Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

[Yesterday I did 30K OTW. Part of my row yesterday was doing these drills: Feather on one side while keeping the blade squared on the other side for 30 strokes, then the same with switched sides for the next 30 strokes, then 30 strokes with both sides squared. Also I did this drill: While the legs are straight after the finish, after the release feather, then gradually roll up to squared blades where the hands are forward and the body is forward but the legs are still straight. Then feather and then do a gradual roll up to squared blades at the catch. So you feather and square the blades twice during the recovery. These drills work on hand position, balance, and controlling the blades.

Byron--

When you are rowing OTW, do you ever break a sweat or get winded?

Do you pull your oar or just play around with it?

In a 5K head race OTW, what would be your target pace?

What would be your target rate?

This year, I think I might be able to do 2:00 @ 28 spm for 5K OTW.

ranger

[ranger]

[Byron, will you be coming to OKC for master's nationals this summer? hope to see you there!

Hope to see you, too, Joe.

I don't think Byron will be there.

ranger

[Byron Drachman]

I am ready.

I am happy to hear that Byron.

Good luck in your races.

But your rowing has nothing to do with mine.

No, I won't be in Wisconsin during the fall.

I will be here in Ann Arbor doing head races.

ranger

No you won't, rangerboy. You'll still be hiding in your basement fantasizing about Danish lightweights and lying your bulbous buttocks off about your training.

Byron, will you be coming to OKC for master's nationals this summer? hope to see you there!

Hi Joe,

No. I'm just doing local regattas. Will you be passing through Lansing soon? I hope we can do another row on the Grand. I hope you have fun at the Nationals.

I confess I was needling our hero a little because I know he doesn't have the skills to do those drills.

Warm regards, Byron

Byron--When you are rowing OTW, do you ever break a sweat or get winded? Do you pull your oar or just play around with it?--snip--

I'll treat this as a serious question and try to answer: Back in the 1970's when I was doing some bike racing, I always tried to avoid the middle training zones. We didn't use that terminology then. I did all my long distance cycling, usually between 60 and 100 miles trying to hold it around 18 mph or less under neutral conditions. With modern bikes that would be around 20 mph. Using modern terminology I was almost always in the lowest training zone. Then when I did high intensity intervals, I kept them very short, simple, and intense. For me that was between 25 and 30 mph in neutral conditions. The cyclists who spent too much time grinding away in the middle zones would be rather strong, often tired and run down, and with no ability to keep with the pack during rushes. So for many years I tried to avoid the middle zones.

These days if I am doing a 20K row I am in the lowest training band so I am not sweating much or breathing hard. If I do a hard piece it is usually just a power 20. If I am in a double or quad and someone calls out a piece then I join in and you'll hear me breathing hard.

To summarize: I eschew the middle zones, the zones where you sweat and breathe hard, and prefer the lowest zone or else short higher intensity pieces. Well, OK, sometimes I do Xeno Muller's cardio 3 by 6 minutes workouts on the erg.

BTW, in his book Maffetone says during your steady state pieces to keep your heart rate at 180 minus your age, and you can add 5 to that if you are already trained, or 10 if you are older than 64 and trained. Then keep your intervals short and intense. So he would have you keep your heart rate at 125 unless you are doing intervals. Of course your heart rate is artificially high if you are rowing in place because of the extra heat. And this is for endurance athletes such as triathletes so one could argue that this might not apply to rowers. I am not a devout follower of Maffetone but I do agree with some of his ideas.

To put it another way: breathing hard and sweating profusely, unless you are doing a high intensity, short interval, is bad training.

[NavigationHazard]

Cheers Joe, I and Ms. Nav are up at the Chieftain until Saturday midmorning, and les MVBs have their boats here as well. If you're around and fancy a row tomorrow, wind permitting....

[eliotsmith]

Race preparation never made anyone any better.

Anyone else--past, present, or future--would feel exactly the same as I do about these things.

The above are samples of the generalizing that ranger loves to do. I've found that this kind of talk encourages others to do the same. Beware the general case, it often has nothing to do with the special, that is "real life", case. Even though he is fun to watch, don't become like him, please.

