Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

All this stuff about fat and weight loss from exercise is beside the point for someone who has lost weight--at will, repeatedly--by exercising.

After WIRC 2002, where I pulled 6:28.5 at 195 lbs., I decided to make weight and row as a lightweight.

I started losing weight in April and made weight about August 1st.

So, in four months, I lost 30 pounds.

About two pounds a week for 16 weeks.

How?

In addition to my normal regimen of jumping rope for an hour, doing sit ups for an hour, and erging 20K, I just got on a stepper for three hours in the afternoon.

The weight just fell off.

ranger

[ranger]

Right, and it worked so well in 2006

No training method/stategy works well _all_ the time.

Life is complicated.

You just do what you can, as you can, and try to buck the roadblocks and headwinds.

Those who sit on the sidelines and judge, without accomplishing anything much at all themselves, live in an unreal world of their own fashioning.

They don't have a clue.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, if I row to my full potential (6:16 over 2K), weight is irrelevant.

I will break the 60s _heavyweight_ WR by eight seconds.

Sure, it will be more impressive when I do the same as a lightweight, but sheesh...

No matter.

Even though I am just a little guy, I am going to outrow _everybody_ by a country mile.



ranger

[ranger]

Almost all of the best rowers in and around this sport when I started rowing back in 2000 no longer row at all.

They have all been done in by the various endgames of rowing: injury, sickness, staleness, and disappointment.

Pretty say affair.

Life is complicated.

And in all things, it is best to protect yourself to downside.

In the market and elsewhere, pigs get slaughtered.

ranger

[leadville]

Almost all of the best rowers in and around this sport when I started rowing back in 2000 no longer row at all.

They have all been done in by the various endgames of rowing: injury, sickness, staleness, and disappointment.

Pretty say affair.

Life is complicated.

And in all things, it is best to protect yourself to downside.

In the market and elsewhere, pigs get slaughtered.

ranger

rangerboy - you're slurring your words, and the legible ones make no sense.

wait, that's normal in rangerland...

[mrfit]

I've been rowing OTE and OTW spanning 27 years, for what it's worth. Model A ergs were new when I started rowing. The Crash-B's were a novelty event (racing on an erg, we laughed!). Talk to me when you are 77 and we can compare notes on what this is like to row in the real LONG haul.

[rjw]

All this stuff about fat and weight loss from exercise is beside the point for someone who has lost weight--at will, repeatedly--by exercising.

After WIRC 2002, where I pulled 6:28.5 at 195 lbs., I decided to make weight and row as a lightweight.

I started losing weight in April and made weight about August 1st.

So, in four months, I lost 30 pounds.

About two pounds a week for 16 weeks.

How?

In addition to my normal regimen of jumping rope for an hour, doing sit ups for an hour, and erging 20K, I just got on a stepper for three hours in the afternoon.

The weight just fell off.

ranger

You were 30 pounds over weight and doing all this exercise. Looks like simply controlling what you put in the "pie hole" would be a better strategy!

[rjw]

BTW, if I row to my full potential (6:16 over 2K), weight is irrelevant.

Rich, I hate to be the one to break it to you but 6:16 over 2k is not your full potential. Given that you are almost 60's ltwt, your potential is much less. In addition, you have nothing to base this on except a few strokes at pace, and then a break, and then a few more.

Your full potential at this time in your journey is around 6:4x and that is if you pace sensibly.

[rjw]

Almost all of the best rowers in and around this sport when I started rowing back in 2000 no longer row at all.

They have all been done in by the various endgames of rowing: injury, sickness, staleness, and disappointment.

Pretty say affair.

Life is complicated.

And in all things, it is best to protect yourself to downside.

In the market and elsewhere, pigs get slaughtered.

ranger

Rich, you know not what you speak!

[Rockin Roland]

Almost all of the best rowers in and around this sport when I started rowing back in 2000 no longer row at all.

That's because they have moved on to do more interesting things.

Your still thrashing around on the same piece of exercise equipment, beating your chest, talking trash and not producing any results or improvement for us to see.

