Well, I have joined the ranks of athletes who have Internet coaches. For a monthly fee, Slovenian coach Maks Frančeškin will be writing workouts for me as well as offering technical guidance.
It's quite a change for a guy who, except for attending an occasional training camp, has been self-coached throughout his canoe and kayak racing career. And it's also forcing some changes to my routine: in recent years I've been a four-days-a-week paddler most of the time, but the training plan Maks has prepared calls for six days a week, with two sessions on one of those days. I may eventually have to discuss with Maks what I'm capable of fitting in alongside my non-athletic obligations, but at least for now I want to dive in and immerse myself. Maybe this new challenge will help the winter weeks pass by more quickly and put me in position for a really good race season.
Actually, I might have to back off a bit after next week: I've been summoned to jury duty in federal court for the month of February. All I know right now is that I must be "on call" for the entire month, so how my life will be interrupted remains to be seen. I hope I'll at least have a chance to adapt to some of the technical changes this new training regime is imposing.
As I mentioned before, another of Maks's "virtual" athletes is Chris Hipgrave, who led the training camp down in Florida I recently attended. And so this new training adventure is a continuation of the things we were doing down there. But Maks also wants to spend the early stages of our athlete-coach relationship getting a lot of feedback from me and basically getting to know me.
One of the first things he asked me to do was send him video of myself paddling at a couple of different stroke rates. I've learned over the years that no matter how good I think my stroke is, I should always expect some criticism whenever an expert coach takes a look at it. Sure enough, while Maks thought my rotation at the hips and pelvis was good and that I was doing a good job of using my upper hand to control the working angle of the blade, he pointed out that I was starting my stroke before the blade was fully submerged, and also that I was moving my top hand too far forward, away from my head, resulting in a smaller anchoring angle, a shorter stroke, and less rotation and power from the legs.
It took me a while to understand exactly what Maks was saying--I've always learned best when a coach is right next to me and walking me through every step. But Maks sent me videos of several of his top athletes in Slovenia, and after studying them for a while I began to see that I was sort punching forward with my top hand while Maks's athletes kept their top hands near their heads.
I've been working on that in the boat for the last several days. Even a small change to your stroke makes paddling seem much harder for a while. Getting your body to do something unfamiliar adds another layer of stress. Another added stressor is paddling at the various stroke rates that Maks's workouts call for. Until I get myself one of those Vaaka Cadence Sensors, I'm using the age-old method of counting my strokes for 15 seconds and multiplying that by four. So my brain is having to process a lot more information than usual when I paddle.
On Wednesday I did eight 5-minute pieces with one minute recovery at 64-66 strokes per minute. I did this workout with extra weight (about 5 kilograms of barbell plates) in the space fore of my footboard. Maks explained that the extra weight was to make me feel more pressure on my blade and improve my glide (What's the proper physics term for that? Momentum, maybe?). I could definitely feel both things going on.
Yesterday I did three cycles of 4 minutes at 76 spm, 2 minutes at 72 spm, and 1 minute at 84 spm. There was one minute recovery in between pieces, and the cycles started at 14-minute intervals. Maks instructed, "Try keeping the same power through the whole workout. Last minute is meant to be a hard one! Find the smoothness and relaxed feeling through the longer reps."
Under this new training regime there's just one gym session per week, and at least for now, Friday is gym day. I'm keeping it simple and trying to focus on core exercises, leg exercises, and "pre-hab" exercises that target the muscles that oppose those used in paddling. My new routine is here.
After doing my gym this morning, I headed to the river and did today's workout: two sets of (5 x 3' on/1' off at 45 spm and 5 x 1' on/1' off at 80 spm). All told I think the workout went okay, but 45 spm is a very low stroke rate and it wasn't until the second set that I started to get the rhythm down. The point of the workout, as described by Maks, was to "find the grip and water pressure on the blade at the lower stroke rate, then try transferring this same power and technique to the higher rate." I think I did that pretty well.
I'll just add this remark about these low-stroke-rate sessions: in a surfski my legs and feet are exposed to the elements, and that longer pause between strokes means longer moments of water dripping off the blades onto my legs and feet. Not fun in the wintertime! It wasn't ridiculously cold today, but a chilly north wind was blowing pretty hard, and I couldn't wait to get back to the dock and into dry clothes.
One last note: Maks counts strokes on both sides in strokes-per-minute figures--in other words, a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right count as two strokes. This is different from how I've always done it. When I mention my 8-stroke sprints, for instance, I mean eight cycles of left strokes and right strokes. Maks would consider them "16-stroke sprints." So this is yet one more thing I'm having to get used to.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment