Ok if you have any let me know some or any common mistakes people make. Thanks.
Any videos looking for Euro paddle applications. Tips for tandem kayaks also. Thanks.
From what I’ve read, the fastest paddlers have excellent technique and endurance and are in great physical shape. None of it comes easy.
https://www.canoekayak.com/skills/virtual-coach-power-paddling/
Drat I struck out on all 3! Well maybe the top 2 as somehow I seem to endure.
I find if I shorten my stroke I get a natural increase in cadence which speeds me up a bit. A long stroke goes past the perpendicular point with the boat and a resulting loss of forward movement to an increased sweep away from forward. A long stroke takes more time so the cadence is slower.
An increased cadence of just the power forward portion of the stroke will move you faster. A light weight paddle is a plus.
I think a big mistake is thinking you can go full tilt for extended periods without straining something. For longer distances, I find a cadence that I can maintain without hurting myself and then concentrate on torso rotation and form. I also stay with a low angle to minimize shoulder strain and to extend each stroke a bit further without lifting water. I also use a bit longer paddle that works well with the lower angle.
Now, if you’re talking about sprint speed, that’s a whole nuther game that I use only for very special occasions and even then, I keep it under about 50 yards and hope I won’t have to pay the price the next day, or so. It’s just high cadence–short choppy strokes at a higher angle.
I can’t prove it, but I think coating the hull with Rain-X makes it feel a little more slippery in the water for a short time.
Brent Reitz’s forward stroke video is pretty good.
A lot of wing paddle racers paddle high angle and have a cadence that includes a little pause after each stroke, or every other stroke. Just a little second or two before the next stroke. Just a little glide. Just a little rest.
Reading the water. I once was paddling with some cohorts around an island and they chose to go out away from the shore into deeper water. Looked really dumb to me. I could SEE the water moving the opposite direction that we wanted to go. I stayed in close and made much better time. How could they not see that?
I am talking sprint speeds. Hi angle win a Euro paddle, either my ikelos or corryvreckan. Ikelos is 205 so fast cadence, corryvreckan is 210 seems less comfortable for fast cadence. Do your hands cross center line of deck? Does your paddle stroke stay near the hull or almost parallel with side of hull? I have heard differing thoughts a videos and reading.
I can go at slack Tide in the canal with no wind and use my GPS. I was reading speeds for two of my kayaks in Seakayaker magazine. Current Designs Solstice and Extreme. I am 65 in a number of a few days but still like to go fast as possible.
I guess with little more perfection just under 7 for solstice tad over 7 for the Extreme. I want to get some coaching from Marshall at Riverconnection when I can as he races. I want to do a few races next year. I’ll take a run up the canal but unlike a car I will be a little more tired on the return run. Nothing scientific but corryvreken seems about 1/2 mph faster as I cruise around but that is not top speed. I’ll watch the vids above now.
Thanks.
@PaddleDog52 said:
Started watching great vid need to watch on outer not phone. Thanks.
Credit Greg Stamer for that video as he linked it in another thread.
@PaddleDog52 said:
I am talking sprint speeds. Hi angle win a Euro paddle, either my ikelos or corryvreckan. Ikelos is 205 so fast cadence, corryvreckan is 210 seems less comfortable for fast cadence. Do your hands cross center line of deck? Does your paddle stroke stay near the hull or almost parallel with side of hull? I have heard differing thoughts a videos and reading.I can go at slack Tide in the canal with no wind and use my GPS. I was reading speeds for two of my kayaks in Seakayaker magazine. Current Designs Solstice and Extreme. I am 65 in a number of a few days but still like to go fast as possible.
For speed, the euro blade is not gonna be a great choice, one reason is that it will be a bit harder on your shoulders while simultaneously not creating the lift you need from a wing paddle, but if you decide to stay with it, you can still make a few improvements.
The Ivan Lawler video people have been sharing is top shelf.
The blade should go in nearly vertical and close to the hull.
Your top hand should barely cross the center line of the hull.
Pay close attention racer’s form. There’s much more to just going high angle. That’s a good way to get injured. If you do a racing stroke right you will not place yourself in a physically compromised position–you won’t get injured.
Focus on relaxing your body during air-time and keeping “light”. This is when you should be letting your boat “run”
When you plunge your blade in the water, focus your efforts on driving the boat forward. You’re not paddling the boat forward, you’re locking the blade in the water in the same spot and pulling the boat past the spot. This is the critical difference between touring paddles and racing. It’s a complete paradigm shift once the blade locks the water.
Try and move the boat as far as you can during each stroke. This is preferable to an elevated stroke rate unless you’re racing 200 meters.
Ok thanks all for the tips I’ll be out tomorrow.
I think one of the most common mistakes is buying a rec kayak or short, stable canoe and expecting to go fast.
Get an elite surfski, a K1 or an HPK like the Thunderbolt if you want speed.
@DrowningDave said:
Get an elite surfski, a K1 or an HPK like the Thunderbolt if you want speed.
