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Nov 19 2016

Saturday – more Steady State

It was rainy and dull, so no good weather to go out running. Today, I programmed 20k in the PM5 and rowed it down to zero. A few sessions ago I came up with a 750m/500m/250m sequence and Greg Smith, the quantified rower perfected that to 1000m/750m/500m/250m which gives you a nice 2500m interval. The fun part is to try and row each part of the 2500m at a prescribed stroke rate and work on consistency. It really makes long workouts fly by.

I also had a little fun with the interval editor on rowsandall.com and created these monster stats:
Workout Summary - media/20161119-1200070o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|20000|86:14.0|02:09.4|174.5|19.5|153.7|166.0|11.9 W-|20000|86:16.0|02:09.4|172.9|19.4|153.0|166.0|11.9 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|166.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|01000|04:23.7|02:11.9|163.1|18.0|130.3|140.0|12.6 02|00750|03:08.6|02:05.7|176.2|19.1|142.9|149.0|12.5 03|00500|02:02.9|02:02.9|188.3|20.2|151.5|154.0|12.1 04|00250|01:00.7|02:01.5|195.4|21.4|154.3|156.0|11.6 05|01000|04:12.8|02:06.4|173.4|18.7|149.4|155.0|12.7 06|00750|03:08.9|02:05.9|175.4|19.3|148.0|151.0|12.4 07|00500|02:02.7|02:02.7|189.4|20.1|154.2|157.0|12.2 08|00250|01:00.7|02:01.4|196.5|20.9|158.9|161.0|11.8 09|01000|04:11.8|02:05.9|175.5|18.7|155.1|158.0|12.8 10|00750|03:06.9|02:04.6|180.8|19.3|156.3|158.0|12.5 11|00500|02:03.2|02:03.2|187.1|20.3|160.0|162.0|12.0 12|00250|00:58.1|01:56.2|192.4|21.1|161.7|163.0|12.3 13|01000|04:15.0|02:07.5|175.1|19.4|157.7|163.0|12.1 14|00750|03:05.4|02:03.6|185.5|20.3|160.6|163.0|11.9 15|00500|02:01.6|02:01.6|195.1|21.3|163.9|166.0|11.6 16|00250|02:43.4|05:26.7|111.2|18.0|129.3|165.0|05.1 - drink + 1.6mmol/L 17|01000|04:46.8|02:23.4|166.4|18.6|148.2|159.0|11.2 - playlist issue 18|00750|03:11.2|02:07.4|168.7|19.4|153.4|159.0|12.2 19|00500|02:04.8|02:04.8|180.2|20.4|157.2|159.0|11.8 20|00250|00:59.7|01:59.5|186.9|21.3|158.2|159.0|11.8 21|01000|04:16.7|02:08.4|169.3|18.6|156.3|160.0|12.5 22|00750|03:10.7|02:07.1|170.5|19.3|157.8|159.0|12.3 23|00500|02:05.3|02:05.3|178.1|20.5|158.5|160.0|11.7 24|00250|01:00.6|02:01.2|192.1|21.4|161.0|164.0|11.6 25|01000|04:18.0|02:09.0|163.8|18.4|157.3|163.0|12.6 26|00750|03:12.6|02:08.4|165.4|19.5|154.9|158.0|12.0 27|00500|02:05.8|02:05.8|175.5|20.2|156.3|158.0|11.8 28|00250|01:01.3|02:02.7|185.2|21.3|158.9|161.0|11.5 29|01000|04:20.8|02:10.4|159.0|18.8|154.2|160.0|12.2 30|00750|03:10.9|02:07.3|169.6|19.6|156.1|160.0|12.0 31|00500|02:04.5|02:04.5|181.5|20.7|160.3|162.0|11.7 32|00250|01:00.1|02:00.1|182.8|21.5|160.5|162.0|11.6 - 1.0 mmol/L

I paddled the final 250m of the fourth interval and stopped to take a lactate measurement: 1.6 mmol/L.

Then in the first 1000m of the second 10k, my playlist stopped, so I had to get off the erg and restart it.

At the end of the row, I measured lactate again. By now, that was very tricky because sweat was dripping from all my body parts. I was wearing a moisture wicking long-sleeved shirt. The moisture wicking combined with the high humidity in my rowing cave resulted in me being covered in “dew”, which steadily dripped off the sleeve ends. Hard to not contaminate the lactate strip. Anyway, I measured a low value of 1.0 mmol/L. I think it is time to man up and go 10W higher.

