As I mentioned in my last post, Chris Hipgrave drew up the training plan for our camp here in Florida. We'll be doing some pretty intense workouts and some more relaxed workouts, but overall there's a strong technical theme that focuses on stroke rate.
Stroke rate is something I've thought about a fair bit over the years, inasmuch as I've played around with trying to lower my stroke rate while maintaining a given speed. But I've never really gotten any more sophisticated about it than that. Now, here at camp, I'm taking a good hard look at it. Chris has based our training regime on information from this podcast interview with Dr. Brendan O'Neill, a coach in the New Zealand flatwater racing program and the inventor of the Vaaka Cadence Sensor, an in-the-boat device that tells a paddler his or her stroke rate in real time. Dr. O'Neill helped the Kiwis achieve excellent results in the 2012 Olympics with a training program that sought to determine each athlete's optimum stroke rate and elicit maximum propulsion at that rate.
In the Friday afternoon workout that I mentioned in my last post, we did 100-meter sprints at a crazy-high stroke rate and 200-meter sprints at a more controlled rate, and the main objective was to get our bodies used to the idea of varying the rate as opposed to just using the same rate at all times.
Yesterday morning we did a workout that involved abnormally low stroke rates. We did a series of pieces in which each cycle consisted of 2 minutes at 50 strokes per minute and 1 minute at 68 strokes per minute. (For me, a "normal" stroke rate at a comfortable cruising pace is around 72 strokes per minute.) The idea was to put as much power into each stroke to move the boat as fast as possible. Chris H. and Terry Smith and I ended up doing this workout as a group, and in each piece Chris gradually pulled away while Terry and I tried to keep up, Terry moving just a hair faster than I. This was consistent with years of race results in which Chris and Terry and I have almost always finished in that order.
The workout didn't have me breathing that hard, but I could feel it in my muscles. When it was over I had a few hours for running errands, eating lunch and resting. I was feeling ready to go once more when we reconvened for the afternoon session. Cory Hall had departed for home, and Alessia Faverio had arrived from Asheville. Chris Norbury and Steph Schell were skipping the workout, so our group for the afternoon was Chris H., Terry, Alessia, and me.
The workout consisted of three cycles of 5 minutes on, one minute off, 3 minutes on, one minute off, 2 minutes on. We had six minutes recovery between the end of one cycle and the start of the next. The pieces were to be done at around 75-85 strokes per minute, or about what one would do in the middle of a 20-minute race.
The workout was taxing, but again I held up reasonably well. I got a good night's sleep last night and returned to the river this morning for a relaxing distance paddle. Chris H. and Alessia and I chatted and watched the birds, fish, turtles, and otters that call the Rainbow River home.
This afternoon it was time for a resistance workout. Chris H., Chris N., Alessia, Terry, and I all looped ropes around our boats that had little whiffle balls (the kind used for golf practice) on them. With these objects disrupting our glide, we did two sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4-minute recovery. Besides providing a strength workout, Chris H. said, the resistance is intended to force the paddler to lower his stroke rate and put greater power in each stroke.
The workout was a nice send-off into our scheduled day off tomorrow. The plan is to get back at it Tuesday morning with our bodies and brains rested up and ready to go.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment