http://www.independent.com/news/2010/nov/27/top-10-mistakes-athletes-make-their-training-progr/
I was particularly intrigued with their concept of "technical failure". When you do an exercise until you can't do it any more, that is called taking it to failure. But when you get near that point, you are often struggling and using poor technique.
The idea with "technical failure" is to not take it to failure, but only go as far as you can with excellent technique. Otherwise, you could be ingraining poor technique- poor quality movement patterns.
In any case, many athletes make mistakes in their training. If you are a good boater and a good athlete, you will still likely have decent results. But if you want to have top results, you can't be making all these errors in your training. Your training needs to be top quality.
Here are some of the common mistakes I see whitewater paddlers doing in their training:
1. Training slowly, doing long loops or distance paddles in their slalom boats. This is not specific enough in terms of the pace to really develop endurance for slalom racing. And it teaches the muscles to go slowly. And it prevents you from developing power, a crucial factor in our sport.
2. Doing bodybuilding training. Athletes train very differently than bodybuilders. Bodybuilders are trying to get a certain look, and don't care about power or speed. Our sport is all about power and speed. So, rather than doing isolation exercises and lots of curls or calf exercises, concentrate on compound movements.
3. Not being focused in training. Many paddlers don't even have a specific goal in mind when they train. You need to be as focused in training as you would be at the world championships. If you don't have everything figured out on the course, stay on shore until you do. Take quality, focused runs- don't come down the course as a "warm-up", bumping into gates or being off-line. Don't wait til the 4th or 5th run on a course to get serious about it. Every run is focused.
4. Not doing any recovery activities. Recovery between workouts is very important. You need to get plenty of sleep. And you need proper post-workout nutrition. I suggest whey protein and creatine after the workout with some carbs. And you need to plan recovery sessions where you do some sort of recovery work, such as contrast baths, active recovery, massage, etc.
5. Over-training. Paddlers like to paddle. And when they get on good whitewater, they love it. So, this often leads to excessive training. Many of the athletes are over-trained. Another way of looking at overtraining is under-recovery. You need to concentrate on getting good recovery between workouts because that is when your body gets stronger. Workouts make your body weaker. If you don't allow your body enough recovery, you will just get weaker with more workouts, not stronger.
6. Not enough training on hard whitewater. Some athletes only do their training course and then do the races. That is not enough. The top racers train on big water. It is more specific. So, even if you don't live where there is a good whitewater course, you need to train on good whitewater courses from time to time.
I'll stop at 6. Here is the link to the article. Great article: http://www.independent.com/news/2010/nov/27/top-10-mistakes-athletes-make-their-training-progr/
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