10K L4

December 20, 20161 Comment

Slept badly, my back hurts, a lot on my mind. Rowing to specific power targets seems a lot simpler to me right now, but my HRs were off the chart on the high side today.

The plan:

10K
L4 format, but with distance instead of time
4 x 2500m segments
- 1000m/750m/500m/250m
- r18 / r19 / r20 / r21
- 180W/190W/200W/210W
No HR cap.

Distribution of strokes by power

Stroke power versus stroke rate

One of the things that L4 workouts are supposed to do is maintain a constant work per stroke (SPI :-O)

Another way to see if you are maintaining a similar stroke technique as you increase stroke rate is to look at avg to peak power versus stroke rate.

Or the just the peak power.

Both of these show a slight increase as stroke rate increases.

Tomorrow: I think I will do another bumps workout, but this time doing the slow bits at 2:05.

Sunday: 10K L4 and some force curves

December 19, 2016December 19, 20161 Comment

Plan: 10K L4.

Rushing around trying to get up to see my Dad, so just a quick 10K. I’ve been pushing the intensity lately, so a bit easier to today.

2500 m sequences
1000m/750m/500m/250m
stroke rates 18/19/20/21
power: 180/190/200/210
No HR cap

Workout Summary - media/20161218-234402-sled_2016-12-18T11-47-55ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|40:32.0|02:01.6|194.9|19.1|150.5|164.0|12.9
W-|10000|40:32.0|02:01.6|194.3|19.1|150.4|164.0|12.9
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|164.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:06.5|02:03.2|184.0|18.0|125.4|133.0|13.5
02|00750|03:02.7|02:01.8|193.5|19.2|138.2|143.0|12.9
03|00500|01:59.4|01:59.4|205.8|20.1|146.4|149.0|12.5
04|00500|01:57.5|01:57.5|215.2|21.0|150.0|152.0|12.2
05|00500|01:59.7|01:59.7|204.6|20.1|152.6|155.0|12.5
06|00750|03:02.5|02:01.7|194.2|19.1|151.3|155.0|12.9
07|02000|08:15.0|02:03.8|184.6|18.1|149.8|152.0|13.4
08|00750|03:01.7|02:01.1|197.0|19.4|153.9|155.0|12.8
09|00500|01:59.2|01:59.2|205.6|20.4|158.8|161.0|12.4
10|00500|01:57.5|01:57.5|215.7|21.0|161.6|164.0|12.1
11|00500|01:59.7|01:59.7|204.9|20.0|162.0|164.0|12.5
12|00750|03:03.0|02:02.0|192.8|19.0|161.6|163.0|12.9
13|01000|04:08.1|02:04.1|183.0|18.1|159.7|162.0|13.3

After I did the workout, I decided to do a little more rowing to try to take some pictures of force curves. I’m trying to figure out what causes changes to the forceratio metric.

So, I set up a Just Row and setup the PM to show the force curve. I rowed a bit at 18 until I got a reasonably representative force curve, then I’d take a picture. Then at 20, then 22, then 24. All of this was unstrapped. I tried to get the power close to the 10Wx stroke rate target, but I was a bit enthusiastic, so all of them are high. The stroke rates are a bit off too. I think this would be a good enhancement to painsled, a mode where it would log the force curve, not just display it.

Tomorrow: Not sure if I will have time to workout. I have pre-op appointments in the morning and I will be scooting off to see my dad after work.

Friday: 10K L4

December 16, 2016December 17, 20164 Comments

I wrote some stuff about my Dad, but moved it over to a different post. I decided it doesn’t have much to do with training.

I had a tough day at work on Friday. There are multiple projects going on and one of them in particular is in that critical stage, that it seems all projects go through, where it looks like the world is ending. I was supposed to review progress at 3, but they waved me off because they were in the middle of a test run, so I had a hole in my schedule.

I thought a quick workout would help me keep my head clear and thinking straight, so I headed to the gym. I decided to do a 10K L4. Since I am training so little right now, overtraining is NOT going to be a factor, so I dialed up the intensity. Instead of trying to keep my HR below a cap, I just rowed to power, and I included a fair amount of work at 22spm and 24 spm.

