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Brussels 004

Dec 3 2015

Brussels Strength

Wednesday

A rest day. Flying to Brussels. Waiting at Munich airport, I saw a tweet on the FISA coaching conference. In Brussels, I looked up the site and discovered a nice set of presentations:

http://www.worldrowing.com/events/2015-world-rowing-coaches-conference/event-information

I like the presentations about nutrition as they give a practical way to be smarter with food, without reverting to extreme diets. I am convinced you can get all the basic carbs, proteins, vitamins and what have you by eating “healthy and normal”. I am also convinced that I have tremendous room for improvement, while still continuing to enjoy good, tasty food.

The other presentation that I found very interesting was the one on developing endurance,  by Nick Clarke from Rowing Canada. I have no time to go into the details now, so download that presentation and see for yourself:

Click to access NickClarke_Neutral.pdf

First time in Brussels after the shutdown. The city seemed more lively than ever before. Lots of people on the street. Anspach boulevard turned into a gigantic pedestrian area. Is that new? Haven’t been on Anspach in a long time, so I couldn’t tell.

The odd armed soldier walking around. But they were already part of Brussels after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

I walked around the area of Ste Catherine after dinner. Here’s a quick phone picture of the atmosphere:

Brussels 004.JPG

Thursday

This morning I did hotel room strength training using the bands. A variation on the usual set.

  1. Curl
  2. Squat
  3. Situps
  4. Pistol squats
  5. squatted row
  6. lunges
  7. “bench press”

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Dec 1 2015

Another Steady State Data Point

Today I ignored lesson 1 for steady state sessions. If it is supposed to be a UT2 or UT1 session, it is not supposed to feel like hard work. If it does, you should back down, reduce the intensity, or even just stop and take a rest day.

For science (or rather for my curiosity as my method lacks scientific rigor), I pushed on.

A lot of things were different today, compared to the steady state sessions that I measured lactate on so far:

  1. I didn’t sleep well. I woke up from a dream which I could remember quite vividly, which doesn’t happen very often. It was 3AM. Between 3AM and 6AM I was turning in bed, not sleeping well.
  2. I cycled to work. Made a point of cycling very lightly, “to get yesterday’s heavy session out of my system”.
  3. I had a big cold salad for lunch, then nothing for the entire afternoon, and for dinner I decided to add an omelet to my usual light dinner.
  4. The weather has changed from nice, cold and dry to 10 degrees C, rainy and humid.
  5. It is not November any more.

I did a 3×20 min tonight with a lactate measurement after the last 20 minute interval.

I warmed up for 5 minutes.

First interval didn’t feel too bad. I slowly ramped up the power for the first 10 minutes and ended up doing a 190W on average.

I rowed the second interval with an eye on the clock. It seemed endless. I knew I was working harder than I want to work in steady state sessions, but after 10 minutes funnily the pace started to drift to 210W and I had to consciously keep it down. Still, my breathing and the feeling in my legs told me I was working too hard.

The third interval was hard. The kind of annoying steady state “hard”. It just took too much mental effort to hold the pace. I did some stroke rate changes in the first 10 minutes just to keep the focus. Took a lactate measurement immediately after the interval:

laktaat 001.JPG

Feeling confirmed. I was actually very happy about this result. It gives me more confidence in lactate measurement as a method to confirm what the perceived rate of effort tells me. And thus it also gives me confidence to continue doing what I have done so far: If it feels too hard, back down.

I’ll start keeping my lactate readings, together with notes on heart rate, perceived level of effort and some other parameters in a spreadsheet.

Here’s the HR plot of the session:

3x20min.jpg


Workout Summary - Dec 01, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS
--|15428|64:00.0|02:04.5|181.6|22.2|156.9|10.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments
01|04902|20:00.0|02:02.4|190.9|21.1|147.2|11.6|1st 20 min
02|00345|02:00.0|02:53.7|066.8|17.5|124.5|09.9|rest
03|04990|20:00.0|02:00.2|201.3|23.3|161.2|10.7|2nd 20 min
04|00220|02:00.0|04:33.0|017.2|13.0|127.9|08.5|rest
05|04971|20:00.0|02:00.7|199.0|23.5|165.4|10.6|3rd 20 min: 2.5 mmol/L

HR drift was 7%.

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4x2km2

Nov 30 2015

Torture Variations

It’s one thing that we regularly torture our bodies to misery. Let that pass. But torturing it always in exactly the same way, that goes too far.

So even though I keep coming back to the interval sessions from the Wolverine Plan (and the Pete Plan), this year I make an effort to vary how I row them. Today I tried red-lining (or perhaps purple-lining, looking at my heart rate). Next time it may be positive splitting. Or do a full out 2k in the first interval, then try to minimize the damage in the following ones. The method behind the madness is to avoid staleness, and there are even training theories based on physiology that support this. Surprise your metabolic systems …

The target was 1:52.9 which didn’t seem too hard, but I have come to respect these 4x2km sessions. You cross the line and suddenly you are at risk of not finishing the session.

