Paddle Fit

We were only three for the Sunday paddle again. The list of injured, out of shape, or just not interested grows exponentially longer while the tally of the “paddle fit” shrinks. But what is “paddle fit” and how do you go from unfit to fit? For most people paddle fit means doing a bit of paddling, and, if you are really motivated, perhaps some supportive strength training or GPP (general physical preparedness) and hoping for the best. That’s like driving to a far off event with no idea of the route you will take. You might make it, but it’s more likely that you’ll: (a) never arrive; (b) arrive so late you missed the event; or (c) stagger in near the end of the event with a busted up vehicle and having taken ten times as long as everyone else. It’s not a strategy for success.

Long distance sea kayaking is primarily an endurance sport, which means you need first and foremost aerobic capacity and, despite the promises of fitness influencers, the only way to build aerobic capacity is do what is commonly known as LAD (long aerobic distance). If you are out of shape, you start with perhaps as little as 10 minutes a day and build gradually. It’s long, it’s slow, it’s tedious and it is absolutely necessary. No-one paddles 40 kilometres in a day without aerobic capacity. The reason some people maintain aerobic capacity year round with little specific training is that they are continuously active in their aerobic zone. They bicycle, bushwalk, trail run and paddle. All those things use different muscles in different amounts but they are all aerobic activities and build the necessary aerobic base. If you are working within your aerobic zone, you can go out day after day after day without undue fatigue.

But, if your muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints are not conditioned and strengthened as well, all the aerobic capacity in the world won’t help. This is why runners build slowly, to condition their musculoskeletal system to handle the load. I can come off my winter season reasonably aerobically fit (because I never stop doing some kind of aerobic activity) but if I go out and try and paddle 40 kilometres, my aerobic system will handle the activity no problem but I’ll be in a world of hurt – and quite possibly injury – because my musculoskeletal system is not conditioned to that volume. The beauty of being a multi-sport athlete is, I can keep training my aerobic system by simply switching to another sport. While I build to paddling 40 kilometre days, I can ride, run or walk and I’ll still be improving my aerobic system. And, of course, with other sports available I can also add in intensity without risking injury.

Intensity is best trained via tempo and interval training. Tempo training improves lactate clearance and recycling which means you can produce more power (go faster) for longer. Interval training pulls in fast twitch muscles to improve power and provides speed for those burst efforts, like surf breakouts, or paddling hard to catch waves. If you have an aerobic base, these two workouts are way, way more enjoyable than the drudgery of the long aerobic distance. Both tempo and intervals however, have to come on top of an aerobic base, and it’s surprisingly common how poor an aerobic base many paddlers have. You can actually work out with some simple at home tests when it is time to add intensity to your training.

Finally, GPP, the building block that most endurance athletes prefer to avoid. General physical preparedness is simply strength training incorporating the four functional human movement patterns, or five if you are a Dan John aficionado. Push, pull, hinge, squat, loaded carry. Two to three times a week. As you get more experienced you can vary specific exercises and tempos or add power and dynamic movements, but, like aerobic conditioning, the bulk of strength training should be basic multi-joint movements. And it’s not Les Mills Body Pump. Strength training is not 700 squats with no load to cringe 80’s music. Strength training is 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps as heavy as you can maintain form. When the load gets easy, the weight goes up.

There is, of course, a whole science of strength training but given that most paddlers don’t lift at all, the goal is simply to get started with some basic GPP. Most older adults would benefit from a hypertrophy phase (like a Delorme protocol) but when hardly anyone lifts, the goal is simply to start lifting. This is especially important for women as we are smaller and weaker than men. Women can have the best paddle stroke in the world and we will still struggle to out perform men because men have more muscle and hence can generate more power. The reason most blokes can out perform even elite females is because of muscle mass and the concordant ability to produce more power.

Few choices in life are truly binary, and training isn’t technically binary. You could choose to train some attributes and let others slide, but, if you don’t train at all, one thing is certain, you’ll never be really paddle fit.

I like to say that the only people who are not enthusiastic about training are those who haven’t trained correctly. The only people who hate lunges are those who’ve never done enough of them to experience what strong legs feel like on the trail. The only ones who hate long, slow aerobic capacity–building runs and skis are those who have never known what it feels like to sail up the mountain, nose to the wind, with ease. Relaxed, poised, moving fast and flying. Steve House.