I am glad that this myth has been busted based on recent developments in the dragon boat fraternity that have proven otherwise on many occasions both on the international as well as the local level. For those who may have been in the scene long enough, you should remember the days that the National Junior College canoeists and Singapore Canoe Federation constantly outperformed dragon boaters in their own playing field time and time again in the early days of dragon boat in Singapore. Apparently, in the late 90s and early 2000s, the canoeists who were far smaller in stature as compared to dragon boaters themselves could burn these 200 pounders in every dragon boat event imaginable. The 2012 Men's Prime Minister Challenge trophy has seen winners from the NUS team whose average weight of each paddler 10-20 kilos lighter than a paddler from NTU or SIM. What made them so different?
Fortunately, the answer lies in their training methods and how some teams were slightly further ahead in this respect. Nimble and small as they are, canoeists and certain teams have made use of advanced training methods and their ability to train on their own to work on several factors.
1) Technique vs Strength
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| Republic Polytechnic Canoe sprint athletes |
Comparing a canoeist who can paddle for up to 7 days a week, weather notwithstanding as compared to a dragon boater who can only paddle on the weekends, the typical canoeists triples the amount of time he can work on his technique. He surpasses the dragon boater in mastering his technique in catching the water and moving his vessel across water in the most efficient manner. The dragon boater can only put his effective training in the gym, although top teams in Singapore do train on the weekends, however, training performance varies and can differ with changes in crew. Canoiests constantly cover an average of 15-20km on average per session to train for 1000m races which are their staple. Dragon boaters train only an average of 5-10km on a typical session for a race that is 200m on the weekends. Go figure..
2) Strength Endurance vs Maximum Strength
Only in recent years, dragon boaters have learnt about strength endurance and the plateaus that high performance teams may face if the team does not take into consideration the endurance required to train the body to extend lactic tolerance levels for longer durations. Most dragon boaters believe that as long as they get bigger and stronger at one rep maximums, that will allow their muscles to last the race. Far from the truth; training for bigger muscles promote growth of fast twitch muscles which are only capable to pull at maximum strength for a period of time as short as 5-10 seconds. Definitely too short for races as long as 500m or 1000m which can last as long as 2 minutes to 4 minutes respectively. Athletes who train specifically for strength endurance pieces are able to tolerate lactic acid levels way beyond the 30 second threshold (i.e. maintain intensity of stroke over a longer duration).
3) Pure Strength vs Power
It seems that many do not understand that Strength and Power although related and used interchangeably are by definition very different. Coaches often seem to mix up the two for the benefit of the layman to hear and use their race sets for example 'Power in!!". However, it must be emphasized that the definition of Power is a function of Work done / time. In other words, the faster the paddler moves the paddle with a given intensity (i.e.90%) the more powerful he is. Take for example a paddler who can paddle with a force of 100KN in 2 seconds vs a similar paddler who can produce the same amount of force in 1 second. The latter is deemed to be more powerful.
These principles are still rather new to many dragon boaters due to the insistence of size as a prerequisite to performing well in a dragon boat team which is hardly an experience that paddlers in the philippines, myanmar, indonesia are facing. They seem to get so good at paddling only because they insist on their paddlers doing what they do best; paddling, be in in a canoe, kayak or dragon boat. I believe that size is a subset of strength but it is definitely not a prerequisite to being a better dragon boat athlete. IMHO, the most important factor to an athlete is his mental capacity to overcome challenges and a willingness to succeed.
I will end off with a video of my favourite dragon boat in the region; Team Indonesia. They are an embodiment of all things that I would really like to see in our future dragon boat teams. Small in stature but powerful in the water. In the next blogpost, I hope I can get to show you snippets of my life as a coach and the team under my wings. Till then!
