You Don’t Need Weights and a Gym to do Your Strength Training

Last week I looked at six simple leg exercises that you can do virtually anywhere that are effective for developing the strength and power endurance you need for SUP paddling.  You certainly don’t need access to a gym on a regular basis to train your legs for SUP.

The same can be said for your upper body – you can find exercises to do without access to a gym and using minimal equipment that you can keep in your house or apartment.  If you can’t afford a gym membership you can still train strength effectively, although because personally I enjoy strength training and going to the gym I put a pretty high priority on finding a good gym to train at.

Whether you are training at a gym or elsewhere you need to consider the following muscle groups – pushing muscles, pulling muscles and core muscles.  Since I discussed legs last week I’m omitting them from this week’s conversation, but in any discussion of strength training for SUP they should be included.

Examples of pushing muscles are found in your chest and shoulders, as well as the triceps.  Pulling muscles are found in your back and your biceps.  Core muscles are basically found in a ring around the middle of your body and include abdominal muscles, oblique muscles found on the side of your torso, and the muscles of your lower back.  I also include hip flexors when I’m discussing core, but they get addressed when doing a lot of legwork so won’t include them here.  Let’s look at exercises you can do for these groups of muscles without weights and machines that you find in the gym.

Pushing

The most basic pushing exercise you can do is the push-up.  Can you expect to have the strength and power endurance to be a high level SUP racer by just doing simple push ups?  I’d say no, but you can add levels of complexity to your push-ups that make them much more effective allowing you to develop more of the strength you need.  Without going into a lot of detail here are some tips for taking the simple push up to a higher level:

• Elevating your feet increases the load on the pushing muscles.  It can also be used to change the angle at which they are working, similar to the effect of doing incline press instead of bench press.
• Elevating your feet by putting them on an unstable platform introduces a lot of core stability. You’ll be training your core at the same time.
• Placing your hands on something unstable is a great way to train functional strength. Basically functional strength is the strength required when we are performing complex real life movements as opposed to just performing an exercise with limited degrees of freedom of movement like a bench press or a push up. Finding a way to introduce more degrees of freedom of movement when doing your exercises allows you to train your functional strength. Putting your hands on something unstable like medicine balls or a balance board is analogous to using dumbbells for your pressing exercises rather than a using machine or a barbell. You have to work hard to control the dumbbells or your hand position on the medicine balls, and you do this by using supporting and stabilizing muscles in a similar fashion to the way you do when you are doing a real life movement such as paddling. In this way you are training your functional strength. Just be careful that your hands don’t roll or slip off of whatever you’ve placed them on as it would be easy to injure your wrists if they did.

 
 A couple of years ago during March break I went to Newport Beach to train with Jimmy Terrell, Jamie Mitchell and Jay Wild.  Chris Aguilar shot a cool video he called my “Push-Up Progression” in which I explained a few ways that you can add complexity to your push-ups.  I’ve included it here thanks to Quickblade Paddles.  It will help give you some ideas on how to add complexity to your own push-ups.  You’ll find that trying to add new levels of difficulty will give you some goals in your training, give you better strength gains and add a lot of variety to your training.  Be creative and use your imagination.  Because you aren’t adding additional weight to the exercise you’re doing it is hard to really hurt yourself, so have some fun and try different things and see what works for you.

Instead of buying a gym membership or a home gym with lots of equipment you can instead spend at most a couple of hundred dollars and purchase an exercise ball, a BOSU ball, and a couple of medicine balls and you’ll be set to do virtually every variation of a push-up imaginable, and you’ll use most of that equipment for your core exercises as well.

In addition to doing push-ups a great way to develop your pushing strength is by doing dips.  You can do them on a bench or chair or you can do parallel bar style dips if you can find a place to do them in.   I remember as a kid doing them in the corner of a L-shaped counter in my mom’s kitchen.

Pulling

Although the most fundamental pulling exercise for paddling is the bench pull, you can easily build a chin up bar and make that the foundation or your pulling.  Some pipe mounted in the basement rafters works great, but if the homemade approach isn’t for you then you can purchase one that fits in the doorway at any exercise equipment store for an affordable price.  Although the one I have prevents the door from closing it takes less than 5 seconds to remove and stuff in the closet.

