Diminishing returns on UT2 / general SS work in one session

[ShortAndStout]

A lot of really great discussion in there that I am personally learning from.

It makes a lot of sense that you are not going to train for a FM or longer by doing close or or beyond those distances; it's just not practical at all.

I am curious as to what the consensus here is when it comes to "base" training for the more traditional 2k. What do people see as the point of diminishing returns with respect to the amount of UT2/SS work per session or per week? At what point would it be more beneficial to add more threshold type work or more race-pace type of efforts as opposed to more UT2/! or SS work?

I think the answer I've seen to that question is generally "as much as you can recover from" but there are also prescribed meters / chunks of training that they recommend for a 2K season depending on which phase you're in. Eg, base phase is 60% UT2, 18% UT1, 5% AT (fake numbers) and the race period is some other set of numbers I've since forgotten.

I've been trying to find a thorough answer to the opposite question, what the base phase looks like for a non traditional distance like a HM or FM. Some on here suggest incorporating speed work because it builds your ability to push hard which is important and builds aerobic capacity (opposed to endurance capacity that UT2/UT1 build, and which UT2/UT1 typically does NOT I'm pretty sure), I've also seen as per a few comments ago that some people choose to incorporate no HIIT into their training because its counterintuitive to their goals of long distance training.

[ShortAndStout]

How much UT2 did you incorporate into your training if any? I'm surprised to hear yall doing nearly 200k a month of UT1, I don't think I'd be able to recover from that very well

Id have to work it out but for instance

WK1, day 1- 100k Plan 4x15mins split into 2x7.5min sectors, at 85 and 80% HRmax values with r1.5mions at R18 65% HRmax, repeated second day.

followed by a rest day

Day 2 - 3 x 15min @ 75/85/80% HRmax

So it was a mix of what would be described as UT1/AT levels with a bit of UT2 as well. The duraiont of each rep and the number of reps varied but increased to 210 mins towards the end of the plan.

It may just be an age difference but 80% of my HR is around 160 (out of 200ish) and I can reach that pretty easily with UT2. I'd say most of my long duration (read: 75min) sessions in UT2 tend to top out around 165 or 170 HR for me.

Would you mind shedding some light onto how your training for long distance enables adaptation? I know about polarized training and it's something I've been asking about / doing research on, I've gotten some feedback that lots of UT2 with the occasional weekly AT work thrown in there isn't enough of a training stimulus for that 20% of polar training and I likely won't see very much adaptation. How does your training ideology compare?

One reason I ask is because in what you briefly described it looks like a majority UT1/AT depending, and then UT2 thrown in as a means of recovery almost... where I seem to be doing the opposite with lots of UT2 and a periodic UT1/AT/TR workout to drive adaptation. The latter seems to be the zeitgeist of this forum but I'm still unsure.

For me probably 80k a week UT2 which would have been 16k r20 sessions. The remainder would be mainly UT1 and AT. Never did any speed work until 3 or 4 weeks before a race.

So here's something I've been struggling with lately, this is the approach I would like to take but I'm told that this approach won't provide enough adaptation to see improvements. Something like 50-70% UT2 and the remainder being UT1 / AT work. What has your experience been with this? Have you needed to do hard / short interval sessions (TR or above for ex) to see an improvement in speed on your SS?

Never did speed work during engine building stage, would have been counter productive IMHO. You do need to do some hard test sessions though like 30r20. It also depends how you define UT2, UT1 and AT. Mine were all lactate profile tested.

I've been defining mine as a % of 2K W, specifically UT2 as 50% and AT as 70-80%. I'll ask you the same question I just asked Glenn, does your training follow a polarized approach, and if it doesn't, how do you drive adaptation?

[GlennUk]

It may just be an age difference but 80% of my HR is around 160 (out of 200ish) and I can reach that pretty easily with UT2. I'd say most of my long duration (read: 75min) sessions in UT2 tend to top out around 165 or 170 HR for me.

Would you mind shedding some light onto how your training for long distance enables adaptation? I know about polarized training and it's something I've been asking about / doing research on, I've gotten some feedback that lots of UT2 with the occasional weekly AT work thrown in there isn't enough of a training stimulus for that 20% of polar training and I likely won't see very much adaptation. How does your training ideology compare?

One reason I ask is because in what you briefly described it looks like a majority UT1/AT depending, and then UT2 thrown in as a means of recovery almost... where I seem to be doing the opposite with lots of UT2 and a periodic UT1/AT/TR workout to drive adaptation. The latter seems to be the zeitgeist of this forum but I'm still unsure.

First off Im not sports scientist so i cannot explain techncially the how or why the adaption takes place, Eddie does not go into that detail, looking at my copy of the plan, i found this is about as much detail he goes into.

The ability to perform over the whole distance is built from the accumulation and adaption over the period of the plan, using interval workouts which challenge the physiology by providing the correct dose of training load, and utilising heart rate, stroke rate, and pace over equivalent half marathon, 10K and 5K distances. These paces are faster than marathon or 100k pace. This maximises both training effect and recovery and enables the full distance to be performed at optimum stroke rate, pace, and heart rate response.

