Ranger's training thread

[ranger]

The erg doesn't care about your form.

Sure.

Ergs don't float.

So, there is no need to worry about checking the motion of the boat, etc.

But anything about your technique that undermines/enhances efficient and effective leverage, length, ratio, timing, sequencing, posture, rhythmicity, etc., is indeed registered OTErg.

Rowing well is an art, even OTErg.

ranger

[ranger]

Ever think that maybe you post better times when rowing poorly at max drag?

Nope.

Given decline with age, my lwt 6:41 at 59 last year is the exact equivalent of my 6:28 at 52.

But I pulled that 6:41 last year, unprepared, at max drag, still struggling with technique (getting some things right but others wrong).

I now row well (13 SPI) low drag (119 df.) and I am now preparing to race.

Most people get about a dozen seconds over 2K from a couple of months of race preparation.

I am now sure what rowing well (13 SPI) at low drag (119 df.) is worth, but I suspect about the same.

So it will indeed be interesting to see what I can do when I am again fully prepared to race, as I was back in 2002-2003.

When I am again fully prepared to race, if I can still pull even 6:28, given normal decline with age and the 6:30 that I pulled in 2003 when I was 52, I will beat expectations by about 16 seconds, four seconds per 500m.

If I am now _better_ than I was in 2002-2003, I will beat expectations by more than that.

If I pull 6:16, I will beat expectations by almost half a minute and break the 60s lwt WR by 26 seconds.

Given my stroking power now, if I just pull through a 2K at 30 spm, I'll row sub-6:30.

If I pull through a 2K at 34 spm, I'll pull sub-6:20.

ranger

[MRapp]

As we all know, this weekend you will simply race at the pace your sharpening workouts indicate is appropriate. As we're only a few days away, I'm guessing you have a vague idea what pace your sharpening workouts are predicting. Care to share that with the group?

[luckylindy]

Based on past performance, I don't think ranger knows what pace he'll be shooting for until he warms up on the day of the race.

[ausrwr]

Ohh Rich, it seems I may have tapped a rich seam of your emotional neglect in my last abuse to you.

But as ever, you've taken it the way you wanted, and projected your own issues upon it, which a Freudian psychologist might well spend a lifetime on. That being said...

I'm a little tired of re-iterating my messages so that your terminally incompetent mind can understand them. When I said that I wished your parents, God rest them, had preferred masturbation to sex that fateful night in May or June 1949, I was not indicating anything about your preferences once you'd reached some sort of physical maturity, mental maturity being something that seems beyond your grasp.

I was indicating that the erging world would have been spared a massive waste of oxygen, pixels, and time had they not gone to bed with each other and had instead retired to separate beds and some vaseline.

Dougie, I'll see you in a month. This post is pretty vile. If I had any shame, I'd be ashamed.

[JohnBove]

Rowing well is an art, even OTErg.

Erging is an art?? Working a piece of gym equipment is an art? If so, what isn't? Eating pizza? Spiitting?

We're all aware that you teach poetics and, judging by the quality of writing in your posts, you couldn't compose a successful nursery rhyme, so certainly -- obviously -- you have artist envy. Miss America contestants used to efficiently pack a suitcase as an artform. They were tedious too, but at least they were young and pretty. And not mental cases.

[ranger]

Erging is an art?? Working a piece of gym equipment is an art?

If you have no appreciation for the way work can be effectively and efficiently done by full body quickness, leverage, balance, length, timing, sequencing, rhythmicity, footwork, posture, resistance, etc., then, sure, the claim that erging is an art is entirely baffling.

Your assumption seems to be that mastering these things, both individually, and as they converge in the stroke cycle, is no problem.

Everyone masters these things with high competence, immediately.

Then, everything else associated with being fast on the erg is just physicality/fitness.

I don't agree.

Then again, I don't yet have any evidence that I am right and you are wrong.

We'll certainly have a good test of this as I go forward in the sport, though.

It will be interesting how the facts of the case turn out.

It is clear:

Decline with age over 2K among veterans is pretty much a constant and has had no significant exceptions.

It averages around 1.7 seconds a year over 2K.

My fitness back in 2002-2003 was maximal, as it will be again when I am fully prepared to race.

The work that I have done on the erg between 2003 and the present has been exclusively on technique.

So any 2K time that I now achieve, this year or in any subsequent year, that is significantly better than the heavyweight qualification time for WIRC 2011 of 6:44 can be attributed solely to the improvements I have made in my technique.

I am happy with this as a test of our disagreement, and I am sure that you are, too.

So!

If I now pull 6:35 for 2K, you should probably reconsider.

