WODdoc Episode 267 Project365: 15.5 Strategy: Understanding The Rower

The last card in Dave Castro’s hand has been revealed. A couplet of mental torment. Rowing and thrusters make me want to cringe as I type this out. Before we run away though, there is a couple things we need to understand. First and foremost, rowing for meters is not equivalent to rowing for calories. When you go faster, the distance you go increases linearly but the energy you must expend increases exponentially. Think of this…. go out to your track and jog a 100m (50% intensity). Walk back and then sprint (100%). Yes your time my cut in half but the effort you need to exert will most likely quadruple. Calories is a measure of effort… how much energy are you putting into the system (not how fast are we going). End point…….. “By going just a little bit faster we are placing a lot more energy in the system thus counting calories much faster. Take a look at the graph below.

So what the hell does all this mean? Well, it’s like this. If we compare a 2:30/500 pace to a 2:20/500 pace in race 500m the math is simple. However that same comparison is 67 seconds (although the paper states :53) (http://ctowncrossfit.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/36/files/2014/12/Rower-Data.pdf) different in a 25cal race according to the graphs above.

This can change our strategy. I would suggest keeping a strong pace on the rower and breaking the thrusters into manageable sets.  We don’t want to become completely gassed on the thrusters because we need to maintain our established pace on the rower. As you can see above dropping our pace by only 10secs can have drastic time effects. Thanks the evil yet genius part of Dave Castro. Hats off to him!

Today’s WODdocket:

1. 100% 25cal row + 20 burpees

2. 80% 25cal row + 20 burpees

3. 50% 25cal row + 20 burpees

Mark down how you feel, your cal/hr, the time it took you to complete the row. Save for your strategy prep!