[Paddlewise] Ready for Anything (was Hawkesbury Classic)

Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 20:42:21 +1100
From: "PeterO" <rebyl_kayak_at_iprimus.com.au>
Subject: [Paddlewise] FW: Hawkesbury Classic - Long Night Paddle

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?

Peter replied:
<snip>
< 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>

Do you mean there are other paddlers on the list who could give better
advise than mine, or did you mean better advice than what was in your
post written by you!?    :-)

Well, I know what you mean.

I'm not sure who on our list would be at the coaching level for weight
training, or what they might say with respect to the application for
touring/racing, etc.

I do know that for many paddlers, weight training just isn't
tremendously applicable in their view. For Olympic _sprinters_, I know
they weight train and do a lot of chin-bar pull-ups -- and do various
renditions of pull-up like exercises to build core strength and upper
body strength, and give them that dynamic to spring forward past the
competition. You can also spot, often, the bigger, stronger paddlers on
the river in their WW kayaks. They seem to do so much more than the
smaller guys. More tricks, more play, more fun. I also know that folks
who do heavy weight lifting as a life style, while strong to some
degree, are not necessarily fit or have a lot of endurance for
long-distance stuff. Seems to me, most paddlers want over-all fitness,
with some reserve potential for getting through surf, punching through
eddy-lines, and maneuvering quickly and powerfully for rescues, etc. I
think your answer to Vaughan as far as what you are doing (did) to
prepare for long-distance racing was as good as any professional advice,
no matter how self-referential the advice was.

My normal routine in previous years (I'm all screwed up this year as far
as my "program" is concerned, after attendant maladies) is to train with
heavier weights in the fall through to just before spring. I go a little
heavier and slower (10 to 12 reps as opposed to 12 to 15 the rest of the
year) which helps build overall strength and mass. In spring and summer
I go less weight and more reps, as implied above - say 3 sets of 15
reps, first one light (as a warm-up), second set with good form and not
too much resistance to the point of moderate exhaustion, then the third
to exhaustion (not me, but the muscle group being worked, and still not
too heavy, slowing down to maintain form). Switch routines every 6 weeks
or so. Going really, really heavy always feels more like a real workout,
but also causes a ton of injuries if done incorrectly, and leads to
hypertrophy -- which is fine if you want to look big at the beach, and
is in fact the aim of most bodybuilders.

I don't race competitively, but would use weight training in conjunction
with other high-output circuit training if I were to pursue that
activity (I don't think I was born with enough fast-twitch muscle fiber
to be truly fast, nor the tendon clearance to avoid impingement's). For
me, interval training works best in order to increase output, and this
is normally done in later winter and early spring in anticipation of the
longer paddling season forthcoming and as a pre-trip conditioning
methodology. Interval training has to be monitored for effectiveness. I
paddle hard and fast until exhaustion after a few minutes, then back
off, and I mean back off. You need to come back down adequately again.
The idea (I'm sure this is review for many of you in PW land) is to get
your body to increase the threshold where you are operating aerobically,
instead of anaerobically (i think I have the term stated correctly).
With good training, you can go from 60% to 70%, and even 80% if you are
dedicated enough. Burning up muscle tissue is just plain silly. With
good training, long distance endurance is benefited greatly. You do need
a good anaerobic system for punching out through surf and stuff, but it
usually doesn't need to be sustained -- well, not usually.

The spring where I got into trouble off the Storm Islands was a good
example of adequate endurance and reserve that was more serendipitous
than planned. Due to the really awful winter preceding that fateful
spring, there were wind storms on the island here almost every weak (no
kidding). I was out constantly, going for hours at a time, sometimes
being blown backwards, but never not reaching intended destinations. I
was weight lifting at the time (not free weights at that point), rowing
at the gym,  and was following a daily stretching routine at work on
break times. I was practicing "rest and recovery" both with my lifting
regime and paddling. I was able to maintain a fast pace, towing an
increasingly incapacitated paddler, for 6 hours in gale-force conditions
on the open sea. The other two paddlers would have "expired" long before
I'd have packed it in (if it were not for the CG rescue). The point is,
I wasn't "racing-fast," but I was able to maintain a very reliable,
quick cruising speed, while towing, in heavy air-sea conditions against
wind and tide. More importantly, the sequences of rafting up, breaking
rafts, turning the kayak back into the wind, and punching through
breaking seas, would not have been as possible without the prior,
manifold conditioning. And this is the point I'm really trying to make
and the reason I drag some of this old garbage up -- think possible
scenarios, anticipate worst-case scenarios, and train for the what-ifs
at least to some degree. "Muscling" your boat around after a long paddle
is going to take a certain kind of muscle, mental, and maneuverability
strength. Are you ready?

I think Duane did some weight training prior to some of his long
crossings. While scientifically, it may be difficult to correlate weight
training to kayaking, in practice, I know few who regret it.

Strength training would seem to benefit blood flow, oxygen exchange in
the tissue, and joint strength. Connective tissue, if weight training is
done correctly and not too heavy, really round-out a good paddlers
abilities to deal with emergencies, avoid dislocations, and just plain
give you the athleticism needed that paddling alone doesn't always
provide. I know we all do different kinds of paddling -- some on rivers,
some of flat estuaries, some in rec boats on summer lakes, and some just
for pure fitness or racing (with its own exact training adherence). From
my perspective, a good open-water paddler needs a variety of strengths,
and only good training specificity, combined with a lot of paddling is
going to achieve that end. Are you ready?

PS  I only really know what works for me, and I'm rambling again.

Doug Lloyd

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