Another great pulling exercise that you can do if you can get creative and find a place to do it in your home or garage is the body row.  You’ll need a bar like the chin up bar but you’ll want it waist high instead of overhead.  Hang from the bar with arms extended and your body rigid with your feet in front of you.  Then, keeping your body rigid, pull yourself up till your chest touches the bar, then lower and repeat.  You are doing body rows.

Core

I won’t go into any detail here as there are a ton of exercises that you can find by doing a quick Google search.  You’ll be able to use most of the equipment I suggested you purchase for the pushing exercises that will allow you to do core work to your heart’s content.  I might suggest that you purchase a mat or yoga mat because you’ll be on the ground a lot.  You’ll want to be comfortable and at the same time don’t want to get your carpets all sweaty.

TRX

A really cool innovation is the TRX system which is basically a couple of straps which hang with handles on the end of them which you can grab or place your feet in.  You can purchase some TRX straps and mount them somewhere in your house or you can pretty easily make your own.  You’ll be able to do variations of all the exercises I’ve mentioned here as well as a ton of others that are quite useful.

Public Fitness Trails and Stations

A lot of communities are building fitness trails or stations in parks or at beaches.  They usually allow you to do most of the exercises I’ve discussed here in some variation or other.  Use them!  There was great trail along the side of the course in Duisburg, Germany, that I saw when I was there a month ago, and I’ve included a brief video clip of a few of the members of the National Team and me taken at one of many fitness stations you find every kilometer or so along the beaches in Rio when we were there last fall.  I’m sure if you look around your community you can find something similar.

I continue to maintain that strength is vitally important in stand up paddling.  Despite everything I’ve mentioned here if you want to be a high level racer I honestly think you’re deluding yourself if you think you can do it without getting a gym membership.  There’s just so much more you can do to develop the strength required for high-level SUP racing in a gym compared to what you can do at home.  However if you’re into racing but not quite as serious about it, or just want to be a better paddler, I think you’ll find that you can do a lot to improve your strength with some of the simple suggestions I’ve made here.

Have fun!

Don’t Forget to Train your Legs

Last weekend I went for a fun SUP paddle with a couple of C1 buddies of mine.  Conditions on Lake Ontario were pretty good, with a moderate northeast wind kicking up nice, fast, two-foot plus wind waves and a small ground swell.  We did the usual upwind/downwind paddle you’re stuck doing when you can’t arrange the logistics to go downwind, and we still got a nice 6 km downwind leg in with speeds averaging 5:30/km.

One of my buddies was a three-time Olympian in canoe and is a pretty experienced SUP paddler so he loved it.  The other is an experienced C1 paddler but new to SUP this year.  He’s already awesome on the flats but a little tentative still in waves.  As the three of us joined up to turn at the 6 km mark to begin the downwind portion of our paddle, he commented that his legs were spent.  It reminded me of my own early experiences in waves and how quickly my legs got fatigued, and more significantly, how important your legs are to effective paddling in big water.

When we’ve been paddling for a while, are in shape, and have a little experience in big water I think we take for granted how important our legs are and how much work we require from them for effective paddling.  So with last weekend’s reminder still fresh in my mind, I thought that it would be appropriate this week to share a few simple leg exercises you can do throughout the SUP season to increase power endurance and enhance proprioception (and thus balance).

A lot of people think you have to be at the gym to train legs.  While that may be true if you’re doing squats with heavy weight, for the type of leg strength you need for SUP it’s possible to do a few simple exercises wherever you may be, requiring minimal equipment, space and time.  Here are a few I do regularly that have helped my paddling, and in particular my paddling in the ocean, dramatically.

Split Squat Jumps

A great plyometric exercise that involves all the large muscle groups of your lower body.  Make sure you extend your front foot far enough forward that you have an angle of 90 degrees or greater at your knee to prevent injury.  The more explosively you jump the higher you’ll go and the more you’ll be developing power.  Focus on landing quietly and with control.  Landing this way will require heightened use of proprioceptors in your feet and lower legs, which will help you with balance when you are on your board (see Tip of the Week from February 26, 2015 “A Simple but Effective Way to Train Your Balance and Footwork”).

