Form Before Function Tabata Water Row Exercise Log 20190302

The exercise pattern I'm trying to follow has me exercising every other day, alternating between dumbbell and cable machine exercises, and doing a Tabata cycle on the water row machine. Today was Tabata day.

I learned a long time ago that avoiding injury was the best way to continue training, so I'm careful to use the best form I can. It takes a lot of careful strokes before using a water row machine is grooved in good form. I continue to work to improve.

My intent of this Tabata cycle is to burn as much glycogen as I can. I need to empty my energy storage systems as much as possible.

My current Tabata cycle:

5 sets of
{
    4 cycles of
{
        60 seconds full out (at least 30 strokes per minute)
        30 seconds easy row or rest
}
        2 minutes easy row or rest
}
Easy row or rest until you can stand up without issue.

Notes: Today's session approached "too easy", but I worked up a decent sweat. My form improves every time, but I'm inconsistent.

My split times got my attention. I can usually count strokes per the first 30 seconds, and my rates were mostly 29-32 per 60 seconds (14-16 in the first 30 second split). I got significantly slower in many of the second splits, like 10-16, and pretty gassed out in some of the last 10 seconds of the full out cycle.

What that tells me is that I can increase the intensity of the workout by changing the cycle from 4 sets to 8, and halving the work / rest times, like this

{
        30 seconds full out (at least 30 strokes per minute)
        15 seconds easy row or rest
}

I can do this tactic as well as a follow up

sprint start

That should smoke me like a poorly rolled spliff ....