Observe Technique

If you watch a paddler with good technique you will see the following:

· The bodies large muscles doing most of the work

· Relaxation of the muscles not engaged during the effort

· Structurally sound body mechanics

These points are all intertwined and play an equal part in good technique. It's important to not only observe what you are doing but also to feel what you are doing while paddling. Without one of these items the others will, in time, fail and injuries or strained muscles will occur.

Rotator cuff injuries or strain

Coaches should be careful not to advocate technique that exposes athletes to injury. One of these injury causing movements is having the top hand above the head exposing the top shoulder to injury. Moving the arm up and down at the shoulder is asking for an injury involving the rotator cuff. Take the time to consciously look at yourself objectively while you are paddling. Where is your uper hand through the stroke? Can you draw on the above points during your stroke? Observation is key to improvement. You must observe and process to change.

The rotator cuff muscles control rotation of the shoulder. These muscles are put under a great deal of strain especially when your arm is above your head repeatedly. The rotator cuff is a group of muscles which work together to provide the shoulder joint with dynamic stability, helping to control the joint during rotation (hence the name). Due to the function of these muscles, sports which involve a lot of shoulder rotation – for example, dragon boating, outrigger paddling, kayaking, etc. – often put the rotator cuff muscles under a lot of stress. (notes from sports injury clinic).

While you are paddling concentrate on your shoulder and arm and feel what they are doing. Are they moving up and down instead of locking into your core and being an extension of your back. Watch the person ahead of you on the boat. What is their shoulder and upper arm doing during the stroke? Your shoulder should be down at all times and therefore providing a strong extension of your large back muscles to plant, pull, and move the boat forward.

Goble Goble

Happy Thanksgiving
Good food equals good performance.

Let’s Talk Technique

The best time to change technique is during the winter months or off-season. Fitting technique into a periodization plan is recommended. Technique training sessions fit well in the beginning/ends of cycles. Be sure to account for poor weather too when planning technique sessions. There is nothing worse than having a technique workout planned when one cannot feel the canoe because of many layers of clothing and numb hands.

Perfect technique is not the same for everyone. Different body types, different body geometries causes us all to move in slightly different way in order to achieve optimal efficiency. Water conditions, race distance, paddle length, boat speed, height above the water also change the best way to move the canoe.

Coaching technique is challenging. A Coach should not fix the symptom of poor technique but rather the cause of poor technique. Knowing what the root cause for an athlete’s non-optimal movement is the coaches’ challenge; communicating how to change is a joint responsibility; changing the technique falls to the athlete. Athletes must learn how to feel, how to change and adapt to different situations. Athletes ultimately own their technique, their success and injuries cause the athlete pain - not the coach. Coaches should not cast their perfect technique on their athletes. I find it best to try to get the athlete to tell me what they are feeling, how they are trying to work towards changing technical issues. A coaches’ roll is to enable the athlete to perform optimally. The athlete must learn how to adapt their technique to conditions on race day. One of the most challenging parts of technical development is getting the brain out of the way. Letting the body move in its most efficient way is, most often, the best technique. Learning to do this takes time, but without enabling the body to feel good technique the braining must always be working on controlling the body. This is non optimal during races, long training sessions etc. The technique must be natural.

Winter Workouts for Best Performance

What workouts should athletes perform on and off the water in the winter in order to be best positioned to perform next race season?

The classic winter training plan is to develop base strength over the off-season. Time on the water paddling is very important. But what workouts individual athletes should do really depends on the weaknesses the athlete has identified for themselves.

Workouts on the water might include
· distance paddles at low intensity
· paddles with resistance
· long intervals at higher intensity
· technical sessions

Workouts off the water
· running distance and intervals
· weight workouts for supporting muscle groups
· weight workouts for sport specific muscle groups
· mental training(technical, isometrics and nerve system)
· swimming distance and intervals
· cross country skiing
· the list is long – erg…

One needs to have a plan. One needs to have a WRITTEN plan.

