Ron Lugbill Whitewater Slalom Racing Blog

Don't Stretch Before a Race

Do not stretch before a race.  There is research that shows it will slow you down if you stretch prior to an event.  So, it's better not to stretch before training either- you should train like you race- fast and stretching could slow you down.  Anyway, the best warm-up is movement, not static stretching.  Warm up by paddling or by jogging or some movement that will warm the muscles.

However, stretching is very important.  Stretch after workouts, not before.   Warm up the muscles first and then stretch.  The warmth increases the effect of the stretching.

I know a many-time world champion paddler who would do the following routine every morning- run, shower, stretch.  The run is short and slow- not a training run, but a warm-up.  The hot shower increases the warmth of the muscles.  Then, stretch slowly.   This is a great active recovery session.  Run, shower, stretch.

Another Olympic champion I know would just do a half hour session of stretching every evening.  This is the type of thing that separates the champions from the also-rans.  It reduces the chances of injury, helps you recover from workouts, increases your flexibility and mobility, helps make your movements more efficient and relaxes the body so you feel better and sleep better.

Make stretching a part of your training.  Sorry, but I can't go into the details of various stretches here.   Include stretches of your entire body, not just the arms or upper body. 

Or you can take a yoga class, which is very popular these days.  The yoga instructor will help teach you a routine.  Try to make it a daily habit- not just an occasional thing.  The little bit of stretching that people do right after a workout isn't enough.  You should have regular stretching sessions, just like you have regular workouts.  Schedule and plan them, just as you schedule and plan your regular workouts.

Varied Workouts

Workouts can either feature just one type of training or they can be varied at the same session.  For example, you could do a pyramid workout with 30 second courses, then a 60 second course, then a 2 minute run, then 60s again and 30s.  Or, you could just do a workout that is all 60 second courses.

Which is better?  Some people feel that you should isolate one aspect of training so that it is totally depleted and then the body knows to rebuild itself to prepare for that type of training in the future.  By the way, rest is when the body gets stronger.  Inadequate rest means the body doesn't have time to rebuild and can lead to decreased performance.  Training is just pointing out to the body the type of work it should be ready to do in the future, so when the body rests, it rebuilds itself to perform that kind of work.

Other people feel that in a varied sport, such as whitewater slalom racing, each training session should also be varied to prepare the athlete for the varied demands of the sport.  Our sport draws on various muscles, various energy systems and various techniques.  It is unlike cyclical sports, such as running or swimming in this respect, and more akin to ball sports, such as basketball or soccer. 

I sometimes like to use a varied workout not so much for its training value as for its educational value.  Good teachers do not normally just do one activity for the entire class.  You need to keep changing activities to keep up the interest.  For example, in teaching a class, you might start out presenting the material orally, then calling on students with questions and discussing the material.  Then, do some practice problems on the board.  Next, the students can be given some problems to do during class with the teacher available in case of questions.  And finally, some homework will be assigned for further practice.

Getting back to slalom coaching, I often start with some flatwater stroke drills for 10 minutes or so, then move to technique on gates for 15 minutes or so, then do 2 timed short courses on gates, then do some strength training at the end.  The variation of activities keeps the interest level higher.  Every 10 or 15 minutes, a new activity is introduced to keep the interest level up.

In some training situations, it makes sense to just do one type of course.  For example, if the course is such that you can't paddle back to the start, you might want to do full lengths.  Or if there is one aspect of training that you want to emphasize, such as doing offsets, you might want to just do courses that isolate that skill on a series of 4 or 5 gates, not on a 90 second course.

Workouts are often organized by physiological principle (speed, endurance, lactic tolerance, etc.).  However, another method of arranging workouts is by technique, with each workout emphasizing one aspect of technique, such as offsets, upstreams, reverses, etc.  Each workout can have a technique theme, so that the priority is placed on developing that technique and the athletes all understand the topic of the day, which gives the workout a sense of purpose.

Click on the link or the image below for a video of Daniele Molmenti at Augsburg 2012. Great run! He is a very strong and fast boater but he is also right on line the whole way:

How to Race Well

Many paddlers wonder about what their race results will be.  Will I win?  How fast will I be?

Rather than concentrating on the outcome, the focus should be on the process.  How should I do this gate?  Where should my boat be at this point of the course?  Even if you pick up a penalty or make a mistake, keep thinking of the course, not on your score.

It's like trying to play basketball when you are looking at the scoreboard- you are taking your eyes off the ball.  It's not a good strategy for racing.  Just keep on going and don't worry about the result.  Don't think about the gate you just hit or whether or not the gate judge saw it.  Stay in the moment.

