Older rower seeking opinion

[johnlvs2run]

I listen to music when rowing and occasionally sing along so am not out of breath
The only way i see i can improve the distance is by upping the stroke rate and decreasing the split time
but this means HR above 145 (90% for my age - my max is around 160).

That you want to go faster but you don't want your heart rate to go higher are conflicting objectives.
Also if you're singing along and not out of breath then you're not rowing at 90% of your maximum heart rate.
You're probably going more like 65 to 70%, i.e. moderately easy, which is why your pace is not improving that much.
If you want to go faster, then you need to go faster, which means raising up your stroke rate, and getting a higher heart rate.

[miket-nyc]

Welcome to the forum, Paul.

Unless you have a well-founded medical reason to not row at higher BPMs, the solution is to also do shorter, harder sessions.

The Fox heart-rate formula (220 minus your age) is obsolete and gives too low a maximum heart rate. There are several better ones:

Gulati formula (women only): 206 - (0.88 × age)

HUNT formula (men and women who are active): 211 - (0.64 x age)

Tanaka formula (men and women over age 40): 208 - (0.7 × age)

I currently use the HUNT formula (I'm 71, so that's 165.6). But the only really accurate way is a stress test from a cardiologist. In theory you could just row harder and harder with a heart rate monitor until you absolutely can't do it anymore and see what the maximum heart rate is. In practice that hurts so much that I stop before I really reach it. I basically need someone to push me to make me reach the point of collapse -- maybe you don't.

Mike Taglieri

[pauld58]

On further research I found the various HR formulas and decided on Tanaka max rate 162 and read up on 80/20 training. So have been rowing at 22 spm within 70-80% zone 2, drag setting 6 and consistently achieve 80-85% of the hour in this zone -distance is about 12.5-12.7k but this is not as important as staying in the zone. I rarely go above this zone in the hour sessions. I have also introduced a shorter session of intervals of higher stroke and heart unsurprisingly this is not as consistent and try to achieve the 20% through this. I suspect I could use the hunt formula but am sticking to this for the time being see how my fitness improves.

[lindsayh]

On further research I found the various HR formulas and decided on Tanaka max rate 162 and read up on 80/20 training. So have been rowing at 22 spm within 70-80% zone 2, drag setting 6 and consistently achieve 80-85% of the hour in this zone -distance is about 12.5-12.7k but this is not as important as staying in the zone. I rarely go above this zone in the hour sessions. I have also introduced a shorter session of intervals of higher stroke and heart unsurprisingly this is not as consistent and try to achieve the 20% through this. I suspect I could use the hunt formula but am sticking to this for the time being see how my fitness improves.

There are a number of papers published that show clearly that none of the suggested formulae provide a consistent estimate for MHR and that 220-age is actually a bit of an urban myth. The original proposer was horrified by how it was adopted. It is easy to debunk too - my real MHR is 170 (visited it today!) and my formula at 72 = 148. MHR is not a trainable thing but a fact of an individual's life and different for everyone. Resting HR drops with improving fitness.
For example:
Journal of Exercise Physiology online - Official Journal of The American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP)
ISSN 1097-9751 Volume 5 Number 2 May 2002

The only reliable and consistent way to get your MHR is to row as hard as you can until you reach failure and stop. A treadmill/crosstrainer/stationary bike is ok but it seems that there is some variability between machines. The most widely accepted method is that developed at the AIS in Canberra here in Oz. It involves intervals of 4'/1'R stepped down each time with increasing intensity - 5 or 6 are done. They do lactates after each one. I was lucky enough to do one about 7 years ago at the AIS as a VO2max trial and got to 172.
Today I did a 10km though and reached MHR 170 without any special set up. The AIS also use a full on 30' to get there.
Just go for it I reckon! It's a bit of fun and pretty satisfying too.

Elite athletes (rowers/swimmers/cyclists and the like) use their lactates to set zones. We amateurs have to use HR as a proxy.
So take MHR - Resting HR (HR at complete rest) and that gives you the HRR (heart rate reserve) take % of HRR and add RHR back in. So if MHR is 180 and RHR 60 then HRR is 120. 80% HRR = 96 so top of aerobic is 156 and 70% = 144.

[nick rockliff]

On further research I found the various HR formulas and decided on Tanaka max rate 162 and read up on 80/20 training. So have been rowing at 22 spm within 70-80% zone 2, drag setting 6 and consistently achieve 80-85% of the hour in this zone -distance is about 12.5-12.7k but this is not as important as staying in the zone. I rarely go above this zone in the hour sessions. I have also introduced a shorter session of intervals of higher stroke and heart unsurprisingly this is not as consistent and try to achieve the 20% through this. I suspect I could use the hunt formula but am sticking to this for the time being see how my fitness improves.

There are a number of papers published that show clearly that none of the suggested formulae provide a consistent estimate for MHR and that 220-age is actually a bit of an urban myth. The original proposer was horrified by how it was adopted. It is easy to debunk too - my real MHR is 170 (visited it today!) and my formula at 72 = 148. MHR is not a trainable thing but a fact of an individual's life and different for everyone. Resting HR drops with improving fitness.
For example:
Journal of Exercise Physiology online - Official Journal of The American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP)
ISSN 1097-9751 Volume 5 Number 2 May 2002

The only reliable and consistent way to get your MHR is to row as hard as you can until you reach failure and stop. A treadmill/crosstrainer/stationary bike is ok but it seems that there is some variability between machines. The most widely accepted method is that developed at the AIS in Canberra here in Oz. It involves intervals of 4'/1'R stepped down each time with increasing intensity - 5 or 6 are done. They do lactates after each one. I was lucky enough to do one about 7 years ago at the AIS as a VO2max trial and got to 172.
Today I did a 10km though and reached MHR 170 without any special set up. The AIS also use a full on 30' to get there.
Just go for it I reckon! It's a bit of fun and pretty satisfying too.

Elite athletes (rowers/swimmers/cyclists and the like) use their lactates to set zones. We amateurs have to use HR as a proxy.
So take MHR - Resting HR (HR at complete rest) and that gives you the HRR (heart rate reserve) take % of HRR and add RHR back in. So if MHR is 180 and RHR 60 then HRR is 120. 80% HRR = 96 so top of aerobic is 156 and 70% = 144.

Just to show how different wa all are. I have had the step test with lactate profile a number of times in my late 40s early 50s. My MHR was 173 age 48. I'm 67 next and the highest HR I've seen is 157 but think it will be low 160s.

I don't use HR to set my training now but still track every session. It's not very often I do a session that ends with my HR lower than 140.

[JaapvanE]

Just to show how different wa all are. I have had the step test with lactate profile a number of times in my late 40s early 50s. My MHR was 173 age 48.

This shows the limitations of the formula of age to maxHR. My max observed HR (not all out) was 186 at age 50. The formula show an expectation for a group average, but within a group there is quite a variation, so it can not be projected onto an individual.

I don't use HR to set my training now but still track every session. It's not very often I do a session that ends with my HR lower than 140.

I let my HR steer my training, as I notice that I will not recover sufficiently when I ignore HR. It isn't set in stone, but about 80% of my training is done below 70% max observed HR, and 20% near Max observed HR.

[MPx]

... my real MHR is 170 (visited it today!)

Way to go Lindsay - great to hear that you're clearly back and giving it some beans!

[Cyclingman1]

A lot of us do not use HR monitors. Instead, training is based on SB 2K. Given that pace one can adjust all training. Also all of the fine distinctions between UT2, UT1, AT, TR, and AN have always seemed a bit much. In the running world people speak of LSD [long slow distance], tempo runs [a little slower than race pace], lactate threshold runs/intervals [at the anaerobic threshold point close to 2K pace], and purely anaerobic shorter intervals. Same thing applies to rowing. All of those runs/trainings are inexact, faster or slower some days.

Today: 12K @2:07.2, DF 138, SPM 30, Watts: 170, Watts/SPM = 5.7. Very warm in gym. For me, it was LSD based on 2K @1:49.7 this yr. Was it easy? No. One notch harder than easy. What was HR? No idea, but I could and did speak for a bit a couple of times. On pace for 14150 or 540 less than SB. Notice DF and SPM higher than many. That is how I've always rolled. Would go slower for HM training although SB is 2:03.6.

