A random thought from me, which may just reflect the way I approach sports. Firstly to me paddling is like any other sport, to be good you need to train in an appropriate and focused manner.
So my question to you is how do you stay/get fit to paddle and be the best paddler that you can be?
G
A good question G
Despite people preconceived thoughts canoeing is a 'total body' sport, you should be using just about every muscle group and range of movement in your body to achieve effective paddling.
There are many ways you can train off the water, running, cycling, weight lifting, yoga and other land based activities to increase your cardiovascular endurance, core stability and general fitness.
On the water structured training sessions, water time, paddle outs sprint acceleration training and a host of others.
Everything is relative to the level you wish to achieve
Training.....well I cycle to work (always quite fast 'cos I seem to spend too much time on here first thing) erm I like to lift a few glasses at the weekend, work can be physical If I wish it to be (Supervisor see, delegation is the name of the game) so really not much training, but when paddling I often am too stubborn to admit I am tired and still play on waves if they are there. Last weekend I must admit I was tired.
Cheers
Tim
Personally I've been working on cardio as I'm way overweight
, pushing interval training hard, this has increased my overall stamina & enabled me to do short bursts alot easier
.
I've also been working hard on strength - High weights, low reps (about 4 reps), overall body but focusing mainly on the upper back muscles as these are under utilised in paddling & mis balances commonly occur, rounded shoulders / shoulder impingment as I found out to my cost
Focusing mainly on the back muscles bring the rounded shoulders back easing the pain & the strength has allowed that extra strong stroke occasionally needed on white water. Also finding lifting boat onto car easier.
I've currently doing an experiment on the use of explosive olympic lifting on the benefit of the on / off sprinting in slalom boats, but have no results yet. But am looking to include explosive lifts into my routine to enable me to up my cadence in an open so more distance can be covered.
As Graeme rightly says it is a whole body sport, & the legs are highly neglected in normal training. The olympic lifts target the whole system as a closed kinetic chain hence working the important hams, quads & glutes.