Cross training for squash with Pete's 5k (lite)

[joerow]

Hi folks,

I picked up a C2 earlier in the year and recently completed the Pete's 5k Training Plan ("lighter" version) for off-court training over the summer. Here are some observations and questions from the experience.

Personal stats
42 M / 155 lbs (70kg) / 5'7" (170cm)
First time rower
Longtime squash player (intermediate, ~3 days per week)

Beginning
Like most newbies, I found Pete's Beginner Program and embarked on that plan. I repeated the first few weeks, hoping to learn reasonable technique and adapt to the exercise. After a few sessions, I noticed that my technique would break down on the 5k days, while the interval days gave me a little bit of recovery time to reset and keep it on track.

Some more reading lead me to Pete's 5k Training Plan, specifically the "lighter" version suggested at the bottom. This plan provided a) more interval work, and b) less distance since it divides it in half. I changed plans and wrote off the initial weeks as just a warm up.

Heart Rate Zones
While researching technique and training plans, of course I came across a LOT of talk about zone training. Frankly, it seems that there are way too many opinions out there that I could spend a lifetime reading. I reminded myself that my main goal was cross training. The erg was convenient as I work from home and it would offer lower impact exercise than my typical intermediate squash sessions. I wasn't targeting any specific time or distance, so I decided to just keep it simple:

* the ErgZone app displays heart rate % and color codes it in 10% intervals
* the 5k plan offers three sessions types: 1) short duration intervals, 2) longer duration intervals, and 3) a steady distance
* I gave each session type it's own 10% interval: 50-60% for the long distance, 60-70% for longer intervals, and 80%+ for short intervals

With the H10 I measured my waking resting heart rate a few times at 46 bpm. I did not know my maximum heart rate, so I used the ballpark (220-age) calculation, 180bpm. FWIW, over the course of the program, my phone reported a maximum observed heart rate of 169. I think it could go a bit higher, but not on the erg (yet).

Anyway, I wasn't too concerned about zone accuracy as this was my first experience with zone training, and I felt that the target zones I picked would be discrete enough to feel the difference between them.

Schedule
Week four presented some scheduling problems that kept me away from the erg. It was nice to take a week off and see how the body was settling in. I incorporated some stretching and had a better idea of which muscles were sore (lower lats), a little achy (gluts), or keeping up and ready for more (quads, hamstrings, calves). Over the course of the program's twelve weeks, I'd take a few days (5-7 days) every three weeks and repeat the rest / stretch eval. The plan was organized in 3 week intervals, so this worked out well.

The last two weeks of the program started overlapping the squash season and I slacked a bit on completing them. I used the erg sessions to supplement my squash days, trying to distribute the tougher and easier days from each sport. Those took about 2 weeks each to complete. In retrospect, I'll just call it a taper.

Future
Congrats if you've read this far. Overall I found the cross-training a great experience. If I were to run through this type of program again, I'd do a few things differently:

• Plug in a lower maximum heart rate
• Pay closer attention to pacing: I burned out on some of the short intervals. Maintaining heart rate on the longer intervals and steady distance was also a different kind of challenge.
• Drag factor: I settled on ~100 early on as it "felt right", but I didn't bother measuring to verify
• SPM: similar to drag factor, I left this to whatever "felt right" for the session type

Any other comments or suggestions welcome!

The Data
Here is a spreadsheet of some of the interesting metrics collected over the the course of the program. Unfortunately I experienced a few bluetooth glitches, for those I put down "--" placeholders. Other sessions my heart rate seemed off, either too low or too high compared to previous examples. These I marked in italics. The 500m times aren't anything to brag about, but at least they marginally improved as distance and interval increased. I can add any other ErgZone or ErgData collected metric if anyone is interested.

[p_b82]

IMO 220 minus age even as an approximation is no better than sticking a random number in - if you're going to use HR to guide training effort then you do need to find your max. 20mins as fast as you can sustain then a 2min push into anaerobic will do that. (or an increasing effort pyramid, but strength can sometimes give out before Hr peaks on those attempts when new to the erg)
I hit 191 not too long ago - albeit an unintended test - I'm only a year younger as an FYI, but it makes the zones not insignificantly wider, especially coupled with your low RHR & if you use the heart rate reserve method of calculations rather than just max%
HHR band calculator

just as an aside as well, the 8x500m r1' should be done roughly your 2k pace by most training metrics - it's supposed to be hard - so 90%+ MHR by the end of the session.