Eliot

[leadville]

Hi Joe,

No. I'm just doing local regattas. Will you be passing through Lansing soon? I hope we can do another row on the Grand. I hope you have fun at the Nationals.

I confess I was needling our hero a little because I know he doesn't have the skills to do those drills.

Warm regards, Byron

Byron--When you are rowing OTW, do you ever break a sweat or get winded? Do you pull your oar or just play around with it?--snip--

I'll treat this as a serious question and try to answer: Back in the 1970's when I was doing some bike racing, I always tried to avoid the middle training zones. We didn't use that terminology then. I did all my long distance cycling, usually between 60 and 100 miles trying to hold it around 18 mph or less under neutral conditions. With modern bikes that would be around 20 mph. Using modern terminology I was almost always in the lowest training zone. Then when I did high intensity intervals, I kept them very short, simple, and intense. For me that was between 25 and 30 mph in neutral conditions. The cyclists who spent too much time grinding away in the middle zones would be rather strong, often tired and run down, and with no ability to keep with the pack during rushes. So for many years I tried to avoid the middle zones.

These days if I am doing a 20K row I am in the lowest training band so I am not sweating much or breathing hard. If I do a hard piece it is usually just a power 20. If I am in a double or quad and someone calls out a piece then I join in and you'll hear me breathing hard.

To summarize: I eschew the middle zones, the zones where you sweat and breathe hard, and prefer the lowest zone or else short higher intensity pieces. Well, OK, sometimes I do Xeno Muller's cardio 3 by 6 minutes workouts on the erg.

BTW, in his book Maffetone says during your steady state pieces to keep your heart rate at 180 minus your age, and you can add 5 to that if you are already trained, or 10 if you are older than 64 and trained. Then keep your intervals short and intense. So he would have you keep your heart rate at 125 unless you are doing intervals. Of course your heart rate is artificially high if you are rowing in place because of the extra heat. And this is for endurance athletes such as triathletes so one could argue that this might not apply to rowers. I am not a devout follower of Maffetone but I do agree with some of his ideas.

To put it another way: breathing hard and sweating profusely, unless you are doing a high intensity, short interval, is bad training.

Byron - I applaud your intelligent approach to training. This is exactly what I do, and so far it seems to have worked. I do a LOT of low HR rowing at a stroke rating of 14-16. This gives me lots of time to think on the recovery, get those tiny little technical refinements set (e.g. recovering with wrists flat and left hand just slightly ahead of and above the right), and really feel the 'hang' on the oar handles.

I ama loyal advocate of the 'bipolar' approach to training - avoid the middle ranges, row either at a low, or really low HR, or row really hard - but not more than 5% of your total training time should be at that hard effort level. Today did 4x 500 m in a 4+; preparing to row in the Syracuse alumni eight at the IRAs, so trying to remember how to row sweep. HR was at max, and I'm shot. Stephen Seiler has researched this carefully and thoroughly and his work is well worth consideration.

Hope to be in Lansing next month; was supposed to be there this week but decided to stay home and watch my son's last HS lacrosse game.

You really should get to nationals - it's a ball.

Rangerboy - are you actually saying you're coming to OKC for nationals?

[Byron Drachman]

Hope to be in Lansing next month; was supposed to be there this week but decided to stay home and watch my son's last HS lacrosse game.

Hi Joe,
Fabulous. I hope we can do a row on the Grand. I'm available any day with the exception of June 25, when I'll be at the Grand Rapids regatta. I never played lacrosse so I don't really understand it, but it looks like a great sport.
Byron

[ranger]

Byron--

Do you still drive off your heels, without getting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet at the catch?

Or have you learned how to do it right?

ranger

[ranger]

Nice 6K OTW after 20K OTErg.

I continue to be astonished at my HR OTW.

Today, OTW, my heart rate was riding right at my anaerobic threshold, 172 bpm, and at one point got to 178 bpm.

That means that my HR at the moment is much higher OTW than OTErg, quite a switch.

My OTW rowing, then, is now clearly helping my erging (and vice versa).

The two together are great fun.

My paces OTW and OTErg continue to be separated by 20 seconds per 500m.

