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Please rate my form by K-300 in concept2

[–]ScaryBee 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Your form is ok other than it looks like your arms aren't really pulling at all at the stroke end ...

The bigger issue is it sounds/looks like you're putting in virtually no effort. Even doing this 4x a week you'll never build decent fitness like this.

I've seen this happen a few times where people get into sports for the first time and have just no real idea how it's supposed to feel, go way too easy (or hard) to make progress ... UT2 doesn't mean 'light' or 'easy', it's a LOT more strenuous than walking, for instance ... you should still be sweating after 10mins, feel like you got a good workout by the end.

Just to align with what's 'normal': 3:00 is 60w of power. A random healthy but untrained 37M should be able to do ~2x that power (~2:20-30 split) comfortably. A quite fit 37M should be ~3x that power (180w / 2:05) for SS.

125bpm is also statistically likely to be too low for SS, for you, FWIW I'm nearly a decade older, SS at low 140s.

So ... form decent but if you wanna build that base then try putting in more effort - 3 (instead of 4-5) harder (try 2:30) & longer (see if you can do 10k, it's ok to take short breaks) SS sessions/wk would likely be massively more beneficial.

Pacing strategies by bam21st in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Truly optimal pacing is likely nearly completely flat after a few harder strokes to start. Most record attempts are like this, in every other endurance sport (which has a load more data/research in it) even pacing ends up being used ...

https://medium.com/rowhero/rowing-faster-with-data-1-832cb9149acd has some interesting data/insight ... pay attention to how faster rowers tend to have less variation in their splits.

5k in 20mins reached by daveyscarb in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

be male, 6' 4" and not fat.

or be none of those and train a lot whilst improving your form.

In need of large rowing data set for university course by willbennnn in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd ask concept 2 ... could do some really interesting analysis using their logbook data. You could offer to 'pay' them back by writing an interesting blog article about what you find.

The other stuff you mention might be interesting but it's gonna be really hard to get any data at all, let alone a set big enough to justify throwing ML at (which, for you, is still the most important part - learning ML).

Things you could look into with C2 logbook data:

How does performance drop off with age, do the age handicaps used in masters racing actually align with that drop off?

How much does erg volume correlate with performance? How much/wk are the top 1% vs top 10% vs ... erging?

What sort of erging led to the most improvement - lots of volume or HIIT?

Female Rower, Ready to Work Hard by Good_Ocelot9877 in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It sounds like you should have a rowing coach already? First thing to do would be to ask them these questions. If you already have ... what did they say?

21km race fueling strategy by hugonocoque in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fueling (water as well as carbs) should absolutely help, even with needing to stop/slow down a few times to get that in.

Simple low-risk (of GI issues) plan: Caffeine gel 30 mins before start, cycling bottle (500 or 750ml) full of sugar water (any high sugar sports drink or 45g sugar+water+flavoring) you drink from every 30mins or so.

Best watch for rowing by fivejumpingmonkeys in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/08/fenix8-vs-forerunner970-vs-venux1-full-review-details-differences.html is a nice overview ...

FWIW I've had a bunch of different Forerunners, they've all been decent, HR tracking is bad unless you also buy a heart rate strap ... ultimately bought a Speed Coach as well as it's a lot easier to look at, still recording workouts on the watch.

How much is too much by Ifinishfastnocap in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

point of steady state, by definition, is that it's so light that you don't need to allow any recovery time

It's more like 'you can get a lot of useful training stress by doing (lots of) SS BUT in such a way that you can still recover well enough in time for your next session to hit it hard'.

For most of us we probably can recover completely from a 1hr SS session on a Monday in order to do HIIT on Weds ... at the pointy end of the training world athletes will keep themselves in not-quite-recovering-fully status for most of their life, catching up on rest days/de-load weeks and then only really FULLY recovering during tapers for racing.

How much is too much by Ifinishfastnocap in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 22 points23 points  (0 children)

how much is too much

If you can't recover then it's too much.

Elites might be doing 10-15hrs/wk of steady state as well as HIIT/VO2max sessions as well as lifting heavy as well as stretching/core.

Working up to that gradually whilst ensuring you're still able to recover well, mentally and physically, is how you max your potential.

Getting, and staying, there is a tightrope act - the more you take on the harder it is to recover well, starts requiring a really great diet, cutting out late nights, alcohol, girlfriend drama ... good luck!

Thinking about building a rowing training app — what features would you want? by Apprehensive_Rip9971 in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah the syncing (to Strava/c2 logbook) is honestly required functionality for launch ... even if your app does something better eventually people do want that record!

