Indoor Rowing N E W S L E T T E R ===================== 10-Mar-2000 ======================== ____________________________________________C O N T E N T S 1. Race News 2. Concept Ranking 3. Tel's Tales #1 4. Great Cambridge Rowing Challenge 5. Pete Goss 6. Tel's Tales #2 7. Marie Curie Rowing Challenge 8. Tel's Tales #3 _________________________________________________________________ ====================================================== Race News ====================================================== The next couple of weeks are packed full of indoor racing goodness. First off, March 12th sees indoor rowing once more take residence amongst the tin mines of Cornwall, as the fourth Cornish IRC hits Phoenix Leisure Centre in Launceston. Further details can be found on our web site or by phoning organiser Martin Williams on 01566 772551. A week later on the 19th, The Big One, which describes itself as the unofficial British 100k team championship, will see over thirty teams compete for a plethora of prizes; neil.rhodes@classicfm.net is the e-mail address to get in contact with for that event. Anyone in the Guildford area on the 25th of this month meanwhile, could do worse than take part in the Guildford Millennium Borough Games which, with 1000 metre Junior events and 2000 metre senior events, should have something for everyone. Contact Jeff Warburn on warburnj@guildford.gov.uk for more details. Last week also saw the first Asian Indoor Rowing Championship. Taking place in Hong Kong, competitors from countries as far afield as Pakistan, China and Uzbekistan met up to compete over a variety of individual and team events. The fastest time of the day was by Wang Jing Feng of China, who won the Open Men's with 6:09.7. Full results can be found at www.hkcra.org. This newsletter, the prize for a new world record goes to Laurent Porchier. During French national rowing team testing Laurent limboed three and a half seconds under the previous 30-39 Lightweight record, coming home in a nifty 6:10.4. A few footnotes. Firstly, anybody thinking of taking part in The Big One, or who fancies taking a shot at one of the team records, should check out the pertinent section of our web-site (http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/team_chall.htm) which contains pace guides for all the events, along with profiles and reports on Royce's Gym recent 100,000 metre men's world record. Secondly, in the aftermath of becoming the fastest woman alive at last month's world championships, you can catch an interview with Amy Fuller on the NBC Olympic web site. Just pop along to http://www.nbcolympics.com/?/athletesvoice/avindex.html where you'll also find an (American-orientated) report on the World Championships, or the CRASH-Bs as they call them out there. And while we've got space, we just thought we'd mention Juliane Elander of Denmark. Juliane, who finished second in the Women's Open Lightweight at the world championship, returned home to a hero's welcome. Expecting to be met just by her family, she instead got picked up at the train station and transported to her home town, where the Mayor and the whole of the town celebrated her result in true Hollywood style. Rumours that Colin Greenaway has received the freedom of Raynes Park were not confirmed as this newsletter went to press. ====================================================== Concept Ranking ====================================================== The closing date for individuals for this year's Concept Ranking has now been and gone. Although the deadline for team 100,000 metre events isn't until the end of this month, anybody who hasn't yet got their 2000 metre time in either needs to step up their efforts in producing a working time machine, or content themselves with our all-year round on-line version (http://www.e-row.com/ranking/home.asp). With another month or two of compiling and editing needed on the Ranking, at the moment best guess is that it should hit the streets sometime in May. We will, however, hopefully be able to get it up on our web site in April. ====================================================== Tel's Tales #1 ====================================================== If you've got a question you'd like former Olympic rowing coach Terry O'Neill to answer, just send it along to mailto:webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk. The first question this week is about the flywheel, and comes from Spaceman (possibly not the name his mother gave him): "At which resistance (1-10) should the 2000 metre test be done?" Terry O'Neill: People carry out the 2000m test over the whole range of 1-10. It is totally dependent on you. When you change the position of the damper lever, what you are doing is controlling the airflow into the fan cage. With the damper setting on level 1 there is less fresh air allowed into the fan cage and so the air already there starts to circulate. This momentum means that less power is needed to spin the flywheel. With the damper lever set on level 10, the maximum amount of fresh air is drawn into the fan-cage and blown straight out through the perforations. No momentum is created by circulating air and so the flywheel decelerates at a greater rate and requires more power to keep it spinning. The monitor measures the power developed by calculating the acceleration and deceleration of the flywheel, which it then converts into a time for 500m. So what does this all mean? Well if you are very strong and can handle the heavy load then you will get your best score on a high damper setting. If you are not so strong but have good endurance and rhythm then a lower damper setting will allow you to exploit these qualities. Some confusion reigns because rowers tend to use a setting of 3-4. This is because on these settings the machine closely mirrors the feel of a racing boat. As they spend most of their time training in this medium then it makes sense for them to set the machine up to feel like a boat. For the indoor rowers who have never been in a boat, you shouldn't necessarily follow the rowers' strategy. What you should do is to find the best setting that "suits you sir" even if it is nothing like the setting a rower would use. ====================================================== Great Cambridge Rowing Challenge ====================================================== The Great Cambridge Rowing Challenge is a record-breaking attempt that aims to involve as many people from Cambridge as possible in a one-day indoor rowing event. The Challenge is open to anyone who lives, works, studies or rows in Cambridge including university and college boat clubs, town rowing clubs and local schools involved in the Cambridge Rowing Trust's development programme. In total, over 1200 hundred people are expected to take part. The day will consist of a series of 60 or 90 minute events, along with three teams who will be racing to break the 100,000 metre mixed team record, currently held by Wallingford Rowing Club with a time of 5:42:25. As well as attempting to be a record breaker, the Great Cambridge Rowing Challenge also aims to raise a third of the estimated cost of £120,000 that is needed to upgrade the towpath along the river, along with helping the Trust develop programmes for local schools. Prizes will be awarded to the individuals and clubs who raise the most sponsorship with a new Concept 2 Indoor Rower among the glittering array of rewards. Spot prizes for individual performances will also be on offer all day. The Great Cambridge Rowing Challenge will take place on Sunday 7th May 2000 at Cambridge Regional College. Entry details and sponsorship forms are available from the CUBC or Cambridge Rowing Trust at the address below. Come and row for half an hour or half a day and help set a record! Cambridge Rowing Trust, PO Box 849, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB5 9RT, England. Tel 01223 576360 Fax 01223 576359 Email RowingLake@aol.com Web-site: http://www.rowingcoach.co.cuk ====================================================== Pete Goss ====================================================== Team Philips, Pete Goss' revolutionary catamaran, launched into the River Dart on March 4th at Baltic Wharf, Totnes in Devon in front of a crowd of 40,000 well-wishers. The boat has been built to provide the main British challenge in The Race, a no-holds barred around the world, umm, race that's kicking off at the chime of midnight on December 31st. Goss, who shot to prominence when he rescued French sailor Raphael Dinelli a couple of years back, and for whom the launch represented one of the final stages in a dream stretching back over two years, said "It's a fantastic day. This is a very satisfying end to an immensely rewarding but stressful day. "Two years ago we started with one light-bulb and an upturned crate. We have wrestled most of the way. But if anybody said we couldn't do something, we just said: 'Well heck, we're going to do it'." Goss and his team of five, who all train on the Indoor Rower, have now got a period of frantic activity getting fit between now and the end of March, when Goss and the crew will take it on a trial transglobal run - "walking the course," as he calls it. Even on this trial, the intention is to break the Jules Verne record for getting around the world under sail, currently held by French sailor Olivier de Kersauson in 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 8 seconds. Goss's aim is to break the record by a week or so, which would bring it down to just over two months, a pretty spectacular mark. For more information on the Race or Team Philips, check out their web- site at http://www.teamphilips.com ====================================================== Free Dyno Instructor Course ====================================================== Due to the interest in the new Concept 2 Dyno, we're offering free training courses for anybody interested in buying a machine or learning how to use one. The Concept 2 Dyno takes the air resistance principles of the Indoor Rower and applies them to strength training, offering three core exercises; Leg Press, Bench Press, and Bench Pull. Up to 500kg can be lifted on the 55kg Dyno and anyone of any age can use it unsupervised. Whilst ideal for strength training, strength testing, and the monitoring of progress, this ingenious machine is however much more versatile. It is just as suited to being a circuit-training machine or a rehabilitation tool, and can be used in conjunction with the Indoor Rower in a combined strength and endurance-training programme. The free training course will be held at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham on April 5th, with topics including use and training on the new Dyno, the Slide and E-Row. Each session lasts for one hour, with the first one starting at 10.00am and the last at 4.00pm. If you wish to book a place on one of these courses, or you would like more information on the Dyno, then either check our web-site out (http://www.concept2.co.uk) or give us a call on (0115) 945 5522. ====================================================== Tel's Tales #2 ====================================================== Reader Simon Barnes: "Two queries: 1. Mental attitude Mental attitude clearly makes an enormous difference to performance, and I'd be interested in your views on 'race psychology'. What's the best way to mentally prepare for a race? It seems that, since one is basically racing ones' personal best, the race situation is fairly predictable (even at the UK champs it's difficult to be fully aware of your position in relation to others, and you can't really do anything to affect the performance of the other competitor). Does this enable some fairly focussed mental preparation? What about the race itself? What mental approach best supports optimum performance? Is it true that rowers have used hypnosis to ingrain a reaction to trigger words which, when shouted by one of the crew, can boost performance during a race? 2. Race tactics. At the UK champs, we see rowers surge out of the blocks, only to fade terribly. Others seem to maintain a fixed pace throughout the race. I tend to try a fixed pace approach of 1.36-1.38 (my best for a stand-alone 500 is 1.32), with the last 500 generally determining where my time sits within a range of about 5 seconds. What do you consider the most effective race pattern, in terms of pace?" Terry O'Neill: In preparing for any competition there are three areas that need equal attention. You can relate it if you like to a three legged milking stool. If one leg is shorter than the others you will fall off