For the period between September 1 and today, my Power histogram on the erg looks like this:

So 80% of my strokes below 200W (which is steady state). The peak is around 185W, and 50% of the strokes are at a lower power.

Also this interesting plot is available for everybody who uses rowsandall.com.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 4 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 19 2016

Friday – 12.5km Steady State / force curve

Friday was a bridge day between a Bank Holiday and a weekend. I decided to take a holiday and catch up with some maintenance on the site, as well as preparation for a workshop on Monday. I ended up taking more time on the website, and will have to prepare the Monday workshop today.

At the end of the afternoon, I descended to my rowing cave. First I played a bit with the official Concept2 smartphone app “ErgData”, and then I reverted to my beloved Painsled app to crank out a 12.5km steady state. I wanted to do more, but I ran out of time.

Here are a few new plots. I am still looking for the “signature” set of plots for a workout.

I have added a new metric to Rowsandall.com. It is the ratio of the average drive force vs the peak drive force, and it tells you something about the force curve. For a perfectly “flat” stroke profile, this ratio would be 1.0. For any sort of triangular profile, the ratio would be 0.5. The higher the value, the longer the force plateau during your drive. It seems from the plot above that I am pretty constant throughout the 19 to 22spm stroke rates I rowed in this session.

Here is a study by Kleshnev on the force curve in rowing. Here is a key plot from the study. “Classical style” would give you a force ratio close to 0.5. “Simultaneous style” is significantly higher (looks like 0.7 by eye). Kleshnev is not making conclusions on what is better. It is interesting that the tables in the study show force ratios between 0.4 and 0.6, but not much higher, for the rowers that he has in his database.

This plot shows work per stroke and power output. The average power was 174W (yes I have added annotations to the plots), and the work per stroke was 600 J. However, the plot clearly shows that it is dropping slowly but steadily during the workout.

Stats:

Workout Summary - media/20161118-1610052o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|12508|52:38.0|02:06.3|174.0|19.7|151.3|163.0|12.0 W-|12508|52:38.0|02:06.3|174.0|19.7|151.3|163.0|12.0 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|163.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02500|10:23.6|02:04.7|178.3|19.3|141.9|153.0|12.4 02|02500|10:24.5|02:04.9|180.0|20.2|150.5|159.0|11.9 03|02500|10:37.6|02:07.5|169.1|19.3|150.2|159.0|12.2 04|02500|10:29.1|02:05.8|176.2|20.3|156.0|163.0|11.8 05|02508|10:43.9|02:08.3|166.5|19.5|157.6|162.0|12.0

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 16 2016

New Painsled beta, steady state erg and mind games; and playing with data

Painsled iOS published a new beta version of their Concept2 data capture app. It’s really a very promising application and it has now gotten even better. Of all the ways to capture erg data, Painsled is the most complete. Now they have added stroke force profile feedback to their app, so besides safely capturing all your strokes for post workout analysis, there is also a useful screen to see how consistent you are from stroke to stroke, while you are doing the workout.

This being a beta, it comes with very little explanation, but the graph looks like a standard stroke force profile, but it is overlaid on the past few strokes. Also, during the recovery, there is a bar which moves across the screen to a second bar. I think that when you take the catch exactly when the two white bars match, you are exactly copying your previous stroke (or perhaps the average over the past few strokes). I need to ask the developer what it does exactly, but I think it is very powerful, especially for steady state, where working on technique and stroke consistency is a big sub-goal of each workout.

Having data captured in painsled, I send them by email to workouts @ rowsandall.com, where they automatically end up in my account. Here are the stats of the workout as they arrived.

