the slower pace is better so long as you remain engaged enough to want to get on the pain machine day in day out! I do not know the specific impact of exercise on BP. Many people report improving BP with exercise with regular reports of people taken off their medication after a year or so of serious erging. Not surprisingly health websites recommend moderate exercise, but this is always their prescription. Hard exercise is associated with a risk of heart attacks and strokes in the short term which needs to be weighed against the longer term benefits. Also you need to realise that there are significant numbers of people with very low fitness and people (particularly men) often over do it in their initial enthusiasm. Interested if anyone can point me to proper studies on this.

[Dom82]

For comparison, this is 104W rather than 98, a 6.8% increase in the power required (about 1.5SPM increase). Put another way for the average person they could row about 50% longer at that slower pace!

I'm curious how you get that +50% figure. Would you mind elaborating? Thanks!

[jrkob]

Hard exercise is associated with a risk of heart attacks and strokes [...]. Interested if anyone can point me to proper studies on this.

Iain, the National Library of Medicine in the US references this study done in Portugal in 2019. I had bookmarked it a few weeks ago and I'm glad I did !
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31992987/
On the top right corner of this link, you can click "Full Text Open Access" to have the entire text for free.

The study showed that, I quote:
"While engaging in moderate activity may enhance immune function above sedentary levels*, excessive amounts of prolonged, high-intensity exercise may impair immune function".

and

"Conclusion: In summary, intense long exercise can lead, in general, to higher levels of inflammatory mediators, and thus might increase the risk of injury and chronic inflammation. In contrast, moderate exercise or vigorous exercise with appropriate resting periods can achieve maximum benefit."

What they call impairement of "immune function" is inflammation of the arteries, which in turn are a major source of cardiac events. Basically the chain of causality is: inflammation => formation of soft plaque => the soft plaque suddenly detaches from the artery => a blood clot forms, transit in the artery and goes into the heart, aka, a cardiac event.

I have mentioned reducing inflammation through proper nutrition in another thread and this is precisely why.

You will see that Table 2 in the study provides the outcome of various types of exercises classified as either Moderate or Intense (a 10km race at 89% VO2Max, an intense marathon, cycling for an hour, HIIT etc ) for various categories of individuals: amateurs runners, untrained, moderately trained amateurs etc.

* this means moderate exercise reduces inflammation (and consequently, the risk of cardiac events)

EDIT: after looking at Table 2 again, my conclusion is that the intensity of my plan is too high to be healthy. I must scale it down.

[Mwoodburn]

Hi, I hope this is the right thread to post in. I'm on week 9 of the BPP. For the past few weeks I've been trying to improve my efficiency, as I feel I'm hitting a pace that I don't know I can do much better at quite yet.

For some examples, yesterday I rowed my 9k, I averaged 22SPM at a 2:14 pace. Which I feel is pretty good. Today, I decided to do my 4x800 at sub 2:00 pace while staying under 24SPM. I did 1:57 at a 23 SPM on average.

A couple of weeks ago I averaged 1:59 on 3x1500, but at a 25SPM, and last week I rowed the 25 minute workout at 19SPM consistently just to improve my stroke. Wound up doing it at 2:16.

I'm trying different things in order to improve my efficiency. So these next 2 workouts I have are both an 8k. If I decide to row at a specific heart rate not necessarily caring about the SPM or pace what's a good rate to target? Or if that's not a great workout, what are some things to try to aim for?

[iain]

Hard exercise is associated with a risk of heart attacks and strokes [...]. Interested if anyone can point me to proper studies on this.

Thanks.

Iain, the National Library of Medicine in the US references this study done in Portugal in 2019. I had bookmarked it a few weeks ago and I'm glad I did !
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31992987/

As I read this there is no accounting for the health benefits of being fitter, this just looks at the immediate risk with no credit given for the long term benefits. Being lazy, but does anyone know what intensity 46% and 64% of VO2 max is? Also this is a measure of markers that have been linked to the health issues concerned. This does not prove a connection as there will be many other short term effects that may reduce the likelihood of these conditions to fully or partially offset the risks associated with the release of the measured markers.