when you try to sit on it. The three areas that I refer to are physical preparation, technical preparation and psychological preparation. If you fail to devote the correct amount of attention in any of these areas then you will fall off the stool. All competition is about overcoming self-doubt and preconceived ideas about the outcome and fear of failure. You can only control what you do, and what anybody else does cannot affect your performance unless you let it, so the position of other people in the race is irrelevant. If you concern yourself with other people, then it brings it back to the fact that you are beating yourself by succumbing to outside influences. All you can do in competition is give it your best shot; if you do that and are beaten then you can live with the fact that on the day you were beaten by a better performance. It is far more difficult to live with the situation where you know you could have done better. I don't know of anybody that has been hypnotised but there are forms of imagery that people use during a race. An example would be to imagine an animal that depicts power and smoothness, like a panther, and with that image in mind try to apply the power and smoothness to your own action. But what you really need to do is to have a mental section in your programme. This would consist of initially establishing an outcome goal; this could be to win the UK indoor championships for example. Once you've established the outcome goal, you've now got to think about the process by which you will achieve the desired outcome. These process goals need to be realistic and achievable so as to reinforce a positive attitude. You should set a goal for every session and, at the end of each session, evaluate whether you achieved the training aim. As you go through your programme you can review your goals and adjust them so that you understand that you are making tangible progress towards achieving your outcome goal. As far as race tactics are concerned, there are two main reasons why rowers go off as fast as they can. The first reason is that because on- water a rower travels backwards, he has an advantage by being in front as he can see the opposition and take control of the race. Any advantage you can gain in getting up to race speed as quickly as possible from a standing start means that your opponent has the additional difficulty of trying to pass you, when in theory you are both now going flat out. The problem is that in energy terms, if getting in front has been too expensive, you can bank on losing at least twice the distance you initially gained in the latter stages of the race. The second reason for going off quick is that initially when you start to work, you will be able to row between 10-15 stokes flat out without accumulating any lactic acid. This is because you are using the ATP and CP stored in the muscle, sometimes referred to as the "fright and flight energy supply". ====================================================== The Marie Curie Rowing Challenge ====================================================== At the end of last February, the Marie Curie Rowing Challenge took place at the Marriot Hollins Hall in Bradford. The three-fold aim of the challenge was to raise funds to support Marie Curie Cancer Care's local facilities, encourage participants to get fit and keep fit and to introduce participants to indoor rowing as an excellent form of low impact, all- round exercise. With a variety of formats on offer, from individual 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 metres to team 10,000 metres, and with sessions running throughout the day, nearly 400 participants took part, the vast majority of whom had never sat on a rowing machine before. The day was wildly successful with approximately £30,000 raised for Marie Curie, double the amount last year's brought home and, unless anybody out there knows better, making it the most successful individual Concept 2 fundraising event ever. ====================================================== Tel's Tales #3 ====================================================== David Jones: "I am 37 years old and preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro (10,340ft). Have you any tips for how I might use my Concept 2 for preparing for a high altitude/low oxygen environment. I currently mix distance sessions with interval sessions. Best time for 5000m is 19.45, and for 7500m 30.04" Terry O'Neill: Contrary to popular belief there is no less oxygen at altitude than at sea level. The difference is that at altitude there is a dramatic decrease in air pressure. As a result the partial pressure in the arterial system decreases and therefore there is less oxygen taken up for the same cardiac output and breathing rate. Hence everything becomes harder to do at altitude. Two other problems you will encounter is firstly, water vapour pressure decreases to about 55% of that at sea level making the air much drier, causing throat irritation and, secondly, for each 1000 meters you go up, there is a corresponding drop in temperature of 6.5 degrees Celsius. Oh I forgot to mention that solar radiation is more intensive due to the direct ultra violet rays of the sun. Now if the lack of oxygen, freezing cold, dehydration and skin cancer doesn't put you off, what is the best way to prepare? The fact that you will need to work at altitude makes it eminently sensible to do some training at altitude so you can take your rowing machine on a ski holiday. If this sounds impractical, another alternative is to use a compression chamber. Some diving clubs have these to treat the bends and, although this is caused by changing from a high pressure environment to sea level, often the range of adjustment will allow the air pressure to be decreased with respect to sea level. If neither of these two are viable options then a good aerobic base will help offset the negative effects of being at altitude, I would follow the marathon training programme as laid out in the Concept 2 training guide (available for free download at http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/training_prog.htm). ____________________________________________F E E D B A C K Like what you read? Dislike what you read? Ideas for future newsletters? 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