Anyway, I can tell you how you will do in the race.  You will do about the same as you do in practice.  You won't magically become someone different on race day.  Your race run will be about the same as your practice runs are.

So, the way to make your race runs better is to make your practice runs better.  Every run in training should be well-planned and thought-out with a lot of focus and attention.  Training is not about working muscles or a specific energy system- aerobic, anaerobic or whatever.  Training is about getting highly focused, quality runs.  Train fast and clean and then you will do the same in the race.

On the other hand, if you train without studying the course ahead of time, or if you are too tired or sloppy or in a bad mood, you are training to do poorly.  You would be better off not training that day if you won't have a high quality session.  Doing low quality sessions leads to low quality in your race runs.

Also, on your race runs, your competitor is the river, not the other boaters.  Concentrate on the things you have control over.  You have absolutely no control over the other boaters.  You also have no control over the race organizers or the gate judges.  The only thing you can control is yourself.  That is what you need to concentrate on- your run on the course.   Take the run just as a run in training- no special effort is necessary if you have been training correctly.

Doing lots of race simulations will help you race well.  Rather than never doing full-lengths in practice, seek out opportunities to do full-lenths in practice.  On weekends, go to a place where there is a full length gate course to practice full lengths.  Try to take the full lengths like a race as much as possible. 

There are a lot of skills you need for full-lengths that you don't need if you are just doing short courses.  Memorizing a full-length course is an important skill.  Course study from the bank is also an important skill.  Being able to look at a course and planning out every move is an important skill that takes a lot of practice to develop.    Doing quality full-lengths in practice will help you with these skills.

Don't do Loops

I don't like loops, unless they are Fruit Loops (sugary American cereal).  I used to do loops myself.  I started doing loops before anyone I knew was doing loops.  I wanted to do longer intervals, so I would time myself on 3 or 4 minute loops.

But I didn't make any progress this way.  It didn't make me faster.  It didn't help my technique.  I was just doing it to paddle for a certain period of time and my technique actually got worse, not better.  And I missed doing quality speed and technique that I could have been doing instead.

Paddling upstream for many strokes is not something that we do in races, except if you miss a gate or some emergency happens.  It's not specific to our sport.  We do races going fast on gates, mostly downstream, and some upstream gates where we turn but don't really paddle upstream much.  We never race going upstream.  Maybe someone should invent that sport, but until that happens, it's not our sport.

Paddling loops is done at a slower pace than race pace normally.  This is also not specific to our sport.  We have 90 second downstream races.  We don't have loop marathon races where you have to keep going back up eddies and repeating the same gates.  Maybe that would be an interesting sport- where you keep doing the same gates.  But in our sport, you only do each gate once.

Paddling loops takes you away from other training that is more effective.  Instead of doing loops, you could be doing short timed courses, working on your speed, agility, and technique in gates.  Or, you could do strength training.  Or you could do starts, working on your acceleration.  Or, you could do a purely technique session and improve your technique.

I know that many racers are doing loops.  But I don't know of any research that says that you should train by doing loops.  And I don't know of anyone who got any faster or cleaner by doing loops. 

If you do loops, you are not doing the important work on speed, power and technique that you need to succeed in whitewater slalom racing.  You should be training at race speed or faster, not slower.  Train like you race as much as possible and you will improve much faster. 

C-1 Slalom Technique

There is a series of videos on you tube about c-1 slalom technique called "Respect the Project":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU4Cj-gtPYw

Rest

Since I'm an old guy, rest is a favorite topic of mine.  The issue is how much rest do you need and how much training should you do?

The answer is it varies.  Sorry, it's not just a cop-out.  The research and experience shows that some people need more time to recover than others.  Age is one important variable.   Teenagers recovery a lot quicker than us old-timers.  But it's a very individual thing.

It's important to listen to your body and rest when it needs rest.  Sometimes hard to do when everyone else is training and you feel like you would be behind if you don't go out there too.

Overtraining is very common among elite paddlers.  Many of them love paddling and are almost addicted to it.  It's difficult to take a day off.  Someone estimated that 80-90% of the elite slalom athletes are overtrained.

There is a sense that more is better and the more I train, the better I will be.  That is not really the case once you are training.  If you train only once/week, you get about 50% of the benefit.  Twice a week and it goes up to 75 % or so.  Three times/week and you are getting 90 % benefit and no risk of overtraining. 

Once you get to 4 or 5 times/week, you are at  or near maximum benefit for your training.  If you get beyond that, you might be able to avoid overtraining, but you are unlikely to get much additional benefit from all the extra training sessions.

