Wolverine Plan Discussion

[old] H_2O · Post by **[old] H_2O** » December 14th, 2005, 8:16 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(hjs @ Dec 14 2005, 05:15 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>If you can't row faster dan 1 k pace on a 2 k race your absolutely slacking Doing a 2 k really hurts </td></tr></table> I agree that mental toughness is a huge part of the equation. How did you manage to sustain such an intense program without a base of slow rowing. Where did you get your basic endurance from?

[old] FrancoisA · Post by **[old] FrancoisA** » December 14th, 2005, 8:32 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(hjs @ Dec 14 2005, 10:15 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>If you can't row faster dan 1 k pace on a 2 k race your absolutely slacking Doing a 2 k really hurts </td></tr></table> Maybe you've got this wrong! If you can't row your 4 x 1k at 2k race pace, then you are slacking in your training! Doing 4 x 1K really hurts. When doing 4 x 1k, I feel like I am going to die 4 times, while in the 2k race it happens only once! Cheers, Francois

[old] ragiarn · Post by **[old] ragiarn** » December 14th, 2005, 9:22 pm

TODAY'S WORKOUT level 1 4x 1000 Goal Pace: 1:57.6 Based on average of my first 4x1000 meters- 11/15/2005- 1:57.6 1:57.6 1:57.4 2:08.9 I excluded the 4th 1k in my calculations. My first attempt at 4x 1K : The first 3x 1 K went well but on the 4th I managed to make it to 600 m before I totally ran out of steam. Crashed and burned last 400 meters- just ran out of steam! My brain said go but my legs said NO!. Today: Warm up in 3 parts: 1- 2500 m at low stroke rate with increasing pace- 2- Power 10 - 1 minute intervals with 1 min. recovery, at increasing Drag until Max. Drag 10 @ 14 spm # 5 intervals- total Meters 1500 M- avg. MPS - 15 meters- Purpose: get all the muscle fibers ready to work in sync - Max- power from the start. 3- Speed intervals : Practice start 0- to steady state- app 10 strokes - repeat 5 times 500 M Purpose: to judge how many strokes it will take to get to cruising speed - it takes 3-4 for me. Total warm up 4500 M- 12/14/05 ------------ 250m --- 500m --- 750 m ---- 1000m ---- Avg Pace---- total time #1_____ 1:55.0 _ 1:55.0 __1:54.2 ____ 1:54.6 ___ 1:54.6 ____ 3:49.3 #2 ____ 1:55.2___1;55.4___1:55.2 ____ 1:55.2 ___ 1:55.2 ___ 3:50.2 #3 ____ 1:55.4___ 1:55.4___1:55.2 ___ 1:54.4____1:55.1____3:50.2 #4_____1:54.4___1:54.4___ 1:56.4 ____1:59.6 ____156.1 ___ 3:52.4 Crashed and burned again during the last 500 meters- started too fast on 4th 1000M but i finished this time! I was trying to get a faster time than #1. This session went smoother than my first session and while very strenuous felt much more manageable than my 11/15 session. Could have been better if I had not messed up #4. On #4 I felt great for the first 500 meters. Half way trough the 3rd 250 m split I realized I was in trouble and might not be able to finish but unlike the first session I was able to gut it out. Despite the poor pacing I still finished at a faster pace than my best 1k on 11/15. What happened between 11/15 and 12/14. The Wolverine plan kicked in! I feel that Level 4 sessions helped me improve my stroke. After Mike pointed out that my form was probably very poor I spent 4-5 days working on my mechanics. Lots of L4 training sessions. Since then I have been rowing all of my training session (Except for Level 1) strapless. Rowing strapless while awkward at first forced me to improve my form. I am almost tempted to try Level 1 strapless, however for now there is too much else going with Level 1 to have to worry about rowing strapless. How does today’s level 1 compare to my PB 2k? Well the last 250 meters of my #4 1 K (the worst split of all) is still faster that my personal best 2k which I set just 2 weeks ago. I will have to plan my pace better next time so that I can finish my last 1K better than I did today. Ralph Giarnella Southington, CT

[old] mpukita · Post by **[old] mpukita** » December 14th, 2005, 10:11 pm

I'm noticing a pattern here ... I hear many of us "older" athletes ... those of us 30+ ... saying something akin to "my mind said to do it but my body would not cooperate". This is interesting to me from a sports psychology standpoint. As a young runner, I, along with my teammates, often tried to find ways to "cut" or "shortcut" workouts ... and we were not unsuccessful ... we had one of the top cross country, indoor, and outdoor track teams in the State of NY. I would say that we were in a situation where the body was more willing (and more adaptable to the training we were asked to do) than the mind was willing. It seems many here have "grown up" and are now psyched to do great athletic things, but have to get older, slower bodies to fall in line. Hmmm ... what do you think? And how do we use the desire to help us train better and smarter?

