Reading research: The Effects of High-Intensity Interval Training in Well-Trained Rowers

After reviewing Steve Redgrave‘s awesome autobiography yesterday, I felt it was time for a bit of rowing-related research.

Technically, this is sculling, but close enough (photo by BBM Explorer)

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What’s the study again?

It’s called The Effects of High-Intensity Interval Training in Well-Trained Rowers, by Matthew W. Driller, James W. Fell, John R. Gregory, Cecilia M. Shing, and Andrew D. Williams, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2009.

The purpose of the study was to compare a traditional steady-state rowing training programme to a high-intensity intervals programme over a period of 4 weeks in already well-trained rowers.  The success of the two programmes was assessed by means of the Concept 2, 2,000m time trial, a common testing measure for rowers.

The study found that the high-intensity training programme yielded better results than the traditional programme.

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Why do this study?

Well, as the authors note, there often comes a point for well-trained athletes, at which improvements in performance become difficult to attain and increases in training volume cease to yield improvements.

As a result, athletes and coaches are often motivated to find alternative approaches to achieve additional gains (no, not like that).  The authors of this study therefore reviewed earlier research and concluded that it was likely that already well-trained endurance athletes could benefit from some high-intensity interval training (HIT).

The authors hypothesised that these performance improvements would be due to changes in maximum oxygen consumption (VO2-max), anaerobic (or lactate) threshold, and rowing economy.

One of the great things about this study is that it did use athletes and not the general population.  I have to confess that I have pretty much given up reading studies in which the researchers drag some average Joe off the street.  They subject him to strange and wonderful machine-based exercise regimes and then trumpet how effective their protocol is.  Frankly, lifting a beer glass will improve most people’s strength these days, so they will always get good results from whatever half-baked protocol they use.

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And what were the details of the training, exactly?

OK, this is where we get down to the nitty gritty.  The traditional rowing training programme was as follows:

• Twice per week training sessions
• 7 sessions in total
• 2 different sessions each week
• The first session as 60 mins at blood lactate concentrations of 2 mmol·L−1
• The second session as 55 mins at blood lactate concentration of 3 mmol·L−1

Since onset of blood lactate accumulation starts at c. 4 mmol·L−1, these sessions were completely aerobic in nature.

The HIT protocol was as follows:

• Twice per week training sessions
• 7 sessions in total
• 8 intervals per training session
• 90% of 4-min all-out effort (c. 1,500m sprint speed)
• 2.5 minutes per interval
• continual rowing at 40% of 4-min all-out effort until their heart rate returned to 70% of maximum between intervals

The traditional and high-intensity training programmes were designed to have broadly the same energy expenditure.

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Where the differences substantial?

Broadly, yes.  The 2,000m time improved by c. 8s for the HIT group and this was reflected by an increase in VO2-max.  The researchers concluded that it was improvements in VO2-max that was the single largest factor involved in achieving the 2,000m time trial improvement.

In other words, HIT improves your aerobic fitness (whatever that is) faster than traditional endurance work.  Oh, how you CrossFitters must love reading that…

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Let’s come back down to earth

Before we all run away with the idea that all rowers should now immediately start doing intervals all the time instead of traditional steady-state work, let’s just identify a couple of problems with the study:

• The study was for only 4 weeks.  A longer period of intervals might lead to staleness and lack of improvements.  This might be an interesting future study, in fact.
• The British rowing team under Steve Redgrave improved when they shifted to steady state work rather than intervals
• Concept 2 rowing might not be completely comparable to on-water rowing, although most people think it is pretty damn close
• Most steady state programmes include more than two sessions per week.  I would like to see a study where the endurance work was completed every day and the intervals three times a week.

My experience

At this point, I can confess that I once took my 2,000m rowing time as a light-weight (>75kg) down from 7mins 35s to 6mins 45s just using three 45min interval sessions per week.  I didn’t get stale and I got broadly linear improvements each week.  My long-suffering coach, a former Oxford rower, was somewhat surprised, I have to say.

Whether I would have made any further improvements, it is hard to say.  I do know that it was very hard on the system and I came down with colds quite frequently, especially when I had to tighten up my diet to stay in the 75kg weight class.

I suspect that trying to achieve these kind of improvements at a high level would be extremely brutal and a mix of steady state and intervals might be the way to go.