Of course, since I was on a tight schedule, today had to be the day that Painsled decided to not work. I am not sure whether it was because of changes in PainSled, or because my phone was in a funny state, but it would not stay linked to the PM. It would get the first HR and then not update after that. I tried a couple of things and couldn’t get it working, so I bailed on painsled and went to ergdata. Say what you want about ergdata, it seems very reliable. It always links, the syncing to the logbook is fast and easy. The support in the logbook is getting better all the time.

Heres what the workout detail page looks like now, if you row with ergdata.

Pretty good huh? It has all the basics including heart rate. If it recorded the stroke metric esoteric that painsled does, I’d be really happy.

Of course you can’t do the stuff you can do on rowsandall. Let’s use this workout for a quick comparison.

Workout summary:

rowsandall provides the ability to do summaries using distance or time. concept2 is time only.
rowsandall provides a plot of power in addition to pace. Since I row to power, that’s handy.
Splits: concept2 provides the same splits that were defined in the PM. rowsandall does the same as default, but provides a way to redefine splits, which I used to look at each segment.
Drag Factor: concept2 has this on the summary page, for rowsandall, it is on the summary plot.
Accuracy: Because rowsandall is reconstructing the row from stroke data, there is some error in the distances recorded, generally much less than the distance in a stroke. This can cause significant changes in avg pace for very short intervals.
Concept2 log integration: ergdata to concept2 log is incredibly easy. so is export from rowsandall to concept2. However, watch out for rankable pieces. Because of the interpolation on rowsandall, if you export a HM you might end up with a 21094m which you can’t rank. In general, for ranking pieces, I log them manually to make sure they match the PM exactly. On ergdata/concept2 syncing, they seem to match exactly every time. (I wonder if they are using features that they are not publishing in the API?)

Of course there is stuff that you can’t do on the concept2 log page. Here are a few examples:

Time in Zone HR chart and Time in Zone Power chart

And of course flex charts: Here is pace versus SPM. Which I’ve defined as one of my favorites in the tool.

You can also easily generate a power histogram for the workout.

Or generate it for a range of dates, so you can see how well you are managing intensity for a polarized workout plan. Here are all the erg strokes I’ve taken since November 8th.

You can see that I am in a low intensity, endurance maintenance mode right now, with very little work being done above 200W.

With regard to the workout, it was a useful diversion. I enjoyed it so much that in the last 2500m, I decided to push it harder. I did 500m each at 18/20/22/24 and 26. I was rowing strapless so the 24 and 26 was a bit of a challenge. I was in a much better place when I finished than when I started.

Here’s the summary

Workout Summary - media/20161217-143940-concept2-result-28153486o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|39:31.0|01:58.6|210.8|20.7|147.7|169.0|12.2
W-|10000|39:32.0|01:58.6|208.3|20.4|147.0|169.0|12.5
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|01000|04:07.0|02:03.5|182.3|17.7|121.8|133.0|13.7
02|00750|02:58.6|01:59.1|204.0|20.2|138.1|143.0|12.5
03|00500|01:55.6|01:55.6|223.8|22.0|146.4|149.0|11.8
04|00250|00:55.7|01:51.3|250.5|24.0|150.0|152.0|11.3
05|00500|02:03.0|02:03.0|188.7|18.3|148.2|153.0|13.3
06|00500|02:04.3|02:04.3|180.0|18.0|138.2|142.0|13.4
07|00500|01:58.8|01:58.8|205.8|20.1|143.2|147.0|12.6
08|00500|01:57.4|01:57.4|214.1|21.0|147.3|151.0|12.2
09|00500|01:53.8|01:53.8|234.2|22.8|152.0|155.0|11.6
10|01000|04:07.5|02:03.7|184.5|18.2|147.4|156.0|13.3
11|00750|02:58.9|01:59.2|203.9|20.1|148.7|152.0|12.5
12|00500|01:55.7|01:55.7|222.2|21.9|154.6|156.0|11.8
13|00250|00:56.2|01:52.3|244.9|23.9|158.2|160.0|11.2
14|00500|02:03.4|02:03.4|188.3|18.4|156.0|160.0|13.2
15|00500|01:59.3|01:59.3|203.5|20.2|152.5|154.0|12.4
16|00500|01:56.1|01:56.1|220.7|22.0|156.4|159.0|11.7
17|00500|01:52.6|01:52.6|241.1|23.9|160.7|163.0|11.1
18|00500|01:48.7|01:48.7|268.8|25.4|166.4|169.0|10.9

