Tag Archives: outdoors

Happy Holidays from Renegade Rowing! RRP 12-18-17

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I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend full of holiday parties and 2k’s! Have a great remainder of the holiday season with Christmas and New Year’s coming up.  Stay safe, stay warm, and get in some solid workouts with friends.  The next post won’t be until after the New Year since I’ll be traveling, but use next week to try something new, go for a long run or ski, or just take time to recover and stretch.  Hit it hard this week and I’ll see you in the New Year!

Weekly Training Plan:

RRP 12-18-17

Weekly Challenge:

Spend 4min in a Passive Squat each day working on a 4-count Box Breath while you do it.

RR Social WOD:

Hike Harvard Stadium @6:30am on Thursday 

Strength and Conditioning WOD 12/18/17:

6 Rounds For Time …

10 Push Ups

250m Row (@2k Pace)

10 Pull Ups

:30 Rest After Each Round

It’s Christmas Week, but we can still fit in some solid work.  We’ve got a few more solid days left in 2017, so let’s make the most of them!  Today’s Rowing WOD is a chance to commit to your new 2k split from last Saturday and work on digging deep when the going gets tough.  Every round is an opportunity to fight for that split, just like in the third 500m of a 2k.  Focus on good form with the push ups and pull ups to strengthen our shoulders in different planes and promote good connection through the core.  Attack each round like it’s your last and rely on that 30 seconds of rest to reset and do it all again.  A good goal is to go sub 20 minutes.

Have fun and do good work!

Post your time and splits to comments.

The Holiday’s are here! Fire it Up! – RRP 11-27-17

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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and got a chance to enjoy time with family and friends.  We did the YMCA Pie Run in Middletown and braved the cold to earn our Turkey and Mashed Potatoes!  Here is the training plan for this week.  Let’s kick off December on a strong note and bring it home for the New Year.  Let us know if you have any questions or would like to join the Renegade Rowing Project in fighting for your goals!

Weekly Training Plan:

RRP 11-27-17

Get after the Stadium!

Weekly Challenge:

Spend 3min in the bottom of a squat each day … tell us how it goes!

RR Social WOD:

Hike Harvard Stadium @6am on Tuesday 

(Let us know if you’re going so we can keep an eye out for you!)

 

One thing that all good athletes have in common is a sense of efficiency.  The athlete that can maintain proper mechanics and spend the least amount of energy to complete a task will be able to push harder and farther compared to the athlete that just flies and dies.  This weeks’ Rowing WODs introduce a key concept to being efficient in rowing and may improve your efficiency in longer wods.

Checkout the focus for Monday’s RWOD… Start the workout by rowing 1,000m at 28 strokes per minute and holding a 2k+5 split.  This will get you warm and ready to go to work.  During the 4min rest fit in 20 push ups however you want. Then, set the monitor for 3′ of work and 1′ of rest.  Each 3-minute piece is broken into 1-minute sections that should be rowed at the designated stroke rating holding a 2k+7 split.

In order to hold the goal split while decreasing the stroke rating you must perform a ratio shift.  A ratio shift changes the timing of the stroke on the drive and the recovery.  For example, shifting from 1 on the drive: 2 on the recovery, to 1 on the drive: 3 on the recovery.  This is a challenging workout.  Use it to develop a sense of efficiency.  A proper ratio shift maintains the power per stroke but allows the rower time to breath and prepare for the next stroke a little bit more.

Post your results for this weeks workouts and your Experience with ratio shifts.

Below are some pictures of Mike T. after working on staying connected through the finish.  What does your finish look like? Is it efficient?  How fast do your hands move through the finish?  … Just a few things to think about as we continue to work on suspension through the stroke and balanced finishes.

The Renegade Rowing Project – Back at it!

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The Renegade Rowing Project

Back at it w/ Coach Pat

It’s been a couple of years since you’ve regularly heard from me on the blog.  I’ve been busy sharing the sport of rowing with the world at Community Rowing Inc.  While I will still be forging ahead as a Rowing Ambassador at CRI, I wanted to get myself and others motivated to keep training and improving.  That’s where the Renegade Rowing Project comes in.  I will be doing my best to post every Sunday night with a new plan for the week and a weekly challenge.  If you’d like to join the Renegade Rowing Project all you have to do is jump on in and join the fun.  Be sure to post your results and experience to comments or share them on social media.  We’ll be doing the same using @RenegadeRowing and the tags #RenegadeRowingProject #RowStrong.  I look forward to getting after it with you!

Weekly Challenge:

Spend 2min in the bottom of a squat each day … tell us how it goes!

Weekly Training Plan:

RRP 11-13-17

Renegade Rowing Training Plan Template

Why Row?

Rowing is the utmost definition of Sport in modern society. Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com give two definitions of sport. One, Sport is an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature. Two, Sport is a source of diversion and recreation engaged in for pleasure. Whether you’re a middle school rower just learning to scull or an Olympic hopeful trying out for the national team, Rowing provides challenge, competition, and fun.

Rowing trumps all because it offers the best of sport. It tests our skill and athleticism as individuals and as part of a team. Rowing requires an unwavering calm and trust that pushing yourself to wit’s end without seeing where you’re going will develop personal satisfaction and boat speed. It takes balance, grace, and power. Rowing is saying goodbye to the chaos of life by shoving off the dock and taking time for yourself and your team to focus on a common goal.

