As usual Matt is all wrong, but I do greatly appreciate his raising the interesting subject of cardiac/muscle efficiency using long or short paddles. Unfortunately I will be away for the next week or so and will therefore be unable to correct the disagreements with what has to be done to address Matt questions on this topic. I worked on this a few years ago but wasn't able to accumulate a publishable set of data. I did, however identify some of the variables that must be controlled. I have a local lake to train on where I have had for many years a 500 meter course and a 2.5 mile course. I race against myself there. I seem to time everything I do (walking, paddling etc). Last year I paddled 55 miles in the first week of August and accumulated times for 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 mile distances. I was recovering from chemo at the time.. didn't get in the miles I was hoping for. Whatever the distance, average speed and heart rate must be determined for both directions on the course to zero out subtle currents and breezes. Prefer dead air paddling. Speed must be kept constant, so the boat must be equipped with a speedometer that can be read while paddling. Heart rate is recorded on a recording heart monitor that spits out the data later at home. The first 2-3 runs are thrown out because heart rate for a given level of effort rises for a lap or two before becoming stable. Finally runs must be done with one paddle and then the other and a few replications so that heart rate averages can be obtained after cardiac performance has stabilized. Going all out is not the game here. The game depends on effort at some constant speed. Clearly this works best on the 500 meter course. My initial data found no significant difference in average heart rate using a shorter vs a longer paddle. Comparisons must be made on the same day-there is too much variation between days. Well, I'm sure this will be as acceptable as my other paddle length ideas. As I said, unfortunately I will not be around for awhile. I can almost hear the cheering from here. Wait.. No! There it is.I stand corrected.some more! Chuck Sutherland *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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