Not sure if I will row today. It might be a good idea to keep myself busy until the snow clears.

Wednesday: 60′ of fitness center purgatory

December 14, 20161 Comment

I really shouldn’t complain…but I will anyway.

I finished up my last meeting today around 4 and was dropped off at the Movenpick hotel at the Stuttgart airport. I thought it would be a great thing to go work out. I had noticed when I checked in that the fitness center had a Model D rower, and I was itching to do some long slow meters.

So, I suit myself up, put on some nice podcasts, sit down on the rower, adjust the foot height, and pull on the chain. It was bad. Really bad. The clutch was going on the erg, so it would lurch and grind on the pull. I thought it might calm down over a few pulls, but no, it was entirely unusable.

If there had been no erg, I would have contentedly toddle over to the bike and just gotten going, but my shuffle to the bike after failing on the erg was quite depressing. I hopped on the bike and watched the minutes pass glacially toward 30. At 30 minutes, I had had more than enough pedalling, so I moved over to the treadmill. Here I cranked up the incline all the way to 15% and walked briskly (at 5km/h) for another 30 minutes.

By this point, I was tired, sweaty and bored, so I decided to call it a day.

Tomorrow morning I have a 7:10am flight out of Stuttgart through London back home to Boston. It will be good to get back to a working erg!

Friday: Temptation

December 9, 2016Leave a comment

So, I don’t really know what to think about how things are going with my knee. There is no doubt that the MRI showed an damaged area of the meniscus cartilage, but right now, it is hurting a lot less. I still get clicking and I am treating it very carefully, but I am worrying about whether getting it scoped is the right thing to do.

The thing is that I would not be able to row well the way it is now. I would be constantly worried that I would over compress and lock it up in the boat. This would be painful at least and could be potentially dangerous, if it was as bad as when it happened in Vermont (or numerous times the following couple of weeks).

Anyway, this morning, the plan was for a 60 minute endurance session. I was originally planning to just do another boring ride on the stationary bike. I started there, and did 30 minutes that way, and I got really bored. My knee also felt perfectly fine.

Hmmm. Maybe I could do a little erging. Either it would go OK, or at least I’d be more certain about the procedure.

So, I toddled over to the erg. I put down a bandaid on the rail to give myself a reminder to not compress too far. I dialed up 10km on the PM5 and started rowing.

At first I was very tentative about stroke length, and the time off the erg was definitely having an effect. But over the first 10 minutes I got more comfortable and confident and lengthened my stroke a bit. I’m still not squeezing hard into full compression at the catch, but I was going an inch or so past the bandaid. As this happened I was able to bring the rate down a bit too.

The HR response was pretty poor for such a slow piece, but it was great to get back on the erg and my knee is showing no ill effects afterward.

Workout Summary - media/20161209-181650-sled_2016-12-09T07-29-45ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.4|19.0|151.2|160.0|12.7
W-|10000|41:28.0|02:04.4|181.2|19.0|151.5|160.0|12.7
R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|160.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|01000|04:05.0|02:02.5|185.0|20.0|137.1|146.0|12.2
02|01000|04:05.5|02:02.8|189.1|19.9|148.8|152.0|12.3
03|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.2|19.5|150.5|152.0|12.4
04|01000|04:07.3|02:03.6|185.5|19.2|151.4|153.0|12.6
05|01000|04:10.1|02:05.1|178.8|18.9|152.6|154.0|12.7
06|01000|04:11.0|02:05.5|176.9|18.7|152.7|154.0|12.8
07|01000|04:10.4|02:05.2|178.3|18.9|153.3|155.0|12.7
08|01000|04:10.1|02:05.0|179.1|19.1|154.7|157.0|12.6
09|01000|04:10.5|02:05.3|178.0|18.2|155.5|157.0|13.2
10|01000|04:11.2|02:05.6|176.6|17.2|157.6|160.0|13.9

Here’s a quick plot showing how I extended my stroke length over the first 10 minutes or so.