4x2km24x2km1

The pictures tell the full story better than the summary table. Basically I went into each 2km with 10 hard strokes at 1:40 pace, then slowed down. From the second interval onward this left me gasping for air with about 1890 meters to go. Then I would try to recover. At the half way point I did 10 hard strokes (1:47 pace), and with 500m to go I would do 50 hard strokes (1:48-1:50 pace). The final interval was of course a special one, with everything one or two seconds of split faster and a crazy acceleration in the final 500m, to squeeze out everything.

Workout Summary - Nov 30, 2015
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|Watts|SPM-|-HR--|-DPS
--|08000|29:40.3|01:51.3|254.1|27.6|167.6|09.8
Workout Details
#-|EDist|-Etime-|-SPace-|Watts|SPM-|AvgHR|DPS-|Comments
01|02000|07:29.9|01:52.5|246.0|26.3|158.0|10.2|
02|04000|14:56.0|01:51.5|252.3|27.3|167.2|09.9|
03|06000|22:20.7|01:51.2|254.6|27.9|170.0|09.7|
04|08000|29:40.3|01:49.9|263.8|29.1|174.6|09.4|

Average pace: 1:51.3. Nice. Haven’t done this session this fast before. In the 2014/15 winter, I managed 1:51.6.

That brings me to my final thought of the day, on steady state intensity again. Since I started measuring lactate I have started to think I can increase their intensity to 200W. One thing is to stay below 2.0 mmol/L in these sessions, but another requirement will be that the steady state intensity is low enough that I can be sharp for the harder sessions.

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4x20a

Nov 29 2015

Steady State – further lactate figures

Saturday

Weather not good for rowing. Some ice along the banks. Cold water. Also, I promised Romana (who is struggling with a cold) that I would take her training today. So it was a very slow run from the rowing club with the girls. I tried to improve their running technique. A couple of breaks for stretching.

https://www.strava.com/activities/440656322

prehradarun.JPG

Sunday

A week ago, I did the first serious lactate testing. Today I played with the thought of repeating it at slightly higher power settings, to get some more info about my lactate curve. In the end I decided to not do 8x10min but 4x20min, to save strips and reduce the rest. I have the feeling that my lactate level goes down quite quickly and 2 minutes rest on 10 minutes exercise seems quite luxurious.

2k of slow warming up (2:15 pace) and then into the main event:

4x20b.jpg

First 20 min at 180W to get into the groove and get a data point around the power where I had minimum lactate last Sunday. I measured 0.8 mmol/L.

Then up to 200W. Today it felt like a very easy intensity, but I guess doing this after 20 minutes at 180W my aerobic engine was running at full speed and not yet tired. The result: 1.4 mmol/L. Nice.

Up to 210W and a few minutes into that row I knew I should expect a higher lactate level. The breathing got heavier, but more importantly my splits began to swing more, between 195W and 220W, instead of staying within a few Watts of the target. I had to focus more. The result: 1.9 mmol/L.

The original plan was to do the final 20 minutes at 220W, but I didn’t feel like it. Instead, I decided that holding 210W and looking at the lactate and HR levels would also be an interesting result. The row didn’t feel harder than the third interval, but still I got a very interesting (and comforting) result: 2.2 mmol/L.

Here is the graph. I plotted the additional data points over the 8x10min step test of last week.

4x20a.jpg

Even though I changed from a 10 minute based step to a 20 minute based step, I think the results are very consistent. It also looks like 200 W is really the level that I should do my steady state, if I follow the paradigm that one should do steady state below 2.0 mmol/L.

So all  in all I start to have more faith in my lactate results and will do 200W steady state for the coming week or two. I am really happy to have established that my lactate level can go above 2.0 on 210W steady state. I also liked how the level kept increasing in the second interval at 210W. Kind of suggests that 210 is above lactate steady state.

So 200W it is. Probably 3x20min during weekdays and 4x20min in the weekend, measuring lactate at the end.

 

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Nov 29 2015

Sad Mixed Quad

P9130181.JPG

P9130190.JPG

The mixed quad we rowed in Hazewinkel, at the Masters Worlds. Here’s what I wrote on my blog on September 16:

It was Lubica’s first international race since the W4x final at the Barcelona Olympics, and she was thoroughly enjoying it (and also admiring the strong guys in the other boats). The officials did a fast start “because of the weather” so it was Attention – honk and off we were. We had a fantastic start and were rowing right in front with the Polish and the British, and the Austro-Hungarian boat. One German boat was right behind us, followed closely by Chile. The second German boat closed the field.

[…]

With 400m to go I called for another push and I think we were briefly in the lead. The Polish started to push away and Romana, feeling a possible victory, called for a final sprint. In the final 250m I believe we rowed half a length behind the Polish and one or two meters in front of the British.

Honk – The Polish were in

Honk Honk – The British and us. I immediately knew they were a fraction in front of us.

Recently, Lubica went on a running training with a friend. During the run she started to get a very strong headache. Then she started to vomit. An ambulance was called. Turns out it was a stroke. She is still in hospital but miraculously recovered fully and is now getting stronger.

Doctors told her she should never do sport again.

She told us she will take up painting. I admire her positivism. Not sure I want to row a mixed quad next season.

