Great advice Cam as usual. For those who do not have heart rate monitors, you already have a monitor built into your body. It is called perceived exertion. If you feel like it is easy, then it is! If you feel like you can't go much longer, again, you are probably right also. So, no one knows your body or it's feelings better than you. Listen to your body and you will find through practice your internal heart rate monitor is working just fine All that being said, I really enjoy watching my heart rate, like all the toys that motivate us, BUT, this program that shows your stroke count, drive length, and all the other measures it provides, also provides entertainment as the meters/time go by. I really enjoy having my cell phone with ErgData on it, perched on top of my PM5. Thank you Cam for getting us more involved in what we can do during our time of distancing and personal confinement. For the Yamsquad Challenge! We will get through this, stronger than ever!!
This probably the most important lesson for so many people, to slow down and not let ego get in a way. Thanks. Great advice as well as your video on UT2 and UT1.
Great video, and as you say it works. I’m 12 weeks into the C2 2k program and really notable how my splits are coming down for given HR. And yes I really enjoy the long UT2 pieces - I get to think about projects and listen to music and time just flies by. Tomorrow is 40’ UT2 or 2k to measure progress.......
Got back on the erg today because of this video. Years ago I used to do my "UT2" trainings at 1'55 for 40 to 50min @18spm, felt completely destroyed after that, didn't monitor my HR but no doubt I've been overdoing it to see the split go down (and was encouraged to do it that way). I then had a long rowing break and sedentary life because of med school, learned a lot about physiology and the science of evidence based fitness during this time and got recently back to exercising via Crossfit. I tried my first real UT2 this evening, set a target at 140bpm (70% of my max HR) and went for it. Paced 2:35 at 15spm for 1h, barely felt the effort ; even going 16 or 17spm made my HR jump, and even at 15spm with this low pace I barely managed to achieve a steady 145bpm during the workout. Very interesting to experience this workout the way it's supposed to be, I'm really eager to see the progress through the months. I plan on tinkering a bit with the drag as well, and I might consider getting a lactate-meter for the sake of curiosity to fine tune. Thanks for your learnings !
Two questions I ask myself about each training session I do. Will this session be: 1. enough to move me towards my goals? 2. recoverable so I can do my next planned session without impairment? If the answer to both is yes, then its go time. Otherwise, I need to reevaluate my plan.
The guidance I've seen is 80/20 - 80% of work done at low intensity and 20% at high. For most folks, a good guide would be 1 high intensity session/wk.
Like Adrian said, 80 20 is a good start. One thing about that though is that doesn't mean for every 10 sessions you do 8 easy 2 hard, it's more done on mileage so it's more for say 100k it's 80k easy 20k hard. 20k hard is a lot of mileage! So can depend on the intensity sessions you can do and are used to doing!
I just started doing heart rate training recently and it already feels like a game changer to me. My split times on my low intensity sessions are dropping pretty significantly and yet it still feels like I'm putting very little effort in. It almost feels like cheating. It also seems like a really easy way to ramp up your distance. Last week I did 40k. This week I'm on track to do about 130k and it feels almost effortless. I still plan to do some hard sessions as well, but I think I was definitely making a huge mistake by not doing ANY easy sessions for my first month of rowing. Targetting specific heart rates seems like a better way to force yourself into the right zone than trying to guess what stroke rate or split time you should be doing. From what I'm noticing so far, even though those easy sessions feel like you're wasting your time, you're not.
Amazing! Great to hear you've had success with it. It really helps you tune into your body and the different effects of differnt training zones. Keep it up!
My understanding is that the low heart rate, UT2 conditions the body to utilise fat stores for longer. The body also stores more glycogen in the liver and muscles as a bi-product of the slow rate exercise. Volume at the right intensity is King! All training is about targeting one's energy systems.
Hi cam, I m loving this series of video on steady state, I tried and it seem to be 2.20 of pace! It is pretty slow for me but you conviced me! My ego will not win hahah
Hi Cam It's all about being in tune with your body. Don't be afraid to go easy now and then. Training in groups can be good but technology now allows for individual programmes. But you already know that.
