Friday PM: L4 HM

November 19, 2016Leave a comment

I picked up my boat on my way home from work to bring to the lake out in worcester tomorrow morning, and got home around 7:30. I was on the erg by about 8.

Plan:

Half Marathon
L4 format (but using distance)
power: 10W * stroke rate
HR cap: 155 (again, not even close)
paddle the first 97 meters to get to an even 21000, then do it in 2500m blocks
First 2500m build up from 160W
After that, push it a bit more than yesterday
- 750m at 180W
- 750m at 190W
- 750m at 200W
- 250m at 210W
take a 250 paddle every 5000m with a quick drink.

Again, a terrifically low HR through the whole workout, even though it was 5W higher effort, and on top of that it was my second session today. Wow, I love working out at night.

The HR shows a little bit more ut1 than yesterday and a fair amount more time in power at.

For fun, here is the HR comparison of yesterday and today’s sessions. (Thanks rowsandall.com!)

So, even with higher effort, HR is the same in the first half of the workout. The HR in the third 5000m block was brought lower by a longer than intended rest to deal with my low battery problem on the phone, and I am basically in the same place in the last 5000m block.

By the way, I am back on painsled. The bug I saw yesterday is caused by using the ANT+ and BT at the same time on the PM5. Today, I used the BT connection for the HR and it was a lot happier.

Tomorrow: It looks like there are 5 people signed up including me. Maybe a couple of doubles and a single? Weather forecast is pretty good for this time of year, 40F, clear and 5 mph wind.

Friday AM: Quick Strength session

November 18, 2016Leave a comment

I went to bed late last night. I finished my workout around 10:30 and I was pretty jazzed up. It wasn’t until 12:30 or so that I was settled into bed.

So, I slept in an extra hour to 6:15, and then fought the traffic to get to work. Once I was there, I had a pretty short window to workout.

So the plan was:

20 minute fletcher format warmup
Quick Strength workout
- Squats
- Standing Press
- Chin Ups
- Ab roll outs
- Push ups

As it turned out, I ran out of time before the push ups.

Workout Summary - media/20161118-181034-concept2-result-27823043o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|05115|20:00.0|01:57.3|222.8|21.0|151.4|169.0|12.2
W-|05119|20:00.0|01:57.2|215.9|20.5|150.8|169.0|12.6
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|169.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|00991|04:00.0|02:01.1|185.3|17.9|129.6|139.0|13.9
02|01008|04:00.0|01:59.0|205.3|20.1|144.9|150.0|12.5
03|00777|03:00.0|01:55.8|222.5|21.9|152.7|155.0|11.8
04|00269|01:00.0|01:51.4|249.4|24.0|158.4|160.0|11.2
05|00141|00:30.0|01:46.4|285.2|25.8|161.8|164.0|10.9
06|00493|02:00.0|02:01.6|193.5|18.6|160.5|164.0|13.3
07|00299|01:00.0|01:40.5|336.0|28.0|162.4|167.0|10.7
08|00494|02:00.0|02:01.6|196.9|18.6|163.2|168.0|13.3
09|00157|00:30.0|01:35.7|393.4|31.2|163.5|168.0|10.1
10|00490|02:00.0|02:02.5|191.7|18.9|164.5|169.0|13.0

Then on to strength

Squats
135 x 6
185 x 6 x 3

Standing press
65 x 6
85 x 4 (too heavy)
80 x 5 x 2

Chin ups
3 unassisted (yay)
6 x 2 (red band on knee assisted)

Ab wheel roll out
8 (oh my lord did these hurt! My abs were still smarting from doing 3 sets of 10 on Tuesday)

ran out of time here.

Tonight: Another L4 HM

Tomorrow: Last row on the lake in worcester

As I mentioned yesterday. I had some fun changing a tire while all of my coworkers watched. Turns out they took pictures too!