Yes, some people can do regular two-a-days and not overtrain (but probably most of them are overtrained), but they might be doing just as well training 5 or 6 times/week.

If you rest more between workouts, you are fresher for your workouts and therefore your workouts are higher quality.  You go faster when you are fresh, so you are training your muscles to go fast.

In general, it takes about 24 hours to recover from a largely aerobic workout and 48 hours to recover from a largely anaerobic workout.  To help recover, you should do some active recovery.

One active recovery that works well is to run slowly for 5-10 minutes, take a hot shower and then stretch.  Another active recovery is to do yoga.  Or go in a hot tub and then stretch.  Using active recovery between workouts helps your body to recover and make it less likely that you will overtrain.

In my years, I have seen a few people who had outstanding results, including medaling in World Championships, with only paddling a few times/month.  I was very interested in these people, because I was curious as to how someone could be that good on that little training.  One, they had perfect technique.  Second, they had lots of experience.  Third, they were still in good shape, even though they didn't paddle much.  Fourth, when they did paddle, it was very focused and they did short courses, analyzed their runs, and paddled fast and clean.  In other words, they didn't paddle much, but when they did, it was high quality.

I don't recommend only paddling a few times per month as a training technique.  I know that many of the elite paddlers train twice a day.  I used to train twice a day a lot.  However, I don't believe that it leads to better performance, and it frequently leads to lower performance in the form of overtraining. 

A little disclaimer.  The numbers I cite above are generalizations.  It depends greatly on the individual, the type of training, the age of the individual, etc.  I am basically advising you that more is not necessarily better.  You have to listen to your own body and do what is best for you. 

Kayak Forward Stroke

Here is how I teach the kayak forward stroke.  You reach forward with the shoulder and lower arm and plant the paddle in the water.  Plant it firmly all the way in the water before you start pulling back.  Then, pull back with the shoulder to involve the larger shoulder muscles in the stroke. 

Do not push with the top hand.  Pushing with the top hand makes the paddle less vertical during the stroke.  You are using the paddle as a fulcrum if you try to push with the top hand.  The top hand should be about the level of the eyes or forhead. 

And do not bring the paddle back too far.  Lift it out to the side just before the hips or else you will be lifting water.  If the stroke goes back past the hip, the angle is such that it is lifting the water, rather than propelling you forward.

Do not reach the top shoulder back when you reach forward with the paddle.  Reach forward with the bottom arm and shoulder- you can get the paddle further forward if you reach with the shoulder, not just the arm. 

I do not use the word "rotate" because that implies that the top shoulder rotates back.  You reach forward with the bottom shoulder, but you don't pull the top shoulder back.  Rotating back the top shoulder makes the paddle less vertical for the plant.  The paddle should be vertical as much as possible during the stroke.

The paddler should relax muscles not used in the stroke, such as facial muscles, because otherwise you are wasting energy unnecessarily.  And the boater should have a slight forward lean, but with a straight back.  The lean comes from the hips and the spine is straight.

To practice good posture, stick the chest forward and keep the head back.  Some paddlers have rounded backs.  Don't stick you head forward- keep it aligned with your back so your spine is straight.

There is no side-to-side rocking of the boat and no forward to back motion of the body either normally.  This slows down the boat if there is a "bob" of the boat with each stroke.  The boat should glide.

The kayak stroke is really similar to the c-1 stroke, minus the steering portion of the c-1 stroke.  The principles are the same- vertical blade, reach with the shoulder, pull back with the shoulder, slice out at the hip, etc.

The paddle should be light and a feeling of lightness and quickness should be a part of your stroke, not heaviness and slowness.  However, each stroke should be solid, not just choppy.  Don't slap at the water.  Take the time to get a solid plant before pulling back.

There should be little splash with the paddle.  The top hand should come across to approximately the mid-line of the boat, but not across the boat to the other side. 

Actually, you aren't pulling the paddle back, you are pulling your body up to where the paddle is.  There is very little slippage of the paddle.  It goes in and comes out of the water in about the same location. 

Concentrate on working on your forward stroke occasionally to make sure you aren't developing bad habits.  Watch the top boaters and see what they do.  Have someone video you paddling and watch the videos to check your technique.  The forward stroke is really the basis of your paddling technique, so you should work on it to make it as efficient as possible. 

Focus in Training

The emphasis in slalom training should be on quality, not quantity of training.  Every run should be well-thought out ahead of time, planned and executed with focus.  The focus of training will carry over to racing, just as a lack of focus in training will carry over to competition.

You can't suddenly start being alert and precise at the World Championships.  It comes from daily training with a high intensity.