I usually do 30 reps per side so I am effectively training power endurance.

Frog Jumps

Another great plyometric exercise working your lower body.  It’s also a real lung burner if you do enough reps. Like with split squat jumps you’ll want to jump as explosively as you can, this time for distance instead of height, and land as quietly and controlled as possible.  Again, you are developing heightened proprioceptive ability in your feet and lower legs that will help with your balance while you are working on power endurance in your legs.

I usually do a minimum of 30 reps in each set.

Bulgarian Split Lunges

This is a great lower body exercise that can be done without the jump as you see in the video, although I prefer doing it with the jump to increase power development and add in the enhanced proprioceptive demands associated with a controlled, quiet landing.

You’ll need a bench, chair or step to place your back foot on and you’ll find it a bit more difficult to balance if the top of your foot lies on the bench in a plantar flexed position rather than just your toes contacting the bench in a dorsi flexed position.  If you choose to do these with the jump, you’ll again want to make sure your landing is as quiet as possible.  Make sure your front foot is far enough forward to give you an angle at your front knee of approximately 90 degrees.

This is a great exercise for developing power endurance as well as your balance.  You may want to start holding onto something with one hand for stability before progressing to doing the exercise with hands on hips.

I generally do 30 reps each side per set.

Lateral Bench Jumps

You’ll need a stable bench that can take your body weight for this exercise.  Be sure that it is stable enough that it won’t topple if you misstep.

Jump explosively off one foot in an upward but lateral direction so that your take off foot lands on the bench and your other foot on the ground on the opposite side of the bench.  As usual with plyometric exercises your landings should be controlled and quiet.

It’s pretty difficult to do these without some help from your arms for jumping and for balance.

I do 30 reps each side per set.

Skating Motion

Though I am using a medicine ball in the video, alternatively you can do this exercise with a dumbbell held in front of you or with nothing in your hands held in the same position.

You are trying to jump laterally as far as possible and stick your landing on your opposite foot.  Land quietly with controlled deceleration before accelerating and jumping explosively in the opposite direction.  This is a great exercise for power endurance and proprioception with your muscles working in a different direction than in split squat jumps or Bulgarian lunges.

I do 30 reps per side each set.

Low Walking

Although this exercise is not plyometric, for me it is a great exercise that is very simple to do.  With your hands on your hips step forward with one foot like you are going to do a step lunge.  Be sure to take a large enough step that the angle at your front knee is 90 degrees.  Come up only enough to allow your back foot to pass under your body and step forward.   You’ll need sustained contractions in your hamstrings, glutes and quads to complete each set with is excellent for developing strength endurance in these muscles.

I generally do 30 to 60 reps each side in each set.

I’ve used each of these exercises at various times as part of other workouts, doing 3 to 5 sets per exercise.  I’ve also done them together in a leg circuit, completing a set of one exercise before quickly moving to the next exercise.  After completing all 6 exercises I start the next round.  This is a real killer and I usually only get to 3 or 4 sets.

I am convinced if you incorporate exercises such as these into your program on a regular basis (I’d suggest at least once/week) you’ll feel a whole lot stronger on your board as well as more stable.  I guarantee you’ll feel better at the end of races, and the extra life you have in your legs in late stages of races as a result of this training will allow you to paddle a whole lot more effectively where your technique usually breaks down. 

Use a Resistor to Improve Technique and Develop Specific Strength

I don't believe in spending a lot of time trying to find gym exercises that mimic the paddling motion.  If I'm in the gym I'd much rather work on the component of strength I'm working on in more general, less specific terms.  I think it is enough to train the muscle groups you use in paddling and the neural pathways that recruit those muscles for explosive, powerful contractions.  I don't think you should feel the need to try to work those muscles in some motion that closely approximates the paddling motion.  The fact of the matter is, as hard as you try you’ll be hard pressed to come up with an exercise that mimics the feel of the paddling motion exactly.

The best exercise for paddling is paddling, and short of the Kayak Pro ergometer or Jimmy Terrell's flume there really isn't an effective way to do a paddling workout that doesn't involve getting out on your board.

