Muscle and The Pete Plan

[pdduggan]

I'm currently working to lose a little weight and maintain muscle by combining all-out sprint HIIT with hour-long UT2 sessions on non-HIIT days.
I'm not far from my weight target and thinking about what will I do when I get there, to keep some interest and improve general fitness while maintaining weight.

So - as I guess most people on this forum end up doing at some point - I've been looking at The Pete Plan. TPP does not explicitly mention supplementing rower work with weights/resistance training. My understanding was that if you're not either sprinting i.e. working anaerobically, or working at quite a low %age of your HRR i.e. UT2 then you risk burning up muscle unless actively building it by doing weight work as well. Would this be an issue with following The Pete Plan and just TPP? Does anyone here combine weights with TPP?

I wonder if I might be better off keeping the all-out HITT 2-3 times per week (which I sort-of enjoy in a perverse way) and just reducing the volume of UT2 instead. I'm a bit worried I might get bored with it though. I'm certainly getting bored of hours of UT2 as it stands, but until I get to my target weight I think it's a necessary evil.

[G-dub]

Not sure how old you are. My comments are from an older fart. The Pete plan has one basic purpose and that is to prepare for a 2K race or TT. Some do it for a change of pace too, however. Done correctly it is very taxing and the three focus sessions per week really hit your recovery and CNS pretty hard. Two cycles is tough, more than that super tough both mentally and physically. I personally couldn’t keep up a weight training program of any level of intensity while on it, but maintenance oriented stuff worked Ok. If you want to lift weights to get stronger, I’m not sure that the PP is the right program. It doesn’t sound like you are focusing on erg speed, so there isn’t much need to practice erg speed it seems to me

[pdduggan]

I'm 47. Whether that puts me into 'old fart' territory I'll leave for others to decide.

Thanks for responding. I thought that the Pete Plan wasn't aimed at race preparation. I'm confused. You're right in that I'm not interested in getting faster at erging as an end in itself, but I do want to improve fitness and keep a workout regimen going to maintain weight.

[G-dub]

Pete Plan is about training for a 2K attempt. There is also a 5K plan and a beginner plan. But the classic one is designed to sharpen for a 2K

[G-dub]

This is only intuitive based on how I feel and do, but if I was going to devote a few days a week to lifting for strength development, I might do 5-6Ks at UT1 every other day. Or maybe one hour piece like you are doing, a 5/6K at low rate but hard pressure (leg drive) and maybe one sprint type session, say 250 to 500m intervals. I guess it all depends too on what your weight training is and if it’s “park bench”or “bus stop”. Meaning if you are really going for it for a set period of time with the weights to make gains than the erg should support it and not hurt it. If the weights are more about maintenance, than you can put more into the erg.

[lindsayh]

I'm with Glen - if you do the Pete properly then you will definitely struggle to get good weight sessions in as well. The PP is simply a rolling 3 week program to improve your 2k with say 4/5 sessions a week that can be done in <60 minutes. If your goals are fitness, weight loss and building muscle then longer steady pieces for cardio (40 to 60 minutes) say 3x a week and a weights program twice/week would be better.

[pdduggan]

Thanks for setting me straight on TPP and advice in responses.

[bob01]

Hi

Whilst not on the PP but I do row and cycle regularly. I do a few weights.... nothing too heavy ... boom boom..



And

I always do some presses after a row session

One can do both... but accept serious weights and serious rowing are difficult... simultaneously

[Dangerscouse]

One can do both... but accept serious weights and serious rowing are difficult... simultaneously

I agree. You have to focus on one or the other. Maybe a couple of full body weight training sessions a week might be suitable?

[bob01]

If i may expand the conversation a little
Ok this may compromise the pp.
But i feel a strong rower is a better rower (as an indivual)

I recomend strength training that compliments rowing. And then some rowing sprints- done with similar tech to ones 2k tech....

And also the additional use of exersises that work muscles... that are not worked in rowing... eg presses

[mdpfirrman]

I try to balance the PP and weightlifting all the time, but my weights aren't that heavy for the most part. Like Glenn and others have said, the PP as written (the one geared toward 2K racing and the original) is 6 days a week. Sometimes, people will come on the forum and only do the interval work, but that's truly not the PP as written. If you're doing the PP like it's supposed to be done, it's around 60K meters a week with three of those days being very hard.

The challenge is the days that are "easy" need to be just that for recovery, easier. So, I've found that lifting on the easy days is counterproductive. I choose to do lifting on the harder days. Most of that time, that's challenging because the harder days are very hard. I've resorted to mostly heavy KB swings, military presses and chest work, which are mostly complimentary. Now, last year, before my race, I was lifting a bit harder and adding in some more work, like 3ft or so box jumps. More explosive work.

Some have been able to do lifting with the PP but the full PP is meant to be a 6 to 12 week "sharpening" tool before a race, not a year-long plan. Most year's plans are more periodized. When you read the plans of most US rowers, I've read that they have heavy lifting periods, many of their sessions while cardio building are lower weights, higher reps. Toward race time, they lower the reps and raise the weight. The intensity/style of lifting matches the rowing -- higher meters, higher reps, lower (intense) meters, higher intensity/lower rep weights.

[G-dub]

Bob - I think most would agree with you that strength training is a good, if not necessary thing to do. And working the major movement patterns makes for a healthier more upright person.

What isn’t clear (to me anyway) is if the OP is currently wanting to focus on weight training with cardio work supported on the erg, or if he wants weight training to support an erg based program that gets him better as an indoor rower, or if it’s about designing a program that has both in balance - sort of an all year 6 days a week plan for good health and wellness. Or it could be some intense, short duration “40 days” type of program that has sprint work and weights done at decent intensity. Pick one, design the program to fit it

[bob01]

Glenn.. I can see your point re necessary!

I still think tho.... that providing the stroke is similar it is surely better to be rowing a 2k at 50% of max as opposed to 60%

but the OQ was weight muscle and PP!! so I assume those are his requirements

Full PP and serious weights are a difficult combination and I suppose serious PP combined with serious cycling et al will compromise either at best... more likely both, I accept there is gonna be some super athlete who is great at both.... but that does not mean one is not compromised

(when one is fast even small differences in pace reflects relatively huge differences in power!_)

I do some weights after rowing usually 1 or 2 sets on a multitude of exercises.... certainly not muscle. sometimes exercises to compliment rowing followed by some good technique sprints... other times trying to hit the muscles not utilized in rowing.

[pdduggan]

Thanks for responses. Where I'm coming from is that 'standard advice' seems to be that if you're doing cardio but without any resistance/weights work then you're likely to lose muscle mass. I'm solidly in the 'not enough to spare' rather than the mass-obsessed bodybuilder category.

I have a C2 at home and no other equipment at all so if I'm going to include weights I need to have a think about how I'm going to do that. I've been happily assuming that my regular sprint intervals would compensate for not doing any weights but I could be wrong about that. Also, I wondered if it was recommended to add weights to a PP regime and whether preserving muscle was an issue if you didn't. And if not then why not, as it goes against my current understanding and I like to understand stuff.

[Neorticros]

Alternating rowing and lifting could be a good idea for overall fitness. If you are not too worried about peaking on the erg, try it and decide for yourself if you enjoy it and if you feel better.
If you do, you'll probably enjoy the reading here : https://stronglifts.com/5x5/
Just need to keep it simple and get the max out of your time lifting. Barbells could be the answer. A couple of kettlebells could help you too.