Really useful video Cam, and thanks for posting. I've seen so many people burn out during a season from overtraining, partly due of lack of recovery time but also from pushing too hard during UT2 sessions, trying to hit a specific split rather than being guided by their heart rate. Due to lack of training during the past year, I'll bet my UT2 split for a 135HR would be around 2:45...I'll see what my HR says about it haha
How about having a crack at all the records? As listed on the Concept website? Start at 100m and work your way through. Be interesting for sure, given the season is all but over.
the real importance of low intensity, high volume cardio is to induce eccentric ventricular hypertrophy. If all you do is resistance training and HIIT, then you will induce too much concentric hypertrophy which actually decreases the elasticity and performance of the heart.
Thank you very much for this very important vid. But what about food !? Can you give an update what to eat and how much? I think almost as important. Thnx.
Do you have a row along video at 19 spm? I thought one was, but now can't remember which one. I listened to you talk about working out at 65-70% of max heart rate. I need to do more of that. It was great to hear you say how important it is because I tend to dismiss it.
I assume you know roughly what split you need for a particular workout to hit the prescribed heart rate and adjust on the fly, rather than going out and trying to hit the target heart rate as soon as possible into the piece?
As I understand it, there is nothing wrong with going out a bit harder, and relaxing more as your HR increases to not go over your target HR. The point is that it doesn't really matter what your splits are, as long as you are in the appropriate HR zone for a sufficient amount of time. The split will decrease with time and exercise.
@@arthurmolenaar3972 There is another school of though that says if you try to hit the target HR as soon as possible, you risk going anaerobic initially and missing the point of the steady state.
Most workouts I'll know a rough idea of where I will be but sometimes I go exclusively by heart rate. I'll know if my HR is climbing too fast then I'm going too fast for that workout though. You're right you don't want to be hitting too high and switching zones but for example, doing steady state, then going 5 beats higher, you're not going to be going anaerobic, just heading to the grey zone where benefits don't increase and fatigue does!
When I am doing long steady states like 4x7k, 3x8k, and 2x10k I usually do them at a heart rate of 150. My splits for those pieces have since gone down. Should I keep trying to lower the split while keeping that same heart rate, or should I keep the heart rate lower and pull those same splits?
Cam I hope you pick this up and can offer some advice. What are your thoughts on doing the UT1 sessions throughout a structured program with the damper level set at 10 and then doing the UT2, AT and TR sessions at lower levels close to the drag factor that you ultimately want to do the 2km race / test at?
hi so I have a big question. I watched this yesterday and decided I wanted to follow this. so I did 1 hour at 151 heart beats a minute, which is around 70% of my max heart beat, but I did 48 mins at like 147. however the splits were really bad, and I was just wondering if even though the splits were super bad I should continue with the heart rate long steady state ergs. should I also try and do a lower heart rate to get more out of the aerobic threshold?
an easy way to get to your training rate is take 180 then minus your age... that will give you a very good number to train at.. that will give you about say 70 to 75% your heart rate... so if you are say 25y/o go 180-25=155 so 155 is your target HR... do that with any age... 45y/o 180-45=135. you training HR should be around 135....very simple.....look it up.....
That calculation can be really inaccurate hence I don't use it. Its a huge generalisation. For me the calculation is 15 beats off and I know for others more than 25. This amount can push you into A higher or loeer zone so could be very detrimental to training.
Sorry for my ignorance but when he refers to % heart rates is that % of maximum or of reserve heart rate. Quite a different feel for me depending on which I use.
