Assessing Fatigue Resistance
Winning races often comes down to the final stroke. Producing high power output for the duration of an event or a multiple-race regatta requires fatigue resistance, which is another dimension of endurance.
Rowing trials are performed typically in a fresh state with minimal fatigue. The ability to produce hard effort in the late stage of a race or regatta, however, is another way to identify the potential for success when selecting crews or to determine whether you’re getting better.
Here are two ways to assess fatigue resistance as a specific ability:
Warm up 15 to 20 minutes, then perform a fresh maximal effort at the beginning of a row followed by a period of steady rowing and then a fatigued maximal effort to see how much your power has dropped between the fresh and the fatigued effort.
One approach is to row seven minutes at 30 strokes per minute, record the meters, then row 40 minutes steady at 24 s.p.m. followed by seven minutes at 30 s.p.m., and record the meters.
Another approach is to perform your fresh and fatigued efforts according to your RPE, or Rating of Perceived Effort. Row seven minutes at RPE 8/10, record the meters, then row 40 minutes steady at 24 s.p.m. followed by seven minutes at RPE 8/10, and record the meters.
If conditions on your waterway are variable, it’s better to test on an indoor rower. Make the length of your efforts race-specific and test under similar environmental conditions, such as heat, altitude, and humidity, all of which can affect your level of fatigue.
You can customize your test according to the event for which you’re preparing so that you have a basis of comparison that allows you to track changes over time. With a good level of fatigue resistance, the decline between your fresh and fatigued efforts will be less than five to eight percent.
Next month, we’ll explore how to improve fatigue resistance.
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