Coach Thrasher

Thursday's Erg Test, and Men's Grand Prix

We are doing a 2k test on Thursday afternoon (tomorrow).

Please get a good night's sleep tonight, and eat a healthy meal tonight, and for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Keep your carbohydrate intake up, and the fat intake down. It will make a significant difference in your score. Bring a carbohydrate/electrolyte drink to the Erg Studio as well.

We will be doing technique at practice on the water, so you are not fatigued for the afternoon erg.

I also want to announce that we will have a "Men's Grand Prix" erg challenge starting tomorrow. This is a performance contest, and award, for the Varsity Men. I have a nice plaque for the occasion, and your name could go on it.

The Men's Grand Prix will be awarded to the fastest power improvement, per body weight. That means (delta)Watts/Body Mass. The biggest improvement in Watts/Body Mass will win the award for any given distance. The "delta", which means "difference in" will be taken from your last erg at the given distance.

We're going to use the metric system! (So your mass won't be measured in pounds.)

Each erg test, and each erg practice, there will be a chance to unseat the current reigning winner. Therefore, the award may change hands each week!

Note that this is not an award for the "fastest erg". This is an award for the best improvement, balanced with your previous performance. So, the fastest person could win it, or the slowest person, depending on improvement from week to week.

The Grand Prix will be contested in all common erg distances: 500m, 2000m, 5000m, 6000m, 10,000m, Hour of Power. Like distances will always be compared, so that we'll never compare 2000m watts/kg. to 10,000m watts/kg.

What are these numbers?
watts: this is your average watts (power) for the erg piece (not the watts of the last stroke, the computer must say "avg watts")
kg: kilograms of body mass, measured by my scale. At sea level, we can convert to lbs (pounds) like this:
sample calculation
delta: the last erg watts/kg of the same distance.

Example calculation:
On Jan 1, Bobby pulled a 6:55 for 2000m, and he weights 200 lbs (90.7 kg). From the erg's computer, his average power was 207 watts.
So his watts per kg is: 207 / 90.7 = 2.3 w/kg

On Feb 1, Bobby pulled a 6:49 for 2000m, and he weighed 195 lbs (88.5 kg).
From the erg's computer, his average power was 225 watts.
So his watts per kg is: 225 / 88.5 = 2.5 w/kg

His delta is 2.5 - 2.3 = 0.2 w/kg

So, if he has the highest delta compared to everyone else, then he takes the Grand Prix for that erg.

Note that, because of the calculations, Bobby could have the same erg score, and average power, in February as in January, but have lost 18 lbs, and still have the same delta (I'll leave the math as an exercise for the reader :). So, you can win this by loosing weight, and by increasing your power (erg score), and you can also win by using different stroke rates.

Where the heck did Jason come up with this crazy math from? Well, it's actually a medically accepted way to measure athletic capacity. For comparison, Lance Armstrong can sustain 6.8 watts/kg!!! See more info here:
NY Times on Lance

Posted at 07:29PM Jan 24, 2007 by jason in Rowing  |