hmmm, for those that are too lazy to trawl the web for posts regarding our sport of sprint kayaking, i have gathered a few links for those who want to look at technical details of rowing as well as some training methods that may be beneficial or specific to our sport.
links:
General fitness and nutrition website(EXRX)
One of the few sprint kayaking websites on the net(videos, pics, technical details)
please note that certain exercises mentioned at exrx are not specific to sprint kayaking. the sport of sprint kayaking requires a constant high intensity output of submaximal power for a sustained period of time. in simple english, this means that if you can shoulder press 80 kilos for 1 rep (as compared to shoulder pressing 40 kilos for 50 reps) you arent going to be of much use in a kayak.
this isnt like olympic weightlifting, where u use all your strength and eneergy for one maximal lift. this is a strength-endurance sport. strength is needed to propel the craft and endurance us needed to keep it moving. sub-maximal (less than maximum) strength is thus used during the sprint. the key is maintaining the amount of power output (barring starts and last bursts in which u use a greater than maintenance amount of power to accelerate your boat) throughout the race to keep your boat speed as close to top speed as possible for the whole race.
no point training with low reps and heavy weights and having a damn zai 6 strokes and then eating crap for the rest of the race. the race is won (or lost) in the last 250 metres of the race course usually so you'd better have the endurance and reserves possible to make it.
to this end, i would recommend exercises with free weights (explain why later) and with rep counts of about 15 to 20 done at high burst speed and with no rest in between reps (in between sets about 1 to 2 min rest) . one of the main problems with some guys is that they rest in between reps. no point. u dunt put down your paddle in a race. if u rest between reps, your body does not adapt to the amount of lactic acid produced by muscular activity and thus performance will decrease during your race. makes sense? damn well it does!
the high burst speed is to train your muscles to be able to contract with maximal velocity. lets put it this way. the faster your paddle goes through the water, the more power is generated and the more force is generated propelling your kayak forwards. you achieve this power output with fast contractions of your muscle, hence the need to perform exercises with fast bursts (and not forgetting good form)
why free weights as compared to machines? well, free weights trains your surrounding supporting muscles. your joints and ligaments as well. strong joints, ligaments and supporting muscles equals to more power being able to be transferred to your paddle and less injuries during training as well. machines are great if youre doing gym alone and you dunt want to have 1000 kilos crashing down on your head with no spotter around but they do not train your supporting muscles and ligaments, joints because their motion is restricted. (i.e, it only goes up and down along a pulley and metal bars) the problem with developing massive muscles is that all that massively muscular power is going to have to go somewhere when you release it. and it goes along your joints and ligaments and supporting muscles. point made. you need them to be strong. and it will benefit your rowing i guarentee (from personal experimentation)
a typical chest program (of mine during non training days) would look like this:
3 to 4 sets of 20 reps dumbbell bench press (i use about 17.5 kilos to 20 kilos)
3 sets of 20 reps incline bench press
4 sets of pectoral flys 20, 15, 12, 8 reps (increase weight as reps decrease)
3 sets of 30 dips (increase if youre feeling like a mother******)
your chest should be suitably fried after this if you
1)do it in high intensity burst format
2)dunt rest more than 1.5 min between sets
3)dunt rest between reps
4)dunt cheat on form
5)concentrate on your muscles when you do the exercises for the all important mind-muscle connection (elaborate later)
The Mind-Muscle Connection:
this might sound a bit hazy to all you unbelievers out there. but it does work. while most of us will never truly experience real mind muscle connection or mind over body connection like that of the hindu ascetics, fire walkers or thaipusam needle pokers (cept kenneth the guru), the role of the mind in exercise cannot be factored out. mind-muscle connection begins with being focused on the exercise that you are involved in. if ure doing lat-pull downs, then you focus on your lattisumus dorsi (affectionately known as "lats") during the exercise. you feel it contracting, how it contracts, how hard it contracts, what contracts along with it----and you will work the muscle more intensively.
the same goes for rowing. the main muscles that propel the rowing motion are the lats, obliques(side of stomach muscles, ie love handles area), shoulders, quadriceps(your thighs), chest and your brain. the supporting muscles are your arms (bis and tris, deltoids, forearm), your lower back, your front stomach muscles and the rest of your legs.
