Older ergers

[T_M]

(R.I.P. Bob Spenger, Cal Bears crew in the late 30s, collegiate career interrupted and an Olympics appearance lost to military service, multiple IR hammer winner and 2015-16 WIRC winner in age 90+.)[/i]

Nice memorial jackarabit...

[jackarabit]

Hey T_M. You still do the flagpole cantilever/human flag?

[T_M]

Hey T_M. You still do the flagpole cantilever/human flag?

I wish LOL...That was dwalk...had to go back to page 500 or so on the training thread to find his avatar and recall his name

[jackarabit]

Hey T_M. You still do the flagpole cantilever/human flag?

I wish LOL...That was dwalk...had to go back to page 500 or so on the training thread to find his avatar and recall his name

I apologize for creating the backtrailing task. I could have checked memory lane b4 opening my big mouth.

[ericMX73]

Last week I rowed 145k total meters and felt amazing on the weekend. Today I got up from a nap too fast and pulled a muscle in my back.

[MudSweatAndYears]

You can tell you are an older erger when...

... you congratulate yourself on a 2k time that would be a worlds best if only you would be 10 years older...

[jamesg]

When after maintaining a certain pace for 2-3 years, it drops off all of a sudden.
Wondering how to avoid same. Eureka, found it... for now.

Current standard: 120W, 1.5W/kg.

[Cyclingman1]

I don't access the C2 Forum too often, but just saw this. Just a few comments.

Having some sort of slippage due to age is pretty vague. Rowers can get better as they age, even those in 50s and 60s. This whole decline with age needs to qualified with "given similar levels of fitness," at some point age becomes a factor in lesser performances. However, people can get fitter and faster as they age up to some point.

But what is it about age that results in decline: Reduced cellular oxidation? Loss of strength, flexibility? Slower recovery of body systems? Can any of those be dealt with?

Of course, life issues can come into play with getting older, forcing rowing to take a back seat with inevitable decline that may or may not be permanent.

Aged related decline can be gradual, perhaps usually is. Expectations have to be slowly adjusted accordingly. A bit more puzzling are fairly sudden downshifts in performance. Is it really age. One can be left scratching one's head trying to figure out what has changed, what is lacking? Perhaps age related decline is susceptible to abrupt jumps.

A certainty is that decline in absolute numbers will happen to all of us. Initially, pinpointing the reason may be difficult. Is it age or something else? Of course, at some point age in a broad sense will be the predominant factor.

[H2O]

When suddenly all the monitors are broken.

[Cyclingman1]

A little off topic, but what I find dismaying is the disappearance of rowers from the rankings as they age. Being in my later 70s, I looked at the 70-75 rankings from 2019 and the 75-79 rankings from 2024 for several distances, including 2K, 5K, & 30 min. I found that only 20% or so of those ranking in 2019 were still ranking in 2024. Even some, if not most, of the faster rowers have quit ranking. I presume that may well mean not rowing at all, the ultimate in the effects of age on rowing. BTW, I make no claim of having done an exhaustive analysis of rowers leaving the sport.

[ranger]

Sorry to speak against the majority on this issue, and perhaps don't yet have any right to, but this winter, my goal is to be 40sec over 2K FASTER than I was 20 years ago, when I broke the 50s lwt 2K WR three time. This seems wildly unreasonable, given that no one with one or more WR 2K rows, as I had in 2003, has ever gotten any better--at all, not 1sec better, not .1sec better, especially after 20 years. In fact, without exception, really, everyone has SLOWED DOWN by a predictable rate of 4sec per 500m per decade, and so, over TWO decades, 8sec per 500, or 32sec. To be 40sec FASTER over 2K twenty years later, then, deviates from expectation by 72sec over 2K!

I can only cite two things to support my goal. (1) Neither my strength nor my physiology, my resting and maxHRs, have declined with age. My maxHR is still 205 bpm; my resting HR is still 40 spm; and I have all of youthful strength. (2) To be 40sec faster, I will use a radically different technique, a CONIBEAR stroke. No one has ever used a CONIBEAR stroke on an erg, even though, historically, the stroke dominated rowing for 30 years, 1910-1940, winning all of the major championships and Olympic medals. For me, personally, a CONIBEAR stroke is much faster than a contemporary rowing stroke. A CONIBEAR stroke is done at max drag (220 drag factor), using a maximal back swing, leveraged off the heels rather than the toes, with the hams and glutes, rather than the quads, and shortened up at the finish so that the arms are folded into the back and the back into the legs. When the legs are done, the stroke is done. So the drive time on the stroke is only HALF of the drive time of a contemporary stroke, .4sec rather than .8sec. This lets you train in a 3-to-1 ratio, for most of your meters, at 36 spm rather than 18 spm. I also get quite a bit more stroking power from a CONIBEAR stroke, 13 SPI rather than 10 SPI, which is the best I could do with a contemporary rowing stroke.

Here is a CONIBEAR stroke:

https://www.row2k.com/video/1928--Wanin ... oke/25772/

[Yankeerunner]

Sorry to speak against the majority on this issue, and perhaps don't yet have any right to, but this winter, my goal is to be 40sec over 2K FASTER than I was 20 years ago, when I broke the 50s lwt 2K WR three time. This seems wildly unreasonable, given that no one with one or more WR 2K rows, as I had in 2003, has ever gotten any better--at all, not 1sec better, not .1sec better, especially after 20 years. In fact, without exception, really, everyone has SLOWED DOWN by a predictable rate of 4sec per 500m per decade, and so, over TWO decades, 8sec per 500, or 32sec. To be 40sec FASTER over 2K twenty years later, then, deviates from expectation by 72sec over 2K!

Just a friendly reminder, that despite more than 15 years of predicting impending superstardom your only completed 2K during those 15 years is an 8:39.9 at the 2014 CRASH-Bs.
http://www.crash-b.org/wp-content/uploa ... -VM60.html

No need to thank me.

[ranger]

Cheers, Bakes. I was searching for a stroke, and while experimenting in various ways, I didn't find one--

until this year.

I have been training with my CONIBEAR stroke now for nine months or so.

GREAT STUFF.

Love the action in the stroke.

You might be interested, because the stroke isn't built on length and strength, and so EFFECTIVENESS/STROKING POWER, and therefore, for big rowers, 6'5", 220 lbs., but on just the opposite, BREVITY and EFFICIENCY, and high RATES, therefore for smaller rowers, like you and me.

[ranger]

I'll do some standard predictive sessions and trials over the next few weeks that will illlustrate the potential of the stroke.

My first race will be in COLUMBUS, OH, at OSU, on Jan. 20th.

[mict450]

My ignore list is working. However, quotes are not blocked! Sigh....same old, same old....Dougie, anyway I can change this?