[old] FrancoisA · Post by **[old] FrancoisA** » December 14th, 2005, 11:28 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(ragiarn @ Dec 15 2005, 01:22 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>TODAY'S WORKOUT level 1 4x 1000 Goal Pace: 1:57.6 Based on average of my first 4x1000 meters- 11/15/2005- 1:57.6 1:57.6 1:57.4 2:08.9 I excluded the 4th 1k in my calculations. My first attempt at 4x 1K : The first 3x 1 K went well but on the 4th I managed to make it to 600 m before I totally ran out of steam. Crashed and burned last 400 meters- just ran out of steam! My brain said go but my legs said NO!. Today: Warm up in 3 parts: 1- 2500 m at low stroke rate with increasing pace- 2- Power 10 - 1 minute intervals with 1 min. recovery, at increasing Drag until Max. Drag 10 @ 14 spm # 5 intervals- total Meters 1500 M- avg. MPS - 15 meters- Purpose: get all the muscle fibers ready to work in sync - Max- power from the start. 3- Speed intervals : Practice start 0- to steady state- app 10 strokes - repeat 5 times 500 M Purpose: to judge how many strokes it will take to get to cruising speed - it takes 3-4 for me. Total warm up 4500 M- 12/14/05 ------------ 250m --- 500m --- 750 m ---- 1000m ---- Avg Pace---- total time #1_____ 1:55.0 _ 1:55.0 __1:54.2 ____ 1:54.6 ___ 1:54.6 ____ 3:49.3 #2 ____ 1:55.2___1;55.4___1:55.2 ____ 1:55.2 ___ 1:55.2 ___ 3:50.2 #3 ____ 1:55.4___ 1:55.4___1:55.2 ___ 1:54.4____1:55.1____3:50.2 #4_____1:54.4___1:54.4___ 1:56.4 ____1:59.6 ____156.1 ___ 3:52.4 Crashed and burned again during the last 500 meters- started too fast on 4th 1000M but i finished this time! I was trying to get a faster time than #1. This session went smoother than my first session and while very strenuous felt much more manageable than my 11/15 session. Could have been better if I had not messed up #4. On #4 I felt great for the first 500 meters. Half way trough the 3rd 250 m split I realized I was in trouble and might not be able to finish but unlike the first session I was able to gut it out. Despite the poor pacing I still finished at a faster pace than my best 1k on 11/15. What happened between 11/15 and 12/14. The Wolverine plan kicked in! I feel that Level 4 sessions helped me improve my stroke. After Mike pointed out that my form was probably very poor I spent 4-5 days working on my mechanics. Lots of L4 training sessions. Since then I have been rowing all of my training session (Except for Level 1) strapless. Rowing strapless while awkward at first forced me to improve my form. I am almost tempted to try Level 1 strapless, however for now there is too much else going with Level 1 to have to worry about rowing strapless. How does today’s level 1 compare to my PB 2k? Well the last 250 meters of my #4 1 K (the worst split of all) is still faster that my personal best 2k which I set just 2 weeks ago. I will have to plan my pace better next time so that I can finish my last 1K better than I did today. Ralph Giarnella Southington, CT </td></tr></table> Great workout Ralph! The fact that you "crashed and burned" in the final meters of your last 1k, proves that you gave everything! I agree with you that those L4 sessions help develop a strong and efficient stroke. Mike was right when he said that they also, paradoxically, promote endurance and at the same time help to recover from the more intense L1 and L2. I like them a lot. Today I did my first L4 session at my new ref pace of 1:41 (it was 1:43 before). I had no problem doing 40 min of 180 and 184 sequences. I was doing 200 and 204 sequences at 1:43 before; so I am now covering almost the same distance but at a lower stroke rate. Moreover, I don't have any problems now with the 16 spm at that new pace. Cheers, Francois