Here are HR stats for the whole workout from Wahoo fitness.

Gotta say, I feel a lot better for having done it, but the worries about doing the wrong thing with the surgery are unabated.

Tomorrow: Probably another easy erg session and some strength work. Maybe I’ll try some kettlebell stuff for fun, plus push ups and chin ups.

Wednesday: 60′ Endurance

December 7, 2016December 8, 20164 Comments

Not very exciting. 60 minutes on the stationary bike. Manual setting 14.

Tuesday: Strength

December 6, 20161 Comment

30 minute warmup on the stationary bike (manual, level 13)

Then into a strength session

Squats
(limited depth to protect my knee, put a Bench behind me and stopped when my butt hit it, it was about 3/4 depth)
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10
165 x 8 x 3 sets

Chin ups
Unassisted x6 (yes! I’m making progress)
assisted x6 x6 x4

Good Mornings
45 x 10
95 x 10
145 x 10 x 3 sets

Push ups
(with rotating handle pads)
10 x 4 sets

Pretty happy with how that went, especially the squats. I really want to work on leg strength and preserve range of motion. I felt safe doing the squats this way.

Not by coincidence, I saw a tweet from Yann La Meur reviewing a paper by Rhea. This was talking about the specificity of squat training. In the experiment they took 28 collegiate athletes and only varied the type of squat exercise that they did within an otherwise identical strength training program. They found that quarter squats translated into bigger improvements in vertical leap and sprint speed than either full squats or half squats.

Now, of course the range of knee motion for rowing is a lot larger than running or jumping, so I am not sure that quarter or half squats are good for specific rowing training, but I found the article very interesting nonetheless. Mainly though, I want to avoid having my knee lock up while I have 200 pounds on my shoulders.

Tomorrow: Stationary Bike endurance session, ~ 60 minutes.

Sunday: pedalling 60 minutes

December 4, 2016Leave a comment

We went down to the cape this weekend. We left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon. I’m taking it a bit easier while I figure out what to do with my knee. Basically, a few endurance sessions a week on the bike and maybe three strength sessions. I took Friday and Saturday off.

We got home around 2:00 and I did some work around the house. I hopped on the stationary bicycle around 5 to pedal for an hour. I queued up Saving Private Ryan on the iPad and watched the movie as I cranked.

Not very exciting, but not unpleasant either.

Tomorrow: AM: 4 x 20′ endurance, probably stationary bike, PM: Strength

Thursday: Short Slide HM

December 1, 2016Leave a comment

Well, that was quite unsatisfying.

I spent a fair amount of yesterday regretting doing the CTC. My knee was stiff and painful. I took some Ibuprofen before bed, but it was still not all together happy with me this morning.

But, I wanted to find out if I could erg without hurting my knee more. So, I thought that I would try to do a slow half marathon

Plan:

Half Marathon
3/4 slide (using the bandaid to mark max compression
Target power 180W
HR cap: 155
No rate restriction, just try to figure out how to row efficiently with the short slide.