A Quick Note

Our plan will be combining the best of many worlds, rowing, fitness, strength, nutrition, mobility, flexibility, and recovery. The goal of this post is to outline all the tools available in our plan. This post will introduce certain principles and ideas that will be important to know when following our plan. If it’s not possible to include all of the details for a certain part of our plan here, then those details will be covered in separate posts. If you only read this post you should have a strong idea of how our plan will run. Just know that everything we do has a purpose and your coaches are happy to explain any part of the plan you may be curious about.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As you can tell our plan is different. It challenges the standard long slow distance model of training by combining more high intensity interval training through strength and conditioning and rowing. The best way to get a handle on our plan is to see it in action. The following attachments outline the Renegade Rowing Training Plan Template and give examples for the work we will be doing day in and day out. The best advice we can give you is to keep an open mind, be ready to learn and work hard, and be ready to be part of something. Take a look at the charts, calculations, and diagrams, but most of all get in the gym, get in the boat, and give it everything you’ve got. This is our plan and we’ll know best how to improve and progress toward our goals by the work we do together. We take pride in being different. We are specialized generalists who are experts in both fitness and rowing. Our plan develops firsthand athletes that know how to compete, work hard, and row fast based on personal experience. We will be strong and row fast for life.

If you’re curious or have questions about anything please ask!

 

Be a Self Coach: Rowing Warm-Up with the Concept2 Power Curve

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Using the Concept2 Performance Monitor to gain rowing feedback and coach yourself is a great use of warm up time before jumping into class.  This article will give you the ideal power curve, common faults you might see, and a couple of challenges to try in a 5 minute warmup pre-class or training session.  Here’s a quick video on the power curve to get things started.  Check it out and then read through the rest of the article for tips and challenges to try.

1. The Ideal Power Curve

Ideal Power CurveSet the monitor to display the power curve (or force curve) during your next warmup to really dial in body awareness and technique.  The ideal curve is a smooth inverted parabola with the peak located in the center of the curve.  If you can make this happen then your technique has a nice smooth transition of force being applied to the handle from the legs, hips, and arms.  Everything from your head to your toes is working together in a nice smooth sequence that results in an efficient application of power.

2. Common Faults

Self Coach Power CurveIf you ever see a double peak or a curve that looks like the profile of the Green Mountains in Vermont there is something missing or room for improvement in your technique.  The power curve represents your rowing technique graphically and that is why it can be used to self coach.  If you were to divide the graph into three sections along the horizontal, the curve at each of those sections would represent how you’re legs, body, and arms are being used to produce force.  If the valley of a double peak curve is in the middle, then you know there is something lacking or missing from how your body/hips are being used through the middle of the drive.  Try to focus on making the curve smoother, eliminating chatter/inefficiency, while emphasizing the swing of your body through the middle.  Can you keep the force/pressure on the handle constant through the middle of the stroke?

3. 5 Minute Warm-Up Challenge

Set the monitor to display the power curve (or force curve) during your next warmup and try the following challenges during each consecutive minute.  Can you create an ideal power curve during each stroke no matter what the challenge?  See the video above for what this warm-up  should look like.

  1. 1min – Legs Only Rowing (Consistent Body Angle/Arms Straight)
  2. 1min – Legs and Body Rowing (Arms Straight)
  3. 1min – Full Strokes @20 strokes/minute
  4. 1min – Full Strokes @24 strokes/minute
  5. 1min – Full Strokes @28 strokes/minute

Watch your power curve on the monitor during every stroke of the 5 minute warm-up.  Is it a smooth inverted parabola?  Where’s the peak?  Is there a double peak that you need to eliminate?  Is there chatter you can eliminate?  Be in control of your stroke at all times and maintain good posture.  If you find something that seems jerky or out of control try to change it and make it different.  Experiment a little and have some fun!  Power Power CurveIf you’re looking for an added challenge, as the stroke rating increases to 24 strokes/minute and then 28 strokes/minute, try to move the peak of the curve to the left and get the curve to start higher up the vertical axis with a very steep slope.  This will mean you’re very connected and getting good initiation with the legs.  The challenge then becomes can you keep the curve smooth and chatter free!

If you’re interested in learning more or getting out on the water, email patrick.larcom@communityrowing.org!

Rest Day 1/21/16: Get out and do something different! – Share your experience

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Rest Day:

Some friends doing something different on a Saturday morning! Competing against another gym!

Get out and do something different!

It’s to easy during the winter months and during training in general to become narrow-minded and trapped in a routine of the same old, same old.  Sometimes we need to break the cycle, even if the cycle is going well, to refocus and make even more progress toward our goals.  Today’s challenge is to enjoy some active rest and recovery.  Get out of your gym or house and do something different.  Go for a walk/hike, cross-country ski, run, bike, swim, play a game/sport, try yoga, walk up and down the stairs in your building, treat a friend to a hot meal, or simply stop everything, lay down for 5 minutes, and do nothing but relax and focus on your breathing without thinking about anything else.

If you have any revelations, great experiences, or you simply had some fun, share it with the community in a comment!