How Much Steady State Should You Do? | Thoughts on Appropriate UT2 Volume (Beginner to Intermediate)

In this video I talk best practices for determining an appropriate duration and volume of steady state to include in your training.
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[@Adam-rc2wk]

You are so right about rowing burning people out. It's the culture of the sport!
Long, hard ergs sap the motivation so much when you have too many of them.

[@griffithsnellman1405]

One of my favorites is 2x 1 hour with a 5 minute break to get off the erg, stretch a little, etc. Add 6 second sprints every 20 minutes, keep the watts low, throw on a podcast and it’s not as tough as 2 hrs on the erg may seem.

[@hellboystein2926]

Thanks for your contents Travis, always an inspiration, and always good to hear a man with similar experiences in regards to the mismanagement in the youth sector like you describe it at ~Min.19. But I guess there is an even bigger bug in our state and national teams hear at home: They BARLEY even know how to train in a GOOD way, even they realy wanted to, mid-aged recreational triathletes, runners, cyclers seem to perform better in this regards than our 'elite youth teams',...
Trying to relearn that peace for myself and the people in my club i like to work with, as I said always a pleasure and inspiration to hear to one of your talks!

[@vixenishdavoix4619]

Hi Travis, wonderful video as usual. I have a pretty straightforward question: Around 15:00 you talk about how if you're good to do a 30min UT2 session (for example), don't do 30min every day, instead alternate 30/15/30/15 etc.
I understand you've talked at length about providing adaptation to the body and mixing things up, but I can't reconcile how (in a 4 day example above) 30 less minutes (or equivalent) over your microcycle provides a better stimulus. Is there a reason besides mental that this is better than an a 30/30/30/30? Could an equivalent be 30UT2 / 15UT1 / 30UT2 / 15UT1?

[@TravisGardner]

Two points here that should help,
1) You should always avoid a flat loading pattern as it is the least effective way to progress fitness. Let's run with your example of 30' a day. You'll get a far better training stimulus shifting between 40' firm and 20' light or 45' firm and 15' light than you will doing 30s every day. The core principle of training is stress and adapt. The higher volume will create a better training stimulus and the low easy volume will keep you moving while facilitating adaptation and recovery. The 30/15/30/15 is just a step on the way to 45/15/45/15 or even better, 60/30/60/30.
2) Your short days are your easy days. Your long days are your hard days. Don't make the mistake of going hard on short sessions and light on the long ones. That just brings you back into a flat loading pattern. Also, note that UT2/UT1 ratios are around 10% in the general base building phase and 60% in the pre-comp/comp phase. In other words, you'd do a 30' UT1 for every 300' (or 5x60') of UT2 in base phase and 180' of UT1 (or 6x30') for every 300' of UT2 in the precomp/comp phase.
Hope that helps!

[@davidjoy6587]

Hey, thanks for the videos! They are super informative and help my nerd brain understand things better. I was wondering how to use this strategy of alternating heavy and light days along with the microcycle example you had in a separate video (work/rest; work/rest/rest; work/work/rest). Is this just a very early method to build up volume before entering into a more regimented program, or should there be rest days here too? Thanks!

[@TravisGardner]

Alternating loading and unloading days is essential for programs, and you don't want to fall into the trap of changing the ratio to make your training more challenging. Everyone has their ratio they operate best with and any variation of training load will come through what you are doing on those loading days, not by increasing the load on the unloading days or by reducing their frequency. Remember, the loading days are what induce the training stimulus and the unloading days are when your body responds to that with adaptation. As your fitness increases, you will need a greater stimulus to trigger the adaptation, but you still need time to actually make the adaptaion.

[@bendtheoar839]

Asking from an intermediate perspective: what would be the minimum time for an effective training stimulus. I remember reading something about at least 50 minutes.

[@TravisGardner]

Any intermediate rower that wishes to compete at a high level in a standard on the water rowing distance should be able to complete 60-90 minutes of high quality (physically and technically) UT2 for a typical session.

[@donnachakeeley1818]

Do you think it is possible to do too much steady state particularly at a younger age im 16

[@TravisGardner]

Definitely. You should never do more than what is justified by your training history and capacity for work/recovery. If more was always better then competitive success would be a simple equation...

[@kevinberry7357]

Travis do you mean 30, 40, 60 minutes etc. straight with no break? What about 3 x 20 minutes with two minutes rest to drink water and stretch?

[@TravisGardner]

Hi Kevin, yes, that is what I mean (minus the water breaks, always drink when you need to). You are welcome to split it to help yourself mentally through the transition to higher volume but the goal is to progress to the point where the effort is continuous. Check out this other video of mine for details on how to setup your UT2 sessions, ruclips.net/video/6o95o0KzxMQ/видео.html.

[@kevinberry7357]

@@TravisGardner Thanks for the link to your video on UT2 sessions. Now I better understand the need to build up in duration and maintain a UT2 heart rate.
I will build up in length and conduct water "pit stops." Thanks.