As far as I'm aware, they train two different things. Doing the long pieces at a low pressure trains your body to better utilise oxygen as fuel, and to flush away lactic acid. Interval training increases your ability to tolerate lactic acid, and can increase the maximum power you can output (depending on the type of interval training you do). Both are very important types of training to do if you are training for something like a 2k or a 5k, but there are a few reasons that high level rowers spend the large majority of their time (probably >90%) doing low intensity long pieces. 1) despite the pain and lactic acid, a 2k is mostly aerobic, so building your aerobic capacity with see the biggest improvement in performance, especially long term. 2) high intensity intervals are incredibly taxing on the body, if done correctly. The level of stress they cause means that if you do intervals too often, you will stop improving because you will be unable to recover fully between training sessions. Low intensity steady state, if done correctly, is very easy to recover from, and can in fact aid recovery. This is why top rowers can do long sessions twice a day. This recovery is really the thing that makes us improve, the training session is just the stimulus. There is also evidence to suggest that increasing your aerobic capacity increases your ability to recover. 3) the lack of recovery between high intensity sessions will also mean that your training sessions will be low quality. When training high intensity, you want to be hitting certain zones (both in terms of heart rate and power out put). If you are still exhausted from a previous session, you will struggle to hit the numbers you need to improve your lactic tolerance, and so your training will become less efficient and less beneficial. If anyone has any more reasons, feel free to add. But basically you should take it mostly easy, and save your energy for the big sessions. Theres an "aerobic dead zone" that you should avoid if you want to do aerobic training. I think it's around 70-80% of max heart rate. Going this little bit harder on your intervals will give you no extra training benefit, but will put more stress on your body, so I think most coaches avoid this area. You're better off just going slower.
How does HIIT sessions interfere with this? It seems these kind of workouts are contrary to what you are describing. It is strange though, I can hold a fairly uncomfortable split for ~10-20 min, however some HIIT workouts with various levels of split targets including 30 second sprints tuckers me out beyond belief. -Chris
This isn't really talking about HIIT sessions. It's mostly about those sessions where one is spending a longer time on an erg, say an hour and the target is trying to work towards cardio gains. These gains can ve made very well at the lower intensities with the benefit of not spending as much energy than you would say 20 or 30 beats higher because you want to see a slighlty faster split. Same idea as the other ut1 vs ut2 video
There's a gent named Hamish Bond, Olympic Rower/row partner of Eric Murray who picked up cycling for several years. Those long rides that cyclists do certainly aid in the aerobic base development. One look at the guys current rowing performance should make anyone a believer.
One way is a heart rate monitor. After you wear it a while, it will tell you. I know mine from wearing a monitor during the Row'd Royalty competitions. One of them was a 10 minute row for max meters, and also for 5 reps of 400 meters for time. Since we were judged on the fastest time, it made sense to go as fast as we could. I looked at my peak HR for those to gauge what my max is.
@@CameronBuchan Oh, sorry, I have not seen that video yet, I'm still working through them (I only just found your channel). 35 is low with a capital L (and healthy with a capital H)! I'm 50 years old and have a RHR of 52, but want to get it below 50.
Why don't you use power instead of heart rate. Power is considered more reliable since there is no lag and dependence on temperature, hydration, etc. In cycling, power has dominated all training for the past 15 years, at least.
@@philipsquire9056 There's a metric the erg has you can monitor called Watts. But, it's misleading, in a sense, because you generate a lot of watts with a high rate. What you want to do is to divide the watts by s/m (rate) to get a unit we call "work". 10-11 work units will win you some races, 15-16 should win you some medals. In crossfit, some of the crazier guys will take 10 strokes to see what the peak watts they generate are. Doesn't mean a thing in context of a 2k, but it certainly demonstrates some serious power for the guys that can deadlift 2-3x their body weight.
Through some help with members of the yamsquad we have looked at power measurements and actually lines up pretty much exactly with my HR zones so for me it isn't really a big deal but like has been said there are interesting calculations that may throw some numbers off with the erg itself
@@CameronBuchan Assuming what you say is true, then power will give you instantaneous zone information, as opposed to HR which has significant lag. That's why all serious cyclists use power. Look at your 2k heart rate, it shows a gradual but significant increase over the 5 minutes, though power is relatively constant giving you much better feedback of your effort level. As a rower, consider yourself lucky that you have access to power data. People are trying to develop power meters for other sports such as speed skating and running in order to use this most useful metric.
@@ilanpi thanks for that! Like I said the power, while instantaneous, is not the most accurate and calculated off an individual that is not my size and weight and more of an average. Your instantaneous point still stands though. Regarding my HR in the 2k, I'd take it wihh a pinch of salt. There are data points that are true but the lag in the graph is not the same as the lag on my watch
Good job on the workout! Generally what I was talking is more to do with the logger workouts as sometimes we can end up going too hard. Regardless keep up the good work! #yamsquad
