Monday – Another recovery row & Tuesday – Strength

Monday

A hot day, but it was a holiday in the US so I could go to the rowing club early (because no calls with our US colleagues) so I had no excuse to put in another recovery row.

Before the row, I discussed my training plan for this week with our head coach. He confirmed, that after an absence of almost 2 weeks and illness, it is wise to stay at Steady State for a week. He said I even had permission to do “improper” (his words) steady state. He means: Err on the light side.

Just to see where I stand, I used rowsandall.com to compare Heart Rate response and Average Power for three “Steady State” sessions of approximately the same duration:

The May 5 workout is my “healthy” baseline. Sunday saw a drop from 160W (median Power) to 136W and heart rate up from 145bpm to 157bpm. On Monday, I was at 138W and 146bpm.

I used the Quiske sensor again, but on the other side. I wanted to look at the stroke curve. Unfortunately, I must have slightly misaligned the sensor compared to Sunday, and I didn’t get data I could compare.

I am able to look at total stroke angle though. Here’s a comparison, taking care to compare the same intervals:

It was slightly more choppy on 5/27 than on 5/28. Still, I was a bit longer according to both the Empower and the Quiske sensor. The Empower records a length differnce of 1.5-2 degrees from Sunday to Monday. Quiske, on the other hand, shows a shortening of 3.4 degrees going from the left hand to the right hand. So yes, I take that as a pretty strong indication of asymmetric rowing. I’ll look into this more and see if the picture remains like that.

Here are the charts (blue = Monday, green = Sunday):

Just as a check, I added a piece that I recorded on Monday, but in contrast to the two recordings I compare above, it was rowed in tailwind conditions (cross tailwind).

So according to Quiske my right hand gets a little longer in tailwind. Looking at Empower data for the same part of the row, my length doesn’t change compared to the headwind conditions. So does that suggest that I am more assymetric in headwind conditions?

Tuesday

Today, I decided to try out a new, small fitness center that opened a stone’s throw away from my office. It’s literally a 5 minute walk from the moment I drop my pencil to the moment I walk into the changing room. I can say I should really make use of this facility. It has 2 Model E ergs with PM 4 monitor. Here are a few pics of the possibilities for a strength workout:

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And the best thing is, to use this facility costs only CZK 80 (about 4 USD) per workout.