Question About "Heavy 10's"

[RowtheRockies]

Jim,

Was reading back through some archives and came across a post from you re: Heavy 10's

Quote:

...With that in mind, about 2 years ago I decided that I would increase my muscle mass. Dr. Seilor details some helpful strength training workouts performed on the rowing machine. I latched onto the workout he calls Heavy 10's and I did this type of workout for months on end and completely neglected my aerobic training.

At the end of months of this type of training, I had piled on muscle...


Questions:

1) How many months did you do the Heavy 10's?
1a) How many days a week did you do it and how many sets in a session?
2) How much muscle did you put on (lbs.)?
3) Did you retain some of the muscle once you resumed convential training or did you gradually lose it all?
4) Did you see any benefit to your 2K time once you resumed aerobic work?
5) Would you see any benefit to me of doing heavy 10's say three days a week for a few months starting after the Rocky Mt. Sprints in Feb. What if I resumed running 5 days a week at a easy to moderate running pace in the mornings and doing these Heavy 10's in the evening. Would keeping my aerobic base up with running have carry over into erging? I know it would not be 100%. I am intrigued by the idea of trying this for a few months.

I know, A lot of questions but I think you have some great ideas about training. You are my erging mentor

Thanks,

Rich

[jjpisano]

Jim,

Was reading back through some archives and came across a post from you re: Heavy 10's

Quote:

...With that in mind, about 2 years ago I decided that I would increase my muscle mass. Dr. Seilor details some helpful strength training workouts performed on the rowing machine. I latched onto the workout he calls Heavy 10's and I did this type of workout for months on end and completely neglected my aerobic training.

At the end of months of this type of training, I had piled on muscle...


Questions:

1) How many months did you do the Heavy 10's?
1a) How many days a week did you do it and how many sets in a session?
2) How much muscle did you put on (lbs.)?
3) Did you retain some of the muscle once you resumed convential training or did you gradually lose it all?
4) Did you see any benefit to your 2K time once you resumed aerobic work?
5) Would you see any benefit to me of doing heavy 10's say three days a week for a few months starting after the Rocky Mt. Sprints in Feb. What if I resumed running 5 days a week at a easy to moderate running pace in the mornings and doing these Heavy 10's in the evening. Would keeping my aerobic base up with running have carry over into erging? I know it would not be 100%. I am intrigued by the idea of trying this for a few months.

I know, A lot of questions but I think you have some great ideas about training. You are my erging mentor

Thanks,

Rich

Rich:

I don't have my training journals handy at the present because they are at my office and I am at home right now but I believe that I did Heavy 10's nearly exclusively for parts of two training years. A short time in 2003 and for months in 2004.

The last time I did Heavy 10's exclusively was from Feb. 2004 to June 2004. I picked up the idea from Dr. Stephen Seilor but I rounded it out with ideas from Body Building web sites. The body builders advocated not doing workouts more than an hour in length and not stressing the same body part without a full days rest in between sessions. The hour was to be intense just short rests between bouts of effort.

The body builders have different goals for different numbers of reps and I don't recall how I settled on the 8 to 12 rep range but I figured the reps were best from 8 to 12 and actually I think I settled mostly on 9 for some strange reason - despite it being called Heavy 10's, not Heavy 9's.

I did Heavy 10's Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

I set the drag factor as high as it could go. I have a Model B so it could go pretty high. If you recall, the Model B has two sets of cogs one with 13 teeth and one with 15 teeth. I set it on the one that feels heavier - I don't recall which - I hardly ever change the cogs now so my memory is a little off on that detail. In addition, I jacked the erg by putting a two by four under the back support. So I was going for a heavy load - I'm guessing with all this I was probably looking at a drag factor in the 200's. In addition, I think I was doing the work at 12 s/m.

The details are sketchy in my memory and I can flesh them out at a later time but I think I would set the timer on 46 seconds and pull a stroke at 46 seconds, 41,36,31,26,21,16,11,6 and 1 second. I would set the rest for 1:14 so that I would be doing a set every 2 minutes.

I think I did a 10 minute warmup - basically a paddle, maybe a little harder the I'd do 20 sets so it was a 50 minute workout.

I'm not sure how much muscle I put on but I got much stronger. I got all the numbers in my journals. In the end it was a good learning experience but I don't think it helped my 2k time. What prompted me to do it was I had a pretty good 2k in February of 2004 but I did it at a high stroke rate - I had the idea that I'm not very strong but if I can finesse the erg with a high stroke rate I can get the job done. I did OK at 6:53.1. I knew my strength was my weakness - if you know what I mean. So I dedicated myself to strength training for those few months in 2004.

Problem is I did little or no aerobic training because I wanted to maximize the muscle building effects of my training. Aerobic capacity is a treasure that shouldn't be squandered. The whole remainder of the training year following the Heavy 10's I was playing catch up with my aerobic training. The next season I did my my best 2k at 6:56 and that happened in April, 2005. I did a 6:58 at the Pittsburgh Sprints in February, 2005.

I think that if you keep aerobic training in your schedule you may do better with it than I did. You should be able to get a boost in your power.

