> Get rid of the gloves!!! These are making you grasp the paddle > much > tighter than you need too. (I developed "tennis elbow" this winter > with > neoprene gloves.) > [>] This spring I paddled with fleece gloves with leather palms and thought my control hand was going to fall off after a couple of hours. Soon as I took the glove off everything relaxed. Guess I had a death grip on the paddle. > Goes without saying that the feathered paddle is hard on the > wrist joints. > Both my doctor and my paddling instructor advise to loosen the grip on > the > "uphill" hand when paddling. I loosen the grip with all but the middle > finger, and hold that against the crook in the thumb. No need to wrap > the > thumb much. Pull with the fingers on the "downhill" hand and use the > thumb > just to keep the paddle in place. > [>] I was taught to extend the fingers outward in a flexing motion on the non-stroking (uphill?) hand. This provides relaxation and keeps the blood pumping. > More paddling helps. . . but go with the flow! Don't push the > river! > [>] Proper paddling technique will help. If it hurts, you probably ain't doing it right. I think the thing that's helped me the most this year is keeping my hands closer to the edge of the kayak than the center line through a stroke. This seems to keeps me from bending my wrist back as far. I've also started to do wrist curl and reverse wrist curl exercises to help strenghtened. *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Jul 28 1998 - 05:27:31 PDT
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