It’s more what I can do with the boats I have. I read in SeaKayaker the top sprint speeds. I need to be there and a bit to be happy. I have gone 149 mph racing off-shore boats it’s the challenge for an old paddler like me to my kayaks going as fast as possible. Solstice today 7.21 I was pretty happy and had about 20 or 15 lb. of gear I could dump. Probably didn’t do much and I’m no flyweight anyway. Will try again in the right conditions with Corryvreckan instead of Ikelos. May be slower I like the 205 length Ikelos the Corryvreckan is 210. Thunderbolt would be nice too. Tried to concentrate on points in video. Will watch it again and again.
Thanks for posting that video Rookie. I finally took time to watch through it. There’s a lot of good stuff to work on in there. I used to be guilty of some version of that “crunch” in the forward stroke while playing in waves when looking for those bursts of speed. It’s one of those things where perception doesn’t match reality. I sort of intuitively figured that it wasn’t good when I thought about it, and it would aggravate my back a tinge now and then. Everything seemed to work better and stronger if I focused on keeping better form. That crunch turned out to be one of those things that seems like it’s helping, until I really analyzed performance on the water in practice. I even still catch myself crunching forward once in a while trying to get that first stroke onto a wave, but I think I’ve largely put it behind me. It’s more easily recognizable as a hindrance the further I’ve managed to put it behind me, for a number of recognizable reasons in practice on the water. I like his explanations surrounding different little details such as that. Lord knows how many fantastic hours of paddling over the years, and the forward stroke is always something that can benefit from continued attention. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure that’s one of the things that I love about paddling.
One thing that I find helpful to keep in check surrounds preaching “faster cadence to go faster”, which is obviously true. You can only go as fast as you move the boat past the paddle. But a little more subtle and detailed is that a faster cadence doesn’t necessarily mean you’re moving your boat faster. As he explains in the video, your fast small muscles without your slower large muscles won’t provide what you’re looking for. And he does a good job of explaining what he refers to as “spilling”, which is something that can happen so easily, and most often does happen, when you increase cadence without paying heavy attention to keeping form. If you break form, and you’re spilling resistance in order to move the paddle through the water (instead of keeping it planted and moving the boat past it), you can finish strokes faster and have a faster cadence without accomplishing anything in terms of speed.
I suppose the other thing to keep in mind, is that if you have coaches going through fast break plays at a basketball camp, but you’re in the league that only plays half court, there are still things you can learn, but it will never all come together the same, and that’s ok. Sometimes what’s good for you, or what’s good for a less than optimum form, is more important than what’s good for someone at the elite performance level. For example, I can press a hip back while allowing the other to slip forward, and get my legs involved in my stroke. But just a couple days ago, in the last half of a longer paddle, I noticed I would vary my form a bit, to where at times, I knew it was less than ideal, but changing it up made it continue to be comfortable to keep moving. Then I would find myself transitioning back into a more deliberate forward stroke that I knew moved me faster. If I was racing, I would have kept it up and allowed myself to get uncomfortable, and the harder I work at it, the longer and stronger I can go without getting uncomfortable, so it can be a very athletic endeavor. But I imagine there are a lot of folks who will never work into hip rotation. Notice in the video, he talks about fixed arms, very little spinal rotation, and movement coming from legs through hip movement. If your hips don’t move, your legs aren’t helping to move the boat either, so just keep things in perspective as you work through little improvements, piece by piece.
I always remember Derek Hutchinson writing about not crossing to the center line of your kayak with your upper hand during a forward stroke, and then folks all proud of themselves for believing they have one up on him for understanding that with a high angle stroke, “That don’t make no sense!” But then you sit in a kayak with a longer quill-shaped paddle using a low angle stroke, and you understand it can make a lot of sense to not have your upper hand crossing across the kayak, depending upon how you’re paddling.
My best tip for speed is probably to figure what your limitations presently are, figure if you can safely push those boundaries, as well as whether or not you desire to push them. And then pay special attention to any aches and pains, and before running to the medicine cabinet so that you can continue pushing, figure out if there’s something you can adjust to improve, and just let little aches and pains help guide you to better form. Don’t replace equipment hoping to end aches and pains. Fix form. I say this because paddling is such a repetitive exercise, and even when I started in my young 30’s, I found little aches as I pushed to improve, but thus far, adjustments in form have always done the trick. As to the question in the OP about any common mistakes, pushing to injury as a result of ignoring the beginning little aches I think is a common mistake.
Funny how many times I watch same videos over the years and continue to critic myself. Yes I get sloppy at times but most times like many things I do I am always saying could do better. After 47 years of laying brick always trying to do the next one better and faster. Others plod them in slow and crappy or fast and sloppy and are happy or don’t give a damn. I have had hundreds of people from the union work for and some care and some never care. I show them easier, faster, and better ways but they continue to no avail. I am always watching paddlers around me to learn more or critic them in my own head. Looking at their gear for new ideas.