Thursday: HM L4

November 18, 20162 Comments

Wednesday: Flew down to Dallas. No time for any training. Big dinner with the customer. About 20 of us at the restaurant. Too much beer, wine, tequila and steak.

Thursday: Early start. We needed to be at the office at 7:30, so no time for a workout in the am. On my way to the office, I had a blowout on a tire on my rental car. It turned into the highlight of my day. Changing a tire on the car in my business suit while 10 of my coworkers looked on offering me suggestions and making sure I did it correctly.

After the meeting, I headed off to the airport for my return home. I got to Boston around 7:45pm and I was home by 8:30. By this time I was really looking forward to a nice relaxing endurance session. I saw Sander’s distance based L4 and decided to copy that to keep my mind busy during the row. I also wanted to squeeze it into a half marathon so I could keep up with the Crazy Bear Challenge.

So the workout plan was:

Set up for a HM (21097m)
paddle the first 97 meters to get to a even number
row the rest 4 x ( 5000m work and 250m paddle)
In each 5000m work section do 2 sets of
- 1000 at 18
- 750 at 19
- 500 at 20
- 250 at 21
Power: 10W x stroke rate
HR cap: 155 (I never got near it)
first 2500 meters start slow (16 spm instead of 18)

It was quite a challenge to keep track of the right elapsed distances for each of the rate changes. That and a good adventure audiobook keep me very occupied and the time flew by. I love working out at night. I swear I’m 10 watts better.

The glitch i the third interval was the low battery warning coming up on my phone and me running to get my charger! Ruined the split for that segment too.

Workout Summary - media/20161118-034816-concept2-result-27821242o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21000|87:40.0|02:05.2|185.4|19.0|136.6|148.0|12.6
W-|20000|82:06.0|02:03.2|190.4|18.9|137.1|147.0|12.9
R-|01097|05:54.0|02:41.6|111.0|21.0|127.8|147.0|12.1
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|02500|10:30.7|02:06.1|173.2|17.0|128.2|134.0|14.0
03|02500|10:08.7|02:01.7|192.4|18.9|137.3|145.0|13.0
04|02500|10:08.0|02:01.6|192.4|19.0|136.3|144.0|13.0
05|02500|10:07.8|02:01.6|193.5|19.1|141.0|147.0|12.9
06|02500|10:47.2|02:09.4|193.2|19.5|135.2|143.0|11.9
07|02500|10:08.6|02:01.7|192.7|19.1|140.1|146.0|12.9
08|02500|10:07.1|02:01.4|193.4|19.2|136.9|145.0|12.8
09|02500|10:08.5|02:01.7|192.7|19.1|142.0|147.0|12.9

Another annoyance was needing to use ergdata instead of painsled. The most recent update of painsled seems to have broken it for me.

Tomorrow: Strength session in the morning and another HM L4 in the evening.

Tuesday: 10K easy plus strength trainig

November 15, 2016Leave a comment

At work in the fitness center.

First, some erging to warmup and keep the aerobic base. Goal is to run this right at the top of the UT2 band. I want enough training stimulus to maintain blood volume but not enough to take away from the strength work coming next.

10km
10W x stroke rate
HR cap at 145

Workout Summary - media/20161115-140421-sled_2016-11-15T06-49-38ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|19.0|141.8|149.0|12.9
W-|10000|40:43.0|02:02.2|18.9|141.9|149.0|13.0
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|149.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:00.2|02:00.1|19.1|124.0|134.0|13.1
02|01000|03:59.8|01:59.9|20.1|138.3|142.0|12.5
03|01000|04:01.6|02:00.8|19.8|143.1|145.0|12.6
04|01000|04:03.3|02:01.7|19.2|143.3|145.0|12.9
05|01000|04:03.9|02:02.0|19.1|144.5|146.0|12.9
06|01000|04:04.3|02:02.1|19.0|145.1|148.0|12.9
07|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|18.4|145.1|148.0|13.2
08|01000|04:08.3|02:04.1|18.1|144.2|146.0|13.4
09|01000|04:08.1|02:04.1|17.9|145.1|147.0|13.5
10|01000|04:07.3|02:03.7|18.8|145.5|149.0|12.9

I started at 190w and it felt pretty easy, so I upped it to 200w and rowed until I hit the HR cap. Then I backed off to 190(ish) and played with pace and rate to try to keep my HR between 144 and 146. It was good sweaty, easy fun.

