Vasa ergometer workouts

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi Vasa ergometer users,

would anyone care to post some of their workouts here? I need somewhere to get started with this thing that is taking up most of my living room.

best,
michael

2

Check out the newsletter section of their website and you’ll find a few.

If I don’t someone else will, so I’ll tell you that Al Lyman has a dvd out which has his presentation to a usat coaches clinic about the ergometer. It’s available from his website at pursuit fitness.

There’s the video from spinervals.

But mostly I just put my mp3 player on and get going.

Standard before work workout for me is
600 fs, 200 Fly, 200 BK

If I woke up a bit earlier then:
800 - 1000 FS, 200 FLy, 200 Beast, 200 BK

I’ll also add rows and external rotation exercises for my shoulders.

I do most work at the #2 door setting. There’s no way for me to quantify this but it feels about like the force-velocity relationship my arms have when siwmming in a pool.

The #3 door setting feels a lot more like rough open water swimming. WHich at first seems like the way to go but in those weeks when I have done #3 only my stroke was quite short when I got to the pool that weekend. So I need to be a little more careful with hlding longer strokes when using the higher resistances.

3

I like the Al Lyman workouts from the newsletter, or I do a lot of creative bricks or mini-triathlons. For example, I’ll swim 500 (5 x 100 with a short rest interval) on the vasa, then bike 5-miles on the computrainer, and sometimes I’ll add a 1-mile run. Then I’ll repeat it one or two more times. Its a nice way to beat the boredom of indoors. The Coach Troy workouts are very difficult, but they are a good workout also. The best workout from the newsletter was something like this (I don’t think this is the exact workout):

  1. 200 warmup
  2. two x’s 250 (level 2)
  3. 5 x 100 (level 2, 1, 3, 2, 1)
  4. 4 x 25 sprint level 2
  5. 200 cool-down
    This takes about a half hour and is a really nice workout.
4

thanks for these. i ordered the video last night after some internet searching.

-michael

5

Here is a link to the forum on Al Lyman’s Pursuit Fitness website. There is a rather extensive thread regarding the Vasa ergometer.

http://pursuit-fitness.com/phpBB2/index.php

Building on what others have said, I have thrown in core work and different dry land kicking exercises between sets of 500s.

Another common set for me is to focus on increasing my stroke rate while maintaining correct technique at an established wattage.

FWIW, I have had swim PRs since adding this machine to the mix. I am actually in the pool less than I ever have been and at worst maintaining my swim split and more often set improved splits on the same courses.

Best of luck!