Hydration & Recovery

Your body is a machine that needs fluids to operate efficiently. In fact, your body is more than 60% water, and even light exercise can deplete that percentage. No fluid means no function, and suddenly it's you stranded during a race with an overtaxed body. This loss of fluid is called dehydration. And hydrating, or adding fluids, is the key to keeping it from happening to you.

Hydrate well leading up to race day (drink an extra 4-8 glasses of fluid during the 2 days before to overhydrate).

Up to 2 hours before your race start, drink another 2-3 glasses of water and another glass or two 5-10 minutes before the start. You may need to consider the temperature when deciding on whether or not to use a drinking system as a hot day will increase your fluid requirements.

Following your race, start your recovery by eating a carbohydrate-rich snack with some protein as soon as possible. A yogurt smoothie or chocolate milk make great choices since they’ll also help replenish your fluids. Follow this up by having a meal within a few hours.

Keep up with the water intake to replace lost fluids and you’ll soon be ready and nourished to resume training for the next race.

Nutrition for Distance & Iron Races

For races shorter than 60-90 minutes, you likely won’t need an extra energy source.

It is often not practical to get “solid” calories in while paddling continuously. However, if you do bring liquids in a bottle or drinking system, using a sports drink will provide you with some calories in addition to fluid. The sugar and sodium in a 4-8% solution (40-80 calories per 8oz) will provide some fuel and help your body to absorb the water more quickly. It may even enhance your endurance and give you the edge you need to push hard through the line!

Nutrition for Sprint Regattas

During sprint regattas, you will have opportunities to eat and drink between races. Avoid doing so too close to race time to prevent anything from “talking back!”

What works for one person, might not for another so go with what you know will settle well.

Consider snacking every 1.5 to 2 hours on carbohydrate-rich foods which include some lower fat protein. Pasta salad with some meat or cheese, ½ a turkey sandwich, yogurt and fruit, milk and a muffin are just a few examples. And of course, stay hydrated!

Spring Tune-Up

It’s already April and racing season is just around the corner. Are you ready? In addition to being prepared physically and mentally, is your nutrition plan ready to help you perform at your best?

Use your training time NOW to help prepare you for races to come. Consider what you will eat prior to the race. Will you need an energy boost during the race? How will you hydrate? All these questions should have well-defined answers long before race day. And remember the athlete’s adage, ”NEVER try anything new on race day!” There’s a reason for that! Try out your new strategies well before racing season to find out what works for you. Pre-race meals, sports beverages, drinking systems etc. – they all need to be tested.

Early in the season, most races will either be sprint regattas or iron distance leaving longer irons and change-out races for later in the summer. In any case, starting race day with a well-tolerated meal (avoid potential irritants such as coffee, high fiber or high fat foods IF they are known to bother you) is a must. A high-carb breakfast which includes some protein 3-4 hours before the race will provide enough calories and protein to get you fueled and ready to go. A few choices include: rolled oats with nuts and fruit and low fat or soy milk OR a bagel with peanut butter and banana and low fat yogurt.

Practice your strategies as best you can during training. Find out what works and what doesn’t. Keep searching to find your own magic bullet which gives you plenty of energy to complete the race and recover quickly so you can resume training soon after. Good nutrition will not assure you of a podium-finish. But, fueling up in the days and hours before and after your race will help you feel your best, perform your best and get you ready for what’s to come in your training plan.

Stay tuned for nutritional tips for:

Early in the season
Sprint Regattas
Distance and Irons
Hydration
Recovery

Everyday eating for performance: You’ve heard it all before…….lots ‘o carbs, adequate protein, moderate fat, a variety of fruits and vegetables, emphasize whole grains, stay hydrated…….

Perception vs Facilitation of Efficiency

When paddling what forces cause the boat to move? As a paddler what do you do that impacts how efficiently the boat moves? How does the energy you expend translate into forward boat movement? How does your preception of what you are doing actually affect the boat? These are some of the questions we'll be addressing at the next seminar.

