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| Courtesy of Boston.com |
Jackson is a strong and powerful athlete, weighing in a mere 70 kilos but has the strength of a bull on a rampage on a good day. Sitting in the pace group as the second pair of paddlers, he has the responsibility to set the pace for the rest of his team with mininum error to maximise the potential of his team heading at the start. His team has practiced doing the starts during practice sessions at 90-100 strokes per minute and he knows he's not holding back. As soon as race horn sounds, he will pull with all his might to push the boat up to speed and hit the team's intended top speed as soon as possible. He is going to release every ounce of energy on the first 20 strokes or its nothing at all. His heart is pounding furiously as he awaits the inevitable sound of the horn. Adrenalin is pumping into his veins like never before. Its the finals of the National Championships and it is now or never. A second later, the announcer makes the final adjustments..
Are you readyyyyy?
Attention!!!
(Sounds Horn)
For the split moment of a second, Jackson shifts himself into a self-induced trance like state, adrenalin surging through his veins as he pulls the immensely heavy pool of water in front of him with his newly bought carbon fibre paddle. The water boils past him as he moves in for his second stroke, then his third and before he realises it, his team is running at an incredible pace at 100 strokes a minute. It seemed like forever when at the 20 stroke into the starts he transitions into race pace at 80 strokes a minute. He catches quick glance at the team beside him and he sees no boat in sight. He knows his team got it but there's still two thirds of the race to go.
In sprint races or 200m to 500m in length, this behemoth of the race piece is one of the most difficult parts of the race to execute to its maximum potential due to the sheer physical strength and speed that it requires from the paddlers to reach the boat's critical maximum speed. Teams in Singapore have been known to hit speeds of up to 16-17km/hr based on actual GPS readings but on the international front, I'm sure it has went closer to 19km/hr.
So what makes a good start piece?
Having been a padder myself for the past 7 years, I've seen myself hitting 90 spm (strokes per minute) starts to really initiate any sort of advantage against the competition. Yet, technically it is really difficult to achieve due to the following factors:
1) Technical Proficiency of the paddlers
This is meant in the sense of the paddler understanding what he is doing to the water when he is at that rating. I've been to races trying to race at 90spm and I really felt that I basically didn't do anything to the water other than shove it out of my way. But when a more technically experienced paddler does it, he has a clear understanding of the essence of the catch every time he pulls the water even at high ratings.
2) Physical limitations
Going in depth into the muscularity of the paddler, the stroke rating may very well be defined by how well conditioned his fast twitch muscle fibres are able to move at high speeds. Many paddlers at the recreational/novice stages may not have fully developed fast twitch muscle fibres in their body to initiate any form of power through the starts nor hit high stroke rates due to lack of conditioning.
3)Weight of the boat.
As far as I remember, I only managed to hit these high ratings and high speeds in boats like the Champion or the German Buk. Never have I hit my best timings in heavier boats like the Malaysian Kim Tuck Huat boats. Its very much more challenging to push a 15-20 stroke start piece in a KTH than trying to hit it at 80-90 strokes per minute in a German BUK or Chinese Champion.
Typical vs the 5-5-5 method
Typical starts that are very common in Singapore are known as the extended starts; made up of a 5-6 stroke slow stroke followed by 20-30 strokes at a rating of 80-90 spm. Many in the community deem it the NORM which I find a fallacy when it comes to racing at the international standard where boats like the Champion are used.
The New Starts: 5-5-5 method
A recent blog I read suggests using a 15-20 stroke routine broken up into 5-5-5 strokes to increase the instantaneous increase in speed to hit the top speed of the boat.Each of the 5 stroke increase in spm of 10 strokes spm to ramp up as high as the paddler possibly can handle. I find this radical but yet very logical at the same time. Why? Because extended starts although suitable for heavier boats, do little to increase instantaneos boat reaction at the start. It ramps up the speed over a longer time which also hampers total timings.
The new way of doing starts emphasises the importance of the use of ATP in the muscles in the window of opportunity where it comes and goes within a span of 10 seconds. Any energy expended beyond that is in the part aerobic region which defeats the purpose of using all out Power at the part of the race. Therefore an extended starts that run almost 20 seconds into the race do little to the athletes to maximise their aerobic energy systems which could have already been expended in the starts.
I don't mean to deny the merits of the starts that we already have been using for the years that i've been paddling for. However, it does not hold ground when we really figure out the energy systems that we use. I think talk is cheap so I'm trying this new method out with my team to really see if we can get any results from this method. I hope this information has been useful to you guys. Till then! Paddles Out!