If I now pull 6:30 for 2K, your claim is wrong.

If I now pull 6:25 for 2K, your claim is silly.

If I now pull 6:20 for 2K, your claim is ridiculous.

And if I now pull 6:15 for 2K, you have your head up your ass so far you couldn't see the light of day with 3-D glasses.

ranger

[ranger]

As we all know, this weekend you will simply race at the pace your sharpening workouts indicate is appropriate. As we're only a few days away, I'm guessing you have a vague idea what pace your sharpening workouts are predicting. Care to share that with the group?

No, I don't yet have much of an idea what I am capable of for 2K.

So, this weekend, I'll just rate 30 spm or so and see what happens.

This uncertainty should be dispelled pretty soon, though, as I get further into the winter racing season and the sharpening that I will be doing for that racing.

I am happy with that.

I will be racing for the another month.

And if I don't get fully sharp by the end of this racing season, I'll just continue to sharpen through next year until my distance trials, sharpening workouts, and/or 2K trials make clarify what I can achieve for 2K.

My work on technique is done.

I am now just preparing to race.

There is no mystery with any of this.

All distance trials predict both 2K and each other.

Sharpening workouts like 8 x 500m (3:30 rest), 4 x 1K, 4 xx 2K, etc., are excellent 2K predictors.

2Ks done as home trials are pretty much indistinguishable from 2Ks done at race venues.

Etc.

ranger

[PaulH]

And if I don't get fully sharp by the end of this racing season, I'll just continue to sharpen through next year until my distance trials, sharpening workouts, and/or 2K trials make clarify what I can achieve for 2K.

But within the last week you said that you *will* do 6:16. So what additional information are you expecting to get clarification on?

[Citroen]

Then again, I don't yet have any evidence that I am right and you are wrong.

We'll certainly have a good test of this as I go forward in the sport, though.

It will be interesting how the facts of the case turn out.

This is the clear reason why we shouldn't feed the troll. He's not had any evidence despite eight years of blathering, bloviating and outright lying. He's not "going forward", that's just a bullshit bingo phrase he's picked from the air. His case won't "turn out", he could go SUB 6:40 (if he sacked his coach), he won't go SUB7 (rowing with breaks).

Everyone, please stop feeding this troll.

[ranger]

Because of improvements I have made in my technique, at the same pace, I now pull against half the drag, get 30% more peak force with my legs, do 30% more work on each stroke, take 30% fewer strokes, work for 30% less time on each drive, and rest twice as long between drives.

If this change in technique ends up having no effect on my 2K times, I am happy to accept that.

But I guess we'll have to wait until all of the facts are in.

ranger

[ranger]

And if I don't get fully sharp by the end of this racing season, I'll just continue to sharpen through next year until my distance trials, sharpening workouts, and/or 2K trials make clarify what I can achieve for 2K.

But within the last week you said that you *will* do 6:16. So what additional information are you expecting to get clarification on?

Not sure what you are asking here.

To say that you will do something is not to do it.

The clarification is the doing.

I need to race (workouts, other distances, the target distance itself, etc.), fully prepared and fully relaxed and competent with my new technique, to know for sure what I can do for 2K.

To this point, I have been training, not racing.

Training isn't racing.

Training is an opportunity to get better, an opportunity to overcome (or if that isn't possible, shore up) your weaknesses.

When you race, you hide your weaknesses (as well as you can!) and parade your strengths.

My training is complete.

I am now preparing to race.

But race preparation is a process, too.

ranger

[ranger]

If it turns out that I am wrong to claim that technique matters OTErg, sure, I will be disappointed.

But there is still only gain for me (and no loss).

The changes in technique that I have made have not hurt my 2K times OTErg.

OTErg, I still row WR pace for my age and weight.

No one is, or ever has been, any better.

And to row OTW, I needed to change my erg technique, anyway.

If I use my old erg technique OTW, I am not just slow.

I can't take a stroke.

I fall right out of the boat.

ranger

[lancs]

And if I don't get fully sharp by the end of this racing season...

Ah, confirmation that your failure to get anywhere near a sub 6:30 row will merely be due to the fact that you 'didn't even prepare for it'. Again...

No one is, or ever has been, any better.

Other than the people that hold the WRs in the age categories you find yourself in now or have been in for recent years...

[PaulH]

I need to race (workouts, other distances, the target distance itself, etc.), fully prepared and fully relaxed and competent with my new technique, to know for sure what I can do for 2K.

But you've already said for sure what you can do - you *will* do 6:16. If you weren't sure you'd say something like "I think I'll do". But you didn't, you said that you *will* do 6:16.