What separates a good stroke from a bad stroke is the amount of work (or power) that goes into moving the boat forward. If the boat bounces up and down, this is waste. If the boat turns, and you are wanting to go straight, this is waste. If your body absorbs the energy rather than passing it to the boat that is waste.

A paddlers goal is to maximizing the amount of energy that pushes the boat forward while minimizing waste. One can imagine the power flowing through the body in order to push the boat forward. In order to maintain structural integrity the paddle must obey Newton’s third law ("To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction") – conceptually this leads to there being Power Circles within the body when we paddle.

By talking through the power circles during the upcoming seminar, doing some visualization and isometric training, individuals will be able to connect the power generated efficiently pushing the boat forward. The connection is intuitive. Your goal is to feel.

Mental Training

The mind-body connection is powerful. For everything you think in your mind, your body has a reaction. All athletes can improve and one way to improve is to become well-versed in performance enhancement techniques.

Athletes spend so much time physically practicing to get an edge on the competition. Yet what teams and athletes can really do to get an edge is right in front of their nose, or more accurately, right above their shoulders!

You hear the same thing all the time, "Sports are 90-95% mental." Athletes and coaches at all levels say it, but how many of them do something about it? What teams and athletes can do to get an edge is develop this aspect as common practice. Our most powerful resource is the mind and most of us are not utilizing this influential resource. Training your mind is just as important as training your body and the athletes that have realized this have excelled. Keep in mind that mental training is equally as important as effective technique. Giving both the same amount of attention is the ideal approach.

Mental Training can take on different forms.

Visualization – You can do this as you commute on the train/bus. Close your eyes and walk through different areas of training. Take yourself all the way through a start envisioning every stroke, catch, rotation, and return. Envision paddling behind different people and see yourself doing different things to follow or blend with them. Envision a weakness in your stroke that you want to improve and make it better in your mind’s eye.

Meditation – Again this can be done anywhere you can stop and focus inwardly. Center yourself and concentrate on calmness equaling power. Focus on something that makes you feel strong and breath that image into every ounce of your body. Take deep breaths and expand your lungs. Breathe in the image that brings you strength and feel how it energizes you from head to toe allowing you to feel calm and focused. Explore through meditation how to convert this image to actual power application.

Mental Training will develop your toughness as an athlete. It can give you the greatest confidence, compose you under pressure, assist in teamwork, and benefit your communication skills if you put your mind to it. Work towards incorporating mental training into your active training by dialing in these methods while you practice. If you put your mind towards incorporating mental training into your program your overall performance will benefit.

The physically stronger athlete or team doesn’t have to lead to win every time. Rather, the athlete/team with the greatest confidence, composure under pressure, teamwork and communication skills can compete and win across the board with mental toughness as their ace up the sleeve.

Stay tuned for more on Mental Training at our March seminar.

Common Errors

• Missing the catch
This refers to pullback being activated before the catch is “locked”, thereby reducing the effective power in the first half of the stroke. If you are using good technique there will be heavy feel on blade for whole time blade is in water (from catch to exit).

• No or minimal rotation
Some people crouch forward with a bent back, and assume this is rotation. Think of having a rod up your back, and you are rotating around the rod.

• Bent bottom arm
• Top hand stays forward or drops toward gunwale
If either of these happens, and the bottom arm is pulling back, then the blade must go out of 90 dgrees, and into 45 degrees or worse, thereby losing most of your forward power. Putting water into the boat or lots into the air is an indicator of this.

• Poor timing
We not only need to enter the water together but also exit together. If you have a short stroke you will tend to exit early, which increases the chance of “pushing” (rating too high). People at back of boat especially need to be careful as it is “softer” water. They need to especially concentrate on reach and digging blade deep in water.

• “Dragging” the exit
This refers to a paddler taking pressure off the blade half way through the stroke. The paddler therefore starts to move forward through the water, instead of backwards, it creates drag rather than forward momentum. A lot of water is seen splashing behind the paddle.