Never Weaken: More Sea Kayaking Adventures

The last day of Sendtember. It was a strangely busy month but some big things were accomplished, including selling our caravan and buying a Hyundai van to convert to a camper. Most older people sell their camper-vans or small caravans and buy a bigger more luxurious model because they are getting old and desire more comfort in life. I’ve got two mantras for life the first is “never weaken” (which will come up later in this post) the second is “always do the opposite of average.” You can, and should substitute “expert opinion” for average. If you do average, you’ll be average and – take an honest look around – do you really want to be average?

This month, I followed this training program. Like all my training, the program involves the four fundamental human movements: push (press), pull, squat, hinge, with some additional rock climbing training. It might look easy, but, loaded appropriately, each session was a solid workout. Every other week has half the volume (same intensity) of the previous week, and, after the four day training weeks, I found myself looking forward to the lower intensity weeks. Mostly, people fuss too much about things that don’t matter very much, instead of simply going into the gym and implementing a bog standard training plan that is primarily based on multi-joint compound movements. That simple expedient will garner 90% of training benefits for 90% of people.

This month, I also read this book “Practical Guide to Exercise Physiology.” It’s a pretty good book, covers all the bases and is comprehensible even by those with little knowledge of the subject. If you are an older person, this particular sentence should encourage you to go forthwith to your local gym where you can pick up and put down some heavy objects:

Endurance training has little impact on the loss of muscle mass with age. Only strength training preserves muscle mass with age.

I did more sea kayaking this month. Yesterday, I wrapped up a couple of days shadowing a local guiding company, and the weekend before, I paddled with my local sea kayak club. These days I’m working on my Sea Guide qualification, so my paddling has been more about group management than paddle skills.

Over both weekends, I got my kayak on and off the car on my own, and down to the water by myself which necessitates a rather short and small old lady lifting an unwieldy and heavy 5.2 metre long awkwardly shaped boat. It was tricky, and, when one of my friends said “oh, you managed that yourself,” I repeated my mantra “never weaken.” Photos are courtesy of Doug from our sea kayak club paddling weekend at Durras.