The sort of long slow loop workouts often work against this type of laser-like focus.  Technique and precision suffer.   Poles get hit more frequently, boaters lose their good posture, and get off-line when doing these slow workouts on gates. 

Likewise, an excessive emphasis on the energy system demands of the sport breeds a lack of focus.  The emphasis should be on having top quality runs, not on a specific rest period.  Poles should be still before your run to create the race-like focus.  If the poles are swinging, it is better to wait a minute than to take a poor quality run.

In some workouts, the athletes are supposed to paddle for a certain period of time with no emphasis on how well they actually perform during that time.  They are just given a set of numbers and they are to paddle for the specified time with the specified rest interval.  The important thing is just to paddle for the magical number of minutes and rest for the specified period.  The paddlers often lose their focus and their technique suffers under such conditions.

Feedback is important in increasing focus.  Videos are important- helps you start to analyze the sport.  Watching other boaters also helps increase awareness and helps in the learning process.  Getting coaching is another important form of feedback.  Paddling courses for time and with penalties is the type of feedback we receive at a race, and therefore is very important in training.  Just knowing that your practice run is for time and that penalties are being counted increases the amount of focus athletes bring to a run.

And the first run should be a top-quality, focused run.  You can't wait in training until the 3rd or 4th run to do the course well.  The race is over by that point.  You need to practice doing the course very well the first time.  To do that requires time and planning, not just rushing out to paddle.  One way to accomplish this is to have a mandatory waiting period before any runs when the coach is running a workout.

Having simulated competitions also brings up the level of focus.  Instead of doing full-lengths, try making the practice more race-like.  Have specified start times.  Have volunteer gate judges making the calls and volunteers doing the timing as well.  Give the racers number bibs.  No practice before the start.  Just study the course from shore.  Try to get some people to yell and cheer from shore to get the athletes used to crowd noise, which can be distracting.  And post the results of only the first two runs.   All these factors add up to increasing the focus of the racers, giving them a real race-like experience.

On short courses, focus is also important.  Rather than rushing out to do the next run, take your time to watch other boaters and think through your plan for the next run.  Take your time and wait until the prior boater finishes to make sure there are no swinging poles.

And when you are exhausted and have had a good workout, just call it a day.  Don't keep paddling when you are exhausted and can't focus or else your technique could suffer.  Remember to emphasize the quality of your workouts, not the quantity.  If you practice poor technique, it will become a habit that will then carry over to races.

Paddling at slow speeds often leads to a lack of focus also.  Training should be done at race speed or higher.  The techniques for paddling slow are different than for paddling fast.  Practice should be at race pace or faster so that high speed technique is learned and perfected.  All training should be focused, not low-quality.

What Base Training?

Paddlers often spend months building their base in the off-season, prior to the racing season.  They believe that slow aerobic paddling is the best base to build off of.  However, this approach leads to a decrease in power and speed and technique, because those elements are neglected.  Paddling at speeds slower than race pace is not an effective type of base training. 

Power, speed and technique are the most important factors in success in whitewater racing.  Rather than reducing those during the off-season, power, speed and technique should be developed and increased during the off-season.  Instead of a base of slow paddling, racers should aim for a strong base of technique, speed and power during the off-season.

Some have called this reverse periodization.  That may be a misnomer though because periodization is just doing different things during different periods of the year.  And base-building is doing different things during different periods of the year.  So, it is still periodization.  But, the base is built on building the important factors in the sport (technique, speed and power), rather than unimportant factors such as training the muscles to paddle slowly.

Track coaches might call it a short to long approach.  Short to long is sometimes contrasted to long to short in track.  Instead of training for a half-mile or mile and then working on speed to run 400 meters, you train for speed first, like a sprinter and then once you have the speed, you increase the distance to develop endurance.

To develop speed you can do short segments, up to 30 seconds at all-out efforts with complete rest.   Ideally, there should be some work on straight, all-out speed training (sprints without gates), and some specific slalom gate training where there are current differentials, turns, upstreams, varied strokes, etc. to develop speed, acceleration, power and agility. 

In slalom, there are frequent decelerations of the boat speed, requiring various strokes and re-acceleration.  This is called agility, which is somewhat different from straight out sprinting where the boat speed remains high, except at the start.  Agility is very important in slalom, yet rarely discussed in training.

To develop power, general strength is often developed first by resistance training.   Power can then be developed by plyometric exercises or through in the boat training with resistance.  Someone can hold the boat in place so it doesn't move and the resistance is increased.  Do repeated sets of 30 strokes with the boat stationary.  Or tow another boat for 30 strokes.  This should be done in repeated short (30 seconds or less) sets so that maximum force is applied and then complete rest between sets.