thats a lot of muscles working in tandem together just to push your kayak forwards in a most efficient manner. now, where does the mind-muscle connection come in? well, when u row, you focus on how your muscles feel when you are rowing. all of them working in tandem, all of them working in a smooth efficient manner. how many times have you noticed that when you are anxious or kan cheong, that you use the wrong muscles or you do not use all the muscles in a smooth relaxed fashion? that is because you are not tuned into using all of them at the same time in a relaxed manner. focus on how it feels to have everything working together when ure down in the water and it will become 2nd nature to you in a race.
please note that when i say "relaxed" i dunt mean the smoke-pot-and-chill-out kinda relaxed. i mean that you do not spend excess energy where it is not needed. relaxed muscles will produce more power than tight muscles.
example: look at your arm. relax it. tense your biceps hard.
look at your arm. tense your biceps a bit. tense them hard.
which one produces more power? the first one obviously. relaxed muscles produce more power.
the key idea here is to relax them when you dont need them and tense them to maximal power when you do. for example, when you lift your paddle out of the water, you use your shoulders, but when your paddle is in the water, you can actually relax your shoulders of that arm, thus ensuring that they do not get tired as fast and also are able to contract as hard as they can when u need to use them again for the recovery. the ability to do this will come in time with proper mind-muscle connections. all too often, we see rowers who tense their shoulders or hunch their shoulders all the time. this takes energy and your shoulders become tired and wunt be able to contract at maximal velocity when called upon.
another example would be balance in a K1 or K2. if you have good balance, you do not waste excess energy on your stabilizer muscles in your lower back or hips which contract to balance your body when your kayak is tipsy. world class rowers have little or no balance problems and thus can focus their energies on going forwards as fast as they can; which is basically what you should be trying to do as well.
the main thing here is :if u need to pull hard and whack, then PULL HARD AND KILL!!
but if you dunt need to, no point wasting energy on stuff that wunt benefit you. sounds simple right?
ok, this post is mother long already. ill just leave you guys to digest just what the hell am i saying. if u have any questions, feel free to ask me or your friendly neighbourhood coaches/seniors.
PS. in case you are wondering, when we do gym, we do machines cos its less time consuming as compared to free weights. you could and should do frees on your own. if only for a while.
links:
General fitness and nutrition website(EXRX)
One of the few sprint kayaking websites on the net(videos, pics, technical details)
please note that certain exercises mentioned at exrx are not specific to sprint kayaking. the sport of sprint kayaking requires a constant high intensity output of submaximal power for a sustained period of time. in simple english, this means that if you can shoulder press 80 kilos for 1 rep (as compared to shoulder pressing 40 kilos for 50 reps) you arent going to be of much use in a kayak.
this isnt like olympic weightlifting, where u use all your strength and eneergy for one maximal lift. this is a strength-endurance sport. strength is needed to propel the craft and endurance us needed to keep it moving. sub-maximal (less than maximum) strength is thus used during the sprint. the key is maintaining the amount of power output (barring starts and last bursts in which u use a greater than maintenance amount of power to accelerate your boat) throughout the race to keep your boat speed as close to top speed as possible for the whole race.
no point training with low reps and heavy weights and having a damn zai 6 strokes and then eating crap for the rest of the race. the race is won (or lost) in the last 250 metres of the race course usually so you'd better have the endurance and reserves possible to make it.
to this end, i would recommend exercises with free weights (explain why later) and with rep counts of about 15 to 20 done at high burst speed and with no rest in between reps (in between sets about 1 to 2 min rest) . one of the main problems with some guys is that they rest in between reps. no point. u dunt put down your paddle in a race. if u rest between reps, your body does not adapt to the amount of lactic acid produced by muscular activity and thus performance will decrease during your race. makes sense? damn well it does!
