About those 8-stroke sprints

Anybody who has followed this blog for a while is familiar with me saying "I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints" at the beginning of a paddling session.  Maybe it's time I talked a bit more about what these are and why I do them.

An "8-stroke sprint" is just that: a forward sprint in which I take eight strokes.  I count my strokes on one side of the boat--in other words, one full cycle of a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right counts as "one stroke" in my book.  I suppose some would argue that I'm actually taking 16 strokes, but... my training, my rules.

When I do a set of 8-stroke sprints, I normally do them at two-minute intervals.  That gives my body time to recover fully from each sprint so it doesn't start to produce lactic acid.  Usually I will stop paddling 20 seconds before each sprint, so that I'm starting from rest or almost from rest.

What am I trying to accomplish with these 8-stroke sprints?  Several different things.

I believe that both starting the boat from rest and paddling very hard at a high stroke rate are skills that can be improved with practice.  Raw power and speed, mind you, are things that some athletes have more of than others: the current 200-meter world champion probably has natural gifts of this kind that I have never had and never will have.  But whatever power- and speed-related gifts you do have can be realized most fully with some practice.  And so doing several 8-stroke sprints at the beginning of a session are how I get in such practice on a regular basis.

Short, fast sprints are a good way to work the ATP-CP energy system.  This is the system that supplies a quick burst of energy at the beginning of a race.  It can be whipped into shape much faster than the aerobic system (which takes months) and the anaerobic system (which takes weeks), and doing so doesn't tax the body much because of the short duration of the sprints; because of those things I used to work it only in the week or so before a big competition.  But I've since learned that giving it a tiny bit of work on a regular basis helps me avoid that sluggish feeling in the boat.  In the days before a big race I'll get a little more serious about it since I've tapered off all other types of training; typically I'll stretch the sprints out to 12 strokes to make them about 15 seconds each, close to the maximum for an ATP-CP energy burst.

Some days my 8-stroke sprints feel smooth and effortless, and some days they feel like a sloppy struggle.  I have to focus extra-hard on making sure all my muscles are firing in unison, from my legs up through my torso and arms.  I think this is a good exercise--if I can be precise at high intensity, then precision will feel natural when I relax and paddle at a more reasonable pace.

Technique, start practice, speed, quick energy... those are the things I have in mind when I do my 8-stroke sprints.  And if nothing else, they spice up my paddling session a little.

UPDATE (August 16, 2018): Here's a video of me doing an 8-stroke sprint!