Today I did four laps of the new strength circuit and paddled for 80 minutes. In the boat I did the same backpaddling pieces that I described last Sunday.
Early in the season I focus on strength quite a bit. Of course, there are many different ways to approach strength building and weightlifting. One way, of course, is to push yourself to lift more and more weight. I've done my share of that; at the all-boys schools I attended growing up, how much weight you could "bench" was one of the many variables that determined your place in the pecking order.
As I got older and more serious about my sports--distance running in high school and college and canoe and kayak racing after that--I began to realize that raw bulk was not the best thing for what I was doing. In the winter of eleventh grade, I stopped hanging out in the school weight room and started working out with a small set of dumbbells at home, experimenting with lighter weights and more reps. After a while there was noticeable improvement in my muscle tone, and I felt much stronger and more confident on the track that spring.
If you watch a high school junior-varsity distance race, chances are you'll see some kids struggling across the finish line, their arms flailing and their bodies contorted. If you turn on the TV and watch, say, the Olympic final of the 5000 meters, you'll see runners competing all the way to the finish, their form just as fluid at the end of the race as it was at the beginning. I'll bet you anything that with 300 meters to go, those world class runners are hurting just as bad as those JV kids are late in their race. The difference is the physical maturity of the Olympic runners. In other words, they are stronger. But it's not bulk; theirs is a strength in motion.
Maintaining form is at least as important for a canoe and kayak racer. Probably more so, for without good stroke form, the boat will slow down no matter how fit the person paddling it. So my weight work has been concentrated more on good technique than on intensity of resistance.
This season, I'm doing strength work in a circuit format, with the idea of keeping myself moving with little rest. Consider this month's circuit, in which I have three exercises in a row (orbital circle, the Russian, behind-the-head lifts) that require my arms to be up over my head. During those three exercises, the blood runs out of my arms and by the end my arms are screaming. I try to relax and do the exercises as precisely as I can in spite of the discomfort. I'm hoping such commitment to technique will pay off in the final quarter-mile of a race where I'm digging as hard as I can to reach the finish line before my competitors, but at the same time striving to maintain good stroke form so I don't beat myself.
One last point I should make is that a quality strength routine can be done in less than 30 minutes. Since lifting weights has never been a favorite activity of mine (I wouldn't do it at all if I weren't convinced that it helps my racing and my overall health and fitness), and since I have plenty to do elsewhere in my life, I'm all too happy to keep my strength work short and sweet.
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