Slow touring speeds limit technique
With most paddlers tooling around at speeds around 3 knots - they would have to do an exaggerated slow motion pantomime of a correct stroke to have any semblance of proper from!
Can anyone really work on a decent forward stroke incorporating good rotation at 3 knots? I somehow doubt it. For 3 knots to provide enough of a load the boat would have to be a pig, and that in itself would prevent good form.
You don’t need to fly like Barton, but a somewhat brisk aerobic pace would seem to be as much a requirement for developing a decent forward stroke as using appropriate gear.
Pick up the pace and the better mechanics can be incorporated and will make more sense/feel more correct.
Pick up the distance and arm paddling will decease by necessity. At least 10 miles without stops at a quick touring pace. 15-20 is better.
Shorter sprint/interval work helps to - but I’ll leave it to the better and faster paddlers to go into training stuff.
Race - Sea/Tour - WW
I prefer my sea kayak to be somewhere in between a race and WW boat. I do not agree that sea kayaks need to be tight fitting to the extent a WW boat is. They are very different craft serving very different purposes.
I want room to move - and still maintain the ability to instantly brace/roll. It’s a balancing act - and I have achieved a good compromise for my needs (which cover everything from rolling practice to occasional recreational racing).
I have very minimal paddling/outfitting: bare seat pan, low narrow WW style backband, no hip pads, and only two small 1/2" thick pads under then non-hooked bumps on my keyhole cockpit.
With this, I am more than adequately locked in to roll/brace when needed. I can also work my legs and twist on the seat a bit. No as much as a big cockpit knees up race boat allows, but enough to let me cruise comfortable using mostly core power.
Perhaps it is as simple as some
paddlers not being accustomed to or as comfortable with moving their upper torso while holding their lower torso relatively still. I have only kayaked for five years while I have figure-skated for fifty years and skiied for 25 years. So I was accustomed to keeping my upper torso relatively still compared to my lower torso - kayaking has me reversing that.
great posts and one more question
These posts have really made me pause and think in some new ways.
I am surprised few if any posts coming from folks who disagree with the need for torso rotation and disagree with vertical paddling.
I see instructors talk rotation and vertical stroke but what they actually do is a low angle stroke, a little shouder turn or NONE and then extend the arms fullsy causing the paddle to sweep and come out far backwards of the hip. Many of us have been taught this is not only inefficient but actually slows the boat and causes it to wander.
A few more thoughts anyone?
Torso rotation, Si! High angle, maybe
Nobody will disagree about torso rotation. It’s really the way to paddle, for speed and endurance.
High angle is a different matter. That’s a question of style, equipment and what you are trying to accomplish. To (over)simplify, a high-angle style is for speed, and goes with a euro paddle with a relatively big blade. A low angle style is for longer distances, and goes with a euro paddle with a thinner blade or a greenland paddle (but many other complexities on the latter).
Of course, people mix and match a lot, and there is almost infininte variation in individual styles, even given fundamentally sound stroke mechanics. For example, if you are strong and well-conditioned, you can go as long with a high-angle, big-blade style as some people can with a low-angle style.
Also, you can vary it, not only for simple variety but to spread the load out over different muscles. That also helps you appreciate and develop the variety of tools at your disposal in general.
–David.
Good style at 3 kts – why not?
One trick is to pause just before the catch. For touring, that's a good idea anyway, as the payback in energy saved is much greater than the speed lost. If you want to slow down even more, then take a good, solid from-the-hips stroke and pause even longer.
A (very good) instructor once did an exercise with a group I was in to prove the point. He had us paddle side-by-side, with half the people taking a long enough pause before the catch so that our cadence was exactly half the others' -- one stroke for every two of theirs. Guess what -- the half-cadence paddlers fell behind just a little, maye 5-10%, certainly nowhere near 50%. But of course, they were expending half the energy. QED.
--David.
Don’t always need to be locked in
The only place a sea kayak needs to fit like a WW boat is in the surf zone. Even then, unless you are playing in surf or rock gardens you can navigate mild surf for landings without being super locked in. Besides, most seakayaks never see these conditions. In open water you can control the boat well with a loose fit (loose being relative) with practice. It feels terribly awkward, especially in waves, at first but foreward paddling is much easier with the legs free and pumping. You just have to get accustomed to controlling your edges with your butt and feet as the contact points. Once I got rotating well I had to basically remove the back band because it was rubbing the skin off of my back. As for racing versus touring, I used the same paddle and technique for either. Things change a bit to accomodate the beam of the touring boat but the mechanics don’t change.
Has it occurred to anyone that the
exaggerated torso rotation they see in videos and in classes is not the most efficient for everyday use? There is a certain amount of frictional loss in torso rotation, from various sources including lungs, rib connections, spinal processes, etc.
Some torso rotation is good, but don’t strive for the exaggerated rotation you see in the videos. Watch the really good people again… they do not rotate that much in normal paddling.
I recommend shortening your stroke, working on a firm catch, and using your torso rotation early in the stroke, getting that paddle out fairly soon. This will put the torso rotation where it counts most.
Another thing… whitewater paddlers, and some sea kayakers, should consider using the loosest and shortest sprayskirt tunnel consistent with keeping water out of the boat. A tall, tight tunnel is going to inhibit torso rotation, bigtime.
What I am saying applies to kayakers, c-1 paddlers, and OC-1 paddlers. Don’t paddle entirely with your arms, and don’t exaggerate your torso rotation.
and yet
the world keeps turning
and people still enjoy themselves on the water…
who cares actually.
Like I said…
… “an exaggerated slow motion pantomime of a correct stroke”. Pretty much what you described.
