Reactive Training

Using Benchmark Workouts and Tests

Your training plan needs to ‘react’ to two things: your balance of fitness components and how recovered you are from previous workouts. Two types of ‘benchmark’ workout or test can help you gauge these requirements.

1. Maximal Tests based on Power Output
   Some regularly repeated workouts performed at maximum effort can be used to predict race performance, determine how you may need to adjust your training zones, and plot your power profile indicating which components of Rowing fitness have responded to preceding training and on which fitness components you may need need to focus in your next block of training sessions.

2. Submaximal Tests based on Heart Rate
   Other regularly repeated workouts performed at moderate intensities can be used as benchmarks to assess the cardio-vascular cost of work at a certain intensity and thus chart your rate of adaptation from day to day. These benchmarks along with other heart rate data such as Basal (Resting) Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability, recorded each morning, can be used as a guide for when to ramp up training and when to have an easy recovery day.

Power Profile

Developed by Danish sports scientist Kurt Jensen, the Gold Standard power profile predicts what power/pace you should be capable of for other distances based on your personal best 2k time.

Jensen found that, for a cohort of elite athletes competing over 2k:

• 10 second all out average power wattage was 173% of the 2k average power wattage.

• 60 seconds all out was 153% of the 2k average power wattage.

• 6k power was 85% of 2k average power wattage.

• 60 minute average power wattage was 76% of 2k average power wattage.

Using an athlete’s 2k PB average power as the baseline, the optimum scores predicted by Jensen’s formula for other distances can be plotted along a curve. A plot of the athlete’s actual scores for these and other distances can then be compared to those on the golden standard curve to determine whether they were below or above the balance necessary for optimum performance over 2k. Each distance can be seen to correspond with a type or component of fitness. An athlete with a higher than standard level of endurance would perform better at the longer distances than the curve predicted. An athlete with greater than standard maximum power would perform better at shorter distances than would be predicted from their 2k performance. Training could then be devised to lift the underperforming parameter of their fitness and thus improve their future 2k performance.

And, effectively balanced training should result in the whole curve being elevated to a higher level.

Various national coaching bodies have adopted these principles for testing athletes and comparing them to the Golden Standard. For example, the graph above provided by the Australian Institute of Sport illustrates how 100m, 500m 2000m and 6000m distances should sit on the curve.

Some of their tests, also involving expired oxygen and lactate measurement, are beyond the scope of the individual athlete. Rowing Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport, for example, use a 7×4 min incremental test together with Skinfolds, Lactate and VO2 measurements. Each 7min is followed by 1 min rest and gradually increases in power with the last one being flat out trying to go maximum distance in four minutes or to exhaustion in order to accurately determine VO2max.

The Danish test battery requires each athlete to complete a maximal test over 10 sec, 60 sec, 2000m, 6000m and 60 min in a one week period.

If you are short of time, a thirty minute open rate test can, however, be substituted for the ‘hour of power’ test. Performing the adapted Wingate test (Peak Power for one maximum stroke out of seven) and a 30min test on one day and then a test over 500m on another day followed by normal training would give you an adequate picture of your power/endurance balance without disrupting the week’s training regime.

Maximal Tests based on Power Output

Maximal time Trials and Lactate Step Tests are useful for determining your Power Profile or balance of maximum speed or power and endurance. However, they cannot be done too frequently without interfering with the training progression.

1. The ‘Hour of Power’: 60min Open Rate Trial

Your average pace or power for the 60min test determines what is known as Functional Threshold Power, the maximum ‘steady state’ pace at which you can (only theoretically) work indefinitely. 

2. 30min Open Rate Trial

For most people’s training purposes, a 30min Open Rate Test could replace the ‘hour of power’ test. Functional Threshold Power can be derived from the 30minute test by recordng the average power from minute 5 to minute 25 or calculating average power for 30mins x 98% in order to eliminate the anaerobic component. If you don’t yet want to do a flat out 2k, this can also be used to determine the various power training zones. Although it is best to have an idea of what your 2k time might be in order to anticipate what sort of pace you can hold for thirty minutes in doing this test which requires approximately 80% of your 2k power).

A surrogate that is even less onerous can be a 20min Test counting 95% of the average power as FTP.

3. 2k Time Trial

Your 2k personal best time is the most fundamental benchmark of all. Apart from being the premium racing distance in indoor rowing, it is a measure of your Maximum Aerobic Power (or Pace), the velocity at which you reach maximum Oxygen uptake and thus the basis for determining training zones.

The 2k test or time trial can be rowed flat out at open rating just like a race, but can be too fatiguing to perform too often. It is perhaps more useful in training to perform it at a capped rating or with predetermined stroke rate ramps every 500m. Most of the time, I tend to feel that it is best to save your extreme 2k performances for races.

So, while you might need to do a full-on 2k a couple of times within a training season in order to check your profile, a maximum effort 2k done at a stroke rate of 20 is something you can repeat quite frequently to see how well you are progressing towards eventually doing that personal best at 32-34. It gives you confidence about lasting the distance, while leaving you less debilitated for other training,

4. 1k Time Trial

A 1k time trial, on the other hand, is not as frightening as the 2k because you stop before you reach that extreme anaerobic discomfort (agony) point that you experience in the third 500m of the 2k. And, it can serve as a ready reference point on your fitness profile.

5. 500m Time Trial

A 500m time trial, while hard, and neuro-muscularly demanding, is also not as fatiguing as a 2k. It is, moreover, a crucial benchmark of anaerobic capacity and power.

