Paddling Exercises

The Wednesday night fitness paddle on the lake has started back up. Last week there were 3, this week 5, come summer we will have 20+ paddlers out there for a 6 mile workout.

April's Seakayaker Magazine had an article called "Building Balance The Path to Power without Pain", by Tommi Paavola. It showed some great stretches for pre and post paddle'. The Paavola says:

A five-minute pre-kayaking warm-up routine can make a huge difference in your kayaking performance. Would you believe that by activating the right muscle groups right before paddling your strength and power could increase by up to 20%".

I'm planning to take a laminated sheet of these exercises to the lake with me from now on. In fact, I went to the magazine website and found they had links to videos showing these exercises:

Pre-paddling stretches:
http://www.seakayakermag.com/2008/April08/Paavola-pre_video.htm

Post-paddling stretches
http://www.seakayakermag.com/2008/April08/Paavola-post_video.htm

Speaking of exercises, last week started my official 20 week Ironman training. My training log is posted on the sidebar of this blog, I'll keep it updated weekly. It's going to get a bit crazy as I still hope to get in enough paddling for the Blackburn Challenge in July. And I'll have to be careful with my shoulders.

Other tidbits:
It was great having KiwiBird and Canadian Ckayaker over for dinner last Saturday night. I was nursing a pulled back muscle and couldn't paddle with them Sunday. KiwiBird's posting sounds like I really missed a great and exciting paddle. I really need to figure out a visit North to paddle with Michael sometime.

There's a great discussion/debate on the WaterTribe forum about the possibility of the new boat class allowing the use the solar/electric power. This does not just impact the sailors, even this solar powered kayak could be legal in this new class.