Welcome to the first instalment of the Tip of the Week. Each Friday I'll try to post something interesting and hopefully useful about SUP training, technique, race preparation, etc. Don't expect posts as long as what you've become accustomed to on my blog. I'll continue to make long, detailed posts when I can, but the purpose of the Tip of the Week is to get useful information or ideas to you quickly and regularly. I may miss the odd week along the way while I'm traveling with the Canadian Canoe/Kayak Team but I'll do my best to get something to you every Friday. So without any further introduction, let's look at week one's topic, the bench pull.
A few weeks ago Eric Carter posted on Facebook asking if people could
help him come up with some more pulling exercises to do in the gym. There were some good suggestions from people
who posted, but the exercise I think is the most fundamental pulling exercise
for anyone who paddles wasn't mentioned until I brought it up. I'm talking about the bench pull. How important is
this exercise to paddlers in sprint canoe and kayak? Well, it forms the backbone of just about
every canoe/kayak athlete's strength training program pretty well the world
over. In fact, many National Teams use
bench pull as a performance indicator of how fast an athlete will likely be on
the water. It's by no means the only
performance indicator, but the type of strength it builds, and demonstrates if
you are testing, is critical to success in the sport. In fact, it has been pretty well established
that to be a medalist at the World
Championships or Olympics a paddler's combined max bench pull and max bench
press, divided by body weight should be equal to three or greater. That is (max bench pull + max bench press) /
body weight = 3 or greater.
I like to make the case that although SUP paddlers are usually racing 5 miles or more instead of 200m, 500m or 1000m like sprint paddlers, strength is just as important. The fact is that the boards we paddle, even the narrowest and lightest, are still poorly designed for moving through flat water. It takes a lot of power to accelerate a SUP board at the high performance level, and a lot of power endurance to do it repeatedly for long races. Power and power endurance are types of strength that can be really effectively developed on dry land in the gym, so really every serious SUP paddler should be doing some homework in the gym. Even in the ocean, where SUP boards are really designed to perform, power is useful. A good part of down winding is accelerating to catch waves. The more you can dig in and move your board when it matters then, all things being equal, the more rides you are going to catch. And that takes power.
So let's take a look at the exercise. I've included video of one of the athletes I coach performing explosive reps in a workout designed to develop power. It's a great exercise for developing the pulling strength essential in a sport like ours where you are pulling yourself by a paddle. Unlike bent over rowing or rowing with the T-bar, your back is fully supported and so the exercise is much safer for pulling heavy weight. Likewise, chin ups and lat pul, while safe and effective, train strength in a overhead pulling motion which is less specific to the paddling motion.
I like to make the case that although SUP paddlers are usually racing 5 miles or more instead of 200m, 500m or 1000m like sprint paddlers, strength is just as important. The fact is that the boards we paddle, even the narrowest and lightest, are still poorly designed for moving through flat water. It takes a lot of power to accelerate a SUP board at the high performance level, and a lot of power endurance to do it repeatedly for long races. Power and power endurance are types of strength that can be really effectively developed on dry land in the gym, so really every serious SUP paddler should be doing some homework in the gym. Even in the ocean, where SUP boards are really designed to perform, power is useful. A good part of down winding is accelerating to catch waves. The more you can dig in and move your board when it matters then, all things being equal, the more rides you are going to catch. And that takes power.
So let's take a look at the exercise. I've included video of one of the athletes I coach performing explosive reps in a workout designed to develop power. It's a great exercise for developing the pulling strength essential in a sport like ours where you are pulling yourself by a paddle. Unlike bent over rowing or rowing with the T-bar, your back is fully supported and so the exercise is much safer for pulling heavy weight. Likewise, chin ups and lat pul, while safe and effective, train strength in a overhead pulling motion which is less specific to the paddling motion.
If you train out of a rowing or canoe club their weight room will almost certainly have a bench pull set up you can use. If not you can make your own.
Note the set up in the video. A tall bench that allows the athlete to lie face down on the bench and fully extend their arms with the barbell in their hands not touching the ground. The set up we have at the canoe club is a purpose built bench pull bench with stands for the barbell so the athlete can reach the weight, but you needn't have something as high tech. For most of my competitive sprint racing career we did this exercise on jury rigged benches of some type: a wooden plank laid across saw horses, a regular weight bench stacked on aerobics steps, etc. The important thing to consider when you are making your homemade bench is that it can safely take the combined load of both the heaviest athlete using it AND the heaviest weight that will be lifted. I'd even add on another 50 lbs. on top of that just to provide a suitable margin of safety.
With the weights that world class sprint athletes are tossing around you need a pretty solidly designed, purpose built bench. But for the weights many of you might use you should be easily able to throw together something that works and meets the safety standard I mentioned.
To perform the exercise simply lie on the bench on your stomach, grab the barbell and pull up. To get a full range of motion pull up until the bar hits the bench and then lower the bar until your arms are fully extended. Strict form means you keep your chest, chin and legs in contact with the bench, however when you start performing the exercise explosively for power you'll probably find your head and shoulders will lift off the bench like you see in the video. I would strongly suggest you do a few cycles (see my blog post on periodized training) with strict form and moderate weight before you start doing heavy or explosive reps in order to avoid injury.
You can perform the bench pull at various speeds of contraction to develop different types of pulling strength. Slow reps (2-3 seconds up, 4-6 seconds down) are great for maximizing the muscles' time under tension and hypertrophy (increase in muscle size). Moderate speed reps (1 second up, 1-2 seconds down) for 10-15 reps is good for developing basic strength. High reps of 20 to 30 or more done at 1 second up, 1 second down are good for developing strength endurance in your pulling muscles. Low reps with very heavy weight can be used to develop max pulling strength. Explosive reps like you see in the video develop power, and if you use a lighter weight and do more reps with little rest between sets, power endurance.
You'll find a few cycles of training this exercise will leave you feeling stronger on your paddle AND make holding the paddle when you're tired feel easier. I believe it is the easiest and safest weight training exercise to develop pulling strength in the direction you pull while paddling.
Try incorporating bench pull into your strength program and see what you think!
