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Getting a lower "Low Pull"

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:44 am
by paulgould
I've opened this new thread at Thomas' request - recently I have been making quite big inroads into my LP and 100m times and have found a few things that work for me - amongst these are:

1 - changing foot position - changed from 2 or 3 holes showing to 5 holes showing - changes the drive angle and feels like the power gets generated on a more horizontal plane.

2 - FAST hands - throwing the hands away quickly allows you to get the rate up (probably want to be at least 60 SPM) - momentum is very quickly lost, especially at high DF's.

3 - I set the monitor to watts when doing a max power test so even small improvements like 0.2/500m are trackable(about 7 watts).

4 - As John says - "get aggressive" - I always attempt an LP at crew class so there is that competitive edge to it(when I see Andrew the instructor doing 1:16 and only weighing 68kg it motivates me to push harder).

There are a few other fairly obvious things like short-sliding and throwing "correct" technique out the window.

No doubt John Glynn(and others) will be able to add some useful tips.

Height is not necessarily an advantage but weight certainly is and I would expect most guys over 100kg should be able to generate enough power to get close to 1:10.

One more important,if obvious tip - make sure you are PROPERLY warmed up before attempting to go flat out.

Expecting sub-1:12's from Thomas,Max and a few others before year-end. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Happy Rowing
Paul G

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:53 pm
by Thomas W-P
:twisted:

Thanks. Good tip on putting the PM on to watts. Maybe I need to add a power to split converter in utilities?!

I was reading about the low pull on the concept 2 forum. How do you judge it? The view there seems to be the lowest you can sustain for three pulls. How do you do it in your sessions?

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:23 pm
by paulgould
Maybe I need to add a power to split converter in utilities?!
I think Mike Channin posted a conversion table on a thread some time back - I just enter the maximum watts I have pulled as the pace boat and then "change units" to pace - last night was a 962 watts(1:11,4) and then a 957W(1:11.5) - my holy grail is 1 KW!
The view there seems to be the lowest you can sustain for three pulls. How do you do it in your sessions?
We take the maximum single stroke wattage and record that - generally takes 4-6 strokes to hit peak and usually find you have about 3 consecutive pulls with a 5-10 watt variance before tailing off - a lot of the guys rubbish the whole thing on the C2 forum and it is only really a bit of fun but I do believe that increasing your power can only help your efforts at the longer distances.

Paul G

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:13 pm
by MaxDev
Thomas W-P wrote:Maybe I need to add a power to split converter in utilities?!
Just out of interest, I worked this out empirically recently based on the power figures that are quoted on CTC, which also seemed to correlate with what I read on the C2 forums (i.e. roughly that sub 7 2K pace = 300 watts and 2:00 split = 200 watts).

The formula seems to be: Power (W) = 2.8 * (( 500 / split (s)) ^ 3 )

Edit: this also gives the correct results for Paul's values above.

So to achieve 1 KW requires a split of 1:10.47

Max

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:54 pm
by johnglynn
- Short stroking is very important, go for fast strokes rather then powerful strokes .
-- try to have some fast music on (to help with short stroking rate)
- A huge part of it for me is been VERY aggressive .
-- Pysc yourself up and make yourself angry
- Move up and down the slide . Tense yourself up and explode at a good point in the music (i.e. increase in volume)
- As high a DF as possible

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:00 pm
by Jessica-Red
I thought it was the max you cld get in only 5 strokes from a standing start ? am I wrong ?

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:52 pm
by Thomas W-P
Jessica-Red wrote:I thought it was the max you cld get in only 5 strokes from a standing start ? am I wrong ?
I don't think that it is a standing start. I think it is genuinely the hardest you can pull - the fastest, the greatest power.

I had a go tonight and got 816W for one stroke (1:15.4). Believe me this was flat out and I have no idea how Ironar$e does it. Kudos. I found it hard to remember the splits I was going so hard so will not accept that as a 1:15 LP until I am confident.

I appear to have created a Watts to Split converter in utilities.

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:11 pm
by Jessica-Red
Well Im only a weakling girl but I'll have a go tmrw and see what I can do just as a matter of interest !! :shock:

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:43 am
by paulgould
Thomas - your new utility is excellent - thanks.
My new "holy grail" is now 1024watts(1:09.9) - some way to go still.
WRT your 816watts effort - that is a pretty decent effort and it will improve with practice - on Tuesday I jumped from 887W to 962W and about 2-3 months ago I was stuck at around the 810-820 range - at our class no-one else has managed 800watts yet - we had 2 guys both doing 790 watts, one of them is an ex-competitive canoeist who is 6'3" and 100kg!
I suspect someone like Bartman or Jainser would produce a pretty impressive effort, probably Zach as well.

J-R - not sure whether there is a set way of doing the Low Pull - you should hit your maximum in 5 strokes off a standing start though.

Paul G

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:41 pm
by Stan
Had a go yesterday but only managed 650 watts (1:21). It shows the incredible extra power you need to get just a little bit faster :shock: