Tips from Abel Hastings
How to Get Faster - Faster
No matter who you are, you probably like the idea of going fast. Maybe it's the idea of winning a race or just knowing your body is working and working well. But whatever your reason, you just finished that 10 k training loop of yours 6 seconds quicker than last week, and there is a smile on your face. Improved speed in your boat is the result of all the fun (and yes, a little pain) you have can have doing interval training. Well-planned interval training is the cornerstone to any training program to get faster, faster.
What are Intervals
Before jumping into it, let's review four important definitions.
* Aerobic exercise - Energy output can be physically matched by an input of oxygen (from breathing). In essence, this means that a person's respiration rate can physically keep up with their muscles' need for oxygen.
* Anaerobic exercise - Respiration rate can no longer keep up with our muscles' need for oxygen. Our body responds to anaerobic exercise by switching to another chemical reaction to provide energy to the muscles, called the lactic acid system.
* Anareobic threshold - The heart rate, at which the body begins to switch from aerobic to anaerobic exercise. In reality, this switch isn't an all or nothing change. The body actually does both anaerobic and aerobic at the same time, gradually increasing to more anaerobic as the body's inability to match oxygen to output increases.
* Interval training - exercise that varies in intensity and includes segments of aerobic and segments of partially anaerobic exercise.
Why intervals
Interval training has some specific results which I feel are well-suited to paddling including cardiovascular andmuscular growth, speed-technique, and mental toughness. Interval training has been shown to have a significant effect on the cardiovascular system, specifically heart stroke volume, which is the amount of blood the heart can pump in one beat. A higher stroke volume means your heart works less to supply a given blood flow. Interval training also tends to build muscles. Stronger muscles mean more power. Because boat speed rises and falls with each stroke, boat speed has a strong connection to muscular strength. Interval training also helps build what I term speed-technique. In my opinion, various boats speeds require slightly different techniques. At high speeds I often find myself focusing on technique elements that are not applicable at lower speeds. Interval training, with its forays into higher speeds requires that we pay attention to these new elements and develop them. The result: a smoother technique at high speeds, helping us stay at high speed longer. Finally, interval training builds, and requires, mental toughness. When I began training I foolishly thought that training would become less painful as I got better. In fact, the reality is that training becomes more painful as we get stronger. We end up becoming more capable of handling the right kind, and the right level of pain for a longer time. I feel that this mental toughness is best built by experience.
How and how many
In my opinion, interval training is a highly personal type of training, therefore I won't specifically tell you how many or how much but I can give you some guidelines. Regardless of whether you work with a coach or by yourself, the development of an interval training plan requires that you are highly engaged in the development of the plan itself. If you work with a coach make sure they are working with you and not just handing you a stock training plan. You also need to be willing to listen to your body and take note of physiological cues. When starting off, many athletes end up over training because they are so used to workouts such as a 90 minute slog-fest, that a 50 minute workout appears short. Interval workouts are typically short and painful but require more time to recover from.
How
Each interval should raise your heart rate to a level above your anaerobic threshold. Many people sense when they transition from aerobic to anaerobic exercise by their breathing. Respirations go from deep and steady breaths to rapid breaths. Interval lengths should span a spectrum from one minute to five minutes. A one minute interval is just barely enough for your heart rate to level off at an anaerobic level, five minutes is about as long as most athletes can maintain a heart rate above their anaerobic threshold without dipping down. I aim to make the one minute intervals 100% anaerobic and at a very high heart rate while the five minute intervals are at a lower heart rate and may include some aerobic metabolism and some anaerobic metabolism.
How Many
How many intervals an athlete can perform is largely dependant on the athlete. As you get stronger you'll be able to do more intervals but the general rule of thumb is that you should do intervals only as long as you can maintain high quality anaerobic intervals. I judge this by a mixture of speed and heart rate. If I can no longer get my heart rate above the anaerobic threshold, stop. If my speed goes down significantly, stop. You need to be willing to listen to your body before, during and after the workout. Avoid overtraining by doing just a few intervals in a short workout and work your way up. Evaluate your recovery level before you get on the water. Get your body ready for a high quality workout. Observe your technique, speed, and heart rate during the workout. My quality, speed, technique dropped significantly during the workout. And after the workout keep a close watch on how you feel and how long it takes to recover from the workout. Your recovery will determine howoften you're able to do intervals. Many high level athletes may only do intervals once or twice a week.
Give Yourself Feedback
Feedback during interval training is necessary and can often take the form of high tech gadgets. I use both a heart rate monitor and a GPS for feedback on how my workout is progressing. The heart monitor tells me if my intervals cross the anaerobic threshold and by how much and tells me if my rest periods between intervals are adequate. The GPS gives me feedback about my speed, technique and exhaustion level. Using the combination of heart rate and speed also allows for objective technique evaluation. As technique improves you will be able to maintain a given heart rate and improve your speed. I also like to set up my interval workouts such that I have the same objective measurement in both the early and late portions of the intervals to help gauge the workout and how tired I'm becoming. Many GPS units have a built-in auto lap feature that can alert you to the time required to cover a particular distance. The example workout includes this element for a 500 meter interval in the beginning and the end of the workout. Remember to use the heart monitor to gauge your intervals and your rest periods. The rest periods should be long enough for your heart rate to return to a comfortable level and allow the next interval to be high quality. If you don't allow yourself to rest enough between intervals your interval intensity will go down until you can lo longer elevate your heart rate to an anaerobic level.
Focus on Technique
Technique is especially important during interval workouts. I have mentioned it above a few times but its importance cannot be overstated. The whole workout, including warm-up, intervals, rest periods, and cool-down should include good technique. Ideally, the technique will differ from high-speed power technique during the intervals to low-speed, smoothness technique, but the emphasis on technique remains, especially as you get tired. As we get tired, our technique goes down, which in turn means that paddling at a given speed is more exhausting, which saps our energy that much faster. It's a vicious cycle that can only be broken by practicing good technique.
Now that you know some of the basic elements to interval training the real learning can begin. Allow each workout to guide the next by showing you what was too much, too little, and how long you need to recover both in rest periods and days between interval workouts, as well as how you can measure your progress. I have gathered the above elements of interval training from years of reading, trial and error, listening to my body, and swapping ideas with other athletes. I encourage you to do the same. If you do, I think you'll find yourself achieving the ultimate goal of getting faster, faster.
Appendix:
Determine your Anaerobic Threshold with a Conconi Test (see upper right hand column):
This test requires slowly and steadily increasing exercise output while measuring heart rate. To do this test you'll need both a recording heart rate monitor and a GPS:
Choose a deep, straight, and protected route for this test. The more consistent the water the better.
1. Begin with a 15 minute warm-up
2. After the warm-up, begin paddling at a very easy speed (about 25% below your warm up pace)
3. At each minute increase your speed by a small increment. (I use a GPS set to display pace/km and I increase my speed by 5sec/km at each minute)
4. Continue increasing your speed each minute until you can no longer match the required speed.
5. Cool-down and stretch
6. Download data from both the GPS and the heart rate monitor.
7. Plot the data with speed on the x-axis and heart rate on the y-axis beginning with the minute after your warm-up
8. The data should form a straight and upward sloping line at low speeds and should break from a straight line at higher speed by trending towards a much steeper slope. This breakpoint is your anaerobic threshold. (see example chart)
Example Workout:
This workout works well if you use a GPS that features an auto-lap that can be set to 500m. This feature allows automatic measurement of the intervals in bold. This helps evaluate your exhaustion level throughout the workout. Expect your first 500m to be faster that your last. Your goal should be to minimize this speed decrease without slowing the first interval.
1. 2000m warm-up
2. 500m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling (auto-measured interval)
3. 250m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
4. 250m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
5. 1000m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
6. 250m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
7. 250m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
8. 1000m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
9. 250m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling
10. 250m interval followed by 500m easy recovery paddling (note long recovery)
11. 500m interval followed by 250 easy recovery paddling (auto-measured interval)
12. Minimum of 1000m cool-down
Total workout is about 10km
A similar workout can be done by switching the distances for time.
