1. Damper setting...a much debated topic in the crossfit world. What damper setting should a typical crossfit athlete use for a typical WOD involving rowing less than 1000m at a time?
The numbers on the side of the erg act as a guideline. Instead of going off that, hit "more options" and "display drag factor." This will give you an actual reading of the drag on the machine. Row at a decent pace (like 70% of max), see what number it gives you, and adjust it up or down based on what number your'e going for. Shoot between 120 and 135 - lower end if you're a smaller female, higher end if you're a bigger male. I heard some people saying they want to throw it up to 10 on the damper setting. I was surprised; as elite rowers, we do very little work at a 10. It makes the load really heavy, so you'll burn out sooner and it won't be efficient. What you want is to put a lot of power into each stroke but still be able to keep the fan moving and take a lot of strokes per minute, which is possible on the lower drag setting.
2. What is the most common fault you spot while people are rowing?
You see this one all the time and it makes all rowers cringe: after finishing the stroke, people bend their knees first and then have to lift their arms over their knees. Instead, your hands should come away from the body, then the upper body pivots over at the hips, THEN the legs bend. It's more of a three-part motion up the slide.
3. What does your typical warm up look like?
For a 500 / 1k on the erg? 10 minutes rowing at about 70% pressure, stretching, then 5-10 more minutes of going 10 strokes hard, 20 strokes easy. The "hard" should be at the split and rate you want to hold for the race and the easy should be paddling.
4. What does your typical recovery look like?
From any hard workout, it's at least a 15 minute cool-down, then taking care of the priorities: refueling and rehydrating while stretching and foam rolling.
5. I saw on your twitter that you made an interesting looking "kale-mango-pineapple-greentea-coconut-flax smoothie"…there was no recipe; will you share it or should we just burn it from our memory?
Oh man, my smoothies get a little crazy sometimes, depending on what I have in the kitchen. I never follow a recipe. I just throw stuff in and if it tastes yucky, add a little more of this or that until it's better. More often than not, you can't go wrong. Going off of memory, that recipe looked something like:
1/2 cup frozen mango
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
1/2 cup frozen kale
1 tsp matcha tea powder + 1/2 cup water
3/4 cup light coconut milk
a couple tsp ground flax seeds
a couple tsp chia seeds
I'm going for the Olympic Games in 2016, but the most important upcoming race is the 2014 World Championships. National selection for that starts in April. You can follow on my website - www.kristinhedstrom.com - where you'll find links to my blog, twitter account, and ways to support me.
Thanks again to Kristin for taking the time out to speak and work with us. Go check Kristin out and help support our Olympic athletes. There is a huge misconception that Olympic athletes make a ton of money like NBA or NFL players…they don't! These athletes bust their ass pursuing their passion, simply for the love of their sport. For 99% of these athletes there is NO money in becoming an Olympic athlete…hopefully this will change
“@spartangrass: KendrickJFarris do you do the Olympics for the money?”
What money?
— Kendrick J. Farris (@KendrickJFarris) November 29, 2013
USOC pays 25k for gold 15k for silver and 10k for bronze, this hasn't changed in over 10 years and due to inflation it's about 5k less.
— Kendrick J. Farris (@KendrickJFarris) November 29, 2013
 |
| Kristin and my fellow coaches after a great rowing workshop |
No comments:
Post a Comment