Today’s workouts on the ergs consisted of 30 minutes rowing and 15 minutes on the SkiErg.
Happy rowing to you!
About 45 Minutes
Rocketing Heart Rate: 201
Today’s main workout session was a 2K time trial on the SkiErg. There was also a 30 minute rowing session today which was quite a bit longer, but the rowing session didn’t achieve the spectacular heart rate of the short 2K on the SkiErg.
I was too busy during the SkiErg 2K exercising “mindfulness” by focusing on the pace and the details of the level of pain, to notice heart rate. Also…. one big difference in personal perspective when using the SkiErg, compared to the rowing machine, is on the rowing machine, the person’s head is constantly in the same horizontal plane with respect to the monitor. But when a person is working hard on the SkiErg, the body is doing a series of alternating squatting and standing with each stroke in order to get maximum effort with each stroke. So its not as easy/natural to keep the monitor display in view because it is seeming to move up and down, in relation to the person’s head and its harder to focus on the monitor.
Afterwards when looking at the results, I noticed that heart rate had spiked surprisingly high during the last 500 meters of the SkiErg 2K and topped out at a whopping 201 BPM. It stayed at 201 for several consecutive strokes. I double-checked, by downloading all the data in CSV format for examination in a spreadsheet.
Perhaps a better title for today’s blog post would be, “Heart frolics when not watched closely!” If heart rate had acted that way when I was using the rowing machine, I would have slowed the pace immediately and drastically. But I didn’t notice it, didn’t feel any different and kept on aiming for a target pace in the SkiErg 2K time trial of something faster than the “pace boat” skier. (The pace skier is something you can set up on the SkiErg monitor). I set the pace skier to a pace of 2:12.9 and did glance at it now and then, to make sure I was staying ahead of it.
But I was paying virtually no attention to heart rate, since I felt normal and the result was that the heart got to rev itself up and frolic a bit at 201 beats per minute.
Happy rowing to you!
5X750mR250m
Today’s title is shorthand for today’s main workout: Five intervals of 750 meters each, with 250 meters of rest after each of those five intervals.
The rowing session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording, for those of you who’d like to row-along with it. It is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 5X750metersR250meters 05102019
There was also a SkiErg session of 1,000 meters. Data for the SkiErg session won’t be posted here, but you can see it on the Concept2.com website if you are logged in and view my rowing sessions.
Happy rowing to you.
Twenty Minutes With 4 “Bursts”
Today’s workout was short but more vigorous than recommended by today’s Morning Readiness score from the EliteHRV app.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence or perhaps EliteHRV was right. In either case, an episode of atrial fibrillation happened, which put a damper on things.
So the only workout done was a 20 minute rowing session which included 4 “bursts” of a dozen or so hard strokes. The “bursts” were spaced about 4 minutes apart. The session was uploaded to YouTube, for those of you who’d like to row along with it and is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 20 minutes with 4 bursts 05092019
Happy rowing to you!
The Heart Cooperative
Today the heart and everything else in the propulsion system cooperated and the workouts happened as planned. The main workout was a set of pyramid intervals of 2-3-4-3-2 minutes within a single 30 minute session.
A screen recording was made of that session, for those of you who’d like to row-along with it. That screen recording is available on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 30 minute pyramid 05082019
After the 30 minutes of rowing, there was a 135 calorie SkiErg session.
Happy rowing to you!
HR Interference, Ho Hum
Today’s main session was anticipated as being a lot of fun. It was to be a short but lively set of three 750 meter intervals, with each interval followed by one minute of rest. But irregular heart rate bungled its way onto the scene again, after the first interval, so I had to slow down and take it easy for the rest of the session.
A screen recording was made of the rowing session but I decided not to upload it, since it was not done the way intervals should be done.
Afterwards, I did another work/rest SkiErg session, for 134 Calories.
Happy rowing to you!
5K Interfered With
Today’s main workout started out well enough but HR acted up and the plan had to be abandoned. It was a 5K rowing session and the plan was to row the first 1,000 meters at 22 SPM, the second 1K at 26, the third at 22 etc. But after the first 1,000 meters, heart rate jumped to high and stayed too high no matter how much I slowed the pace. I stopped about midway, went into another room to get a drink of water and take an aspirin, but HR stayed too high.
After the 5K was done, I took a little break before doing the 1K warm down and HR returned to normal for the warm down.
After the rowing, I did 133 Calories of alternating work/rest on the SkiErg.
Happy rowing to you!
Intervals of Clarity
Today’s workout time was blessed with clarity. That is, there was no confusion of the heart as happened yesterday.
The main session was on the rowing machine. It was a combination of 2,000 meter warmup, three intervals of 750 meters each with 3 minutes active rest after each interval and a 1,000 meter warm down.
After the rowing workout, 132 Calories was burned on the SkiErg.
The rowing intervals session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available for those of you who’d like to row-along with it. The video is located at this link: Indoor Rowing 3X750 meters Rest 3 minutes 05052019
Happy rowing to you!
Confusion of the Heart
Today’s main rowing session was a series of twenty intervals of 20 seconds, with 4o seconds of rest after each. After completing 7 or 8 of the intervals, heart rate got a bit confused. At the very end of the session, heart rate got very confused and went up when effort went down. It seemed logical to slow down when heart rate was acting that way, so the intervals weren’t as vigorous as hoped.
The session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available for anyone who’d like to row-along with it, at this link: Indoor Rowing 20X20 seconds R 40 seconds 05042019
Happy rowing to you!
Workout At Your Computer?
A computer like the one in the photo above might give you a good workout, if you had a lot of polynomial functions to solve. (The above image was found in a Wikipedia article titled: Computing). But I think I will keep my Mac as main computer and use the Concept 2 ergs for my main calorie burning, heart-rate elevating workouts.
Today I decided to get an early start on making a blog entry, so the paragraph, title and two above images are being posted before I’ve done any workout. There will be an update later today, after the workout(s) are completed.
At the moment, the plan is to do a 30 minute series of intervals on the rowing machine and about 130 calories on the SkiErg.
It is now later in the day and some time was spent on both rowing machine and SkiErg. The main session was the rowing, which was six sets of 2 minute work/1 minute rest intervals. After that, I did a 30 second sprint on the SkiErg and then a 130 Calorie set of work/rest intervals on the SkiErg.
The rowing session was recorded and uploaded to YouTube for anyone who would like to row-along with it. It is available at this link: Indoor Rowing Six 2-Minute Intervals 05032019
Happy rowing to you!