You may find, if you don't want to focus on the rowing speed/effort side and just boost your aerobic function, you may have more benefit concentrating more on the longer steady state side on your "off days" from your squash - obviously it all depends on your recovery abilities - but 45-90mins for those sort of sessions generally at the HR% efforts that you've been working with.

[Dangerscouse]

Future
Congrats if you've read this far. Overall I found the cross-training a great experience. If I were to run through this type of program again, I'd do a few things differently:

• Plug in a lower maximum heart rate
• Pay closer attention to pacing: I burned out on some of the short intervals. Maintaining heart rate on the longer intervals and steady distance was also a different kind of challenge.
• Drag factor: I settled on ~100 early on as it "felt right", but I didn't bother measuring to verify
• SPM: similar to drag factor, I left this to whatever "felt right" for the session type

Any other comments or suggestions welcome!

I think at least part of your issue is that you're an intermediate squash player, and allowing for modesty you're probably better than that, so this will, to some extent, influence your acceptance of being an absolute beginner in another sport. Your pacing comment is what's making me think this, coupled with it being a very common issue. It's an ego thing.

Rowing is a very meritocratic sport and you'll improve, as you have done, with enough time and effort, but patience for the long game and grind of diminishing returns is all too often what will derail people.

Imo, you should experiment with drag factor as there is only what is right for you and 100 might be ideal, but it might also be better (eventually) at say 120. It might take a little bit of time to adjust though.

I'm a big advocate of mastering a variety of stroke rates, but I also do quite often let the stroke rate be decided by how I feel. I would be a bit cautious as a newbie, as this can inadvertently lead to creating a weaker stroke. I have a range of paces for the differing stroke rates, but they only differ by two or three seconds at the most, and that's assuming a two spm increase / decrease.

[DaveD33]

Nice post, OP. Like you, I started erging as cross training for another sport (ice hockey, also at an intermediate level) and have been looking for a training plan. I hadn't given the 5K plan much thought but this thread has me reconsidering.

Can you elaborate a bit on how you feel the 5K plan helped your squash game? I do a lot of steady state which has really helped my endurance, but I'd like to find a plan to work on power and speed as well.

[joerow]

IMO 220 minus age even as an approximation is no better than sticking a random number in - if you're going to use HR to guide training effort then you do need to find your max. 20mins as fast as you can sustain then a 2min push into anaerobic will do that. (or an increasing effort pyramid, but strength can sometimes give out before Hr peaks on those attempts when new to the erg)
I hit 191 not too long ago - albeit an unintended test - I'm only a year younger as an FYI, but it makes the zones not insignificantly wider, especially coupled with your low RHR & if you use the heart rate reserve method of calculations rather than just max%
HHR band calculator

Good points. Initially I found it hard to drive the heart rate before getting fatigued given my inexperience / technique with the rower. I suspected the calculated HR was a little high, but my plan was to start with something and re-evaluate later. Perhaps I should do a few max HR tests over the coming weeks before I am too far removed from the plan and deep into the squash season.

As for HRR vs max HR%, I double checked the ErgZone manual and it says, "Do not set a Resting Rate unless you want ErgZone to use the Heart Rate Reserve formula to calculate your HR%." I entered both resting and max rate, so I believe the numbers are HRR% and not max HR%. At least, it checks out as HRR% if I manually verify with (HR - RHR) / (MHR - RHR)

just as an aside as well, the 8x500m r1' should be done roughly your 2k pace by most training metrics - it's supposed to be hard - so 90%+ MHR by the end of the session.

Much like the max heart rate, without having an established 2k pace, I was flying blind here. If I were to recalculate with the lower observed MHR, those numbers bump up to 85-90% HRR%. But, as you say, having an accurate MHR is key to dialing this in for next time.

One quick question: you mentioned "by the end of the session" -- do you typically warmup so that most intervals end up 90%+, or do you only hit that rate by the end of all the intervals? For the short interval reporting, I just went by the end of workout summary HR numbers posted by ErgZone / ErgData. For the longer intervals /steady sessions, I tried keeping the real-time HRR% within the band.

You may find, if you don't want to focus on the rowing speed/effort side and just boost your aerobic function, you may have more benefit concentrating more on the longer steady state side on your "off days" from your squash - obviously it all depends on your recovery abilities - but 45-90mins for those sort of sessions generally at the HR% efforts that you've been working with.

My thought was to continue the longer steady sessions, increasing the distance over time, and treating them as recovery days. There may be some weeks where I don't play squash that I may throw in some interval rowing, but I would probably pick something I knew I could recover from within a day or two.

[joerow]

I think at least part of your issue is that you're an intermediate squash player, and allowing for modesty you're probably better than that, so this will, to some extent, influence your acceptance of being an absolute beginner in another sport. Your pacing comment is what's making me think this, coupled with it being a very common issue. It's an ego thing.

Rowing is a very meritocratic sport and you'll improve, as you have done, with enough time and effort, but patience for the long game and grind of diminishing returns is all too often what will derail people.

Agreed that there was/is a lot new to me, hence I hoped to pick somewhat conservative pacing and incorporate a lot of rest time. That said, the short intervals were difficult in the sense that the body wanted to stop before the heart or lungs. Over time, the body acclimated such that I was better at using the previous session's average pace across more intervals. Admittedly there were a few sessions that I started out overeager and closed the session really dogging the last interval or two. Live, burnout, and hopefully learn for next time

Imo, you should experiment with drag factor as there is only what is right for you and 100 might be ideal, but it might also be better (eventually) at say 120. It might take a little bit of time to adjust though.

I'm a big advocate of mastering a variety of stroke rates, but I also do quite often let the stroke rate be decided by how I feel. I would be a bit cautious as a newbie, as this can inadvertently lead to creating a weaker stroke. I have a range of paces for the differing stroke rates, but they only differ by two or three seconds at the most, and that's assuming a two spm increase / decrease.

I'll try bumping the drag factor. In the beginning, I lowered it in hopes of going easy on my back. There were/are probably some technique kinks to workout as well (the slight delay before the flywheel fully engages is annoying).

As for the stroke rates, I didn't pay much attention to them, but I do notice that I seemed to settle on ~25 for short interval, ~20 for mid interval, and ~19 for steady distance. Would a higher DF offer greater flexibility in varying the stroke rate while hitting a similar time target? At DF 100 I feel like I'd fly off the back of the machine if I tried some of the higher stroke rates I see out there (30+).

[joerow]

Nice post, OP. Like you, I started erging as cross training for another sport (ice hockey, also at an intermediate level) and have been looking for a training plan. I hadn't given the 5K plan much thought but this thread has me reconsidering.

Can you elaborate a bit on how you feel the 5K plan helped your squash game? I do a lot of steady state which has really helped my endurance, but I'd like to find a plan to work on power and speed as well.

This is a good question that I'm not sure I have an answer for just yet. In some ways, I started the program to keep me away from the court...

For a little background on my squash, my level is ~4.7 in the American rating system. This is not a beginner rating, but definitely a level below collegiate squash. (Definitely a few levels below the top college players who could otherwise be full time pro.) Last year I had rated out of my league, and moved up to playing in a 5.0 league. Unfortunately I developed nagging tendonitis in my patellar tendon at the beginning of the season, lasting through the winter, and not fully resolving until spring of this year.

Since the spring, I've been carefully managing my on-court time. No more marathon sessions or back-to-back-back days of matches. Over the summer, I figured it would be worthwhile to do something else off court. Having used the erg in a few training sessions, I liked the exercise and the convenience of have an erg in the house.

As for picking this specific plan (well, the 1/2 distance version), I liked the fact that it mixed short, medium and longer distances. I think most sports demand a combination of speed and energy: sprint, run, rest.. repeat. Now I wasn't looking for a workout to perfectly mimic the dynamic requirements of my sport, but I found the zone training an interesting diversion from squash, which is bit more general in classifying a training session. (At least for non-pros!) I suppose if I wanted to more closely mimic a squash match, I'd build in varying interval distances and intensities in the same session.

Now that summer is over and I completed the 12 weeks, I would like to think that the cross-training has helped a bit in terms of stamina. As shorter squash player, I find myself playing the rabbit most matches, so that has always been an important element of my game. Even if the improvement is mostly mental, it's been validating to play a few matches feeling fresher than my opponent by the end of the fifth game. Physically I didn't notice a huge change in my legs, as my quads and glutes were already fairly strong from squash. I did feel a change in my core though, specifically lats. I think core strength can only be helpful for any sport.