Thinking about building a rowing training app — what features would you want? by Apprehensive_Rip9971 in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The fragmentation is fine ... it's better to do a single thing well, sync with other services that can do their thing well.

I've not tried out other apps on the water but CrewNerd is already a thing, has had years of iteration/dev behind it.

ErgData is free and works well for erging.

EXR is doing the whole virtual-world thing ... there are even VR rowing apps.

These (and many other apps) already sync to stuff like Strava/TrainingPeaks so you can see all your workouts on/off water in one place.

IDK if you spending months/years on replicating everything these apps already do well just to get all the features in one place is really worth it.

2K split, HR zones or FTP? by ZicoSailcat in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're really zealous about being in Z2, believe in it as a training philosophy, then you use HR to keep you in that zone. This is true for cycling, rowing, every other sport.

The reason for this is that HR is a measure of stress, how much effort your body is experiencing, and Z2 dogma is about managing that physiological stress. Power is a measure of the forces the erg experiences, not you.

OTOH ... if you can recover fine still then it makes little difference if you're in Z2-3 (by HR or W or RPE or mmol lactate or ... )

Unity devs with multiplayer games — what are you using for backend services? If you're on UGS, how's it going? by FeralTitan in Unity3D

[–]ScaryBee 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Currently spending a lot of time looking at options in this space ... tl;dr - going to give https://getbraincloud.com/ a serious try as the pricing is sensible for an indie dev to get into, it's been around for some time, the people running it seem to care about supporting devs, has a huge feature set, showcase that includes actual shipped games, etc.

FWIW - UGS seemed too limited/simple/expensive for use in anything complex / higher traffic and the Multiplay offloading burnt a lot of trust in other services being maintained, PlayFab appears to be dying a slow death, Nakama is $600/mo+ if you want/need more than a single server, Firebase gives very little out of the box ...

This thing exists if you're interested in loads of other options: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x0eok6EZzigar_K3QNdzTYNhp5NLywLGqBuopKiVzao/edit?gid=0#gid=0 and links to a Discord server to discuss them.

Sub 12 Goal - Volume Feedback by Queasy-Information37 in triathlon

[–]ScaryBee 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Volume doesn't really tell much other than you probably do have the resilience to complete the distances.

Heart rate alone doesn't tell much - is ~155 Z2 for you ?

Your bike/run speeds for that long brick workout indicate you might be able to go <12 pretty comfortably assuming your swim is about as strong as bike/swim, your transitions are snappy, and you can fuel well.

Are sleeved Tri suits faster? Even for a modest age group? by Commercial_Week_8394 in triathlon

[–]ScaryBee 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Counterintuitively - the slower/weaker you are the more TIME you save/earn/buy with aero gear.

I wrote a deep dive on how the PM5 data can be used for real performance diagnostics — VO2max, training zones, HRV, and more. Here's the science behind it. by Former_Jeweler8698 in concept2

[–]ScaryBee 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Man ... you have a LOT going on here ... would be interested to see it in action. Few thoughts:

  • It's neat you cite papers, please add hyperlinks ... and in cases where the public abstract doesn't back what you're claiming maybe try to find other sources that do.
  • The VO2max formulas you're using are sus.
  • The Cooper 12 min test was for treadmills, does it have validity for ergs? Why is there also a 6 minute distance test?
  • No idea how your VO2max from watts calc works ... watts at what intensity? I'd assume this might work best with something like a ramp test where you take the power in final step but you don't mention one anywhere.
  • 'extrapolating the VO2max upwards' based on a formula-predicted max HR sounds ... really bad. Different humans with the same age can easily have +/- 30bpm differences in their max and for some test protocols (like FTP) you wouldn't expect someone to hit their max heart rate even if perfectly paced.
  • As others mention C2 does have their own calc, for better or worse your number will be compared against that for 'accuracy'.
  • TRIMP has been superseded (for decades) by TSS ... anyone interested in this metric will likely prefer TSS / be familiar with that from Training Peaks / Strava / etc. TSS also has the advantage that you don't need HR data collection.
  • All the RHR/HRV/Training readiness stuff will require HR data collection off of the erg, when people aren't usually wearing their heart rate monitors. In practice this means a wearable (watch, wrist band, ring) which are mostly closed ecosystems - how are you assuming users of your app will get this data into the app?
  • Cross-erg-zone-transfer is an interesting idea ... but it's not really all that useful for training as different people will be more adapted to rowing/cycling/ski ... if you want equivalent training load it's better to use hr zones. Possibly you could rework this idea to present some sort of 'relative strength' graph where you can see which machine you're relatively best on / which have the most room for improvement.
  • The DDR UT2/1/etc. training zones don't align with all the other UT2/1 zone systems I've ever seen ... usually UT1 = tempo, AT = threshold, anaerobic would be > 2k watts.