6. 100m Time Trial

To perform the Wingate Test you set the Drag Factor at 200 and row seven strokes as hard as you can. It is prudent to warm up well first and to build the first stroke rather than attack it to prevent back injury. 

The highest Wattage you can pull on any stroke is your Peak Power or Maximum Anaerobic Power (often referred to as the Low Pull). Your Relative Power is that Wattage divided by your bodyweight in kilograms. The Relative Power can be compared to norms for various levels and ages of athlete.

8. Row 4 x30:30 (developed by James Fitzgerald, Opex Fitness)

https://www.opexfit.com/blog/concept2-rower-workouts

Go all out for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, and repeat 4 times. According to Fitzgerald, if you honestly go flat out, the second 30′ piece should be 95% of the first, the third one should be 92% of the first, and the last one 90%.  

If your score stays the same you need to work on developing peak power. If your scores drop off drastically after the first score you need to work on building aerobic capacity. 

He does not explain what that particular balance is appropriate for but I suspect it is for distances shorter than 2k. Nonetheless, it may be useful for monitoring how peak power and power endurance evolve over a period of training. However, the desirable balance may need to be determined individually through trial and error.

Sub-Maximal Tests based on Heart Rate

A less stressful way to gauge progress is by measuring internal adaptations to sub-maximal loads. 

There is a fairly strong correlation between the % of Heart Rate Reserve (Max HR – Basal HR) necessary for a pace and its % of MAP (Max Aerobic Power/Pace) or 2k Race Pace. Thus after several minutes of work at 60% of your 2k Race Pace your body should require a heart rate equal to 60% of Heart Rate Reserve plus your minimum or ‘Basal’ Heart Rate. In a flat out 2k race, you would expect to reach maximum heart rate as you approach Maximum Oxygen Uptake about 5 minutes after the start. (No wonder that third 500 feels so hard!)

A goal of training and a sign of improved fitness is for the working heart rate’s % of HRR to remain under the % of MAP of your training pace. If your heart Rate Zones exceed your Power Zones, that is a sign that your cardiovascular system may be less developed and therefore more fatigued than your muscular system.

Another sign of improved fitness and healthy adaptation to training is a reduced percentage of your working heart rate after one minute recovery, as is also a lower daily Basal Heart Rate.

In my 1972 training diary, as well as recording my Basal Heart Rates I used the Harvard Step Test, stepping up onto a 40cm bench at 30 steps per minute for five minutes and calculating an index based on recovery heart rates after one minute, two minutes, and three minutes. The ability of the ergometer to record accurate power outputs and heart rates makes such a procedure far easier and can integrate it into every training session.

The following benchmark workouts allow a comparison of heart rates at standard workloads and after recovery:

1. Standard Warmup

A way to measure adaptation is to use a standard 2k warmup procedure and record the working heart rate at its end and a recovery heart rate one minute after stopping. 

The row begins with 1k at Power Zone 1, (for me it is 2:12-2:13 split) then 500m at Power Zone 2 (2:06 split) and then 500m at Power Zone 3 (1:57 split). Here is how it looked on Jan 28, 2021 in my Training Log:

Four consecutive 500m splits rating 25 for the first three and finishing on 27 with a heart rate of 132. 

The percentage of maximum heart rate reserve stays under 55% (Recovery Rate), and finishes just under 70% at H1+. 

The percentage of race pace Work Per Stroke is commensurate with the power level in the first 1k but exceeds it to W3 and then W5 (race pace wps). Another good sign, as it is always good to be able to pump out the same power at a lower than estimated stroke rate.

My Heart Rate recovered to 79 after a minute which was 62.4% of finishing Heart Rate, 99% of my best recovery over the past four weeks and 130% of my average recovery rate for that period, which my algorithm here pronounced to be ‘outstanding’ (just below a category I have labelled ‘extraordinary’ which I have never quite been able to reach). 

The average working heart rate was, however, a little higher than it had been for four weeks. Perhaps this is because work per stroke on the last 500m is way higher than W3 indicating I was starting to peak. 

Overall, the heart rate is below 60% of Heart Rate Reserve, or Recovery Level, until the last 500m when it stays just below Zone H2, Easy Steady State Level, despite the fact that I was working at T3+ power and at W5, race pace Work per Stroke!

2. Hagerman 3 x 5min Ramp Test

Legendary Rowing coach and physiologist Fritz Hagerman prescribed a continuous series of 3x 5min rows. First at 60% of what is currently your average best 2k Power, then at 70%, then at 80% of that power. While sub-maximal, this workout concludes with a pace above lactate threshold and is considerably more demanding than the standard warmup.

Hagerman’s Fitness Index is calculated by finding the ratio of the sum of actual Heart Rates at the end of each 5 minutes to the sum of 60%, 70%, and 80% of your Heart Rate Reserve plus 3 x Resting Heart Rate. A result of 1, or 100%, would indicate that your working heart rates are equal to what would be predicted for work at these percentages of power at maximum oxygen uptake. Over 100% is a good result and should get greater as the training season proceeds.

For example, 60% of my MAP results in a 2:07/500m split pace, while 60% of my HRR+Basal HR is 122 bpm. My 70% MAP split is 2:00 and my 70% heart rate is 135 and my 80%MAP split is 1:55 with an 80% Heart Rate of 147 bpm. The predicted HR total for the three 5 min rows is thus 404.

If my actual HR total in a test is, however, less than that, say 395, my Hagerman Index for that test would be 104%. Improvements in the Hagerman test over a period of training help to gauge your rate of adaptation.