Re: [Paddlewise] Bent-shaft paddles?

From: Kirk Olsen <kolsen_at_imaginelan.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 10:31:57 -0500
At 09:17 PM 2/23/02 -0800, you wrote:
>    I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with bent shaft paddles.
>I'm new to paddling and I have a wrist injury that I don't want to aggravate.
>In theory, they seem like a logical way to reduce strain on the wrists, but I
>wonder if they work in practice.  Do they reduce the strain on your wrist?

A friend of mine has severe carpal tunnel in his wrists.  He designed and built a paddle to alleviate the stress on his wrists.  It's a more extreme solution than the crank shaft paddles.

Sitting at your desk hold you hands like you are holding a normal paddle.  Now rotate your
hands so your thumbs are upward, like you are holding the handlebars on a racing bicycle.

I can feel the tendons in my forearm tighten when I rotate my hands to the normal paddling position.

I've got a couple of pictures of his "bow" paddle at http://people.ne.mediaone.net/jkolsen/html/paddle.html

The vertical posts are the hand holds.

I don't seem to have a picture of the paddle in use. 

 My canoeing partner has recurring tendonitis problems in his elbow, the only paddle he's willing to use when I've coaxed him into a kayak is my bow paddle.

kirk

***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************
Received on Mon Feb 25 2002 - 07:31:00 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:50 PDT