[old] hjs · Post by **[old] hjs** » December 15th, 2005, 4:22 am

[quote=FrancoisA,Dec 15 2005, 01:32 AM] [quote=hjs,Dec 14 2005, 10:15 AM]If you can't row faster dan 1 k pace on a 2 k race your absolutely slacking Doing a 2 k really hurts [/quote] Maybe you've got this wrong! If you can't row your 4 x 1k at 2k race pace, then you are slacking in your training! Doing 4 x 1K really hurts. When doing 4 x 1k, I feel like I am going to die 4 times, while in the 2k race it happens only once! Cheers, Francois Hallo Francois. First I did 5 x 1 k. one more makes a difference. And I did,t go at 100%. My 1 k pb was below 3 min I had something left in the tank. For my is goning to hard in training not working. I don't recover. So dig deep but not to deep during training.

[old] hjs · Post by **[old] hjs** » December 15th, 2005, 4:39 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(H_2O @ Dec 15 2005, 01:16 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(hjs @ Dec 14 2005, 05:15 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>If you can't row faster dan 1 k pace on a 2 k race your absolutely slacking Doing a 2 k really hurts </td></tr></table> I agree that mental toughness is a huge part of the equation. How did you manage to sustain such an intense program without a base of slow rowing. Where did you get your basic endurance from? </td></tr></table> I did,t Although it wasn,t that bad my 30 min pb was 143.4 8700 plus. But I always have don a lot off other sports so I had a good base. But I have to say i did't reach my best doing it that way. You need a very good endurence and you have to be strong to row real hard. I think you have to be carefull in training, don't go to hard to much. It' not the training that makes you better but the way your body can react on your training. Digging to deep to often does not help. And for racing. If you race you have to know what you can do. Don' start to fast and never quit or really fade during a race. I you begin doing that you get mentally used to doing that. No matter what a 2 k at your best is always hurting. But he real hurt starts at about 1200/1500 meters. The first 500 is easy don,t go to fast. The second you begin to feel the pace, but just hang in, row relax and strong The third is hanging on and maybe 1 or second slowing down but no more. Last 500 is increasing your rate, pace at your average, and if you can the last minute you have to give it al and sprint.

[old] nharrigan · Post by **[old] nharrigan** » December 15th, 2005, 10:50 am

Ralph, Thanks for sharing your progress. I did the same level one workout on Monday. My first interval was my fastest and my 4th was my slowest. Not ideal. I cracked towards the end of the third interval, which made no.4 torture. 1. 3:14.6 1:37.4/500 2. 3:16.0 1:38.0/500 3. 3:18.5 1:39.3/500 4. 3:23.0 1:41.5/500 I'm going to try a more conservative approach next time. I want to get negative splits. I did the L2 yesterday with negative splits and mentally it seemed much easier. I was curious as to why you set the damper to 10. I always thought the damper was an adjustment for your weight and power. I tend to set mine to 5 or 5.5. Do you find the higher setting more efficient? Regards, Neil