1:44 @ 26 spm OTW comes out to be 2:04 @ 26 spm OTW.

This means that I still can get about five seconds per 500m better OTW at the same rate.

The best rowers have about a fifteen second per 500m gap between their time OTErg and OTW when rowing at the same rate.

ranger

[bellboy]

Byron--

Do you still drive off your heels, without getting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet at the catch?

Or have you learned how to do it right?

ranger

Rich- Have you learned to steer in a relatively straight line yet? You know, just so you dont cause yet another collision?

[mikvan52]

Rich- (snip) straight line yet? (snip)

Straight?

ol' "mantis grip" doesn't do straight



Now if we could only get rangey to stand up in his 1x and pump his arms to the sky!

[Byron Drachman]

Do you still drive off your heels, without getting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet at the catch?

OK, I'll pretend we are having a discussion about technique. We have been through this before but I'll repeat what I said for you.

I never said that you drive off the heels. Driving with the heels down and driving off the heels do not mean the same thing. I said you want to do the drive with your heels down. If you lack flexibility, or are rigged wrong, or have the footstretcher wrongly positioned so you have to raise your heels at the catch, then you want to drive the heels down so the feet are flat against the footstretcher as soon as possible into the drive. Driving from the balls of the feet recruits only part of the quads.

[ranger]

I never said that you drive off the heels.

Yes, you did. And the discussion was about the catch, not about some later point in the drive.

Driving with the heels down and driving off the heels do not mean the same thing.

Of course not. But you said that, at the catch, you want your weight on your heels, not the balls of your feet.

I said you want to do the drive with your heels down

Indeed. You said that you want to drive off of them at the catch, with your weight on your heels.

you want to drive the heels down so the feet are flat against the footstretcher as soon as possible into the drive.

Of course, as everyone recommedns and does, except you!

Driving from the balls of the feet recruits only part of the quads.

I don't believe this at all. It is absolutely fine to have your heels raised when you drive off the balls of your feet at the catch. Your quads are fully engaged without your heels being set at the catch. When you set your heels, you drive with your hams and glutes. The angle of leverage and leveraging muscles change, from the front of the leg (the quads) to the back (hams and glutes).

In any event, what is important is that you have it right now and realize that giving advice to others when you don't have a clue what you are doing yourself does no one any service.

BTW, do you get your weight back up onto the balls of your feet when you swing you back, driving down onto the footplate with the front of your foot, pointing your toes? You also said that you should avoid using your calves, because they might get tired. Indeed. If you avoid using your core, legs, and arms, they will also stay fresh. Of course, you won't go anywhere, but what the heck. You don't get tired.

The _only_ way to check whether you are getting your leveraging right is to calculate your stroking power when you are just rowing naturally, say, in a 2K.

If you get your leveraging right, you pull around 13 SPI if you are a male lightweight, 16 SPI if you are a male heavyweight.

What is your stroking power when you are just rowing normally?

ranger

[ranger]

Great cadence now, 1:48 @ 23 spm (12 SPI), middlin' UT1/FM HR, steady state.

When I get there in my training, a FM, 1:48 @ 23 spm (12 SPI), will be no problem.

24 spm for a FM will be more of a challenge, but might be possible, too.

Of course, I would love to see 25 spm for a FM, but that is questionable, I think, given what I am experiencing now.

12 SPI @ 26 spm is definitely more of a HM cadence for me than a FM cadence.

If I can rate 26 spm for a HM, I should be able to rate 27 spm for 60min (28 spm for 10K, 29 spm for 30min, 30 spm for 6K, 31 spm for 5K).

At 12 SPI, all of these rates produce paces that are right on my distance targets.

ranger

[ranger]

Rich- Have you learned to steer in a relatively straight line yet? You know, just so you dont cause yet another collision?

In my Lansing head race, I indeed went straight.

It was the river that turned!

The problem was not steering.

The problem was looking over my shoulder too infrequently to see where I was going.

There are lots of ways to turn the boat, once you are aware that you need to turn..

I have no problem steering.

I just need to get in the habit of looking more frequently.

I'll work on it this spring, summer, and fall.

I should be fine with this by the time of my row at the Head of the Charles in October.

ranger