For improving speed on the ice, I would think that introducing intervals would be most helpful. It may not make you outright "speedy", but at the very least should help you maintain your burst over more intervals. Maybe the guys here have some suggestions on distance / times to that end. Or maybe it could even be interactive if you were watching on TV: row hard when the puck is in your team's end, easy in the neutral zone, and medium in the opponent's side? Better hope your team has a good defense!

[MPx]

Nice to hear that there's still some squash going on out there - I no longer know anyone who plays regularly. It was my main sport from age 13 to 40. Played for my various clubs and university but was well below county standard - like so many of the sports I've played, I might have been described as "useful" as a player...but never good! Anyway it finally started to get to my knees so I decided to stop before any bad damage occurred....and I bought a C2 to help keep some level of fitness. So not a cross trainer for me, just a replaement.

FWIW I think squash fit translates very well to short interval fit on the erg (ie multiple 500m or less reps on roughly equal rests). To manage your squash game there's a repetitve explosive movement from the T to return every ball and then a recovery movement back to the command position. With equally skilled opponents (at whatever level) the games are long and hard fought and require real stamina to keep it going for an hour or more. Long intervals and contiguous distance on the erg would be useful for this aspect, but are less likely to come naturally.

That aside, the physics/physiology is the same on the erg for everyone regardless of sporting prowess. At 5'7" you're short for outright erg greatness and your lean weight suggests brute force isn't going to be a critical component either. Those factors suggest to me that the DF of around 100 that you've been using may well be good for you, but probably worth experimenting right up to 130ish. Dont just change it for a short session as it will inevitably feel wrong at first...stick with each setting you try for a week before passing judgement. Also you will likely benefit from rating higher than than some prescribe even for your steady state ergs. I'd suggest r24 for any longer steady stuff and certainly not worth going below 22.

Have a good season...

[Dangerscouse]

I'll try bumping the drag factor. In the beginning, I lowered it in hopes of going easy on my back. There were/are probably some technique kinks to workout as well (the slight delay before the flywheel fully engages is annoying).

As for the stroke rates, I didn't pay much attention to them, but I do notice that I seemed to settle on ~25 for short interval, ~20 for mid interval, and ~19 for steady distance. Would a higher DF offer greater flexibility in varying the stroke rate while hitting a similar time target? At DF 100 I feel like I'd fly off the back of the machine if I tried some of the higher stroke rates I see out there (30+).

A slight delay to the engagement might be due to too low a drag factor and a technique issue, as you sound like you're rushing back too quickly. As Mike suggests, increase the df to about 110 and try it for five or six sessions before you decide if you like it or not. Initially you might not, but you might adjust to it quite quickly.

The df being so low shouldn't be an issue (eventually) with flying off the back of the erg as I can row fairly comfortably at r26 and circa 1:48 pace unstrapped at a df of 115, so you'll learn to centre your gravity and control the momentum with enough practice.

Atm, it sounds like you'll probably benefit from a slightly higher df and also keeping to higher stroke rates, also as Mike mentions.

The ability to judge the pacing will inevitably improve but it's never going to be perfect as the ego can dictate the decision making all too often.

[p_b82]

One quick question: you mentioned "by the end of the session" -- do you typically warmup so that most intervals end up 90%+, or do you only hit that rate by the end of all the intervals? For the short interval reporting, I just went by the end of workout summary HR numbers posted by ErgZone / ErgData. For the longer intervals /steady sessions, I tried keeping the real-time HRR% within the band.

I don't do intervals very often - I just don't mentally get on with them, and struggle to get the most out of those sort of sessions - but the Hr variance would really depend on how far into anaerobic you're going during the intervals/session & how hard you're pushing, and whether your strength and aerobic function are balanced.

Most my sessions are without a warm up, I set myself a split time I want to achieve and then row to that effort - I make it up as I start each session depending on what I feel like on the day. But after 18months of erging I've learnt what my sustainable HR is for roughly how long & as I don't train more frequently than 3x a week and not consecutively I don't worry about recovery.

I treat every session as a "hard" session, so I typically push to a peak hr of 90-95% (~170->~180bpm) every time regardless of duration and so personally, my average hr isn't something I pay attention to.

For example this month I've done sessions between:
2min - average wattage ~320W@r32/peak wattage ~370W@r34 - which I did a 10min warm up before; average Hr 170, peak 181)
and
even paced 45min - average Hr167, peak 176; average wattage 134W@r18.