the high burst speed is to train your muscles to be able to contract with maximal velocity. lets put it this way. the faster your paddle goes through the water, the more power is generated and the more force is generated propelling your kayak forwards. you achieve this power output with fast contractions of your muscle, hence the need to perform exercises with fast bursts (and not forgetting good form)
why free weights as compared to machines? well, free weights trains your surrounding supporting muscles. your joints and ligaments as well. strong joints, ligaments and supporting muscles equals to more power being able to be transferred to your paddle and less injuries during training as well. machines are great if youre doing gym alone and you dunt want to have 1000 kilos crashing down on your head with no spotter around but they do not train your supporting muscles and ligaments, joints because their motion is restricted. (i.e, it only goes up and down along a pulley and metal bars) the problem with developing massive muscles is that all that massively muscular power is going to have to go somewhere when you release it. and it goes along your joints and ligaments and supporting muscles. point made. you need them to be strong. and it will benefit your rowing i guarentee (from personal experimentation)
a typical chest program (of mine during non training days) would look like this:
3 to 4 sets of 20 reps dumbbell bench press (i use about 17.5 kilos to 20 kilos)
3 sets of 20 reps incline bench press
4 sets of pectoral flys 20, 15, 12, 8 reps (increase weight as reps decrease)
3 sets of 30 dips (increase if youre feeling like a mother******)
your chest should be suitably fried after this if you
1)do it in high intensity burst format
2)dunt rest more than 1.5 min between sets
3)dunt rest between reps
4)dunt cheat on form
5)concentrate on your muscles when you do the exercises for the all important mind-muscle connection (elaborate later)
The Mind-Muscle Connection:
this might sound a bit hazy to all you unbelievers out there. but it does work. while most of us will never truly experience real mind muscle connection or mind over body connection like that of the hindu ascetics, fire walkers or thaipusam needle pokers (cept kenneth the guru), the role of the mind in exercise cannot be factored out. mind-muscle connection begins with being focused on the exercise that you are involved in. if ure doing lat-pull downs, then you focus on your lattisumus dorsi (affectionately known as "lats") during the exercise. you feel it contracting, how it contracts, how hard it contracts, what contracts along with it----and you will work the muscle more intensively.
the same goes for rowing. the main muscles that propel the rowing motion are the lats, obliques(side of stomach muscles, ie love handles area), shoulders, quadriceps(your thighs), chest and your brain. the supporting muscles are your arms (bis and tris, deltoids, forearm), your lower back, your front stomach muscles and the rest of your legs.
thats a lot of muscles working in tandem together just to push your kayak forwards in a most efficient manner. now, where does the mind-muscle connection come in? well, when u row, you focus on how your muscles feel when you are rowing. all of them working in tandem, all of them working in a smooth efficient manner. how many times have you noticed that when you are anxious or kan cheong, that you use the wrong muscles or you do not use all the muscles in a smooth relaxed fashion? that is because you are not tuned into using all of them at the same time in a relaxed manner. focus on how it feels to have everything working together when ure down in the water and it will become 2nd nature to you in a race.
please note that when i say "relaxed" i dunt mean the smoke-pot-and-chill-out kinda relaxed. i mean that you do not spend excess energy where it is not needed. relaxed muscles will produce more power than tight muscles.
example: look at your arm. relax it. tense your biceps hard.
look at your arm. tense your biceps a bit. tense them hard.
which one produces more power? the first one obviously. relaxed muscles produce more power.
the key idea here is to relax them when you dont need them and tense them to maximal power when you do. for example, when you lift your paddle out of the water, you use your shoulders, but when your paddle is in the water, you can actually relax your shoulders of that arm, thus ensuring that they do not get tired as fast and also are able to contract as hard as they can when u need to use them again for the recovery. the ability to do this will come in time with proper mind-muscle connections. all too often, we see rowers who tense their shoulders or hunch their shoulders all the time. this takes energy and your shoulders become tired and wunt be able to contract at maximal velocity when called upon.
another example would be balance in a K1 or K2. if you have good balance, you do not waste excess energy on your stabilizer muscles in your lower back or hips which contract to balance your body when your kayak is tipsy. world class rowers have little or no balance problems and thus can focus their energies on going forwards as fast as they can; which is basically what you should be trying to do as well.
the main thing here is :if u need to pull hard and whack, then PULL HARD AND KILL!!
but if you dunt need to, no point wasting energy on stuff that wunt benefit you. sounds simple right?
ok, this post is mother long already. ill just leave you guys to digest just what the hell am i saying. if u have any questions, feel free to ask me or your friendly neighbourhood coaches/seniors.
PS. in case you are wondering, when we do gym, we do machines cos its less time consuming as compared to free weights. you could and should do frees on your own. if only for a while.
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