Workout Summary - media/mailbox_attachments/2016/11/16/aa5e11a267c142448e0aaedb6cd95eea.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|14999|63:31.0|02:07.0|176.6|20.2|158.9|174.0|11.7 W-|15005|63:31.0|02:07.0|176.4|20.2|158.9|174.0|11.7 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|000.0|00.0|000.0|174.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|01179|04:57.9|02:06.4|170.4|20.1|130.1|150.0|11.8 02|01196|05:00.4|02:05.6|176.8|19.5|149.4|154.0|12.3 03|01204|04:54.7|02:02.4|191.6|20.4|158.1|165.0|12.0 04|01212|05:01.8|02:04.5|182.0|19.9|160.8|163.0|12.1 05|01196|05:00.6|02:05.6|177.9|20.0|160.4|167.0|11.9 06|01214|05:02.4|02:04.6|182.3|20.5|164.2|168.0|11.8 07|01124|05:09.0|02:17.4|160.1|19.8|155.4|168.0|11.0 08|01216|04:59.8|02:03.3|188.0|20.8|165.4|170.0|11.7 09|01192|04:59.1|02:05.5|177.6|20.0|166.6|170.0|12.0 10|01202|05:01.0|02:05.2|180.1|20.3|167.5|171.0|11.8 11|01203|05:00.2|02:04.8|182.3|20.5|169.3|174.0|11.7 12|01139|05:10.6|02:16.4|167.3|20.5|164.1|174.0|10.7 13|00726|03:13.9|02:13.5|147.3|19.9|152.0|159.0|11.3

That’s basically an hour of “Just Row” at steady state. But wait, to break the boredom I had some structure in the workout. After the business travel and another long day at work (and a “Monthly Operations Review”, a 4 hour marathon meeting) I arrived home empty, tired, and not motivated to work out. I had dragged myself to the erg and after 2k of warming up I came up with a mind game that might motivate me to row a full hour.

I decided to row 8x1500m, with each 1500m divided as 750m at 18spm, 500m at 20spm, and 250m at 22spm. Somehow, distance based rowing always makes the time go by faster to me, compared to time based intervals.

I paddled the final 250m of the fourth interval and drank some water. Finally I completed the workout without problems. On rowsandall.com, I can add this interval information after the fact. The workout summary then becomes:

Workout Summary - media/20161116-20100719o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|15004|63:30.0|02:07.0|176.6|20.2|158.9|174.0|11.7 W-|14755|61:59.0|02:06.1|177.9|20.2|159.2|174.0|11.8 R-|00250|01:31.0|03:03.3|094.0|18.8|142.7|174.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|02000|08:23.5|02:05.9|173.6|20.0|137.6|151.0|11.9 - Warming up 02|01500|06:09.9|02:03.3|187.5|20.0|156.0|165.0|12.2 03|01500|06:11.0|02:03.7|185.9|20.2|161.6|167.0|12.0 04|01500|06:15.1|02:05.0|180.3|20.4|161.0|168.0|11.8 05|01250|05:13.0|02:05.2|179.3|20.1|164.3|168.0|11.9 06|01500|06:12.0|02:04.0|184.5|20.4|162.4|170.0|11.8 07|01500|06:12.8|02:04.3|183.6|20.5|167.4|171.0|11.8 08|01500|06:13.9|02:04.6|182.7|20.5|168.1|173.0|11.7 09|01500|06:15.3|02:05.1|180.2|20.5|168.2|174.0|11.7 10|01005|04:53.6|02:26.1|134.1|19.3|152.2|172.0|10.7 - Cooling Down

And here are the plots:

The Work per stroke for all strokes (except the 250m of paddling in the middle):

Same plot, but only for the 8x1500m (excluding the 250m of paddling):

Ah, so the “structured mind game” helped to make the strokes more consistent! Just for fun, peak and average force for the same stroke selection:

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: concept2, erg, OTE, painsled, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 11 2016

6k Season’s Best

My wife Romana told my I was crazy to plan a 6k full out attempt for a Friday. I agree that being tired at the end of the working week is not the ideal preparation. On the other hand, Friday is the only day where I have a chance of getting home early enough to do the 6k before dinner.

The (ambitious) plan was to try and row a 1:51.5 average pace.

First, I did a thorough warming up:

Then on to the main event. The plan was to start conservatively and hold the average pace at 1:52 until I reached 1800m to go.

Of course, trying to hold 1:52, I pulled 1:51 and even 1:50 more frequently than 1:53, and so I reached the half way point with an average pace of 1:51.5. Still, it seemed to take ages to reach 4500m to go. I went by 300m intervals. They go by fast enough to see progress, and there’s “just” twenty of them.

I tried to remind myself to remain conservative, but a few times in the 4500m to 1500m interval I got carried away and started pulling 1:50 strokes.

In the end, I paid for that. With 900m to go I started counting sets of 12 strokes. With 600m to go I was convinced I wouldn’t make the end without going above 2:00 pace. In the end I limped home with 1:54 pace.