It's not the most efficient way of going about things, but as I'm only doing this for 'fun' it's not a big deal for me.

[Elizabeth]

One quick question: you mentioned "by the end of the session" -- do you typically warmup so that most intervals end up 90%+, or do you only hit that rate by the end of all the intervals? For the short interval reporting, I just went by the end of workout summary HR numbers posted by ErgZone / ErgData. For the longer intervals /steady sessions, I tried keeping the real-time HRR% within the band.

I'm glad you have seen desired progress with this program!

Pete is not very prescriptive with paces or heart rate zones, but most people will take interval work like this hard, with a proper warmup and cooldown. Here's a similar-but-different session that I did if you want to see an example of how HR responds; my max is 190. I did a warmup prior, mainly easy but with some pickups at pace.
https://log.concept2.com/profile/1558013/log/77036695

With HR zone training, you would typically try to stay in bands for longer, steady efforts, and then crank it hard for the speed work. I have never really played squash but would imagine that it could take the place of the interval work.

[DaveD33]

Nice post, OP. Like you, I started erging as cross training for another sport (ice hockey, also at an intermediate level) and have been looking for a training plan. I hadn't given the 5K plan much thought but this thread has me reconsidering.

Can you elaborate a bit on how you feel the 5K plan helped your squash game? I do a lot of steady state which has really helped my endurance, but I'd like to find a plan to work on power and speed as well.

This is a good question that I'm not sure I have an answer for just yet. In some ways, I started the program to keep me away from the court...

For a little background on my squash, my level is ~4.7 in the American rating system. This is not a beginner rating, but definitely a level below collegiate squash. (Definitely a few levels below the top college players who could otherwise be full time pro.) Last year I had rated out of my league, and moved up to playing in a 5.0 league. Unfortunately I developed nagging tendonitis in my patellar tendon at the beginning of the season, lasting through the winter, and not fully resolving until spring of this year.

Since the spring, I've been carefully managing my on-court time. No more marathon sessions or back-to-back-back days of matches. Over the summer, I figured it would be worthwhile to do something else off court. Having used the erg in a few training sessions, I liked the exercise and the convenience of have an erg in the house.

As for picking this specific plan (well, the 1/2 distance version), I liked the fact that it mixed short, medium and longer distances. I think most sports demand a combination of speed and energy: sprint, run, rest.. repeat. Now I wasn't looking for a workout to perfectly mimic the dynamic requirements of my sport, but I found the zone training an interesting diversion from squash, which is bit more general in classifying a training session. (At least for non-pros!) I suppose if I wanted to more closely mimic a squash match, I'd build in varying interval distances and intensities in the same session.

Now that summer is over and I completed the 12 weeks, I would like to think that the cross-training has helped a bit in terms of stamina. As shorter squash player, I find myself playing the rabbit most matches, so that has always been an important element of my game. Even if the improvement is mostly mental, it's been validating to play a few matches feeling fresher than my opponent by the end of the fifth game. Physically I didn't notice a huge change in my legs, as my quads and glutes were already fairly strong from squash. I did feel a change in my core though, specifically lats. I think core strength can only be helpful for any sport.

For improving speed on the ice, I would think that introducing intervals would be most helpful. It may not make you outright "speedy", but at the very least should help you maintain your burst over more intervals. Maybe the guys here have some suggestions on distance / times to that end. Or maybe it could even be interactive if you were watching on TV: row hard when the puck is in your team's end, easy in the neutral zone, and medium in the opponent's side? Better hope your team has a good defense!

Interesting, thanks. My experience has been pretty similar to yours with respect to core strength, my legs feel about the same, but I find I'm a lot stronger in puck battles along the boards and defensemen have a harder time moving me out of the way near the net.

As for intervals, I currently do include them in my training, but I don't enjoy them and the structure of a plan would help force me to do them regularly. In hockey I play as a centerman, which has the most defensive responsibility of the 3 forwards, and in practice this means a lot of medium-high to intense skating along all 200 feet of ice. Ideally hockey shifts are 30-45 seconds at near full intensity, but shifts of 2, 3 even 4 minutes are common in recreational (aka "Beer League") hockey depending on how many skaters show up to play. I'm not sure if those dynamics are more analogous to a 2000M row or a 5000M row, but the longer duration/longer rest intervals in the 5K plan seem like they could be really beneficial.