New Zones, New Charts, New Correlations

Today’s session was a new one for me. This week I am following his training program for our Masters rowers, and I am considering to stay on this program if it looks/feels OK.


warming up 2500m
8min @ 22spm / 4min rest (Zones 1/2)
16min / 4min rest. 16 min = 1min @ 26spm, 2min @ 24spm, 3min @22spm, 4min @ 20spm, 3min @ 22spm, 2min @ 24spm, 1min @ 26spm (Zones 2/3)
8min @ 22spm
Cooling down
25' stretching


I wasn’t sure how Adam defines zones, and I forgot to ask the other Masters rowers*. I think it is based on a lactate step test that the guys did in the fall. If that is correct, I can do a similar test at home and plug the numbers into rowsandall.com

I programmed the session as an irregular interval on the PM5, and I am afraid this confused rowsandall.com (or painsled) a bit. I haven’t really tested this mode, so I need to check what is going on. The Power figures definitely look wrong in the second rest interval, as do the HR values. Also the interval editor misbehaves, so no statistics today.

Luckily, the Flex Chart works well, so here are the flex charts:

I have implemented a new feature on Rowsandall.com. A big page with statistics. One feature that I implemented for my own pleasure is a correlation matrix:

This is the correlation matrix for this particular workout. Each cell indicates how strongly the metrics on the two axes correlate. A positive correlation means that if one metric increases, there is a good chance that the other also increases. A negative correlation means the opposite. So you can see that the Average/Peak force ratio decreases as my heart rate increases. Also, a shorter drive length goes together with a higher average/peak force ratio. I also seem to shorten up on the slide a bit when going to higher SPM.

This is just one workout, and I am not 100% convinced of the usefulness of this chart (although I do hope it is). I also implemented functionality where you can look over all workouts over a longer time period. Here are all my erg workouts in January.

It is interesting to look at the strong negative correlation between Peak Force and Average/Peak Force Ratio. Here are two plots of all strokes over the same time period.

I have filtered out any strokes in the first 2km of any workout, to reduce any “warming up” effect. There are two funny things. In the plot on the right, you can see that most of the negative correlation comes form “paddle” strokes.

The other funny thing is the little “island” of strokes in the graph on the right. Looks like some different “mode” of rowing. Comparing that with the graph on the left, where the two parameters are plotted against the stroke rate, you can see that most probably the “island” correspond to a group of strokes between 18 and 20spm.

So I created two more plots:

On the left, I filtered out all strokes at lower than 20spm (so the chart shows only strokes of 20spm and higher), and you can see that the island disappeared. The chart on the right shows only strokes at 20spm and lower, and you can see the two islands. The red dots are Power values. You can see that these are not “paddle” strokes, because they were done at around 150W.

Another interesting thing in the left graph is that my peak force stagnates as power increases above 250W.

So if anything, the correlation matrix plots have led me to find some mysterious “flat” stroke that I row at 19spm. I have added the last two plots to my regular flex charts to study after a workout. Interesting!!!!

*Regarding zones, I asked the other Masters rowers, and the definition is as follows:

Zone 1 = 1-2 mmol/L “Steady State”

Zone 2 = 2-3 mmol/L “Steady State”

Zone 3 = 3.5-5 mmol/L “ANP”

Zone 4 = 6-8 mmol/L “Aerobic Capacity”

Zone 5 = 8-15 mmol/L “Anaerobic Power”

Zone 6 = 3-6 mmol/L “Speed”

The table also has individual paces and HR frequencies for each rower.