Depends on how hard you work at it--among other things (e.g., years of experience, rowing OTW, etc.).mikvan52 wrote:http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=125619#125619ranger wrote:
Lowering a male 50s age-group WR by over five seconds per 500m, and by as much as seven seconds per 500m past age and weight standards, would be...
FWIW: Isn't ranger nearly 60? Shouldn't we expect nearly a 5% drop in peak performance from him over 10 years? Oh, pardon me, "It's ranger".... call it 3% then
Paul Hendershott was _faster_ at 60 than he was at 55, and he was much more experienced during this period than I was.
I have been getting better and better technically over the last seven years, which has more than compensating for any physical decline.
I didn't really start learning to row until I was 53.
I was almost 54 before I first got in a boat.
I didn't start working on technique until then.
On the erg, I broke the WR in my age and weight division as a novice, without knowing how to row.
When I was 52, I pulled 6:27.5 in my first public erg race, only the third all out 2K I had ever done, and without any coaching whatsoever about how to do it.
At that time, the 50s lwt WR was Jean-Paul Tardieu's 6:31.6.
If you learn to row well and train up a solid technique from low rates to high through all of the training bands, I think it is worth about four seconds per 500m vis-a-vis just yanking the chain, hard and fast, as I did back in 2002-2003.
That's a lot!
16 seconds over 2K.
If you are interested in competing at the highest level, even on the erg, rowing is a significantly technical sport.
ranger