While we think of the weight room as the place to develop strength and the board as where to apply it, it is possible to train specific strength - that is strength specific to the paddling motion - on your board through the use of resistor training.

Resistor training involves either paddling with something wrapped around your board to increase drag or towing something behind you.  Whatever tool you use to slow your board down is your resistor.  I've done both over the years and personally prefer the wrap around the board method to dragging something, although we did have fun one year in Florida camp when a bunch of us bought plastic tugboats at Walmart that we towed behind our C1s.  The problem was they would inevitably capsize and then create way more drag than was intended!

Using a resistor increases the drag and makes the board move through the water much more slowly.  Since we are always trying to pull our board by our paddle this becomes much more difficult and the stroke feels much more heavily loaded.  You'll recall in a previous Tip of the Week I talked about using an unlimited board to lessen the resistance you're used to when paddling a 12'6" or 14' board, and how you can use that to help you learn to work more dynamically with your blade in the water.  Using a resistor is taking the opposite approach.  It's going to make the stroke heavier and slower because the board will be moving much more slowly.  However the extra load you feel every stroke helps you build strength in your paddling muscles in the precise movements you use when racing on your board.  If you do the right amount of resistor work and do it the right way, you'll get stronger on your paddle but won't lose the feeling of the dynamic stroke that you've been working on.  In fact, it can help you learn how to paddle better and be more dynamic.

The other big benefit of resistor training is that it can help you master technique.  For some reason, many paddlers have difficulty properly loading their paddle and feeling water on their blade.  Adding drag from a resistor makes it increasingly hard to move the board anywhere without finding good load.  The increased drag caused by resistors can, if the resistor is big enough, make the water feel as solid as dry land when it's gathered behind the paddle blade.  Even someone who is reluctant to trust the blade to take their body weight and support them will feel how the blade supports their weight if the resistor is big enough.  Once they feel this they can gradually move through a series of smaller resistors and at the end of the process it is almost certain they'll be able to load their blade better.

Lastly a resistor can be a useful way for a paddler to isolate part of the stroke in order to improve it.  By making the entire stroke heavier the increased drag allows that paddler a better chance to feel the water behind the blade at each spot in the stroke and feel the muscles being used and the sequencing of contraction and relaxation of those muscles.  This affords the paddler a better understanding of how to execute proper technique in each part of the stroke.  Through repetition with the resistor and then repeating the process with a series of smaller resistors the paddler can isolate and then correct almost any technical flaw and find a way to enhance connection with the water.

Making your own resistor

So what should you use to create more drag and slow your board down?   The easiest way is simply undo your leash and toss it behind you so you are dragging it in the water while you’re paddling.  You’ll feel the board is harder to pull by the paddle and the increased load on your blade that results from that.  I tend to prefer wrap around resistors because I feel a more constant resistance as speed changes.  Resistors you drag tend to pop out of the water a bit the faster you go, diminishing drag.  If you want to try this method, just wrap your leash around your board.

By far the best resistor that I have found, and one that provides varying levels of resistance, is a bungee with three tennis balls threaded onto it (see photo).  To make your own, simply get a canister of tennis balls and cut an X in either pole of each ball using a pair of box cutters.  I strongly recommend you wear work gloves while doing this and use extreme caution.  The tennis balls are surprisingly difficult to cut and the box cutters are very sharp.  One slip and you can end up seriously cutting your hands.  Once you’ve cut the balls you can thread the bungee though them and you’ve got your resistor.

How to use your resistor

If you’re working on isolating and correcting a technical flaw, you’ll want to start slow with a big resistor.  As you isolate the point in the stroke you’re working on you’ll find that the added load caused by the resistor allows you to feel how you’re moving currently and how you’re moving as you change your technique.  Isolate what you’re working on and use the extra feeling the resistance provides to correct your movement.  I’d recommend doing short intervals of approximately one-minute duration as you’re learning new movements, and gradually lengthen them once you feel you’ve made some progress in adjusting your stroke and want to consolidate those adjustments.  One of the biggest technical flaws I see in my clinics is a reluctance to get outside the board and fully load the blade.  Using a resistor is an excellent tool to address this.