[old] ragiarn · Post by **[old] ragiarn** » December 15th, 2005, 1:37 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(nharrigan @ Dec 15 2005, 10:50 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Ralph, Thanks for sharing your progress. I did the same level one workout on Monday. My first interval was my fastest and my 4th was my slowest. Not ideal. I cracked towards the end of the third interval, which made no.4 torture. 1. 3:14.6 1:37.4/500 2. 3:16.0 1:38.0/500 3. 3:18.5 1:39.3/500 4. 3:23.0 1:41.5/500 I'm going to try a more conservative approach next time. I want to get negative splits. I did the L2 yesterday with negative splits and mentally it seemed much easier. I was curious as to why you set the damper to 10. I always thought the damper was an adjustment for your weight and power. I tend to set mine to 5 or 5.5. Do you find the higher setting more efficient? Regards, Neil </td></tr></table> <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>2- Power 10 - 1 minute intervals with 1 min. recovery, at increasing Drag until Max. Drag 10 @ 14 spm # 5 intervals- total Meters 1500 M- avg. MPS - 15 meters- Purpose: get all the muscle fibers ready to work in sync - Max- power from the start. </td></tr></table> The Power 10 - is part of my warm up. It is also a strength workout. I usually set my drag between 110-120 when I do a Level 1. On the ERG I use that would be between a 5-5.5. It is a strength workout I picked up on Dr. Stephen Seiler's website. He discusses strength training for the erg and his personal recommendation is strength training on the ERG rather than with weights. (Specialized Strength training for Rowers - <a href='http://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowstre.htm)' target='_blank'>http://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowstre.htm)</a> "My current perspective on the wieght training issue is that the very best strength training for rowing happens in the boat or on the erg while rowing!" Stephen Seiler I am not yet sure what the ideal drag is at this point. I view the drag as nothing more than a brake and I would think that the lower the drag the easier it would be to pull a faster time. However I am not quite sure how the power rating is calculated on an erg. If the C2 computer takes into consideration the drag setting when computing the power then it might not matter which drag is chosen. If only the resistance of the fan is taken into consideration then I would think that the less the drag the better. I did yesterday's Level 1 with a drag of 111. I did today's L4 2x40 with a drag of 115. I felt no ill effects of yesterday's L1 training session. Today's L4 2x40' I improved both in strokes and distance covered when compared to the last one, which I completed last week. Ralph Giarnella Southington, CT

[old] FrancoisA · Post by **[old] FrancoisA** » December 15th, 2005, 2:31 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(ragiarn @ Dec 15 2005, 05:37 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I am not yet sure what the ideal drag is at this point. I view the drag as nothing more than a brake and I would think that the lower the drag the easier it would be to pull a faster time. However I am not quite sure how the power rating is calculated on an erg. If the C2 computer takes into consideration the drag setting when computing the power then it might not matter which drag is chosen. If only the resistance of the fan is taken into consideration then I would think that the less the drag the better. </td></tr></table> Ralph, The C2 computer takes into account the drag factor when computing the power. There was a thread recently about this <a href='http://concept2.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3296' target='_blank'>topic</a>. I did 4 x 1k Level 1 training today. I was aiming for 1:43.3, 1:43.0, 1:42.8 and 1:42.5 to yield an average of 1:42.9. What I did was: 1:43.1 1:42.8 1:42.5 so far so good 1:41.7 way too fast! Average: 1:42.5. An improvement of 0.5 sec. I went too hard on the last one; it is going to be difficult to improve on that, the next time I do the 4 x 1k. Thanks God it's in two weeks! If anyone needs an additional incentive for performing L2, L3 and L4 diligently, it would be to make the "baby steps" improvements in Level 1 less painful! Cheers, Francois

[old] mpukita · Post by **[old] mpukita** » December 15th, 2005, 4:09 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(FrancoisA @ Dec 15 2005, 02:31 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(ragiarn @ Dec 15 2005, 05:37 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>I am not yet sure what the ideal drag is at this point. I view the drag as nothing more than a brake and I would think that the lower the drag the easier it would be to pull a faster time. However I am not quite sure how the power rating is calculated on an erg. If the C2 computer takes into consideration the drag setting when computing the power then it might not matter which drag is chosen. If only the resistance of the fan is taken into consideration then I would think that the less the drag the better. </td></tr></table> Ralph, The C2 computer takes into account the drag factor when computing the power. There was a thread recently about this <a href='http://concept2.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3296' target='_blank'>topic</a>. I did 4 x 1k Level 1 training today. I was aiming for 1:43.3, 1:43.0, 1:42.8 and 1:42.5 to yield an average of 1:42.9. What I did was: 1:43.1 1:42.8 1:42.5 so far so good 1:41.7 way too fast! Average: 1:42.5. An improvement of 0.5 sec. I went too hard on the last one; it is going to be difficult to improve on that, the next time I do the 4 x 1k. Thanks God it's in two weeks! If anyone needs an additional incentive for performing L2, L3 and L4 diligently, it would be to make the "baby steps" improvements in Level 1 less painful! Cheers, Francois </td></tr></table> Francois: Nice workout. Sounds like it was a real "nutbuster". Especially since my last one was done at an average of 1:52.5! I expect to do 1:50.5 next time (next week?). I find the 4 x 1,000 less painful than the 4 x 2,000. I think I can deal with short(er) intense pain much better than lengthy less intense (but still bad) pain. I'm not a big fan of the 5 x 1,500, so that appears to be my mental "breaking point". Keep up the intensity! Regards -- Mark