[ranger]

I've been rowing OTE and OTW spanning 27 years, for what it's worth. Model A ergs were new when I started rowing. The Crash-B's were a novelty event (racing on an erg, we laughed!). Talk to me when you are 77 and we can compare notes on what this is like to row in the real LONG haul.

My reference wasn't to those who just row.

My reference was to the best ergers in the sport--the WR-holders, division leaders, consistent medal winners at major championships, etc.

ranger

[ranger]

Your still thrashing around on the same piece of exercise equipment, beating your chest, talking trash and not producing any results or improvement for us to see.

The "thrashing around" is training.

You don't get better by racing, or by training to race.

You get better by improving your UT rowing.

Even so, from year to year, I am racing at WR pace--without even preparing for it.

No former WR-holder in recent times has ever gotten better--none.

So, in recent times, at least, what I am attempting is unprecedented.

Given the history of the sport, it should be impossible for me to be a dozen seconds better eight years later, by a margin pushing 30 seconds over 2K.

From a peak of fitness, the normal decline with age among veterans is 1.7 seconds per year over 2K.

Over eight years, that's 13.6 seconds.

Add another dozen seconds to that and you get 25.6 seconds.

Given the normal decline with age, given my WR 50s lwt row of 6:30 in 2003, this year, the prediction is that I should pull 6:43.6.

It will be interesting to see what I end up doing this year--fully prepared, rowing well at low drag-- compared to that.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, if I row to my full potential (6:16 over 2K), weight is irrelevant.

Rich, I hate to be the one to break it to you but 6:16 over 2k is not your full potential. Given that you are almost 60's ltwt, your potential is much less. In addition, you have nothing to base this on except a few strokes at pace, and then a break, and then a few more.

Your full potential at this time in your journey is around 6:4x and that is if you pace sensibly.

There is no support for this claim at all.

My sharpening over the next two months will tell the story clearly, but your claim here is just hot air.

BTW, the 6:29.7 I pulled in 2006, unprepared, rowing poorly at high drag, predicts, five years later, 6:38, unprepared, rowing poorly at high drag.

It will also be interesting to see what I end up pulling this year--fully prepared, rowing well at low drag--compared to that.

From sharpening alone, I usually get a dozen seconds over 2K.

I'm not sure what I will get from rowing well at low drag (vs. rowing poorly at high drag)--but I think it will also be substantial.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, it is still my impression that, given my age and weight, the unusual power in my stroke comes from the combination of my core, back, and calves after the initial push with my legs.

Like other good 60s lwts, I only get 90 kgF of force with my legs, but when I swing my back and push down my toes with my calves in the center of my drive, that force lifts to 135 kgF before it falls away and I finish with my arms.

135 kgF of peak force is a lot for a little old guy.

Back in 2002-2003, I only got about 90 kgF of peak force.

I didn't know how to use my legs.

By and large, I just rowed with my core, calves, back, and arms--dragging my legs behind.

I have been rowing effectively with my legs for some time now, perhaps as far back as 2006, albeit still at high drag and a short slide, and with too much tension in my shoulders and arms at the catch.

To use your legs efficiently, you need to learn to row at low drag and full slide, relaxing your shoulders at the catch and during the swing of your back.

I have now learned to do that, too.

Rowing at low drag and full slide dramatically changes the ratios that you row at--and for the better.

Drive time shrinks and recovery time expands.

You work less and rest more, generating force with quickness and length, rather than brute strength.

ranger

[ranger]

BTW, it would be interesting to take a look at Mike VB's force curve, when he is just rowing naturally.

Mike is younger than I am, but he is the current hammer in my age and weight division.

It would be interesting to compare notes.

Mike, could you give us a screen shot of your force curve, say, when you are doing 1:43 @ 34 spm, your race pace and rate?

It will be interesting to see, but my guess is that Mike's core, back, and calves in the center of his stroke make no additional contribution to the peak force that he gets with his legs.

I think we will see that, after the leg drive, Mike's force curve just flat-lines out at 90 kgF or so, sustaining the force he generates with his legs, but not adding to it.

ranger