Summary:

Workout Summary - media/20161111-17100719o.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|06000|22:20.5|01:51.7|26.7|177.9|184.0|10.1 W-|06000|22:20.5|01:51.7|26.6|177.8|184.0|10.1 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|184.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00500|01:51.8|01:51.8|25.8|154.6|171.0|10.4 02|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|25.7|173.6|175.0|10.5 03|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|25.9|176.8|178.0|10.4 04|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|26.3|177.3|179.0|10.2 05|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|26.3|179.2|180.0|10.3 06|00500|01:51.2|01:51.2|26.5|180.4|181.0|10.2 07|00500|01:51.5|01:51.5|26.8|180.6|181.0|10.0 08|00500|01:50.9|01:50.9|26.8|182.2|183.0|10.1 09|00500|01:51.1|01:51.1|27.1|182.7|184.0|10.0 10|00500|01:52.2|01:52.2|27.1|182.8|184.0|09.9 11|00500|01:51.6|01:51.6|27.8|182.6|183.0|09.7 12|00500|01:54.3|01:54.3|27.7|180.9|183.0|09.5

I did this “beginning of the winter” 6k exactly a year ago, on November 11, 2015.

Then, I did a 22:28 time with an average heart rate of 177 bpm. Today it was 22:20, with an average heart rate of 178bpm. A year ago, I used a spreadsheet to analyze the row. Today, I can use the power of rowsandall.com and have additional interesting graphs:

bokeh_plot-1 — Peak and Average stroke power

bokeh_plot — Work per Stroke vs stroke rate.

In the Work Per Stroke plot, you can see how I used a range of stroke rates to try and remain at the same average pae (the green line). On the site, I can actually select the first half of the row and compare it with the second half:

And here is that dramatic last 1000m:

First, you see me rate down and increase the work per stroke. Then I fall down to a lower force per stroke. In the final strokes I rate up a bit but the work per stroke goes down even more.

After the row, I sat on the erg holding the bar. I was afraid to faint.

I didn’t faint. After five minutes of just sitting there, I had enough energy to do a 10 minute cooling down.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: 6000m, 6k, concept2, erg, OTE, rowing, test

Nov 9 2016

Steady State row and bike ride

Monday

Working from the Prague office. Train ride to Prague. Then full day of work, finished by a dinner with my sister who happened to in Prague for business. Then a bus ride home. Got up at 5:20am. In bed at 00:45, technically Tuesday morning.

Tuesday

Notebook switch at work, which meant I was 4 hours without computer, and after that spending a big proportion of my time setting up my environment to my needs. I arrived at home tired and frustrated. Still managed to get down to the basement to do an erg row, but stopped after 10km to continue watching TV (US elections).

The rowsandall.com site now gives two kinds of Pie chart. One is based on heart rate zones and the other is based on Power zones.

The left plot is the power based Pie chart. The right plot is the heart rate based one. I think there is merit in using the power based one. I pushed on the gas from the first minute, and I think the left graph reflects that, with most of the row in UT1 zone and about a quarter of the row in the AT zone.

I contemplated staying up and watching the US elections, but in the end I decided to go to bed.

Wednesday

Well, this is certainly not going to be business as usual!

One of the first things I did this morning was checking the results of the US presidential elections. I can’t say I am surprised, having been in the US often enough, but definitely this will shake things up, and I am not sure whether for the good or the bad. Let’s say it is certainly an impulse for Europe to get its act together.

I cycled to work. It was cold, this morning, -2C according to the weather report, and it felt like that. A cold, sunny winter morning.

https://www.strava.com/activities/770315065/overview

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 1 • Tags: concept2, erg, rowing, steady state, training

Nov 4 2016

That great feeling at Lactate=8.9 mmol/L (CTC+lactate test+nonathlon+ranking)

Today was a 4 results in one session. The training plan had a “2 speed test” scheduled. The tests consists of rowing 2x1000m at different paces. The first one at “6km pace” and the second one full out. This month’s CTC is a 1000m, and the 1k is also a ranking distance on both the C2 log book and the nonathlon competition.

I started with a nice 20 minute “Fletcher” warming up:

I have recently read a few studies about warming up and priming the Aerobic system to reduce the build-up of “oxygen debt” at the start of a race/workout. The Fletcher warming up is perfectly in line with the conclusions of those studies: It pays off to do a few bouts of hard strokes during the warming up. Also, the studies showed that the effect lasts for more than 30 minutes after the warming up, so I was confident that the warming up plus the first 1k would prepare me well for the second 1k.