As for technique, there should be varied forms of feedback to develop and improve technique.  Forms of feedback include video analysis, coaching, counting times and penalties, and observing other boaters.  Ideally, each of these forms of feedback would be used weekly.  Bringing a lot of attention to the task (focus) is important in developing technique.

Paddling slowly for hours in the fall and winter accomplishes none of the important base-building factors needed for success in slalom racing.  There should be weekly workouts emphasizing speed, technique and power.  Regular feedback by using video, coaching, and paddling with others is important.  It takes a great deal of time to develop the speed, power and technique necessary to win in slalom racing.  There simply isn't enough time to adequately develop speed, power and technique in the spring- it's too short.   The off-season is the long period of time when speed, power and technique can best be trained. 

Weird Strokes to Improve Balance and Flexibility

Here is link to an article about different strokes to improve balance and flexibility:

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.americancanoe.org/resource/resmgr/sei-focus/weird_strokes_can_teach_bala.pdf

Kayak Stroke Drills List

Kayak Stroke Drills List

Here is a list of flatwater skill drills that I often use to help with stroke mobility.  I find that it's good to go back to flatwater from time to time to practice these skills.  Often, paddlers revert to limited mobility when only training on big water.  They end up having a small repetoire of strokes and a limited range of motion in using the strokes.   So, revisiting them on flatwater is useful so that the body gets used to using a larger range of motion.

So, here are some flatwater strokes and drills that I use:

forward stroke

reverse stroke

duffek

forward sweep

reverse sweep

draw

bow draw

stern draw

stroke out to the side, away from the boat (middle portion of sweep stroke only)

reverse stroke out to the side, away from the boat (middle portion of reverse sweep stroke only)

zig-zags using duffek and stroke

zig-zags in reverse, using stern draw

feathering

reverse paddling with compound stroke (power face, flip to non-power face)

paddling using only one blade

quickness drill, using a slow forward stroke and quick switch to opposite side

pivots

turning 180 degrees without a pivot

leans- j-lean

paddling posture- slight forward lean, chest forward, spine straight

stern rudders

stroke under the boat- past vertical

push boat backwards and paddle forward using only one blade (much harder than it sounds)

c-stroke

paddle forward using sweeps on both sides

paddle reverse using reverse sweeps

paddle forward using strokes out to the side, far from boat (middle portion of sweep stroke)

paddle reverse using strokes out to the side, far from boat (middle portion of reverse sweep)

zig-zags using repeated feathering on inside of turn

These are some of the flatwater stroke drills I use for kayaks. 

Many are also useful for c-1s, but I add a few and subtract a few for c-boats.  Reverse paddling and pry strokes and j-strokes are important for c-boaters.  Also, reverse paddling.  Many c-boaters now can't do effective pries or j-strokes.  They just use cross-strokes all the time. 

While this normally works, there are times when you don't want to weight the bow of the boat.  Cross-strokes weight the bow.  If you want the bow up, you are better off with a pry or a j-stroke.  So, I have them practice paddling without doing any cross-strokes.  Just paddle straight with a j-stroke on each stroke.  And practice pries by doing a couple of strokes in a row, then a pry, zig-zagging.

And sliding pries.  As you take a stroke, slide the paddle along the side of the boat with the paddle angled sharply so it moves the boat sideways.  And reverse sliding pries, sliding the paddle along the boat at an angle on a reverse stroke.  Moves the boat sideways also.

Although practiced on flatwater, these are not just beginner strokes.  And some paddlers can even reach very high levels without knowing some of these strokes, so coaches don't shy away from showing them to elite athletes also. 

It's always helpful to have extra tools in the toolbox, instead of always using the hammer and the wrench.  That's what these drills and strokes provide- additional ways of moving your boat, so you have a greater variety of moves to draw on.

Short Courses Are Aerobic?

There is substantial new research that says that the aerobic energy system is used a great deal even for short courses.  Here is a summary of some of the recent research on this topic:

http://www.zone5endurance.com/?p=1466

There is a study of flatwater kayak racers that shows that at around 40 seconds into the race, it is half aerobic.  By one minute into a race, it is about 90% aerobic and then it plateaus at around 90%.  And this study just looked at a race.  In training, the first run may be half aerobic at 40 seconds but by the time you are halfway through your workout, it is mainly aerobic if you are doing 40 second courses.

So, this is much shorter than sports physiologists had previously thought.  The take-home for us paddlers is that you don't have to do those long paddles for the training to be considered aerobic.  You can paddle at or near race pace and as long as the distance is 30 seconds or more, it is mainly an aerobic workout.  If you are doing  1 minute intervals, it is about 90% aerobic, yet the pace is specific to your event.