As you feel you are improving, you can move down to a smaller resistor (drop from three balls down to two) and see if you can still feel the improvements you’ve made to your stroke.  You can continue this process, dropping from two balls to one, and ultimately to just the bungee itself.  The last step is paddling with your improved technique with no resistor.

If you’re working on specific strength you’ll want a fairly big resistor as well.  In this instance you’ll want to make a real effort to paddle dynamically even though it will be very difficult with the added resistance.  Remember, you’re not interested in slow muscular contractions when paddling.  You want to be able to paddle with explosive, dynamic contractions so try to work explosively against the extra resistance.  Generally, you’ll find this easier to do in some shorter intervals of two minutes or less.  

Often you’ll find you’ll use the resistor to work on both technique and specific strength/power at the same time.  I generally start with three balls and do a short set like 2’, 1’, 30” with 1’ rest, then remove a ball and repeat after 3’-4’ rest.  I end up doing four sets in total, one each with three, two, and then one ball followed by just the bungee.  I’ll often do a fifth set with no resistance.  Remember in each set you need to focus on being dynamic, and in each set you’ll need to be more dynamic then the previous one simply because your board will be moving faster.

Troubleshooting and precautions

There are a few things you need to be aware of when using resistors that will make your workout more effective and reduce any chance of injury or harm to your technique.

·         Make sure your tennis balls are centered in the middle of your board or they will play havoc with your steering.  You should be able to track pretty much normally if they are properly centered. 

·         Wrap the bungee around your board in front of where you stand and in front of the widest point on the board.  If you don’t you might lose it during your workout as it could slide off. 

·         Because resistors create a much greater load on your paddling muscles, especially with three balls, get a good warm up first and gradually build up to hard dynamic paddling to reduce risk of injury. 

·         Don’t over use this training modality.  The most sprint canoe-kayak athletes use resistance when paddling is two times per week, and rarely for more than 30 minutes of total paddling.  Overusing your resistor can lead to injury, nervous system fatigue and can, over time, harm your technique by slowing your motion down.  Remember it is all about being dynamic and always working more quickly with your blade against the water than your board is moving through the water.  If you do too much paddling on a board slowed down by a resistor it is inevitable that your stroke will slow down as well, despite your best effort to be dynamic.  Coupling regular weekly usage of a resistor with paddling on a faster board once a week (see Tip of the Week from March 26, 2015 “Paddle on an Unlimited Board Occasionally”) should help you strike the perfect balance in your training and help you develop an optimal stroke.

Give it a try.  I’m confident you’ll find using a resistor becomes an important part of your training program!

Paddle on Different Boards When You Get the Chance

Two of the biggest things that separate the very best SUP paddlers from recreational racers are their overall skill level and the high level of knowledge they have of their boards.  Top racers have spent countless hours paddling in a variety of conditions developing their skills.  They’ve also come to know their boards intimately in the process and can make them do pretty much whatever they want in virtually every condition they’ll face.  They have tremendous stability and appear as comfortable on their boards as they do on land.  There is no shortcut to this.  That skill and comfort they demonstrate comes from years of paddling in general and lots of miles on the board they’re using.

So if you’re a recreational racer and want to get closer to the level of the local elite racers in your area, or are an elite racer trying to get closer to the top level, the first thing you need to do is be prepared to get on the water more and spend more time on your board.  If you’re at all tentative getting your body weight outside of the board and onto the paddle you’ve got a lot of work to do and there is no fast track way to do this.  You’ll need to let loose, feel like you’re weight is precariously outside the board every stroke and risk falling in the water.  Eventually you’ll learn to trust your paddle to take your body weight.  Then you need to paddle for hours and hours learning to load weight on your blade and then unload it within the stroke smoothly and efficiently.  Once you’ve mastered this in flat water you’ll need to start doing this in progressively more challenging conditions.  It might take a season or two, but this is the path to developing the skills that the top racers possess and that help them paddle fast.  I cannot emphasize enough that for most people I see in clinics this should be the starting point.  There is absolutely no benefit to shortcutting this step and moving on to lots of advanced drills.