Did I mention that the mental aspect of indoor rowing is huge? I normally told myself that I couldn’t row a Personal or Season’s best in that second 1k, because I would already have 1k at “6k” pace in my legs. Today I told myself that the first 1k was actually part of a very long, scientific warming up.

The first 1k was done in 3:40.9, which corresponds to 260W average, slightly lower than a month ago.

Workout Summary - media/20161104-182905-sled_2016-11-04T17-21-03ZGMT+1.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01000|03:40.9|01:50.5|27.1|166.5|179.0|10.1 W-|01000|03:40.9|01:50.5|27.1|166.5|179.0|10.1 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|179.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00100|00:21.4|01:47.0|26.4|127.5|147.0|10.6 02|00100|00:22.5|01:52.4|26.8|156.5|161.0|10.0 03|00100|00:22.4|01:52.1|27.0|164.4|165.0|09.9 04|00100|00:22.2|01:51.2|26.9|167.0|169.0|10.0 05|00100|00:22.2|01:51.0|26.7|171.5|172.0|10.1 06|00100|00:22.0|01:49.8|27.1|172.7|174.0|10.1 07|00100|00:21.9|01:49.7|27.4|174.7|176.0|10.0 08|00100|00:21.8|01:49.0|27.6|175.7|176.0|10.0 09|00100|00:21.8|01:49.1|27.7|176.7|177.0|09.9 10|00100|00:21.8|01:48.8|27.5|177.8|179.0|10.0

Let’s say I started conservatively, but things went well and I got into a nice rhythm, so eventually I dared to go below 1:50 pace.

After the first 1k, I did 15 minutes of slow paddling, with a lactate measurement at 1 minute and 3 minutes after the 1k. The measured values were 4.1 mmol/L and 3.1 mmol/L respectively.

Then the main event. CTC, ranking piece, and second part of the 2 speed test in one.

Workout Summary - media/20161104-183109-sled_2016-11-04T17-44-18ZGMT+1.strokes.csv --|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg --|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS --|01000|03:21.4|01:40.7|32.2|176.9|185.0|09.3 W-|01000|03:21.4|01:40.7|32.2|176.9|185.0|09.3 R-|00000|00:00.0|00:00.0|00.0|000.0|185.0|00.0 Workout Details #-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS- 01|00100|00:19.1|01:35.3|34.3|136.9|161.0|09.2 02|00100|00:20.4|01:41.9|31.5|170.4|174.0|09.3 03|00100|00:20.4|01:42.2|31.3|176.8|178.0|09.4 04|00100|00:20.2|01:40.9|31.6|180.0|181.0|09.4 05|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.5|181.8|182.0|09.5 06|00100|00:20.1|01:40.3|31.2|183.3|184.0|09.6 07|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.7|184.5|185.0|09.4 08|00100|00:20.2|01:40.8|31.9|184.4|185.0|09.3 09|00100|00:19.9|01:39.3|33.3|184.8|185.0|09.1 10|00100|00:20.2|01:40.9|33.8|184.5|185.0|08.8

I did a race start and 10 hard strokes with my eyes closed.Then I settled to good hard strokes and continued counting.

First 250m went by without any problem. In fact, I reached 600m to go with ease, but then it started to feel hard. But the counting helped, and I managed to even accelerate in the second half. The trick was to watch the SPM and make sure I rated up whenever I saw the stroke rate fall below 32spm. With 150m to go it started to be really hard, but by then I was counting sets of five strokes and I even managed to keep the pace under 1:40 in the 9th 100m interval.

Happy with 3:21.4. It’s a Season’s Best. It’s just 2 seconds above my PB, and it’s a nice improvement of my nonathlon score.

The hardest part was taking the lactate measurement one minute after the 1000m. Breathing hard, shaking, sweating, and at the same time trying to go through the lactate routine is not easy. Wipe hands. Wash hand with wet towel. Dry hand. Prick a hole in a finger. Wipe off first drop of blood. Put the lactate strip in the lactate meter. Try to get the drop of blood at the open end of the lactate strip.

That last part is the hardest. The blood drop is not big. The lactate strip is small as well. I am shaking and breathing hard. Almost everything except my hand and the lactate strip is covered in sweat (which, if mixed with the blood, makes the lactate measurement invalid), and if I miss and deposit the blood drop somewhere else than on the few mm that is the opening of the lactate strip, I can start over.

