Today’s rowing session was better than the sloppiness of yesterday’s, because HR was better behaved. It was a little bit confused, as can be readily seen from the rowing session graphs of HR and correlating pace, but overall was definitely better than yesterday.
The rowing session was a continuous 6K which contained a set of 4 moderate intervals of 750 meters each. The first 1,000 meters was warmup, then there were four sets of 750 meter intervals alternated with 2 minutes rest and the remainder of the distance was a warm down.
Today’s SkiErg session, like yesterday’s, had zero HR irregularities. It seems that if there is going to be any heart rate irregularity, it is more likely to show up during a rowing session. Go figure (as I also said yesterday…).
Today’s main erg workout was a set of 7 one-minute sprints. They were done within a 30 minute continuous session. The first 10 minutes was warmup, then the intervals (one minute sprints) began. Each interval was followed with 30 seconds of easy/rest rowing.
My preference is to have a uniform, crisp-looking graph but today’s wasn’t. It was sloppy. The reason it was sloppy is because after the first or second interval, heart rate started being too high and also irregular.
After the rowing session I did a session on the SkiErg which also included sprints. It included 8 sprints, each of which were done at a higher power level than the rowing sprints. Interestingly, heart rate remained 100% regular and in a normal range for the entire workout on the SkiErg. Go figure.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
While I was changing from rowing clothes back into jeans and t-shirt, my better half walked into the room and remarked, “You worked out for a long time! Are you making up for some missed workouts?” I gazed at her and gathered my thoughts for a moment before responding, “No. It wasn’t a long workout, but I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking.”
Today’s rowing workout was 5,000 meters rowing at specific target stroke rates for each of the five 1K splits. The rating targets were 26-24-22- 24-26 Strokes Per Minute. It took a lot of mental focus. I had a dreamy attitude but the wandering thoughts and daydreaming were done before and after the 5K with its targeted strokes-per-minute for each 1K split.
After the rowing, I did a 129 Calorie session on the SkiErg, arranged in alternating splits of 10 calories work/10 calories rest.