It just seems like all of this is getting too obscure.

I hadn't seen you in a while Lindsay. JimG

[nick rockliff]

Just to show how different wa all are. I have had the step test with lactate profile a number of times in my late 40s early 50s. My MHR was 173 age 48.

This shows the limitations of the formula of age to maxHR. My max observed HR (not all out) was 186 at age 50. The formula show an expectation for a group average, but within a group there is quite a variation, so it can not be projected onto an individual.

I don't use HR to set my training now but still track every session. It's not very often I do a session that ends with my HR lower than 140.

I let my HR steer my training, as I notice that I will not recover sufficiently when I ignore HR. It isn't set in stone, but about 80% of my training is done below 70% max observed HR, and 20% near Max observed HR.

How do you determine the 70%? Is it a HR cap then slow down once you hit the cap or have you worked out a pace/rate combination that allows you row an even pace and end on a HR cap?

[JaapvanE]

How do you determine the 70%? Is it a HR cap then slow down once you hit the cap or have you worked out a pace/rate combination that allows you row an even pace and end on a HR cap?

That is trial and error. As I do a lot of steady state long distance stuff, I can experiment. In theory my HR Zone 2 should end around 132. I notice when I hit that mid session and keep my pace constant, my HR will go to 150 in the minutes following that. I notice that when I hit around 128 to 130 mid-session it will slowly increase. When I stay around 125 to 127, it will remain pretty stable and I end up in the low 130's at the end. So the "climbing rate" of my HR shows something.

My breathing rate tells a similar story: at 125 mid-session it typically is identical to the stroke rate (around 20SPM) throughout the session. If I have to work harder it becomes about 1,5 times strokerate pretty quickly. When I hit a HR of 132 mid session, I typically breath 40 times per minute for quite some time (my Garmin watch actually records this).

For me, these are signs things get tougher. What I notice is that I can use this to aim for staying in that zone 2. When it goes up too fast, or breathing rythem gets faster than my strokes, I know I have to slow down.

I do notice that my pace varies a bit for these pieces, which could be because I am already fatigued, etc. The human body isn't a machine you can turn on or off at a desired setting.

[Dangerscouse]

Today I did a 10km though and reached MHR 170 without any special set up.

Hello Lindsay, good to see you're still cranking out some solid sessions

[lindsayh]

Today I did a 10km though and reached MHR 170 without any special set up.

Hello Lindsay, good to see you're still cranking out some solid sessions

thanks Mike Stu Jim.
Jim I stopped logging at end of 2020 as my knees stopped me training properly so I had nothing to report! struggled through '21 and then had TKR surgery in October '22 and May '23 once able. Starting to get fit again tho not fast! Can't close at the catch enough but beginning to feel the love. There is a physical limit to flex angle post surgery unfortunately but getting stronger. I suspect I will be sub8 right now for 2km but my racing days are long gone sadly.

[Dangerscouse]

I suspect I will be sub8 right now for 2km but my racing days are long gone sadly.

To be able to go sub 8 at 72, is a testament to your ability. There are many men 50 years younger that would be happy with that

[Cyclingman1]

Once you've been pretty good, even in age groups, it is hard to give up the chase. And, Lindsay, you were good. Sometimes I could keep up, sometimes not. We all have to accept reality at some point, even if it is with kicking and screaming. I can imagine coming back from TKR as being difficult. I'm fairly certain I'll be finding out sooner than later. 8:00 for 2K is nothing to sneeze at. There are plenty of rows where I'm a little below, but not by much. Keep up the struggle and throw in some fun. JimG

[mjhatten]

Since you asked for Senior Rower opinions, I'll give mine.

I keep track of my HR but it doesn't drive me. I trust my perceived effort. I try to keep it in the 7 to 8 range of the RPE scale. My HR (measured by Fitbit) stays in the UT1 - AT range. My limitations seem to be strength related (how many watts I burn at a given stroke rate) rather than cardiovascular. I get tired but not gasping for air.

For reference, I row in the 50th percentile of the 75 - 79 age group of the C2 rankings and I'm okay with that. The only race I ever have is with myself and the Grim Reaper.