Am I getting lazy or healthier?

[turkington]

Hi Folks,

I have a strange question from my observations on my rowing but first a bit of background so you know where I'm coming from...

I'm a 58 year old guy, 5' 8" tall, 160 lbs and in my opinion keep quite active. I do a 5-10 km hike in the mountains almost each day to walk the dogs, mountain bike almost daily in the summer and snowboard with similar frequency in the winter. In the past, dog walks were much longer but took forever and I got a Model D a few months ago to add in more structured workouts. I also started intermittent fasting about six months ago and I'm now comfortably eating in a 4-hour window starting about 4-5pm.

Ok, back to rowing. At first I just listened to the Concept2 podcasts and tried to get in the groove with technique and see if this was for me. As I progressed and read more, I started reading "Indoor Rowing Training Guide, Version 2" by Terry O’Neill and Alex Skelton. It struck me as a sensible document and I adopted their 40 minute structured regimen on weekdays, resting on weekends.

I'm not seeking any holy grail for a rowing competition (yet...) just to improve my overall health from both cardio and strength perspectives. I add in a few sets of: 2 min plank, pushups, sit-ups, squats and a few other core exercises. I've seen my resting pulse drop down to the low 50's and overall I feel healthy and fit short of long uphill technical climbs on my bike but that's another matter.

When rowing , I start with a 6 min or so warmup at a slow pace 2:45 - 3:00 with feet not strapped in to get up to 2x resting HR, and then do the same for a cool down after the sets. During the 40 min exercises (mostly 2-3 intervals at UT1 70-80% max HR currently) I used to go for broke and try to go as hard as possible and try to beat myself. Recently I have adopted a more rigid approach to training in the right HR zone and use a Polar H10 to monitor.

Now with sets, it seems to take forever to get up to a training heart rate and once up there I'm not dying (2:10 - 2:20 pace) but do look forward to the end... and in a weird way the last minute when I go for broke and try to keep in a 2:00 - 2:05 pace. Oh, I'm using a 127 drag factor for better or worse.

So my question is... am I just being lazy and not pushing myself enough, is my cardio improving or perhaps a combination of both? I've held off posting anything as I was a relative newbie but as I'm now at ~300,000 meters I feel I can post a stupid question and ask the community for guidance.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff Turkington
Whistler, Canada

[Dangerscouse]

So my question is... am I just being lazy and not pushing myself enough, is my cardio improving or perhaps a combination of both? I've held off posting anything as I was a relative newbie but as I'm now at ~300,000 meters I feel I can post a stupid question and ask the community for guidance.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff Turkington
Whistler, Canada

Welcome to the forum Jeff. If you're training within the 70-80% MHR range, assuming you've established a robust MHR, and not used 220-age, then I'd say you're mainly seeing improvement in fitness, but you should arguably be pushing it a bit harder at times.

I do say arguably, as there is no absolute requirement to do it, but it's best practice and will provide a better, more efficient, training benefit.

[max_ratcliffe]

Welcome Jeff, daily walks in the mountains in whistler...Sounds like hell!

I think your aerobic fitness is probably already very good but you may find your flat out efforts are lagging a bit because you've been doing more ut2 stuff as part of your daily routine.

Either way, I expect you to be putting in some very good pbs soon but do make sure that you let your body acclimatise to the stroke before pushing too hard. Your engine is probably stronger than your chassis at the moment.

[mitchel674]

I'm not sure what your question is here, but I will make an observation. Your training regimen sounds good and it's great that you've gotten into the routine of regularly using your erg. Could your concern be that your are adapting to your workouts? It sounds like you are doing just long steady state rows and the same interval workout. Those long steady state rows are a great foundation and should continue. Perhaps you need to mix up your tougher rowing workouts. Instead of the same intervals, have you considered trying some tougher middle distances like a hard 5k? Even your interval sessions could be more varied. Try 500m x 8 with just a minute of rest. Shoot for under 2:00 pace given your current numbers.

[jamesg]

A more analytical approach might help too. No great problem, the rowing stroke has just two components: length and average force. Keep both high (and the rating low for training) and you can't go wrong.

Length and Force application are constrained by technique, which is shown in the C2 technique pages.

The third component is rating (spm); once our stroke is well defined, we can use rating to decide the power level. By adjusting the rating, we can rate from 18-20 and UT2 power level, all the way to rate 35 and race power.

In numbers, Length x Force x Rating = Watts.

[turkington]

So my question is... am I just being lazy and not pushing myself enough, is my cardio improving or perhaps a combination of both? I've held off posting anything as I was a relative newbie but as I'm now at ~300,000 meters I feel I can post a stupid question and ask the community for guidance.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff Turkington
Whistler, Canada

Welcome to the forum Jeff. If you're training within the 70-80% MHR range, assuming you've established a robust MHR, and not used 220-age, then I'd say you're mainly seeing improvement in fitness, but you should arguably be pushing it a bit harder at times.

I do say arguably, as there is no absolute requirement to do it, but it's best practice and will provide a better, more efficient, training benefit.

Thanks for the welcome Dangerscouse and your observations. You make a very good point on MHR... I was also leery of the 220-age formula and went on to calculate others [Tanaka 208 - (0.7 * age), Londere 206.3 - (0.711 * age), Inbar 205.8 - (0.685 * age), Whyte 202 - (0.55 * age) and Robergs & Landweir 215.4 - (0.9147 * age)) to come up with an average of 166 over a range of 162 - 170.

I admit that these are all estimates based on observations of a large population and MHR is sport dependent and I may be using flawed data. I will go all out on another 2k soon and see what my HR maxes out at. The other option is doing a step test in 500m increments and gradually decreasing the pace time until I can't go any faster - this would also give me a better aerobic/anaerobic baseline if I'm interpreting the point of the test.

[turkington]

Thank you also max_ratcliffe, mitchel674 and jamesg!

You gave me more to think about and alas another ask for more guidance... Should I abandon my existing 40 minute regimen from C2 and adopt something like the C2 workout of the day or perhaps the Pete Plan? After a bit of reflection, hiking, mountain biking and snowboarding are varied and provide a lot of distraction whereas rowing in a garage is [by comparison] boring... Perhaps I'm looking to not only improve but also keep things fresh and interesting.

[mitchel674]

Thank you also max_ratcliffe, mitchel674 and jamesg!

You gave me more to think about and alas another ask for more guidance... Should I abandon my existing 40 minute regimen from C2 and adopt something like the C2 workout of the day or perhaps the Pete Plan? After a bit of reflection, hiking, mountain biking and snowboarding are varied and provide a lot of distraction whereas rowing in a garage is [by comparison] boring... Perhaps I'm looking to not only improve but also keep things fresh and interesting.

Sad to say, but rowing is boring. Certainly it doesn't compare to snowboarding or mountain biking in beautiful Whistler!

BUT, it is a great workout tool and can be a wonderful cardio addition to your existing exercise regimen. Some are able to get on the rower and just zone out for hours. Others need more stimulation to keep away the boredom. Find your own method (music, podcasts, audiobooks, movies, etc...). Personally, I find music helps for long steady state rows. I rarely row more than 1 hour at a time. For most interval or stroke rate work, I get so focused on my pace or rate, that I rarely get bored and stay focused on my target numbers.

Find what works for you.