The Other Bookend

GRP Rower Jen Forbes works some max intensity into her training. Photo: Val Stepanchuk.

From Troy Howell, Director of Sculling. Follow-up to to Training at the Bookends.

For a number of years, I attended swimming coach Ernie Maglischo’s presentations on physiology at the Joy of Sculling Conference every December. At some point in every presentation, Coach Maglischo would get around to anaerobic threshold training, or AT for short. His contention is that most endurance athletes employ AT training more often than is optimal, and that AT work trains both the aerobic and anaerobic systems rather poorly. Put succinctly, it over-taxes the aerobic system and under-taxes the anaerobic system, with the net result being that, in his opinion, AT work often devolves into an excuse to get tired while not getting faster. Careful, now- he’s not saying “don’t do AT training” (what would head race prep be without it, after all?), but rather, “employ AT training judiciously, and do more training at the poles” – i.e., easy steady state and max speed, high intensity intervals should be the meat and potatoes of training. Phrased even more pithily by another physiologist, Declan Connolly, “If ye want to goo foster, you have to goo fost!” (say it with an Irish accent and it’ll make sense if it doesn’t already).

So if you followed our recommendation for the last six weeks - or even if you didn’t - late June and early July is usually a good time to get better at going fast, both for the benefit to your physiology and your race prep, and because - well - it’s fun.

If your Covid-19 situation has you still stuck on land, consider introducing max watts and max-speed interval training on the erg to your plan. The former is the simplest protocol imaginable: set a higher drag factor on the erg than you are accustomed to - somewhere between 150-200 (that’s usually damper settings 7-10 on most C2 machines), put the monitor on watts rather than /500m splits, warm up thoroughly, including some easy paddling and some progressively harder short pieces, stop and get a drink or walk around, and then honk on it as hard as you can for multiple repetitions of 3-10 strokes each. 

Rest or do something else that’s very easy for as much as 5-7 minutes between sets. This may sound like a lot of rest, but current research indicates that it takes the phosphagen system, on which purely anaerobic efforts depend, around 5 minutes to fully recharge. If you’re resting less, you’re working with less than a full tank. 

How many repeats? Depends - but as long as the watts numbers are either still going up or holding steady, you’re still in a sweet spot, and once they start going south, you’re done for the day for this sort of work. If in doubt, do fewer repeats, particularly if max watts is a new frontier for you. And if you’re the sort who has to have a number, use 7-15. There. I said it. 7-15 it is. If you’re pressed for time, divide your 7-15 repeats into sets of 4 or 5 and rest 2-3’ between repeats and 5-7’ between sets. You’ll get mostly the same effect with the bonus of finding out what you’re capable of while still a little fatigued.

For most people, the highest watts number you’ll see will come on stroke 6 or 7, and it will be almost but not quite double the number of watts that you can average on a 2k erg test. Pieces of 3-5 strokes are useful to see how close you can get to your true max in fewer strokes than it takes to get there - see if you can match your 7-strokes number in only 5. Sometimes you’ll surprise yourself, and not long after you’ll probably see a PR on the 7-stroke pieces.

As for the max speed intervals, the idea is to sustain something very close to max watts for a slightly longer period - something in the 20-40 second range. The classic workout is 8 X 30 seconds with 1:30 rest. If you’re truly working at or near max effort, this workout starts as pure fun and gets progressively grueling to the point of nasty by the end. For variations on the theme, do 8-10 repetitions of any time between 20-40 seconds (or 100-250m) with rest between that is 3-5 times longer than the effort. Or split the intervals into two sets with an even longer (5-10’) rest between the sets. 

Two notes of sensible execution: 1) Any sort of max effort, whether sport-specific intervals or pure strength training, should be undertaken only after a thorough warm-up. At 53, I feel that I need at least half an hour to be ready to race at max effort, with the first fifteen minutes being deliberately easy to raise my core temperature and the next fifteen or more consisting of progressively higher intensity with short periods of rest. Keep in mind that it is far easier to warm up too little and almost impossible to warm up too much. 2) In interval training in general, if your performance drops off by more than 3-5% (which, conveniently, tends to be 3-5 splits, or even easier to keep track of if your monitor is set to watts), the workout is for all intents and purposes over, because you are no longer getting the physiological effect you’re after. By all means, train your “grit” factor, but be smart about it. When the numbers fall off precipitously, you’re done.

If you’re back on the water, so much the better - the boat is a little more forgiving on the muscles, joints, and connective tissue. That said, unless your bladework is extraordinarily clever, you’re not going to find max watts in the boat the way that you can on the stable platform of the erg (but seeing splits 10 seconds faster than your race pace in the boat is a cheap and powerful thrill - I saw 1:32 on my Speedcoach for the first time in years last week).   

Work max watts and/or max speed intervals into your training every 4-7 days and not more often, unless you’re working closely with a coach or trainer who is monitoring your data for you.  Keep up your recovery workouts and entirely aerobic steady state. Fill the other days with something in between the extremes. Have at least one day a week fully devoted to rest. Remember the adages: Most people’s easy workouts are too hard, and their hard workouts aren’t hard enough. Once a week, go so hard your eyeballs hurt, and once a week, make the snails yawn. Speed is coming. 

Next time: increasing your VO2 Max.