Analyzing Data From Workouts

[track_bites]

Many rowers use smartphones, speedcoaches and other tools to provide real time feedback on performance in the boat. On the erg, the PM provides similar feedback.

Almost all of these tools also provide the ability to capture performance data for analysis after the workout, but analyzing this data has always been a pain in the a$$. So much of a challenge that only hard core data freaks (like me) would do it. Another problem is that each of these tools pumps out data in unique formats which makes it harder to adapt to boats that might have different equipment. Finally, most rowers also do other sports for crosstraining or because winters get long and boring. Many track these workouts with tools like Strava or Training Peaks.

About a year ago, me and a friend got sick of the situation and we wrote some python scripts to help do data analysis. Since then, he has taken this very humble start and built it into something that I consider a really useful tool.

Basically, it's a website that helps rowers analyze rowing data and export that data to other workout trackers.

Here's an example of the basic analysis you can do for data from an on the water outing.
This was a basic Rate ladder workout. The top graph is heart rate. The colors are HR training zones. Next is pace. It's noisy because this is smartphone GPS data. After that is stroke rate.


Another useful view is "Time in Zone", which is used in many HR based training plans. Here's that view for the same workout.


If you are intrigued, skate on over https://rowsandall.com

There is a page with demo videos and it's pretty easy to figure out. It works with Speedcoach XL, Speedcoach GPS, CrewNerd, Rowing in Motion for OTW.

By the way, it's already been updated so you can analyze the data that comes out of the EmPower oarlock.

I'll post a couple more messages about how it works for erg workouts and other analysis stuff it can do.

Disclosure: The site is free, but does have a "premium" option which costs money (about 5 bucks). This money is used to defray hosting costs. I have no financial interest in the site and it is open source and non-commercial. I contributed some of the plotting functions, but not much else. The principal developer is a guy named Sander Roosendaal.

[track_bites]

Now on to erg data analysis. The site works with Concept2 ergs. You can use data from:
-- the concept2 ErgData application
-- an app called PainSled(which is in final beta test now)
-- Erg Stick
-- a PC program called RowPro.
All of these tools save stroke by stroke data from the PM. They all work with the PM3, PM4 and PM5. The PM5 is easiest because it has bluetooth connectivity so you can escape from USB cable hell.

What can rowsandall.com do with an erg workout. Glad you asked...

Recently, I decided to do a sprint workout embedded in a half marathon. Don't ask why, you don't want to know. The main set of the workout was 8 x 750m sprints. I included the warmup (about 5K) and cool down (about 4K and took long rests.

Here is the basic plot of that workout. Notice the addition of a fourth plot for power at the bottom. A lot of folks erg to power instead of pace.


You can do the same HR pie chart, plus a power pie chart, if you a doing a time on power zone type of training plan.

But there is one more thing you can get from the PainSled app. It gives you all kinds of stroke metrics including drive length, drive time, peak and average force and others. There's a summary plot of that stuff that can help you figure out where your strengths and weaknesses are.


Oh yeah, since this was an interval session, I really wanted to be able to dig out the statistics for how I did during the 8 sprints. rowsandall includes a tool to let you define work and rest periods in your workout by time or distance. Using them you can do a summary of the work intervals like this.

Workout Summary - media/20161123-205340-sled_2016-11-23T08-50-06ZEST.strokes.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|-Avg-|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|-Pwr-|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|12000|51:20.0|02:08.4|195.5|22.4|149.1|176.0|10.4
W-|06000|21:17.0|01:46.5|289.1|26.9|156.8|176.0|10.5
R-|15097|68:40.0|02:16.5|155.7|20.5|145.8|176.0|11.3
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|-Pwr-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|00750|02:43.8|01:49.2|267.8|25.2|149.8|161.0|10.9
03|00750|02:39.7|01:46.5|288.0|27.0|155.5|166.0|10.5
04|00750|02:38.3|01:45.5|296.7|27.7|156.5|168.0|10.3
05|00750|02:39.3|01:46.2|292.0|26.7|157.6|170.0|10.6
06|00750|02:41.2|01:47.5|281.1|26.3|156.5|169.0|10.6
07|00750|02:40.8|01:47.2|282.6|26.7|157.6|169.0|10.5
08|00750|02:40.9|01:47.3|282.0|26.3|157.7|170.0|10.6
09|00750|02:33.6|01:42.4|325.0|29.7|163.5|176.0|09.9

One more message and then I will quit.

[track_bites]

Of course, these built in plots don't let you zoom in and try to get insights from the huge sets of data that you are capturing. rowsandall has a bunch of features to help you do that. The most valuable is, I think, called flex plots. Basically you can plot anything in your data versus anything else.

So, are you interested in how your pace relates to your stroke rate? You can generate that view with 2 clicks. Here it is.

That's for that rate ladder workout.

Are you interested in how your drive length changes on the erg with stroke rate, but want to only look at strokes you took during the work intervals. That takes three clicks.


The site also includes tools to let you compare two workouts from different dates, and also to look at cumulative statistics for a set of workouts like time in power zones and heart rates.

Anyway, Sander would welcome people to come, sign up and try out the site. He (and I) would also welcome feedback on enhancements. The user interface is pretty spartan, but it is reasonably robust and I've found it to be much faster and easier to use than trying to play with these files in excel.

Let me now what you think.

[SDsweep]

This is awesome. I use a HR/GPS watch+TrainingPeaks to get a lot of this, but that doesn't have anything rowing specific like rate or accurate watts. Very cool. I'll definitely be checking it out.