Once you’ve learned to load your blade with some level of confidence and can trust your paddle to take your body weight when you get outside of the board each stroke, and once you’re stable on your board in a variety of conditions, you’re ready to try some fun things to accelerate and refine your learning.  One of the most fun things you can do, and something that certainly adds variety to your paddling and keeps things fresh, is paddling on different boards.  Experimenting on different boards is a great way to develop your board skills and helps you gain insight into the characteristics of your own board that can help you make it perform better.

One of the things I like to do is swap boards with my training partners for part of a workout.  When you get on a different board you’ll find it balances slightly differently.  If it is more stable than yours it gives you the chance to really focus on getting outside your board and loading your blade with even greater confidence.  Or if you’re paddling in big water it gives you the chance to paddle harder in an effort to catch bumps, feel more stable on the bump and move around on your board to help maximize your ride and link to the next bump.  If the board is less stable than yours it gives you a great chance to work on your balance.  You’ll want to try to paddle exactly like you do on your own board.  Don’t hold anything back!   You’ll find that with a little practice, and maybe the odd swim, you can make the less stable board do the same things as your own board with an increasing sense of confidence.  Within one workout you’ll feel your balance improve.

Every board has it’s own characteristics and nuances.  Though many look the same they won’t feel exactly the same when you paddle.  When you’re in big water those differences will be magnified.  Your task on the strange board you’re experimenting with is to listen to it, feel what it is telling you as you paddle it, and control it.  Don’t just get on it and hammer.  Try to coax it into feeling as comfortable and responsive as your own board.  You’ll discover subtleties in things like stance, foot position, and points of emphasis in your stroke that effect how well the board moves.  Ideally you should have a GPS with you so you can see how subtle changes in what you’re doing affect board speed.  Recognizing these subtleties and understanding them are keys to refining and advancing your skills.  Once you’ve identified these things on another board you’ll be itching to experiment with them on your own board.

When you get back on your own board you should immediately feel a greater level of comfort.  It’s analogous to sleeping in your own bed after travelling.  You’re home.  You’re back where you’ve put in all your time and hard work.  Often we are so comfortable on our boards that we don’t really think about what we’re doing, we just hammer away.  Or, even though we try to be thoughtful and aware while paddling, we just don’t have very heightened senses as they become sort of dulled by familiarity.  Paddling on a strange board and finding a way to make it work should have heightened our proprioception and increased our awareness of our relationship with the board.  Coming back to our own board with that increased awareness allows us to feel new things and better identify the impact of what we are doing each stroke on board speed and movement.

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of athletes, whether it is in canoe-kayak or SUP, who are reluctant to change to another boat or board for even a short workout.  It’s like they are afraid that in doing so they’ll lose their feeling for their own boat/board.  The reality is, if your skill set is fairly high and you’re at a point on your board where you’re finding it difficult to improve, you should absolutely be experimenting on different boards – not with an eye to permanently changing but rather just to get a new stimulus and to reactivate your board awareness.

I remember in 1980, in my first tour of Europe racing in senior events, I had to race in a strange boat at an international regatta in Amsterdam.  I had always trained and raced in a C1 Delta.  Unfortunately there was only one Delta on the trailer and, as a junior athlete, I was assigned the C1 Beta.  The Beta was sufficiently different in design that it was an adjustment to paddle it effectively.  I had only a few days to prepare in it before racing so made the most of those workouts to try to learn all I could about the boat as I paddled it.  As it turned out I was the fastest Canadian in the C1 1000m that weekend and finished 2^nd in the final.  When I got back into a Delta in subsequent regattas in Nottingham and Duisburg I was even better than I had been before.  I learned some new subtleties about the Delta and my own paddling technique because of my experience in the Beta.  Rather than returning to the Delta confused or missing my feeling for it, I returned sharper and technically more aware.  I had increased both my skill level and knowledge of the boat.

Any of the top SUP paddlers in the world could jump on any race board and be fast.  They have excellent, well-established skills and board awareness.  It’s a big part of what makes them so good.  So this week the Tip of the Week, for those who are ready for it, is to paddle on different boards when possible.  You’ll increase your skills and awareness of what your board does underneath you and how what you do affects it, and that will make you a better paddler.  Have fun!