[old] tennstrike · Post by **[old] tennstrike** » December 15th, 2005, 9:08 pm

Mark: Thought you had a trip leaving today? Bet you're glad not to miss the training. I did my first set of 500's tonight. Since I only get in around 50,000 m/week, I only do 3,000 of L1 and 6,000 of L2 a week. That's already 18% and a little higher than Mike recommends. Anyway, my 6 x500 went (Goal of 1:50.0 average, using my reference pace of 1:54 not my recent PB) 1:50.5 1:50.3 1:50.1 1:49.6 1:49.3 1:39.4 My previous PB on a 500 had been 1:43.5. I'd been stroking 26-27 on the first five and just tried to nail the last one. I was able to hold 32 SPM for the first time ever. I held solid at 1:38 until about 90 meters and then kind of died with 1:39 and finally a 1:40. But not a hard death. It has to be the 2 - L4 per week for the last 3 weeks. Two more weeks of a 40 and a 50 and I'll move the 50 to 60. Regards, Jeff

[old] seat5 · Post by **[old] seat5** » December 16th, 2005, 1:40 am

L4 tonight. I used ref pace 1:49 and this really felt like a workout. 176 188 196 176 188 196. Only did 2 extra strokes in the whole hour and had 198 extra meters. It came out to 14028 for the hour--about 300 meters less than my hour PB. This was the first time with any 22 spm bits. Here's a question: I have been trying to always have the drive be one third of the time and the recovery 2/3s no matter what the spm. This is challenging, because instead of just speeding up the recovery to increase the stroke rate, you have to drive more explosively to keep it at the same ratio. Am I supposed to be doing this? It was definitely challenging at 22 spm but I feel like it's a good idea. Can't find info about this in anything I've got on WP. Does anyone remember seeing anything about this?

[old] holm188 · Post by **[old] holm188** » December 16th, 2005, 1:51 am

Carla, You cannot try to fix too many variables and then hope it fits together. For your L4 workout, the pace is given, the stroke rate is given, the damper setting stays the same, your technique should not change too much. With all that set the drive recovery ratio will take care of itself. Generally, he drive recovery ratio gets smaller as you increase the SR. Hope that helps, Holm

[old] mpukita · Post by **[old] mpukita** » December 16th, 2005, 7:20 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(tennstrike @ Dec 15 2005, 09:08 PM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Mark: Thought you had a trip leaving today? Bet you're glad not to miss the training. I did my first set of 500's tonight. Since I only get in around 50,000 m/week, I only do 3,000 of L1 and 6,000 of L2 a week. That's already 18% and a little higher than Mike recommends. Anyway, my 6 x500 went (Goal of 1:50.0 average, using my reference pace of 1:54 not my recent PB) 1:50.5 1:50.3 1:50.1 1:49.6 1:49.3 1:39.4 My previous PB on a 500 had been 1:43.5. I'd been stroking 26-27 on the first five and just tried to nail the last one. I was able to hold 32 SPM for the first time ever. I held solid at 1:38 until about 90 meters and then kind of died with 1:39 and finally a 1:40. But not a hard death. It has to be the 2 - L4 per week for the last 3 weeks. Two more weeks of a 40 and a 50 and I'll move the 50 to 60. Regards, Jeff </td></tr></table> Jeff: I had an 11:30 flight so I got in a short 40' L4 with 1K warmup and cool down. I'm at the Rome airport right now, after a late arrival. Waiting on my (rescheduled) connecting flight. I've found a club about 20 to 30 minutes away from where I'm staying that looks like it has relatively new model Ds, so I hope to at least maintain while here. I'm on some personal business, so I do have some free time and my schedule is my own. My next 8 x 500 is planned for 1:49 average, which will be an improvement of about 1.5 seconds, if I can pull it off. I think the L4 60' pieces really do help with shorter distances. To me, the workouts often feel more like weight training than pure aerobic training - supporting the whole "power per stroke" aspect. -- Mark

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