But I managed even that. The first measurement was 7.5 mmol/L, then after 3 minutes of paddling I measured 8.9 mmol/L, and after 5 minutes the value was 8.1 mmol/L.

So, compared to a month ago the curve shifted to the right, and I did a much faster second 1k. I think that is progress.

In the “weird plots from rowsandall.com” department, here is today’s harvest:

This first plot show the work per stroke for both 1k efforts, using the cumulative plot, selecting a date range that covers only today’s rows, and filtering out all the strokes below 24spm. The Work per Stroke value is significantly higher than in my Steady State rows (where it is about 640 Joules).

The second plot is the peak and average drive force for both 1k rows. The average is 220/90 lbs.

This plot show stroke length vs stroke rate for the two 1000m efforts. Interestingly, I took longer strokes at the full out effort. This again confirms my theory that this is from the increased lay back that I do when I work harder. It’s just a few cm but it looks significant.

Here is an interesting plot from the second (full out) 1k. Instead of a scatter plot, I decided to do a line plot, which connects subsequent strokes. At the bottom of the plot, I enter the chart in the first stroke at 36spm. The second and third (short) strokes go up to 44spm, and then I go through my 10 stroke sequence, each one being at a slightly lower SPM as I start to take more length. Then I spend most of the time in the 32spm/1.42m area. At the end of the 1k, I trade stroke length for stroke rate, go up to 34spm at the cost of going below 1.4m.

Finally, here is another plot from the rowsandall.com site:

It shows my best efforts over the past twelve months (the red dots) and makes two curve fits to the data. The blue line is the famous Paul’s law, and the green line is a “CP model” (something I copied from cycling data analysis). Looking at the green line, which seems to fit the data better, I can predict a target pace for next week’s 6k effort. It amounts to 1:50.9 pace, 256W, and a total time of 22:11. My PB is 22:12.0. Let’s see.

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 3 • Tags: concept2, erg, lactate, OTE, rowing, test, testing, tests

Nov 1 2016

Tuesday – 60 minutes Steady State and Stroke Metrics

Steady State was on the menu, and in a lighter form, because this is an easy week. On my commute, I read Greg Smith’s blog about his 4×20’/1′ rest plus stroke metrics session, so I tried to show exactly the same stroke metrics plots for my 60 minutes row. I didn’t take exact 1 minute breaks, but rowed a “Just Row” and took small drinking breaks. Also, I had to interrupt my row a few times (esp in the first 10 minutes) to fiddle with the radio.

My steady state rowing is not at “10 Watt per SPM”, but roughly 15 Watts below that, so at 18SPM, I row 165-170W, etc.

Power versus stroke rate:

My plot is a bit more fuzzy than Greg’s. I seem to be driven to 19SPM at these power levels. 19SPM is like a magnet, and I lacked the concentration to try and hit the prescribed stroke rates better.

Drive length:

On this parameter, I seem to be more constant and in a narrower band than Greg. Now, a metric where I will be significantly weaker. Peak and Average Force:

Interestingly, my average force is much closer to Greg’s than my peak force. A slightly negative correlation, although not as strong as on Greg’s plot. This may be something to do with drag factor and average flywheel speed as well.

Finally, Work per Stroke:

Again, the plot is strongly influenced by me gravitating towards 19spm. This was also one of my rows where I was hitting a higher Work per Stroke than on average. Here is a plot of my rows for the month October:

Here

download-78 — My October Steady State work (capped at 23SPM)

I have capped the data at 23SPM to filter out the hard distance rows. Here is the same plot with today’s data included:

To the left, and upward!

It was fun to do this. As the author of rowsandall.com, I spend more time programming additions to the site than using it for data analysis. And when I do use it for analysis, I can’t help but think of the way the data are flowing through the different pipes and filters:

There are still many good ideas to implement on the site, so the work is not done!

By sanderroosendaal • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: concept2, erg, metrics, OTE, rowing, steady state

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erg

Saturday – more Steady State

Friday – 12.5km Steady State / force curve

New Painsled beta, steady state erg and mind games; and playing with data

6k Season’s Best

Steady State row and bike ride

That great feeling at Lactate=8.9 mmol/L (CTC+lactate test+nonathlon+ranking)

Tuesday – 60 minutes Steady State and Stroke Metrics

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