You don't have to paddle long and slow for a workout to be considered aerobic.  Paddling long distances is not specific enough to be effective training.  But, anything from 30 seconds on up is going to be a mainly aerobic workout.  See this article that provides summaries of recent research:

http://www.zone5endurance.com/?p=1466

Stroke Under the Boat

Here is another unnamed stroke.  A forward stroke where the paddle is past vertical so that the blade is actually under the boat.

There are times when you want to continue a turn towards the side you are stroking on.  If you do a normal forward stroke, it will slow the turning momentum of the boat.  But if you do a stroke that is under the boat, with your paddle shaft past vertical, the turn will continue.

Here is a drill I do with paddlers.  Push the bow of the boat away from shore and have them paddle back to you paddling only on one side.  This is deceptively difficult and few boaters do it right at first. 

You have to do this stroke under the boat to do it and end with a stern rudder stroke.  Many boaters angle their paddle on their first stroke and pull the boat sideways to keep from turning, but they don't paddle straight back to you, they are drawing the boat sideways.

Instead, you should reach across with the top hand, rotating the body so you are reaching with your shoulders also so that when the stroke first goes in, the angle of the shaft is past vertical so the stroke doesn't turn the boat.  You have to get the stroke as close to the center line of the boat as possible so the stroke only makes the boat go forward and doesn't turn the boat.

You can do this drill either from shore or from another boat.  Grab the bow of the other boat and push it away from you and have the boater paddle straight at your hands only using one blade.  This helps develop stroke mobility and range of motion.  You need to learn to both reach way out to the side and to reach way under the boat for a full range of motion.

This is easier in a c-1 than a k-1, but both should learn this stroke.  C-1 should use this as their first stroke when starting from a standstill normally.  K-1s will have less of a use for it, but it is another tool in your toolbox to draw on when needed.

Stroke Away From the Boat

This stroke does not have a name as far as I know.  I call it a stroke away from the boat or the middle portion of the sweep.  If you divide a sweep stroke into thirds, with the first third being a push from the bow, the middle bit being a stroke far away from the boat and the third section being a pull towards the stern, we are talking about the middle part of the sweep stroke.

It is actually a very common stroke although it is never taught.  As you paddle in whitewater, you are constantly varying how far your stroke is from the boat to keep the boat on line.  Strokes close to the center line of the boat only propel the boat forward and strokes further from the center line of the boat turn the boat.

If your boat veers of slightly to one side because of a current or wave or other force on it, you usually correct that slight veering with a stroke away from the boat.  The first part of the sweep stroke is effective for starting a turn, but less effective at stopping a turn once it has started.  That is because if you weight the front of the boat, the boat tends to continue in its turn.  Since you want to get out of the turn, you shouldn't lean forward for the bow sweep. 

So, good paddlers instinctively know this and don't start their sweep at the bow, but use the middle part of the sweep stroke, or a stroke away from the boat.

I believe it's time we started teaching this stroke to beginners.  It is very useful to them because they are getting veered off course all the time because they don't know how to anticipate the forces on the boat before they happen.  If they lean forward and do a sweep to correct it, it is hard to get the boat back on course. 

Some people teach the stern draw to correct this veering effect, and that works, but it isn't what good paddlers do.  Good paddlers use a stroke away from the boat and then if that isn't enough, they continue with a stern draw.  Usually the stroke away from the boat is all that is necessary and there isn't such a disruption in your paddling for each correction and you maintain your speed better.

So, I teach the stroke away from the boat and do stroke drills where you do a stroke away from the boat on the left, then the right, alternating sides.  Really reach out to the side for each stroke.  Some people don't get enough extension on this stroke.  It's good to practice it on flatwater, really reaching out to the side to get maximum extension, so the paddle never comes within 2 feet of the boat.

Daniele Molmenti's Blog

Here is a post I found on (2012 olympic champion) Daniele Molmenti's blog.  I translated it from Italian using google translation, so it might not be the best translation: 

January 21st, 2012 daniele 0

The first week of the row right: nine workouts in water and three in the gym. Things like: 20'a145-160bpm + 2x (4 × 2'1r) -5% s + 2x (4 × 1'30r) +5% s +20'. Indecipherable codes for those who do not know what you're talking about. Sometimes difficult to understand even to insiders, like a trick to not reveal too easily a training method built over the years. And jealously guarded. These are all things written in the books, but you have to choose good books because there are so many. Above all, we must apply the doctrine to everyday life: your if, where and when. Adapting the words of scientists and professors to their target and create personalized training for each athlete. Sometimes the athlete alone because the experience is so much or because sometimes to get a job done right, you have to make for themselves.