Then I took about 10 minutes, went and grabbed my exercise bands and ab wheel and changed my shirt. Now it was time for some strength work.

(weight in pounds)

Squats

45 x5

135 x6

185 x5 x5 x5

185 was a good weight. I could have probably squeezed out another rep in each set. I think I’ll push this slowly up to 3×8 at 185, and then up the weight.

Chin ups (red band on knee)

3 x 5

Next time I will do the first set unassisted

Standing press

45 x5

65 x6

75 x5 x6 x5

I need to work on form for this exercise. I think I am arching my back too much. Surprisingly hard for such light weights.

AB wheel roll outs (from knees)

3 x8

Oh my. These were hard! My calves were cramping up.

Push-ups

3 x10

I was very disappointed with how weak I felt in the push ups. Might have been from the standing press, but I felt like I had no “pop”

Tomorrow: Early flight to Texas. Probably a rest day.

What the hell? Sets don’t matter?

November 14, 20164 Comments

Just saw this paper.

Journal of Applied Physiology

Seems to indicate that similar gains in strength as measured by increases in 1 rep max were acheieved with 2 groups, one of which did a single set at 80% 1RM to failure and a group that did 3 sets to failure. I need to spend more time reading the paper, but I wanted to share it with others to see if others wanted to read it as well.

Here’s the money plot:

Monday: 4×20′ L4 (embedded in an HM)

November 14, 2016Leave a comment

So, as usual for a Sunday night, I had trouble sleeping. But I woke up before the alarm at 5:15 and headed off to work.

My standard endurance workout these days is a 4 x 20 minute session which is usually about 20km including some paddling during the rests. So, I thought I could continue my polarized training plan by adapting my normal endurance session by just doing a 1000m or so of cool down at the end. I was thinking that I could fit other more intense sessions into the basic HM format as well, since I have the tools I need to analyze the data afterward too. Perhaps I could call it the Polar Bear Challenge?

So today’s Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ paddle
L4 format
Power target: 10W x stroke rate
Slow start at 16spm (160W)
Aim for mid 190s for average power
HR limit at 155

Again, with the magic of rowsandall.com, I can reslice the data into 10 minute blocks to see how accurately I hit my targets.

Targets:

1 – 170 strokes, 170W
2 – 184 strokes, 184W
3-8 – 190 strokes, 190w

Workout Summary - media/20161114-135715-sled_2016-11-14T06-37-25ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|88:00.0|02:05.1|18.8|140.4|155.0|12.8
W-|19564|80:00.0|02:02.7|18.8|140.4|155.0|13.0
R-|01538|08:00.0|02:36.0|14.1|116.9|155.0|13.5
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|02390|10:00.0|02:05.5|17.1|123.8|135.0|14.0
02|02437|10:00.0|02:03.1|18.6|135.1|139.0|13.1
03|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.1|135.2|145.0|12.9
04|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.1|142.7|145.0|12.9
05|02459|10:00.0|02:02.0|19.2|141.9|150.0|12.8
06|02454|10:00.0|02:02.3|19.1|148.7|152.0|12.8
07|02452|10:00.0|02:02.4|19.2|145.1|152.0|12.8
08|02457|10:00.0|02:02.1|19.2|150.5|155.0|12.8

So, generally 1 or 2 strokes over and a bit high on watts.

A few stroke metrics. Power versus rate, peak and average force versus rate and drive length versus time.

Tomorrow: 40′ erg and strength training.

Sunday: HM (I guess it was an L3 workout)

November 13, 2016November 14, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve been reading all these posts about people doing the Crazy Bear Challenge. This challenge is to row 30 Half marathons in the 45 days between November 11 and Christmas. I’m tempted to join in, even though it doesn’t make perfect sense with my training objectives.

Anyway, I wanted to have a little fun today, so I thought I would do a Half Marathon and target a pace just under 2:00. That seemed like a respectable place to start.

It turned out to be reasonably easy, all but the last 15 minutes or so were UT1 or below. And this result put at 25th in the rankings. I might do some more of these and gradually psh the pace a bit faster.

One of the fun things you can do with rowsandall.com is to arbitrarily assign new split lengths. On the PM5, I used 2000m splits. On rowsandall, I split the row into 1000m segments. Looks pretty darn consistent.

Workout Summary - media/20161114-021734-sled_2016-11-13T17-25-38ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|21097|83:29.0|01:58.7|22.1|149.4|161.0|11.4
W-|21097|83:31.0|01:58.8|22.1|149.3|161.0|11.4
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|161.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:55.0|01:57.5|20.8|130.2|140.0|12.3
02|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|21.1|140.0|142.0|12.0
03|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|21.7|141.5|144.0|11.6
04|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|21.8|143.3|146.0|11.6
05|01000|03:58.1|01:59.1|21.9|142.8|145.0|11.5
06|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|22.0|144.1|148.0|11.5
07|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|22.0|145.7|148.0|11.5
08|01000|03:57.5|01:58.7|22.1|147.1|150.0|11.4
09|01000|03:57.5|01:58.8|22.2|148.9|151.0|11.4
10|01000|03:57.8|01:58.9|22.1|150.0|152.0|11.4
11|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|22.0|150.6|152.0|11.5
12|01000|03:57.5|01:58.7|22.3|151.4|154.0|11.4
13|01000|03:57.7|01:58.9|22.6|151.3|153.0|11.2
14|01000|03:57.6|01:58.8|22.2|153.0|155.0|11.4
15|01000|03:57.3|01:58.7|22.3|153.5|155.0|11.3
16|01000|03:58.0|01:59.0|22.3|154.8|157.0|11.3
17|01000|03:57.7|01:58.8|22.2|155.2|156.0|11.4
18|01000|03:58.1|01:59.0|22.4|156.4|157.0|11.3
19|01000|03:57.7|01:58.8|22.7|157.2|159.0|11.1
20|01000|03:57.5|01:58.8|22.6|158.5|161.0|11.2
21|01000|03:57.3|01:58.6|22.9|158.5|160.0|11.0
22|00097|00:23.0|01:58.8|22.9|157.4|158.0|11.0

Another magical afternoon row. I am sure that I could do at least 1 split faster, maybe more.

Saturday: 10K push

November 12, 2016November 14, 20162 Comments

I had a busy day on Saturday. I had a haircut appointment in the morning, then some shopping to do. I got home around 1 and we needed to head out to pick up some friends for dinner and a concert at 2:30.

I almost didn’t workout, but I was feeling antsy, so I decided to do a 10K push workout. For those unfamiliar, these workouts are AWESOME! Here’s how it works

10K distance
Start at something close to your steady state pace
Speed up by 0:01/500 for each 1000m of the workout

I have done this workout a 3 times in the past year.

Dec 10, 2015: Start at 2:00, failed at 4K to go, peak HR 180
Dec 15, 2015: Start at 2:02, success, peak HR 178
May 30, 2016: Start at 2:03, success, peak HR 177
Aug 15, 2016: Start at 2:05, success, peak HR 177

I was feeling pretty cocky after my good 10K last month for the CTC, so I decided to start at 1:59 today. It worked out very well.

Nov 12, 2016: Start at 1:59, success, peak HR 174

No problems at all. A nice cruise and I was only pushing hard for the last 3000m or so.