Maybe a useful exercise (works for developing balance on skinny boats too) but not a practical speed/distance stroke for hours. Starting and stopping the movements wastes momentum and interrupts the smooth transfer of power from winding/unwinding.
Greenland NOT low angle
GP can be used at any angle. Higher for faster. Near vertical in sprints. Wing stroke works too.
Geez, a few old articles floating around by some folks with limited interpretations of Greenland technique that say it’s a low angle paddle and a faulty mythology springs up!
Early rotation – agree 100%
> I recommend shortening your stroke, working on a firm catch, and using your torso rotation early in
> the stroke, getting that paddle out fairly soon. This will put the torso rotation where it counts most.
Agree 100%. But to get that early torso involvement requires winding up the hips pretty far.
As you say, you don't want to be powering much (from the hips or anywhere) after that early pull. Although your torso/hips may be rotating, that's just the windup on the other side, not a power phase. But in my observation, (the few) people who do good pulling from the hips already have the shortened stroke down fairly well, with the power at the beginniing.
Anyway, that makes another reason I dislike the term "torso rotation" -- it seems to imply a powered rotation, from from fully wound to fully unwound. The fundamental motion is best described, IMHO, as a pulling from the hips, which implies power in the early part of the stroke. The torso rotates as a result.
OK, I stand corrected…
... A GP can be used at any angle.
But all things being equal, isn't a GP stroke lower than the equivalent euro?
This starts to get complicated, and relates to another thread with a big contirbution from Jed. But as I understand it, a low stroke is good for body mechanics, a high stroke for boat/paddle mechanics. So there's a tradeoff. With a GP, the effective center of the paddle's power is closer to the center of the paddle, and thus closer to the boat. So the high/low tradeoff can be resolved lower than with a euro.
Put another way, from a mechanical standpoint a GP acts like a much shorter paddle than the same length euro paddle. So you can afford to angle it lower and swing it out farther to get good body mechanics.
Make any sense?
--David.
Every time I throw torso…
…rotation into the mix it feels so uncomfortable that I disregard it.
I think we do it, but it is subtle and when we concentrate on it it becomes awkward.
Paddling with a wing paddle you are just about forced to use it, but paddling with a touring paddle just a little goes a long way.
If you want to see some beautiful torso rotation watch Greg Barton sometime.
Cheers,
JackL
agree with sprayskirt advice-shorter pad
My skirt tunnel was too tight for one of my boats and damned if my rotation didn’t disappear in a hurry! Also, I believe strongly that wide boats and long paddles kill torso rotation. As I moved to narrower boats and shorter paddles the rotation became far more comfortable. I also agree that high back seats kinda beg you to sit back and pull and anything that impedes the little “twist and unwind” motion of my stroke will get me to stop rotating without even realizing it. As to the question of whether rotation is only for racers? IMO we weekend warriors benefit a great deal from it in our touring boats. This post has had some of the best points and tips I’ve seen in a long time!
A technique for learning
Insightful discussion! I agree that boat design (tight cockpits that lock the knees in place and keep them out wide) and biomechanical habits (Americans at least seem accustomed to doing things with their arms, not their torsos) are big barriers to good torso rotation. Also, it seems to me that keeping the arms out front rather than collapsing the elbow with each stroke intially feels more tiring to the arms.
Yesterday, while leading a tour and towing another kayak upwind, it occured to me that the increased resistance involved in towing another kayak has the effect of slowing the whole stroke down and also making torso rotation more necessary -- which might both be helpful in teaching efficient forward stroke technique.
Once learned, torso rotation feels good! And that is maybe the biggest reason for doing it. In all but rough water, I paddle my sea kayak with my knees up in the center of the boat, which allows me to pump my legs and involve my hips and abs. Another benefit of rotation is that I never get soreness in the upper back, "numb butt," or leg cramps -- three problems that affected me fairly often before I took a class and then gradually refined a style using more rotation.
Question for experts – detuning stroke
Besides pausing before the catch, how else do you modify a good stroke when you have to decrease speed on a group trip? Do you: a) lower the paddle angle, b) decrease hip rotation, c) pull more slowly during the power phase, d) change your posture or body position, e) lengthen the stroke and allowing it to go past your hip, f) switch paddles?
Maybe there’s some combination, but can you say what factors come into play first as you start to decrease speed, or in what proportions? And how do you keep the changes from affecting the good form you would otherwise use?
Putting the physics to it ???
Jack, I know that what you experience is similar to allot of experienced paddlers. That was the impetus for this posting.
I wonder what would be found if we were all hooked up to a heart rate monitor and VO2 monitor and the boat with a GPS for speed to measure efficiency of our stroke at a given mph. I know Jed said he did something like this and found that a rotational stroke gave him significantly lower effort for a given speed.
What would really be interesting to me is the intersection of our percieved excertion and the actual read out of how much we are doing.
I have a hunch that we mispercieve lower effort, that is, we think we are more comfortable when NOT using torso roation, but in reality we are actually working LESS hard.
So much of paddling is not intuitive. This would be interesting. Anyone out there able to check this out?
Paddling good and slow
Get a slower boat! Seriously, this may be the best option. Something shorter, heavier, and with more rocker would allow you to continue using good technique and give you a chance to have a lot of fun in the surf and in rock gardens along the way.
You might also carry a lot of safety gear and extra water for the group. (The added weight not only creates more inertia, but also increases the draft of the boat – and thus the resistance). When paddling with groups, I often find myself taking five or six strokes and then pausing, five or six srokes and then pausing. Not the most satisfying stroke in terms of rhythm, but it does allow me to continue using good technique while not getting ahead of the group.
Perhaps I’m doing this wrong
but I get dizzy from turning back and forth. Or do you keep your face forward while rotating the torso?