Refining the Forward Stroke????

Thanks!

– Last Updated: Jul-07-05 4:03 AM EST –

Thanks, Jed. Let me digest that and try it in the water. I realize it's your personal style, but I am definitely into experimenting and learning from others at this stage (and always, I hope).

BTW, I'm taking Barton's full day on forward stroke at the Kayak Centre a week from Sunday. Maybe I'll report back about what he had to say in person on some of these issues.

One comment. On the whole, you seem to use a relatively low-paddle style -- hands never above eye level, and only there momentarily at the start of the catch. Right? It almost reminds me of the common Greenland style, with low hands, even lower, actually. I've always wondered why that should be efficient. Maybe this is the answer.

Also, I surmise that with the power "face" of a GP distributed over almost the entire shaft, the effective "center of power" (am I coining a term?) is a lot closer in to the hands and boat than for a Euro paddle where it's all concentrated at the end of the paddle and hence farther out. Given that, there is naturally less yawing force component with a GP. And that biases the body and boat efficiency tradeoff toward a low, farther out style. Make sense?

--David.

Brent’s bent arm helps reduce sweep
Hey all,



Nice postings, good stuff here. Jed’s comments about pinning the bow are right on. The physics of this is that as kayak moves forward there is an area of “high pressure” on the bow and “low pressure” and “turbulence” on the stern. Only if you hang onto the forward stroke too long will you create a turning effect, i.e., that is one way to do a corrective stroke at end of forward stroke actually!



Brent minimizes the loss of efficiency in stroking outward still further with thte arm away from the side with paddle in water (the high hand) being BENT at 45 to 90 degrees throughout the stroke. This acts to make the paddle face both more vertical and to swing out less while maximizing torso rotation.



LIke Sanjay says, this feels weird and way unstable at first but after awhile very very efficient, at least for me anyway. It also allows imo, an efficient way to have a more vertical stroke without having to use too much of a high angle stroke, so more comfortable for us as non-racers.



Wish me luck with my forward stroke as I begin the Great Hudson River Paddle!

Evan

Re: bent elbow

– Last Updated: Jul-07-05 12:11 PM EST –

I am a very new paddler (just got my first boat this season) and have been refining my stroke using Brent Reitz's tips from USA wild water. Is the bent/winged elbow stroke applicable to recreational kayaking as well as white water, or is it mainly for racing?

I have a rec boat now but I think I will be moving to river running by next season and want to have an efficient/powerful stroke.

One last question - do you pull down and out with your lower hand as the blade is preparing to exit? Or do you let the momentum of the blade just carry back and simply pull up?

After 3-4 hours of paddling last night my wrists/elbows were hurting a little bit which is the first time this has happened so far (paddle 3-4 times a week). I think it might be because my wrists were cocked up a little bit and not straight, or perhaps I was pulling with the lower hand prior to pulling the paddle out at the end of the stroke.

Also - I have a pamlico 100 (fits in my elevator haha) and have a werner 240cm paddle. I am starting to think that at 6'0 the 240 might be a bit long and it might be impeding my stroke somewhat. Is it better to have my hands closer to the blades or close to the center of the paddle (read: if paddle is too long do you have to compensate by widening or thinning grip?)

Any comments?

Wrists hurting – long term solution

– Last Updated: Jul-07-05 12:46 PM EST –

I also had sore wrists in my first few months of kayaking. The short-term solution was to use an unfeathered paddle, which helped a little.

The long-term solution was to build up my wrist and forearm muscles with forward and reverse wrist curls using dumbells. Start with a very light weight and lots of reps, and increase weight very carefully so as not to strain the small ligaments in the wrists. I did that over my first winter, and had zero wrist problems the next season.

Interestingly, after a couple of years, I began to get tendonitis in my elbows, and it looked like it would get a lot worse, perhaps stopping me from paddling. I tentatively correlated that to having let my wrist/forearm muscles degenerate somewhat by cutting back the frequency of the wrist curl workouts quite a bit. So, I started the wrist curls intensively again and even surpassed previous reps (though not previous weight!). Guess what -- no tendonitis at all this season -- wrists and elbows all fine!

BTW, when I restarted the wrist curls, it was after the tendonitis had subsided somewhat from rest and using arm bands. Nevertheless, it felt at first like the curls would irritate my tentative elbows. But it was a temporary effect, lasting only for the first few minutes of the workout. And after a couple of weeks the tendonitis began to subside altogether.

YMMV, and if the pain persists or gets worse, stop and get professional advice. Everybody is different and has different problems. But it might be worth trying.

--David.

Getacoach!!!
These things are way way way hard to know without seeing how you paddle, your body type etc.



That said a few concepts may be useful. When I instruct I am more interested in guiding a person to discover what is efficient for them rather than to make themselves do it like Brent, me or anyone else. However, expert paddlers are worth imitating as a “home base” for learning a new framework that will guide you towards your best stroke.



Try viewing Brent in this manner. Many paddlers “discover” that it is a partial fallacy to emphasize “pulling” that the side the paddle is in the water acts more like a fulcrum when one uses torso rotation, and that the other arm pushes and rotates. This allows much less need for over use of wrists, forearms, hands. In fact the euro paddle will take an optimum path if the paddle is held onto very lightly, with two fingers on the lower hand and and open palm on the upper one!



And have a coach watch you it can save you from learning allot of unbalanced counter intuitive stuff!!



Evan

Hi Sanjay!
I know, I know . . if I were a real qajaq man I’d be using only GP’s & SOF’s. :wink:



I’m stealing every trick I can from anywhere / anyone that seems to move a boat more efficiently than I can. I tend to use a similar stroke with my GP, but to different effect since it works so differently. The canting thing is a direct rip-off of G-style technique (Hopefully they won’t cancel my Q-USA membership for that).



I found this stroke three years ago while training with a knot-meter and a HR monitor for several months prepping for the Blackburn. I’m happy to say the training paid off and last year my touring speed jumped about a 3/4 knot while the perceived effort went way down.



I’m still confused by this whole paddling thing, seems like an awfully convoluted path to arrive at such a simple understanding, but such is my life I guess.



I know what you mean about the loss of stability but I find (in my euro-tubs) that I can keep the boat very quiet with no support from the paddle. Of course once I graduate to a surf ski all bets are off. Maybe I’ll have to schedule some time up north with Prof Binks and get initiated into the skinny and fast crowd. I hear Mr Cooper is hopelessly addicted to speed these days as well. Of well, I’m off to play at the VT BCU week for a couple of days.



Cheers,



Jed

Don’t mention my name!
I’d hate to hear Greg Barton comment on how I’ve completely butchered his stroke!



I’m envious. I wanted to participate in that class but the day job keeps getting in the way. Time to win the lottery and put all this foolishness about keeping up with the Joneses behind me once and for all.



Cheers, have fun. Thank Greg for me.



Jed