One word of warning - Heavy 10's are like weight lifting - tremendous loads and hard on the ligaments and tendons and bones. There is definitely a greater risk of injury with Heavy 10's. During my training this way, I had times where my power output went up and then there were set backs in my power. I think those set backs were times where I had some minor injuries to the connective tissue.

If I were to use Heavy 10's now I think I'd throw in a workout like that after I've done a week with good volume of more conventional work and the day before a rest day.

Rich, I think it's good to experiment and it's good to get some experience in all the various types of workouts you can do on the Concept2. Heavy 10's is one of the more extreme types of workouts.[/img]

[jjpisano]

Rich:

I have my journals in front of me and I'll give you a series of short posts as I find the time.

First off the very first workout in my Heavy 10's format was 9 sets of 8 strokes at 12 s/m. My first stroke was at 36 seconds and my last stroke was at 1 second, with a stroke every 5 seconds. I had rests of 1:24.

That first workout on 2/15/04 my average power per set was 172.2w, my median power per set was 174.3w, my high power set was 183.5w and my low power set was 165.9w.

I then proceeded to add one set per workout on until I hit 25 sets, which with a warmup made the longest workout an hour long, by the time I hit 25 sets.

At the end of that buildup to 25 sets on 3/28/04, my power had improved so that my average power per set was 194.4w, my median power per set was 194.0w, my high power set was 199.0w, my low power set was 190.5w. Considering the average power per set, my power had improved nearly 13% in about a month and a half.

When I hit 25 sets of 8 strokes, I then added one stroke to make sets of 9 strokes in 41 seconds and with 1:19 rest between sets.

[jjpisano]

Rich:

Now back to the story....

Two points before starting the story again the cog was the 13 tooth small sprocket cog which gave me a drag factor of around 225 and I didn't jack my erg in 2004. I must have done that in 2003.

I had gone up to 25 sets of 8 strokes which is 200 strokes. Then I proceeded up to sets of 9 strokes but I did 22 sets which is 198 strokes. I added one set per workout until I got to 25 sets again. That's 25 sets of 9 strokes which equals 225 strokes. Then I proceeded to sets of 10 strokes -22 sets of them which is 220 strokes and proceeded to 25 sets again by adding one set per workout. So my final workout looked like: 25 sets of 10 strokes over 46 seconds (12s/m) with 1:14 rest.

My best workout was performed on June 1 2004 where my average power per set was 206.5w, my median power per set was 206.5w, my high power set was 210.5w, my low power set was 204.1w.

Now in retrospect, I should have quit doing the Heavy 10's after about a month and a half because after about a month and a half, I had a bunch of set backs - my power did not improve in a linear way but was constantly falling back and I had to struggle to get to previous levels. I think that I was injurying myself with these workouts. For two months from the end of March to the begiining of June, my power only barely improved from 194.4w average power to 206.5w - a 6.2% power improvement over the course of the final 2 months versus a 13% power improvement in the first month and a half.

So in June of 2004, I was the strongest I was ever going to get so... I decided this is the perfect time for a 500m personal best effort.

I've read that 500m speed is most closely correlated with muscle mass. After nearly four months of strength training on the erg doing only Heavy 10's, I had more muscle than I had ever had so now was the perfect time to go for it. I had not raised the rate above 12 s/m for nearly 4 months - except on my low pressure warmups and now I was going for a 500m personal best attempt.

On June 12th 2004, I did a 1:29.7 500m. That's 484.7w and I did it at 38 s/m.

The moral of the story: Pure strength training will help on 500m.

[RowtheRockies]

Jim,

Good information. Thanks for sharing. Perhaps I will try incorporating a couple of Heavy 10 worwouts in addition to (not as a replacement) my regular training.

Rich

[johnlvs2run]

10 strokes over 46 seconds (12s/m) with 1:14 rest.

I had not raised the rate above 12 s/m for nearly 4 months

For the sake of clarification and accuracy, your 10 strokes in 46 seconds is a rate of 13 spm.

If you had set the clock to 50 seconds, that would have been 12 spm.

But 10 strokes in 46s [ 10 x 60/46 ] = 13.0435 = is 13 spm.

This is an 8 percent difference and makes a major difference to the time.

Doing 10 strokes in 46 seconds is not the same as doing them in 50 seconds as that changes the rating, based on the number of strokes you took in the 46 seconds.

[jjpisano]

John,

Good point.

But the monitor always read 12 s/m because I was doing a stroke every 5 seconds. First one at 46 seconds, then one at 41, 36,31,26,21,16,11,6 and 1 second left. That final stroke did not go through a full stroke cycle. It was the catch and a drive - probably a complete drive. It did not include a recovery.

If the monitor read 13 s/m at the end of the set I threw out the data for my comparative info.

Just to add somethings which I haven't stated in all the previous ramblings: For Heavy 10's the stroke is a maximum power stroke. In addition, because I have a Model B I was able to completely stop the fly wheel between sets. Every first stroke was from a complete standstill. The Model B has an open cage on one side so you can put your hand in to put pressure on the fly wheel to slow it down.

Don't worry it's not dangerous at all.

[RowtheRockies]

Well I guess for me, each stroke will probablly get easier since the highest DF I can get (short of making modifications) is about 175 at level 10. The air is very thin around here