[track_bites]

Hi,

What watch are you using? I have heard that some watches can actually sense cadence. Does yours do that?

If you want to get accurate watts for OTW rowing, you'd need to splurge on the speedcoach GPS and Empower oarlock. Sander (the developer) has put together an interesting, experimental feature that uses local conditions (wind, temp, direction), plus the gps derived heading, boat type and rower weight to come up with estimated power and wind corrected pace. It's a very good first order estimate, but since wind varies so much from one moment to the next, it is no where near as accurate as a direct measurement.

If you run into any problems trying it out, let me know and I'll do what I can to help out.

[limegreenspeed]

Very cool! Thanks for posting.

[Stelph]

Hi,

What watch are you using? I have heard that some watches can actually sense cadence. Does yours do that

It's the Garmin range that senses stroke rate, specifically the vivoactive HR and the Fenix 3 which sense stroke rate both on the erg and water as long as it's worn on the wrist,it's a shame that they don't support ANT+ FC as then it would also connect to c2ergs and then it would also collect power data from the C2 and would be the perfect device!

Good to see this mentioned here, I would recommend anyone who has even the slightest bit of interest in revising their workouts to check it out - it can pull your data from garmin/c2 so you it can work as an extra level of analysis and there really isn't that much it doesn't do

Consider signing up buying premium even if it's just to support the site, we get so little rowing specific resources now it would be great to see this supported and be developed

[EveRower]

It's the Garmin range that senses stroke rate, specifically the vivoactive HR and the Fenix 3 which sense stroke rate both on the erg and water as long as it's worn on the wrist,it's a shame that they don't support ANT+ FC as then it would also connect to c2ergs and then it would also collect power data from the C2 and would be the perfect device!

The following thread is interesting to follow as someone is developing a Garmin Connect app that can take the data straight from the C2 to certain Garmin devices - http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=150537

[rowsandall]

At Rowsandall.com we are adding support for teams and coaches. Rowsandall.com provides a rich set of tools to analyze data from training sessions, both on the water, and on ergs. The new support will allow coaches to view, analyze and compare training data for a group of athletes or a whole team.

For example, if your team is conducting a 2k time trial. Rowsandall will give you the tools not only to compare times across your team, but also examine how well each athlete executed their race plans, how consistent their pacing was, what kind of ratings were used and even how well matched different athletes are in terms of their rowing styles.

Finally, rowsandall.com provides the ability to directly share feedback between coach and athlete or between team members on each workout. Coaches, and the athletes themselves will be able to identify technical weakness and track progress towards fixing them.

Before rolling out the full functionality, we would like to trial it with 2 or 3 rowing teams. If you are interested, send us your simple application email to info@rowsandall.com.

We are looking for rowing teams who

Are interested in trying out new ways to measure training progress and performance
Are not afraid to work with software under development (beta testing)
Work with a specific, time-bound goal. Please mention the goal in your application email. We want to test the functionality in the April to June time frame, so the goal must be achievable before the end of June
Ideally, we are looking for a distribution in team size and goals. The team can be a virtual team where the members never train at the same physical situation.

We will not do your coach’s job for you. We will provide you with lots of data from your team’s workouts and with new ways to look at the data. We will enthusiastically discuss with you what the data mean, but in the end of the day they are your data and you decide how to use them to achieve your Team’s goals.

The trial is open for teams of all competence levels. So whether you are preparing for the Olympics or are a group of indoor rowers trying to manage your weight, or you are a college crew preparing for a local regatta, you are welcome. The condition is that you have a Team Goal and that we can discuss how Rowsandall.com can help you achieve that goal.

What do you get?

A thorough walk through explanation of the existing functionality of rowsandall.com
Opportunity to try out rowing data analytics in a team setting
Discuss the development of the data analytics Team module with the developers. An opportunity to influence the functionality to your needs
Teams who complete the trial will get a very serious discount on the Team module

What do we expect from you?

Your team members create rowsandall.com accounts and upload all their erg and boat training during the trial, which runs from April 1 to a few weeks after you have reached your training goal
Your team manager or coach uses rowsandall.com to look at the data during the trial. Ideally all team members are involved in analyzing the data.
A team representative spends time with the rowsandall.com team to provide feedback on the functionality. Depending on the nature of your team we expect a few one hour Skype calls plus email exchange. The communication can be done in English, German, Dutch and Czech.
Apart from feedback on the functionality you help us work through any software bugs emerging from the existing Team functionality and from new functionality we will build for your team.

One of the things that we are trying understand through the trial is what kind of value the new functionality will provide to teams, and what a fair price will be for it.

Interested? Send us an email at info@rowsandall.com. The offer closes on March 25. We expect to tell you if you are part of the trial before March 29th.

http://wp.me/p8g86e-3G

[rowsandall]

Just wanted to announce that we have launched data analytics for coaches.

It is basically enabling you to upload your athlete's workouts, comment on them, compare them, look at their stats and progress, and use all the Premium functions of the site. Your athletes get to see their workouts and (optionally) those of their team members. The cost is 15 € per athlete per year, with progressive discounts for teams larger than 10 athletes. You can sign up for a free trial month, no obligations.

We are a non-commercial site, doing this for the love of rowing and data, so I hope this shameless self-plug is tolerated here.

You can read all about it here: http://analytics.rowsandall.com/2017/07 ... en-rowing/