> > I have been paddling for just a few months and have possibly >overdone it. To begin with, I already have arthritis in my >hands - it's quite manageable, just some soreness after >periods of inactivity, or too much activity. After a weekend of >morning paddling each day, and a day of lessons the next >weekend, my hands are still unusually sore several days later. > I'm a new paddler too, and I too have "arthritis;" actually, I believe it is my tendons which are a bit sore rather than the joints. I think what you are describing sounds more like tendons and connective tissue than arthritis. But my soreness seems to be working itself out. ...and, I'm working on a few callouses as well. I think the tenderness is a combination of gripping the paddle too hard and simply doing too much too soon. It is difficult to ease off a bit particularly in surf or rough conditions. Probably better to go for "easy" paddles in the beginning, or at least until most of the soreness goes away. Tendons generally take awhile to toughen up. (In fact, the callouses might be an interesting guage as to how the tendons are toughing up as well.) I have been told when nursing a foot injury (sprained ankle) that alternating hot/cold on the injury will enhance the circulation to the injury and assist healing. Tendons and bone have less circulation and thus, take longer to become conditioned to increased levels of activity and stress. Muscles are relatively "fast" tissues in terms of gas saturations and the tendons and bones are "slow" tissues. Fast tissues recover quicker, but you need to recover (this is when the physiological training takes place, during recovery) based upon your slow tissues. Gronseth teaches (I took his 5 day class) stretching exercises for the wrist: Flex the wrist up, pulling on the tips of the fingers, flex down, pressing on the back of the hand; flex to the sides by (a) pulling the thumb towards the radius; (b) flex to the other side twisting the flattened hand towards the ulna. Gronseth suggested stretching before the paddle. Studies with runners (I know, a different set of muscles, but I think this applies here also) demonstrate that fewer injuries have occured when the stretching is done AFTER the exercise than before the exercise. Thus, based on the running studies, I prefer very light stretching before a paddle followed by a few stretching breaks during the paddle and longer stretching after the paddle. CAVEAT: When stretching, start slow i.e. apply light pressure and slowly increase the pressure; if stretching hurts, you are stretching too much! >It is one specific area - the muscles around the base of the >thumb, and going up into the thumb, and the muscles inbetween >the thumb and the rest of the fingers. Gronseth also stressed keeping your hands parallel with the forearm to reduce the chance of stress injury to the wrist; i.e., open the hand slighly when pushing the paddle forward on the blade that is out of the water. instead of gripping the blade. Robert *************************************************************************** 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 - 07:36:05 PDT
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