Workout Summary - media/20161114-185906-sled_2016-11-12T13-36-38ZEST.strokes (1).csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|153.1|174.0|11.2
W-|10000|37:52.0|01:53.6|23.5|152.4|174.0|11.3
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|03:54.5|01:57.2|21.3|130.0|138.0|12.0
02|01000|03:54.3|01:57.1|22.2|141.7|145.0|11.5
03|01000|03:52.4|01:56.2|22.3|145.8|148.0|11.6
04|01000|03:51.0|01:55.5|23.0|147.9|152.0|11.3
05|01000|03:49.5|01:54.8|23.1|150.6|153.0|11.3
06|01000|03:47.3|01:53.7|23.3|153.7|156.0|11.3
07|01000|03:45.1|01:52.6|23.9|159.0|161.0|11.2
08|01000|03:43.4|01:51.7|24.4|162.2|165.0|11.0
09|01000|03:41.0|01:50.5|25.0|165.3|168.0|10.9
10|01000|03:34.2|01:47.1|26.5|171.0|174.0|10.6

Generally, the splits line up pretty well between the postprocessed results and the PM5 data. The first split is off a little bit.

I purposely tried to use a fluffier stroke rate on this piece, so I was interested to see how my power versus stroke rate would look. It’s kind of fun to see the results. Here is the whole thing. From this you might conclude that there is a positive correlation between stroke rate and drive force.

So, I split the data set to look at the first half versus second half. Now you can see the the first half is flat and the tail is in the second half. This got me thinking, is there a correlation, or did I just hammer the last 1000m.

Answer: I hammered the last 1000 meters. Theses two plots are the first 9000m and the last 1000m.

What a fun workout and I drank beer at dinner with little or no guilt.

Friday: 4 x 20 L4

November 11, 2016November 14, 20161 Comment

Thursday was a “rest day”. Up at 5am to fly home. Driving home from the airport sucked, nearly 2 hours in traffic.

I decided a good night sleep was needed and made the call to work from home. That made my morning a lot easier. I woke up at 8:30, had breakfast and was in a meeting at 9.

I worked until around 3:30 and then decided it was time for some training.

Plan:

4 x 20′ / 1′ rests
L4 format
Start slow, then push it a little harder than last weekend
10W per stroke

Having a little issue with the interval editor, so no details on each 10 minute segment.

Lactate test at the end, after 80 minutes, 2.0mmol/l – right on the nose.

One other note. It was nice and cold. 57F when I finished.

I think the key thing that I noticed is that my HR was following the power very closely. I think that is the key for me, if I start to see more decoupling between HR and power, then I am pushing the session too hard.

By the way, I had a blast with the stroke sequence today.

Strength Training Thoughts

November 9, 201615 Comments

I posted the following on the Rowing Illustrated forum.

Screen Shot 2016-11-09 at 11.15.07 AM.png

I got back a really great reply from a user SDSweep which I would like to share.

Screen Shot 2016-11-09 at 11.16.45 AM.png

So, my winter training plan will include:

2 strength sessions a week.
These sessions will be tacked onto the end of a shortened endurance session (probably 40 minutes of endurance and 30 minutes of strength work)
The plan will be very simple including 4 exercises per session
- A compound lift emphasizing the rowing muscle groups
  - squats
  - deadlifts,
  - power cleans
- Something for upper body rowing muscles
  - Pull ups
  - Chin ups
  - Lat pull downs
- Something for counter muscle groups
  - Push ups
  - Bench press
  - Standing press
  - Seated Press
- Core
  - Ab roll outs
  - planks
  - leg lifts
In terms of reps and sets. I will probably use some advice from some other folks to mix this up in blocks. A couple weeks of lower reps, more sets. Then a couple weeks of higher reps and less sets. Generally, I will be going for 20 to 30 total reps.
Weight. I will progressively increase weight, but follow the guideline that I will stop at least one rep before failure.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Month: November 2016