Erg and weight training update

Monday 15.02.16

Para-Rowing Training Session

I had such a great coached session on Monday! I tagged on to the para-rowing land-training session, and it was brilliant!

Monday's are my 'other' exercise days, when I can do whatever form of exercise I want. I really need to get loads more erging under my belt, so I joined the para-rowing erg (rowing machine) session.

Double Dose!

It was great because they did a combination of erging and weights. So, if you were looking to improve your erg time or beat your PB (personal best), you did an erg session first, followed by weights. But if you wanted to build strength and just get some cardio afterwards, you did the weights first. Simples.

Erg

I am looking to get back to my PB on the erg, so I started with that.

We did a 5 minute warm-up piece, which was just to get us moving. No effort, just movement.

After that we did a 10 min session, which looked something like this:

1 min @ 18 s/m (strokes per minute)
2 mins @ 20 s/m
3 mins @ 22 s/m
4 mins @ 24 s/m

The cool down was just sitting around to get the heart-rate down.

Once we'd done that, we didn't do any set pieces in terms of measuring total distance or overall time, but we did a cool challenge. The challenge was to do a few 5 minute pieces, in which we had to shave 5 seconds off our 250m split time. The split time is the average time it takes you to complete 250 metres.

Close Shave

So, if we did our first 5 minutes with a split time of 2mins30secs, the next 5 minutes needed to have a split time of 2mins25secs, and so on. We pretty much did that until we couldn't improve our split times any further.

The object of that exercise is to get you to give your best performance, even when you're tired, because on race days, you'll have to complete multiple heats to get to the final; and you'll need to be on top form for each and every race.

After erging, we did some weights. I really enjoy weights because there's no cardio involved, so you can just focus on lifting, or pushing.

Peak Performance

The coach wanted us to try peaking out, so we could shock our muscles into adapting to heavy loads. So the idea is, you lift your maximum load for fewer reps, in the hope that your muscles will adapt and get stronger quicker. That was great!!! I am feeling ok today, but the pain will come!

Tuesday 16.02.2016

Erg

On Tuesday I had a regular erg session with my squad. Only two out of ten us were able to make it for the session, so at least we could be erg buddies. Our coach was there for the first 20 minutes so she could check our technique and set the challenges, and then we just got on with it.

We did 3 sets of 10 minute pyramids (again), which looked like this:

4 mins @ 22 s/m
3 mins @ 24 s/m
2 mins @ 26 s/m
1 min @ 28 s/m

Followed by a 5 minute rest and repeat.

A good stretch and a nice hot bath when I got home were just the ticket!

I've got circuit training tonight, and I'm feeling ok, but I'll let you know how it goes!