To achieve success one must define for themselves what success means. Then one needs to put a plan in place to achieve it. In order to put a plan in place one should utilize all resources available. In Portland there are many resources to use.

Mental Training for Optimal Performance and Training

Have you experienced a time during practice or competition where you could not focus? Are there times when the chatter in your head is negative? Have you ever heard about athletes doing mental training for their sport and you are not sure how to implement it yourself?

Mental training is a huge component of training and competing. It is a tool that regardless of your sport, when used consistently, can help you stay focused, stop negative self-talk, improve your technique/skills, increase your confidence, prepare you for certain situations in your sport (like winter training), and much more. For example, Jack Nicklaus, one of the greatest golfers, would run his own color movie in his head before hitting a shot, even in practice. His movie was very sharp and in-focus like he had actually performed it. This helped him to become a champion golfer of his time.

February Seminar
In February you will learn some tools that will help you take your paddling to a whole new level by implementing mental training into your life. The benefits may even be beyond paddling and expand to your everyday life.

Nutrition Over the Holidays

Race season is over and we are now in the base-building phase of the paddling year. Use this time to work on your stroke, your fitness level and your goals. Don’t forget the important role nutrition plays in all of these areas. The athlete’s diet can help to improve strength, optimize workouts and increase strength to weight ratio, ultimately improving your paddling performance.

During the next few months, a variety of topics will be touched upon on this site to help keep you on track this winter. Specific questions about Nutrition can be directed to Holly at pdxpaddling@gmail.com. A more detailed discussion of Nutrition will follow at Session #5.

Holiday Eating
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas………ahhhhh, the holidays are upon us! For many, that means parties and gatherings where food and drink is the center of the occasion. The athlete’s diet does not mean treats and delicacies are forbidden. However, remember that you are still fueling your body for optimal performance. Everyday. Try to maintain your usual whole grain-rich, moderate fat, fruit and vegetable laden meals and use these occasions to enjoy favorite foods and sample new dishes and treats in moderation. Go easy on the alcohol. Listen to your body’s hunger cues to stop when you have had enough. (Remember, if you take a break from training through the holidays your calorie consumption should go down too.) For those of you whom it helps, continue tracking your intake to help you stick to your nutritional goals.

Remember, food brings most people great pleasure and should be enjoyed! But, finishing off the leftover Halloween candy before November 1 may not give you the edge you’re striving for!

Fitness & Off Water Training Homework

This seminar's focus will be about developing the tools to put a training plan together to bring out the best in the athlete over several periods. It will not be a session where you will walk away with a plan handed to you for training. Instead we will be discussing the skills needed to develop a plan on your own or with the help of a coach.

In preparation of the upcoming seminar:
Please document what you have done previously to develop your fitness and sport specific skills or if you have put together a training plan previously review the plan for areas of improvement. Consider the questions below and write the ones that speak directly to your experience in your journal with your comments/answers. The amount of detail that you enter into your journal is up to you, however, the more you document the better the overall picture will be for your plan and its follow through.

For those attending the seminar on November 8 please cut and paste the below portion into and email and send your answers/responses/observations to pdxpaddling so that we are one step ahead in understanding those that are attending.

For the Athlete:
Did workouts support and have specific goals?
Was your time spent productive?
Did you work from a Training plan? What was its outline?
Did you feel that the plan reflected your goals?
Were you able to follow the training schedule?
Did you buy 100% into the training?
Did your training plan include periodization?

As a coach:
Did you outline specific training routines for your athletes?
Did you develop a training plan targeted at the right level for the athlete?
Did you focus the training plan on the most experienced athlete in the group and support the less-experienced?
Did the workouts have goals?
Did periods have goals?
Did the athlete(s) excel? If so why or why not?
Were the expectations put onto the athletes higher/lower than the athletes were willing to commit too?
How did you connect with the athlete to drive optimal performance?