My trick is to use everything I have available: an expert trainer, an experienced Olympic champion, an active seasons now many, many years of testing data, the work of other technicians and scholars who share with me the research . I take all that I think suited my needs and I use it for me. It's called selfishness professional.
During the second week of training, the volume of active labor increases by 25% and the intensity of 10% when it comes to pulsations of the heart or 5% if they are pounds in the gym. E 'in this week starting the first signs that lactic acid is burning muscle fibers and is then a massage, proper diet and adequate rest to maintain the high quality of the training and especially not to burst the next week. After the third load there will be a quiet week: the stage of recovery. Used to tell the body that can now relax and must reorganize and rebuild because soon it will be still required work, work and work.
In water, while I do my workout, I see the other athletes, junior and senior and known as incredibly varied the mode of training. There are some workouts that are the same for everyone: the basic technique or testing of the race. Then based on its philosophy of sport is conditional build works: someone thinks the canoe slalom as a series of bursts of speed, someone like the continued use of water power, someone like a continuous effort until the finish, etc.
There is a coach with the magic wand produces champions, and there are plenty of champions that go against every scientific doctrine. The canoe slalom is a sport that can be synthesized and studied mathematically, and then you have to use experience, strategy, and often a lot of imagination to create the "" correct for any athlete.
You know my method: based on the perfect details. When there is professionalism and desire to win, only the details make the difference between the sample and those who view it from under the podium.

 

How often should you train?

Here is an article from a running science website about how often you should run:

http://trainingscience.net/?page_id=622

Interestingly, the article cites a study about resistance training and how long it took various trained people to build lean tissue from one workout.  The average was about 6 days, but the results varied from 1.5 days to 11 days to build the maximum amount of muscle from one workout.

The principle to take away from this is that it varies.  What the other guys are doing is not right for you.  Each of us is unique, so the number of times we train should be unique to our bodies. 

I have seen c-2 partners with one partner who could handle 2 a days every day, no problem, but his partner needed a day of rest after every workout.  Their c-1 times were about the same, showing that the one with more training wasn't faster, but just recovered faster.  The one needing more recovery wasn't slower, his body just needed more time to recover between workouts.  It did lead to some tension though when the one who wanted to train more in c-2 felt like the one who needed rest was a slacker and not as committed.

There is a vast range of individuality in this area.  You will need to listen to your body and determine what is best for you.

Here is a link to the article:

http://trainingscience.net/?page_id=622

Importance of Good Team Spirit in Slalom Racing

On the French Federation's website (http://www.ffck.org/renseigner/index2.php3?page=savoir/publications_techniques.html ), there is an article by french coach Pierre Salame, an old friend of mine about the importance of having a good team culture in order to have good results.  He presented this paper to other french coaches at the French National Institute for Sport and Physical Education, where I lived and trained a long time ago.  I stayed in the dorms and trained with the french team members in Paris and went to their races and training camps and stayed with Pierre's parents for 2 weeks in Albi, France.

He correlates the results of the french team with ratings of the team's culture during the past 12 years or so.  There is a strong correlation on his graphs.  Please remember that correlation is not causation though.

The article is in French:

http://www.ffck.org/renseigner/index2.php3?page=savoir/publications_techniques.html

Evil in the Upstream Technique Videos

The International Canoe Federation (ICF) made this series of excellent technique videos for slalom kayak.  They feature top racers explaining what they do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvRtdM4ChA

Link to Technique Videos

The British Canoe Union has many videos on k-1, c-1, and c-2 slalom technique from strokes to different gate combinations.  Check it out:

http://www.slalomtechnique.co.uk/c1technique.php

Short Short Courses

We normally think of short courses as being timed courses around 30 seconds long.  These are great workouts, developing speed, power, aerobic and anaerobic energy systems.  Short courses also allow a paddler to experiment with different ways of doing the same move to determine which way is fastest. 

Short courses are also beneficial because if there are multiple paddlers present, each paddler can watch the others and learn from them and even hear their times immediately after watching their runs to see if what they did was fast or not.  Because of the length of the course, the other boaters are normally sitting in the eddy watching the others and they quickly learn from each other. 

Short courses are great workouts, but in addition, it's beneficial to do some courses that are even shorter.  To build maximum speed, you can sometimes do courses and sprints less than 15 seconds long. 

