Hutchinson, Washburne or someone like that suggested a corollary between paddle choice and gears on a bicycle. Now, I'm fairly new to kayaking, but I raced bicycles for years and know a thing or two about gear choice: Higher gears and a lower cadence (turnover) put strains on muscles and joints. In bicycling, the knees go first with high gear pedaling, but they're followed by hips, ankles, sciatica. . . Washburne I think suggests that shorter paddles with less "purchase" are like lower gears on a bicycle. Higher turnover results in less stress on elbows, shoulders, wrists. . . While it's difficult to reach the same maximum speed with lower gears on a bicycle, it's more efficient to sustain a moderately fast pace over a long distance by using lower gears. Discussions on this server about the difference in racing paddles/style and touring paddles/style suggests parallels between gear choice and paddle choice. In essence, one has the option of distributing effort between resistance and tempo. Extending this concept to weight training. . . low resistance (weight) and high repetition trains for endurance, while high resistance and low repetition builds muscle mass --and also leads to muscle tears and joint injuries. In this application, repetition would relate to paddling or pedaling cadence. Weight/resistance correlates to gear size or paddle length/purchase area. While it's entirely possible to choose too low a gear in cycling, most riders choose gears that are too high. The risk of riding in high gears is injury. This rule seems also to apply to paddling choices. I use a Eddyline Windswift paddle in 230 cm. and and adopt a low profile paddling style which seems to put less strain on shoulders. I still have an elbow problem, but it might be aggravated from typing on the keyboard most of the day. . . *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Mar 30 1998 - 05:50:43 PST
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