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power_est

Nov 27 2015

Strength & innocent number play

Today’s session

Strength training today, preceded just by a prolonged warming up on the erg (3km at very easy pace).

The same set as last week.

  1. Pull ups – 10/9/7
  2. Pistol Squats with a dumbbell – 15/15/15
  3. Dorsal raise on Gym Ball – 15/15/15
  4. Squats – purple bodylastics band – 15/15/15
  5. Crunches & twist with dumbbell 10/10/10
  6. Squatted row with orange bodylastics band  – 15/15/15
  7. Lunges with dumbbell – 15/15/15
  8. Breast press with black bodylastics band – 15/15/15

The bold is where I went up a notch in terms of resistance. I need to find a way to increase the resistance on the leg exercises. I’d like to work in a 10-15 rep range, lowering the resistance if I can’t do 3×10, increasing it if 3×15 is achieved easily.

I feel I am nearing the end of the first “block” of strength training and need to start defining the second block.

Some play with numbers

51vvia3k-gl-_sx376_bo1204203200_

All the lactate measuring has stimulated me to reread a physiology book I own. In chapter 2, “fuel for exercising muscle”, I found an interesting figure that indicated the “typical” maximal rate of ATP generation (in mmol ATP/kg dry mass/s) for the different energy pathways, as well as the maximal available energy.

Assuming 7.3 kJ/mol that can be released from ATP, of which 60% goes to heat directly, and assuming a mechanical efficiency of 25%, a 72kg LW man should be able to produce 630W for about a minute. (I am ignoring the PCr pathway.) Assuming that on shorter rows (<500om) the average power from glycolysis is determined by the maximum available energy through glycolysis, I am able to make a crude approximation for the power and pace dependence on distance rowed.

The blue dots are the Nonathlon target pace/power for my age and weight group. The black line is my prediction.

I am amazed that this crude calculation even ends up in the right ballpark. Sometimes calculating things seems to work. My calculation also gave as a result that during a 2k, roughly 85% of the power comes from aerobic energy pathways.

Of course a couple of things are wrong. First, the nonathlon values are an average over age group records. They don’t represent one typical rower. We all know that there are sprinters and steady state rowers. Second, I have no model for the decline of the power from Aerobic processes as the distance increases, so my prediction. is too fast for any distance above 10k. It is also interesting that the 2k is faster on nonathlon. Could this be because the 2k is the standard distance? Finally, the balance of the different pathways as a function of power is individual and much more complex than my crude model.

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lactate 001

Nov 26 2015

Bike, Steady State & Experimenting

Wednesday

No training. Took the 7:40 train to Prague. Worked at our Prague office. Then had a nice dinner down town with my old rowing friend. Walked through Prague Old Town after dinner, talking about the old times.

Took the 8pm fast bus back to Brno, arriving at the bus station at 22:15, at home and in bed by 23:00. I read an interesting article on elite athletes in the bus. Will talk about it later.

Thursday

A long day at work. Then I cycled home:

Namiddagrit 11-26-2015, Heart rate.png

About an hour after a light dinner, I headed down to the erg room. I prepared two lactate strips in the cold (5-8 degrees C), next to the erg, and left two lactate strips in their container in the kitchen (21 degrees C).

Did a 2km warming up. I didn’t feel top form, despite the resting day. I even suspect a light head cold may be coming up.

The original plan was to do a 60 minutes, but I convinced myself that my experiment would work at any lactate reading, so a 40 minute exercise would be OK.

I rowed for 40 minutes. It was not nice. My heart rate was higher than usual. It felt hard. I had to stop after 17 minutes to get my audio going again (a 30 second stop only, just switched from “lecture” to “radio”).

40min.jpg

Average pace 2:03.7, 185W.

The plan was to do a lactate reading immediately after the row.

Unfortunately, when I stopped rowing, I got unbearable cramp in my right calf, so I spent the first minute in pain before I could start preparing for a lactate reading.

lactate 001.JPG
20:22 After exercise. Cold strip. Cold meter.

I did an easy 1km in 2:19 pace and took another measurement.

lactate 002.JPG
20:29 After cooling down. Cold strip. Cold meter.

Then I went upstairs to the kitchen and did a measurement immediately with one of the strips that had waited in the kitchen.

lactate 003.JPG
20:30. Warm Strip. Cold Meter.

Then I washed my hands with warm water and did another measurement.

lactate 004.JPG
20:32 Warm hands. Warm meter. Warm strip.

After that I took a hot shower. I mean hot. Really hot. I usually end showering by gradually lowering the water temperature until I shower off cold, to stop sweating. This time I didn’t. After the shower I took a final measurement, from my second container. My 26th Lactate strip this week.

lactate 005.JPG
20:48 Hot hands. Warm meter. Warm strip

In conclusion, I don’t think it is detrimental to keep the strips at 5 degrees. I have to believe that my 26 lactate measurements of this week were real, at least to withing 0.5 mmol/L. I think the increase from 0.6 to 1.1 while I was standing in my kitchen can be explained by the muscle lactate being cleared, temporarily increasing blood lactate.

Still leaves unanswered the question what my good steady state intensity is. I am afraid 200W is too much, but let’s see how I think about it a week from now.

 

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