What I can say is that the author of the plan, Eddie Fletcher is a sports scientist has developed this plan which has been widely used for a number of notables to break/set FM/100k national and WRs, Graham Benton, James Cracknell, and Rod Chinn for example.

What i found using the plans, first to row 116K was that over time i found that during training my HR became consistent over the duration of the rows compared with a given pace, and my pace improved significantly for a given HR compared with when i started.

[nick rockliff]

How much UT2 did you incorporate into your training if any? I'm surprised to hear yall doing nearly 200k a month of UT1, I don't think I'd be able to recover from that very well

Id have to work it out but for instance

WK1, day 1- 100k Plan 4x15mins split into 2x7.5min sectors, at 85 and 80% HRmax values with r1.5mions at R18 65% HRmax, repeated second day.

followed by a rest day

Day 2 - 3 x 15min @ 75/85/80% HRmax

So it was a mix of what would be described as UT1/AT levels with a bit of UT2 as well. The duraiont of each rep and the number of reps varied but increased to 210 mins towards the end of the plan.

It may just be an age difference but 80% of my HR is around 160 (out of 200ish) and I can reach that pretty easily with UT2. I'd say most of my long duration (read: 75min) sessions in UT2 tend to top out around 165 or 170 HR for me.

Would you mind shedding some light onto how your training for long distance enables adaptation? I know about polarized training and it's something I've been asking about / doing research on, I've gotten some feedback that lots of UT2 with the occasional weekly AT work thrown in there isn't enough of a training stimulus for that 20% of polar training and I likely won't see very much adaptation. How does your training ideology compare?

One reason I ask is because in what you briefly described it looks like a majority UT1/AT depending, and then UT2 thrown in as a means of recovery almost... where I seem to be doing the opposite with lots of UT2 and a periodic UT1/AT/TR workout to drive adaptation. The latter seems to be the zeitgeist of this forum but I'm still unsure.

So here's something I've been struggling with lately, this is the approach I would like to take but I'm told that this approach won't provide enough adaptation to see improvements. Something like 50-70% UT2 and the remainder being UT1 / AT work. What has your experience been with this? Have you needed to do hard / short interval sessions (TR or above for ex) to see an improvement in speed on your SS?

Never did speed work during engine building stage, would have been counter productive IMHO. You do need to do some hard test sessions though like 30r20. It also depends how you define UT2, UT1 and AT. Mine were all lactate profile tested.

I've been defining mine as a % of 2K W, specifically UT2 as 50% and AT as 70-80%. I'll ask you the same question I just asked Glenn, does your training follow a polarized approach, and if it doesn't, how do you drive adaptation?

No, more progressive. Push hard within the boundaries you have set yourself. Regular overload sessions. You don't progress if you don't work hard.

[fazel]

I don't have anything definitive, but I've read a fair amount about training and I have a couple of thoughts.

• Skiba is a well respected researcher and coach. In his book, he clearly states that more advanced athletes must train harder to realize adaptations.

• Olbrecht is also well respected and did a load of international level (swim) coaching guided by lactate. His "aerobic capacity" training incorporates several "short, hard efforts" before a "long tail" around 65% of VO2 Max. The way I've incorporated this is something like 10' easy, 2' build to the top of AT, 2' recovery, then 3x 30" on, 30" off at TR/AN, then UT2. He says this early intensity is necessary to engage the fast-twitch muscle fibers.

• Steve Neal is a cycling coach that I've talked to on and off. One of his primary focuses is shifting what was called the "lactate balance point". This has received a lot of bad press and the term is no longer used, even by Steve. Unfortunately, the easiest way to practice this sort of training is with a Moxy or some other muscle oxygen sensor. You do sustained efforts at the highest intensity at which SmO2 continues to rise slowly. For most folks this is around 80% of threshold, or what rowers refer to as UT1 (Steve suggests this intensity is almost always between 78-83% of max heart rate). There are a huge threads on this sort of training on the Fast Talk and Trainer Road forums.

• The most notable aspect of the Norwegian training is the degree to which they go to ensure lactate levels are kept under control. So while they work at relatively high intensities, the work tends to be in short blocks, and the blocks decrease in duration as the intensity increases (post 35), e.g., 5x 6' w/ 1' RBI at tempo-ish (UT1), 7x 3' w/ 1' RBI at AT, 20x 1' w/ 30" RBI just above AT. This sort of training may also help train the body to clear lactate.

• Recently, there has been a lot of talk of becoming "fat adapted", i.e., burning fat for fuel instead of glycogen. I don't know how much this would be a focus of rowers as events are short, but efforts to improve fat burning capacity include fasted long workouts, modifying food intake, and (at high levels), completing a glycogen depleting workout then several hours later an endurance workout with minimal food intake in between.