I had a glitch with the PM5/Painsled and only got data for the first 53 minutes, but fortunately, I had my HR backup going. 😉

Here’s the partial painsled data

Workout Summary - media/20161201-154018-sled_2016-12-01T07-13-18ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12458|53:30.0|02:08.8|170.2|18.0|139.5|148.0|13.0
W-|12225|51:30.0|02:06.4|172.9|18.0|140.0|148.0|13.2
R-|00235|02:00.0|04:14.9|068.4|18.3|124.3|148.0|00.0
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
01|04803|20:00.0|02:04.9|178.7|18.2|135.6|147.0|13.2
02|04716|20:00.0|02:07.2|169.6|17.6|142.4|148.0|13.4
03|02706|11:30.0|02:07.5|168.8|18.2|143.4|148.0|12.9

I was curious about how the shorter stroke affected how much force I needed to put into the handle. These two plots illustrate the difference. The one on the right is a HM before my injury about 2 weeks ago. The one on the left is from today. So, my drive length is about 9 cm shorter (6.3%). The peak force was 11.9% higher (193.2 vs 172.6). And this resulted in a average power that was more than 20 watts lower.

For me, this was a very valuable illustration of how important length is to delivering power. The good news is that my knee held up well and is pretty much pain free right now. I guess I need to be satisfied with the idea of going slow until my knee is better.

Tomorrow: Dr’s appt in the morning. I might have time for a short workout during the day.

Tuesday: 60′ stationary bike

November 29, 2016November 29, 20163 Comments

My knee continues to be mysterious and painful. The joint has two modes of operation. The first mode is entirely normal. No pain, no weakness, nothing. The second mode is extremely painful. It limits the range of motion (I can’t fully extend it). I have trouble bearing weight on my leg. Going between the two modes is a bit erratic, but I am getting the hang of it. The best way to transition from pain free to painful is to fully flex. Adding in radial movement of my foot while flexed seems to encourage the transition. Getting from painful to pain free is more hit and miss. Sometimes, if I put steady pressure to extend it fully, my leg, which stops at about 10 degrees from fully extended, will slowly finishes extending and the pain will diminish. Other times, if I get off my feet and put my leg up for 15 minutes it will get back into working order. Last night it hurt when I went to sleep, and was fine when I woke this morning.

I had an appointment with the orthopedist today. I was pain free walking in and thinking he might pat me on my head and send me on my way. I was wrong. He grabbed my leg, pushed to full flexion, he and I felt the click in the joint as it flexed and it hurt like hell when he extended the leg again. He did some more manipulations of the joint to see which motions hurt and which did not. Then he sent me for x-rays.

The x-rays confirmed the first part of his diagnosis. Osteo-Arthritis. There is the potential that there is additionally a tear in the meniscus cartilage. That will be checked by getting an MRI this evening.

This same doctor treated me 5 years ago for arthritis in my left knee. Back then, my knee was very sore and swollen. He treated that knee with a cortisone injection and I decided to limit the amount of running I was doing. I was running up to 5 times per week then and rowing much less. The treated and training change worked completely… until recently.

This season, I started noticing problems with my right knee. Generally the problems happened when I was doing something like putting my oars in the boat and getting into a deep crouch. My knee would lock or I’d get a sharp pain. But extending the leg would fix the problem, and I would go on with a normal rowing session. Other times, in an erg session, I would notice my joint clicking during the first few strokes, but by either limiting the amount of compression at the catch, or just by warming up, it would go away. This was not painful at all, just annoying and a little scary. Then things seemed to get much worse after my pants removal incident on Thanksgiving. Now the pain would not go away and was much more intense.

Anyway, the reason that I am writing this all down is because I am trying to process all of this. Essentially, there is no doubt that I have Arthritis in the joint, but if there is a serious tear, getting it fixed will probably make my knee work a lot better. But if the tear is minor, or there is not tear, then the prognosis is not very good. I will likely have to figure out how to live with my knee giving out on a regular basis. I have no idea what impact that will have on rowing and, frankly, that’s bumming me out.

I guess I just don’t think about that until I know more.

For training today, I was back on the stationary bike. I just set it to resistance of 10 and did 2 x 30 minute intervals. I tried to pedal hard enough to keep me right at the boundary between UT2 and UT1.

No pain from biking. Just a gathering gloom in my soul.

Tomorrow: 40 minutes on the bike plus strength training.

Quantified Rowing

Measure – Adjust – Improve

Tag: endurance