Good strokes

Today I did seven laps of the February strength circuit and 90 minutes in the boat.  In the boat, I warmed up and did another six of my 12-stroke sprints before settling into a steady rhythm.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, probably not for the last time: the technical aspect of training is at least as important as the physical aspect.  And as I prepare to race this weekend, even though I'm not dialing back the volume, I'm pushing the pace a bit less and focusing more on relaxing and taking good strokes.

Good strokes... there's a phrase I've been casually tossing about.  What exactly am I talking about when I talk about "good strokes"?  A good kayak stroke gets its power from the core muscles in the body--the shoulders and the torso.  Because these muscle groups are much larger than the arm muscles, they can propel the boat faster, longer.

The best instructional tools I know of for a good kayak forward stroke are a pair of videos.  One is The Brent Reitz Forward Stroke Clinic.  Brent is one of the more successful racers the U.S. wildwater team has ever had, and he narrowly missed a spot on the U.S. Olympic team as a flatwater kayaker in 1988.  After all his hard work developing the precise stroke that an Olympic racer must have, he decided to start teaching classes to share what he had learned with touring paddlers along the California coast where he lives.  He later made this video to bring his instruction to the rest of the world.  You can order it on Brent's website, here.

The other video is The Kayak Forward Stroke, hosted by Greg Barton and legendary ocean racer Oscar Chalupsky.  While I think the Brent Reitz video does a better job of breaking down the stroke into its components and explaining each one clearly, Greg and Oscar's video makes use of more sophisticated video technology and offers some camera angles that Brent's video lacks.  Greg and Oscar's video can be purchased from the Epic Kayaks website, or at retailers who carry Epic products.

I strongly recommend watching both videos, and once you compare and contrast them I think you'll find they're talking about exactly the same thing.  Then, get in your own boat and practice.  Trying a new stroke, or even just modifying it a little, can feel very awkward at first, but don't be discouraged.  Keep at it and after a while the movements will start to feel natural.  Be sure to repeat the process of watching the videos and then paddling a few times, as the videos contain more information that most people can process in just one paddling session.