Vaughan wrote: - >For PeterO or anyone with an opinion: >I'm having some difficulty translating >weight training to kayaking. What sort >of work in the gym did you find most useful? G'day Vaughan & Paddlewise, Last year I attempted the Classic and had to pull out with an injured shoulder - very frustrating. This year vowed to complete the race and not worry about speed just make sure there were no injuries - I'm 6ft, 10.5stone and a desk jockey during the week. Without any professional advice or knowledge it seemed that using all the arm exercising macines in the gym might keep my upper body muscles in balance to prevent injury and running and cycling machines would develop cardiovascular fitness and keep the lower body in balance - not very scientific I'm afraid!! Anyway a typical gym session was 20 minutes running on a treadmill, 20 minutes of upper body weight machines in three lots of 15 slow lifts, varying the machines between sessions and sometimes within a session so as many different upper body muscles got used as possible. Finished the session with 20 minutes on a bike machine. Of course warm ups and stretches were mandatory and care not to use weights that were too heavy, instead you can always make the load more demanding by slowing the lift. I'ld be curious to get professional advice on the strategy!! Most important to avoid injury was not to tolerate bad forward stroke technique - every stroke was to be as perfect as I could make it. It might not matter over 50km but after a 111km run in a heavy sea kayak it can be the last straw and plenty of people pull out with injuries. This I got from Therese (Buzz) Powell - she is a sports physio who broke the record in her class this year. For speed and stamina I would recommend being born big like my friend Johnno and lots of time on long trips in the boat pushing against the wind. Also sprints alternating fast and slow paddling - this is especially good when you don't have nuch training time, but never sacrifice the quality of the stroke. We trained together by paddling into any decent wind we could find (Thanks Doug' good advice!!) Johnno was far more dedicated than me in this regard and also spent more time in the boat during the week. I was pretty slow in the race but finished with no injuries and not even particularly sore or stiff, despite using an unfamiliar paddle. Johnno came 4th in his class which included Mirages (a 'fast' kayak) against his Greenlander (relatively 'slow') despite a pressure sore on his backside and two wash riders in a double who latched on to him for 20km!! If you want to train for speed it seems as if kayaking into the wind was helpful just like Doug' suggested a few months back. There's experienced kayakers on this list could give more professional advice though, All the best, PeterO *************************************************************************** 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 Oct 28 2002 - 01:45:35 PST
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