ergos

Question
Hey

My name is Adam and im currently 14 and pulling a 7.14 and i would like to be able to pull a 6.50 withing a couple of months

how can i achieve this

Answer
Hi Adam: First off, I want to tell you where you stand.  According to the Concept II World Rankings, for 14-15 year old heavyweights, your 7:14 ranks you 34th out of 78 rowers.  So you are much better than average.

I get a lot of erg questions, but the toughest one to answer is the "I pulled an 8:50 for 2000 yesterday, I want to get it down below 6:00 by tomorrow?"  

For one thing, I don't know if you are on a crew team or you are just land-locked and doing erg workouts.  This is important, if you are gifted athletically, but not being coached, you may be rowing technically wrong.  Correcting a flaw in your stroke could cut you time down by several seconds.

I think your goal of cutting your time down by 24 seconds in 2 months is a bit over-ambitious.  A time of 6:50 would make your time the second best in the world for someone your age.  If you are at your physical peak and rowing technically sound, it's a lot harder to squeeze out those extra seconds, compared to a beginner who has lots of room for improvement.  Also, if you are on a crew team, you are going to be out on the water in a few weeks.  You are going to be doing a lot more on-water workouts and less erg workouts.  Typically, erg times don't improve that much during the actual racing season as your body starts to burn out a little over the course of a phyically grueling season.

I think you need to set a more reasonable goal like cracking 7:05 in 2 months.  To improve any erg time, you need to do two things:

1) Increase your cardiovascular and strength base
2) Emphasis on getting out to a faster pace at the start of an erg piece and sustaining it longer.

Weight lifting, particularly working out your legs, will give you the power to get the meter at 1:35 or lower at the start and first 300 meters or so.  You need to do a routine of heavy leg workouts to gain strength.  Be careful if you do squats with heavy weight -- have a spotter.  Also do a good all-around upper body exercise like bench presses.  I also heard of people pushing cars in neutral in an empty lot.  This will really burn your legs.

Endurance training consists of long runs, running up hills and doing several sets of climbing stairs.  You need to do this 2-3 times a week to keep you going strong through the middle of your piece.

Finally, you need to do a variety of erg workouts to emphasize all aspects of conquering the 2K piece.  You could do the following:

Monday: 1-Hour piece at a low stroke rate (or 15000 meters)
Tuesday: 8X500 or 4X1000 at racing tempo
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 2000 meter time trial.

The Concept II Website has several other workouts you can try.  The new ergometers also have built in workout routines.

Good Luck/AP