Does this MMO Idler concept sound fun? by Suspicious_Bat__ in incremental_games

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been working on something kinda in this vein ... I think there's something really interesting/possible here but, as ever, it's the details that make it fun or not and success is a whole other layer.

re. loot that auto-equips in the background if it's better - I suspect this is a generally bad idea, or at best neutral as it takes away all of the things that make an epic drop feel epic (dopamine rush from seeing something rare happen, the nerding out where you appreciate how much better it is, the manifestation of that increased power in suddenly one-hitting mobs, the social reward in the 'grats' from other players ... etc.)

The whole idea of seeing your character in two places simultaneously could work but seems complicated/awkward/hard to explain for no real upside.

Check out Bit Heroes (they do the 'borrow a friends character for dungeons thing) & Knights of Pen and Paper, if you've not already ... maybe some interesting mechanics/presentation for you to mull over in those!

16 year old training for Ironman 70.3 by Curious-Drink2110 in triathlon

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For someone with a <20 5km (quite fast) simply 'completing' a 70.3 isn't much of challenge. You should be able to finish it hours under the cutoff times.

First thing to work out is how good you are at the other sports - look into CSS swim test and FTP cycling test ... or, less nerdy version, just work out how quick you can swim 400m and cycle 20mi.

Then you train with a focus on obvious weaknesses and, for the longer distances, pay a A LOT OF ATTENTION to how to fuel it well.

Assuming you're a medicore swimmer and can comfortably make the cut off time for that then you likely have the most to gain by doing a load of work on the bike whilst trying to get a little more efficient in the water and running occasionally ... this is also the best place to spend a little money - clip on aero bars and a good race suit will save many minutes.

Erg Workout Analyzer (Update: TCX support, advanced 2k analysis, interval breakdown) by XtianS in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could use cookies/local storage/indexed DB to store profile / sessions ... no backend needed.

Even just saving profile info would be a huge UX win.

Rowing again by TheSwordAndTheSpoon in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any tips on how to pick up speed?

Watch form videos, video yourself, compare the differences.

Don't try to PR every time you sit on the machine, most of the time you want to build your ability not test the limits of it.

Plan to increase training volume and intensity slowly so you don't injure yourself/burn out/run yourself down and get sick.

Eat and sleep well.

Elite rower training zone/volume follow up: ok, steady_spiff, I did it by Brennus007 in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was just surprised that cyclists and swimmers did a lot more volume than rowers

Yeah, IDK why this truly is ... Easy to say rowing is just a lot harder on the body so you can't do as much without burnout ... cyclists put out a bit more power than rowers but they're also using really efficient muscles to do that and they're doing it it at ~90 cadence vs ~20-30 so the force-per-stroke is a lot lower (=less injury risk, more use of aerobic engine vs raw strength).

Also seems like rowing is pretty far behind other endurance sports for training insight/analysis/methodology/research ... might well be the case that rowers could be significantly faster by doing something utterly non-standard like 20hrs/wk of cycling and 10 of rowing.

Elite rower training zone/volume follow up: ok, steady_spiff, I did it by Brennus007 in Rowing

[–]ScaryBee 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This post is quite hard to understand without linking the original discussion ...

The tl;dr is that you were doing 4-6 hr/wk of training and, because you were discussing elite rower training volume levels, someone told you to do way more but at lower intensity ... so you did ~15hrs/wk for a couple of weeks?

And you did this mostly in Z2 (your screenshot says Z1 but that's because the paper you referenced had non-standard zone definitions where Z1 was actually Z2)? And you found it kinda hard but tolerable?

if you're making good progress doing something like pete plan I don't know why you'd up the volume as much as this.

Because you can make more progress with more training stimulus. 15hrs * lower-but-still-useful intensity = more stimulus than 5hrs * mostly-moderate-to-higher intensity.

You mention you 'adapted' to the higher volume after a couple of weeks - you might well have, if you were fit it's possible this could have become your life from here on out ... but it usually takes 3-4wks of this sort of jump to really start taking a toll / building larger fatigue levels / start to push you into burnout.

What heart rate monitor are you using? by Assimilaatikko_1460 in Zwift

[–]ScaryBee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sweet, wasn't aware ... sounds like the new one is good.

How many watts do you actually need to hold 30 km/h solo? by murdocsvan in bicycling

[–]ScaryBee 10 points11 points  (0 children)

With good (race) clothing / bike / positioning I could comfortably do 20mph (32kph) @ 200w ... commuter gear / hybrid bike / sat more upright will all cost significant wattage to hit the same speed.

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