Track sprinters often do this to build their speed and acceleration.  They do very short segments- 10 or 20 yards to practice their acceleration off the blocks.  Acceleration is also very important in whitewater slalom.  We are frequently turning, losing the boat speed and then having to reaccelerate the boat to get it back to speed.

Short short courses (for agility training) and short short sprints (for straight-ahead speed) should be incorporated into your training year-round.   They can either be a part of your workout, normally done first before you are tired from other training, or they can be the entire workout if you really want to isolate your speed training.

They should be timed so you get instant feedback on how fast you went.  Self-timing isn't accurate for such short courses.  You need a coach or someone else to time you.  Tenths of a second are big differences on short short courses.

It's important when making all-out efforts such as this not to lose your technique.  There is a tendency for your technique to get worse.  Some people tense all of their muscles.  You should relax the muscles not needed for paddling, such as facial muscles.  It's good to have either a video camera or a coach watching so there is some feedback on your technique when doing these courses.

Sprinters say it's the only way to get fast though.  They actually do even shorter segments than 10 or 15 seconds.  Five or eight seconds is all they do. 

Because it's so short, you should do a lot of them and you should have complete rest between runs.   To make it more interesting, change the course every 4 or 5 runs if you are doing a lot of short short courses.

Most racers simply aren't fast enough to win- even with a perfect run, they would be out of the running.  Incorporating short short courses into your training is the best way to build up your speed so you are fast on race day. 

Agility Training

This may be a new concept to some of you- agility training.  Let's look at other sports as examples.  Agility is very important in ball sports, such as basketball and soccer.  It's not so much the athlete's top running speed that is important because you rarely get to top speed.  It's the ability to quickly change direction and accelerate that is important.

With each change of direction, there is a loss of speed and then the body needs to reaccelerate.  That is agility.  It is a little different from your maximum speed.  Your maximum speed is once you have been traveling in the same direction for a period of time, at least a couple of seconds. 

Agility is also a very important factor in slalom racing.  Your boat is constantly turning, losing speed, and changing directions.  A lot of the time in slalom racing is due to your ability to turn quickly and reaccelerate the boat quickly.  Turning strokes such as sweeps and duffeks are at least as important as forward strokes in slalom.

So, agility needs to be trained also.  There is some carry-over from pure speed training to agility, but it's not specific enough.  If you are just training on flatwater, you should included some agility training, not just pure speed and endurance training. 

Doing gate training, rather than just straight-ahead paddling develops agility due to the turning.  If there are no gates, you can do an imaginary course in your mind.  In any case, do not neglect agility training- it is just as important as speed, strength, or endurance training.

Upstream and Forward Stroke Technique

Rafal Smolen has a couple of technique videos on the USACK website.  Very basic technique intended for beginners.  Here is the link:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Canoe-Kayak/Resources/Videos/Olympic-Coaching-Tips/Episode-2.aspx

Build a Base of Power and Speed

Here is an article about base training:

http://www.athletesacceleration.com/base-building/

Excellence

Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

You cannot expect to do any differently in a race than you do in practice.  If you want to improve your race performance, just improve your training performance.

How do you improve your training performance?  By making every run in practice a big deal.  Pretend that your training run is a race.  Study it carefully before you go.  Plan every move ahead of time.  Then, take off at race speed and with the same sort of attention to detail and care that you would in a race.

Raise the level of your practice runs.  Get sufficient rest between runs so you are fresh for each run.  And stop practice before your performance goes down.  Maintain good technique throughout the training session.  And pretend that there is electricity is running through the poles so you make the extra effort to stay clean.

Do not do low-quality workouts.  It's better to avoid paddling at all than to go out and practice bad habits.  Slogging through the gates just to do it for a certain period of time often leads to lower quality workouts.  Design your workouts so you pursue excellence, not just try to get through to the end.

Get feedback to see if what you are doing is correct.  Get regular, varied feedback from coaching, from having someone count your time and penalties, from watching and comparing with other boaters, and from watching video of yourself and other boaters.  The feedback will help spur you on to excellence.  Just paddling alone all the time without varied feedback is usually lower quality training.  If you don't have a coach, get a friend or relative to video and time you sometimes.

Make excellence a habit in your training.  Then, you won't know how to do it any other way.  Every run should be a quality run that you care about.  It is your masterpiece, your work of art.  Something you care about deeply and are proud of.  If you take this attitude and care about each run, you will develop the habit of excellence.

 

Sprint Training Develops Aerobic Capacity

Here is an interesting, counter-intuitive article about how sprinting helps develop your aerobic capacity:

http://trainingscience.net/?page_id=389

Science and Aerobic Base Training

Here is some info. regarding aerobic base training:

http://trainingscience.net/?page_id=376