How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? 3kilos an hour. How many roads must a man walk down, before you can callhim a man? 12. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of a bottle? It onlyforms a very weak bond with the special nonporous plastic used to makethe bottle and can be de-bonded easily. We laugh at these questions. Ifyou've got something a bit trickier, however, send it in an e-mail [email protected] and we'll get three-times Olympic rowing coachTerry O'Neill to run his gimlet gaze over it.Mary McGuirk: In weeks 5-8 of the marathon training programme in theTraining Guide, you cover strength training. I feel that lack ofstrength is one of my weaknesses, so I have come out of preparation fora 2,000m and am doing the strength training for four weeks. I am 52 andfemale with a 2,000m best of 7:50.5; my goal is to get a little closerto Anna Bailey.1. What would you suggest for me to hang on to any strength gains I getfrom these four weeks?2. In the paragraph about strength training, it says to developstrength put the damper up and pull as hard as you can at a low strokerate. Then, later in the notes for Table 3.13, it says to go flat outfor 10 strokes at the higher damper. I assume that 'flat out' means ashard as I can AND at as high a stroke rate as I can muster (whichunfortunately is only 30). So which is right? High stroke rate or lowstroke rate? Terry O'Neill: Strength is an element of power. You need strength tomove a load but rowing is a measure of your power, which is the rate atwhich you move the load. The process to develop power is firstly toincrease your basic strength. This is done by creating a big load.The next stage is to develop more power from this strength gain and hereis where you need to increase the speed at which you are working. Thebiggest area where woman can improve is in upper body strength. Theadvantage Anna has at 6'4 is the length of her levers, not necessarilyher strength. If you are not as tall as Anna then developing more poweris the only option open and you are on the right track. Strength is a high load at a slow speed so you can put the damper up toincrease the strength element. If you were lifting weights then the highweight would determine the speed the bigger the weight the longer ittakes to lift it.On the rowing machine the load is created by how hard you pull and bylowering the stroke rate you allow the flywheel time to slow down. Theslower the flywheel is spinning the greater the force you can apply toit. During the race you need to keep the flywheel spinning as fast aspossible and so the stroke rate is increased. Because the flywheel isspinning faster you can apply less force but you need to apply it fasterand more often. The same amount of power is needed for both actions ashigh force at low speed = low force at high speed. As for hanging onto the strength gains; this is not as important inrowing as it is in an explosive sport like throwing or jumping. Inrowing you build basic strength as part of a process leading ontostrength /endurance and power/endurance. If across all the trainingbands your splits come down then this means you are developing morepower into the machine. If you are developing more power then you mustbe maintaining your basic strength.