1 minute power test

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gregsmith01748
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1 minute power test

Post by gregsmith01748 »

Hi,

I read about a test in "Rowing Faster", a book by Volke Nolte. This is an assessment of your anaerobic power and it is brutally simple. Get on the erg and row like hell. The idea is specifically to not pace yourself, but rather to row as hard as you possibly can for every stroke through the minute. There is no stroke rate cap, the recommended drag factor is "as high as it will go".

You need rowpro or a video camera to do the test because you will need the power from every stroke you do. From this stroke by stroke data, you will extract a few parameters...

- Peak Power: This is the equivalent of Low Pull and usually happens in the first few strokes
- Average Power: This is the power through the full minute
- Anaerobic Alactic Critical Duration (AACD): Time until you drop 10% below max. This is how long your ACH stores last.
- Anaerobic Lactic Critical Duration (ALCD): Time until you drop to 35% below max. Basically this is measuring how quickly and well you can start to generate huge amounts of lactate by metabolizing muscle glycogen.

The primary use of the test is to provide a periodic assessment of a specific athlete. Is the athlete getting better or worse on these four parameters. In addition, you can directly compare the results for different athletes to understand who has the more highly developed anaerobic capability.

Now, it is pretty well established that most competitive rowing (indoors and out) takes place over durations where the dominant energy system in play is the aerobic system. For a 2K race, about 80% of the energy come from aerobic respiration. The point that the author of this chapter in the book (McNeely) makes is that making a significant improvement in the other 20% will help you win races, especially if everyone is already loading as much aerobic meters as they can. So, he is an advocate of adding in peak power training in the final phase before competition to get an extra boost. This test can help figure if that kind of training is actually helping.

Sander did the test yesterday. I did mine this morning and despite it's elegant simplicity, I managed to screw it up. I paid full attention to the idea of not pacing myself, and I was going gang busters for what I thought was the first 45 seconds of the test. When I opened my eyes and looked at the monitor, I discovered that in fact I was only 30 seconds into it, became acutely despondent and instantly HD'ed. Stopping half way through is not the best way to complete a one minute test.! :oops:

After another failed attempt, I finally managed to pump myself up enough to make it through. I'm sure that I wore out legs enough that it isn't an accurate results, but at least I made it through one.

Here are my curves:
Image

The book also provides benchmark powers for rowers, which, to me look ridiculously high. If you are over the age of 30, you can deduct 3% off these numbers for every 10 years you are closer to the great hereafter. Even with the scaling factor, I am way, way under the targets.

Image

Anyway, I thought I would share the test with you all in case anyone has a spare minute and wants to feel the burn.
Greg - Age: 53 H: 182cm W: 88Kg (should be 83Kg)
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sander
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by sander »

I am a few percent under the lower end of the range for lightweight rowers (age corrected). I think the age decline applies to former top rowers who didn't stop rowing. The average Master rower must score much lower, or otherwise I must have fabulous OTW technique.
Did you set the drag factor at the highest setting? It helps contain the stroke rate. Still, I think the result tells you that you have a good AACD and ALCD.
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gregsmith01748
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by gregsmith01748 »

I maxed out the drag. From the test results, I think only the peak power and the AACD numbers from the first test are reasonable. All of the second test numbers are suspect. I think that I could probably add a good 50W to the Avg power over the minute.

I agree that these numbers must be for elite rowers and master rowers who were formerly elite, at least I hope they are.

My curiosity got the better of me. I can't find a lot of data for Low Pull numbers, but I can get avg power over a minute, since that is now a ranked piece on the concept2 site.

Men 40-49 Open Weight
- Top score 395m --> 800W
- 90th %-ile 356m --> 586W
- 75th %-ile 339m --> 505W

Men 40-49 Lightweight
- Top score 368m --> 647W
- 90th %-ile 343m --> 524W
- 75th %-ile 321m --> 429W

Men 50-59 Open Weight
- Top Score 369m --> 651W
- 90th %-ile 343m --> 524W
- 75th %-ile 327m --> 454W

Men 50-59 Light weight
- Top Score 365m --> 633W
- 90th %-ile 343m --> 524W
- 75th %-ile 324m --> 442W

The guidelines from the book, scaled to the middle of these age ranges:

Image

So, the lightweight guidelines are aggressive but not crazy for the 40s and the 50s. The top ranked score falls in the range, and the bottom end is a bit below the 90th percentile.

For the heavyweights, the 40-49 top scores fall into the range, but the bottom end of the range is above the 90th percentile of rankings. In the 50-59 bracket, no one comes close to even the bottom of the range in the book (647W vs 671W).

In other rankings, I usually find myself around the 90th percentile. I expect that this will be about the same. And I thought I could judge peak power as the ratio from average. But looking at the table from the book, those numbers are all over the place. For HWT women, the ratio of peak to avg is almost 150%, but for lightweight men it is around 120%, and the numbers are inconsistent from the bottom to the top of the range. So, I guess all I can do is benchmark the average power.

But wait, there's more. I just remembered that McNeely is the same guy who did that blog post about peak power training.

https://peakcentre.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... rformance/

In that article he provided weight and class based guidelines for peak power. So, from that, as a 195 pound master rower, I should be able to pull between 752W and 885W for peak power. At 770W, I am down at the bottom end of that range, but my ego is assuaged that I am at least in the range, not outside looking up at it with sadness in my heart.


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Greg - Age: 53 H: 182cm W: 88Kg (should be 83Kg)
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by sander »

Assuming the power to weight ratio is to weight in kg (and not pound), I am at the bottom of the Masters Rowers range.

Comparing to a bigger group, my goal is to be above 900 points for each nonathlon event. My 6k of yesterday gave me 906 points, so I am happy in that respect. I haven't done a paced 500m yet but the one minute all out followed by 35 seconds of hanging on brought me 892 points. I am sure I can do a 500m above 900 nonathlon points, so in that respect my anaerobic/aerobic balance seems to be in line with the average. That doesn't mean that the average equals the ideal, though ...
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strider77
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by strider77 »

Great piece of work Greg :wink:

I looked at these figures for Peak Power sometime ago and came to the conclusion I was a complete wimp :oops:

I reckon they must be for elite rowers.

What I take from this is that Power Sessions like 30"/30" and 1'/1' need to be integral sessions from now on.

I know that Steve Roedde includes them in his prep for Boston and it seems to work for him, as I am of similar age albeit nowhere near his ability I am sure that it will reap dividends.

Interestingly Steve does not seem to follow a set programme he tends to do long rows and very sharp session with none of the structure of a PP or WP-when not on the erg he does a load of biking as that was his discipline having just completed the Haute Pyrenees in the early Autumn !!

Thanks for pointing this out Greg :D
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gregsmith01748
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by gregsmith01748 »

The key point for me is that peak power is quick to develop, but can't be maintained long term without compromising aerobic fitness. So it would be way better to do 6 weeks of peak power training before a competition, and specific NOT do it during other times in the year. This is in contrast with base aerobic training, where long term improvements are definitely possible.

So the way I'm starting to think about it now is to focus on base and threshold training first, and then layer in more sprints and power work as I approach race day.
Greg - Age: 53 H: 182cm W: 88Kg (should be 83Kg)
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sander
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Re: 1 minute power test

Post by sander »

Ah, a glimpse of the new, revolutionary and patented Greg Plan (TM)
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