Fitness & Off Water Training

The off-season is a perfect time to work on general fitness. Progress made on general fitness from October through April will pay big dividends during the on-season. This can not be stressed enough. Increasing your strength and overall fitness will increase your performance.

track your progress
There are many categories of fitness. Keeping a fitness journal is a great way to document your growth and measure present fitness level. This will also help you repeat tests to show how your training plan is working over time. Write goals in the front, a plan of attack, difficulties or problem areas, and add in some goal dates to help achieve you program.


categories
There are a several fitness categories athletes are encouraged or should train (commonly called “general fitness”). Good general fitness is needed to have good paddling specific fitness. An athlete must develop in all these categories.
cardiovascular fitness – the ability to feed muscle’s oxygen over a longer time period

anaerobic fitness - the ability to recover after sprints and to repeat the output again and again

mental toughness – developing a “never give up (even for a stroke) attitude”

core strength – developing muscles in the body (versus the arm/legs) so they can work together. A strong core is needed to maintain balance when working.

nerve system and fine motor control development – working to hone the ability for the nerve system to talk to muscles groups. Essential for separating the muscles that are working from those that should be relaxed.
Note: Paddlers need to have good strength to weight ratios. If you carry weight (muscle or fat) that does not participate in pushing the boat forward than this is not optimal.

overall strength – developing sport specific and sport non-specific strength helps with injury prevention.

As an athlete, own your development. Trust in your plan. You and you alone know if you have put everything into a workout. Progress is not made in a linear fashion; you must apply yourself over time and you will see progress. Do not expect immediate results. Continue to follow through even when progress seems halted. Working on these fitness categories is not easy. Working with a coach to develop a plan along with your personal commitment can be crucial to success.

coach as partner
Every athlete should work with a coach to help optimize their development. Coaches must learn how to develop athletes by building a relationship that is centered in trust. Every athlete will need a different training plan, different workouts with different focuses. Managing athlete's training plans is an important task and can be a delicate balance based on individual's abilities. Moreover, in team situations highlighting all the above categories during training is a skill that requires patience and experience. Coaches need to continually learn and advance themselves to be a strong coach partner.

How much training an athlete can tolerate changes over time (measured by years, not months). A well trained athlete can tolerate much more than an untrained athlete. Understand who you are working with and what their goals are. Plan on a year or two or more in order for an athlete to “step to the next level” depending on the starting level of general fitness. This relationship will continue to grow as each of you learn what the athlete is capable of.

most important
Lastly but not of least importance is ** sport specific fitness – training your specific muscles to perform optimally - e.g. paddling muscles**.