[Dangerscouse]

I'm trying different things in order to improve my efficiency. So these next 2 workouts I have are both an 8k. If I decide to row at a specific heart rate not necessarily caring about the SPM or pace what's a good rate to target? Or if that's not a great workout, what are some things to try to aim for?

If you're relatively new, I wouldn't worry too much as more or less anything you do will work.

From what I can see you're making progress eg 25 mins 2:16 pace and 9k at 2:14 pace. Don't worry about the stroke rate, as that can be quite subjective, and just look at the pace.

8k distance is a good option, longer, imo, is always better though if you can fit it in, but I assume that this is meant as a steady pace session, and not a hard session?

HR is to be based on your max HR, which can be quite uncomfortable to confirm, but it's necessary. When you know your max, I'd suggest using 75% as a guide* to work towards, but it's also based on what you can recover from, which you'll need to assess as you progress. If you're struggling lower it to 70% or occasionally increase it to closer to 80%.


* I say 75% but there will be some opinions of 65-70% is better. As you're not doing loads of distance and really high intensity sessions, I think you'll be better served with a bit more effort for these distances.

[iain]

Hi, I hope this is the right thread to post in. I'm on week 9 of the BPP. For the past few weeks I've been trying to improve my efficiency, as I feel I'm hitting a pace that I don't know I can do much better at quite yet.

For some examples, yesterday I rowed my 9k, I averaged 22SPM at a 2:14 pace. Which I feel is pretty good. Today, I decided to do my 4x800 at sub 2:00 pace while staying under 24SPM. I did 1:57 at a 23 SPM on average.

A couple of weeks ago I averaged 1:59 on 3x1500, but at a 25SPM, and last week I rowed the 25 minute workout at 19SPM consistently just to improve my stroke. Wound up doing it at 2:16.

I'm trying different things in order to improve my efficiency. So these next 2 workouts I have are both an 8k. If I decide to row at a specific heart rate not necessarily caring about the SPM or pace what's a good rate to target? Or if that's not a great workout, what are some things to try to aim for?

Pete who devised the BPP is not a fan of HR training! He himself largely rows SS based on a perceived effort, he has described this as that pace that he could row twice as far at if he had to. he has suggested that for him this is 22SPM of "normal" strokes, although as a powerful 5ft 11inch size, others might find a lower rating more appropriate. As a new rower I appreciate that this may not be easy to assess as you may not know what rowing 16k requires! while you have demonstrated a wide range of rowing strokes generating work per stroke from 6.6WMin (397J) to 9.5WMin (570J).

We can all put in an unsustainably large amount of work per stroke. An all out 4x800 would be done by most people at a 2k rating (28-34 for most), so I assume that the 23SPM used was not your natural stroke, so I would discount the 9.5WMin. I am surprised that you did 3 x 1.5k at (8.3WMin/498J) a much higher work per stroke than the 19SPM concentrating on your stroke (7.3WMin/439J). I would expect that you should use a stroke somewhere in this range. The rating will depend on your fitness and size. But I would suggest that you stick to the "natural" SPM used for the 25min, but try and increase the power per stroke closer to the 3 x 1.5k. If you achieved the same work per stroke this would be 2:10.4 pace, so aiming for say 2:14 would be a good start, but this is based on limited data. You should be sweating significantly and feel tired but not all out by the end of the interval.

- Iain

[iain]

I'm curious how you get that +50% figure. Would you mind elaborating? Thanks!

Broadly between 1k and 10k most people find that an all out effort drops off by a similar amount for a doubling of the distance. The amount of the change varies depending on comparative anaerobic strength and aerobic fitness. If you ignore the very unfit then most find the decline in pace for the doubling is 3-7S (call this factor "F"). "Paul's Law" suggests that to optimise 2k pace most people should train to get this factor to around 5S although this is high for most lightweights or older rowers. Nevertheless I assumed the mid-value of 5S.

generalising the formula will say that for an increase in distance from X to PX will decrease the pace (ie increase the time per 500m) by log(P)/log(2)xF. log(1.5)/log(2) x 5 = 2.9S which is approx the difference between the paces.