Race Piece Breakdown Part 2: Maintenance

Jack transitions into his a longer, more sustainable pace with his team coming back into the picture. He sees everyone as motivated to get to the finish line but it is still at least two thirds away. As he takes a quick glance to the side, he notices a team slowly inching ahead. Determined to make sure they don't pull away he lets out a loud cry.

"Come On GUYS!! Let's go!"

This moment in the race is typically known as the maintenance phase for most paddlers. In some countries I believe it is called the race body. Regardless of what you call it, it may be the most demanding piece of the race that requires the paddler to give a Herculean effort. The following factors may predetermine the speeds at which teams run at and also determine maintaining leads ahead of the competition especially in top level competitions or amongst teams who have similarly strong start pieces.

1) Aerobic Fitness
In the dragon boat, a paddler would have to paddle over 6000 kilograms worth of force throughout the entire 200m race. This is easily calculated by the number of strokes he typically takes in a typical 200m race (hypothetically speaking if he maintains a rate of 100 strokes a min and he ends the race in 1 min flat at a weight of 60kilos). You can imagine the immense amount of aerobic capacity he or she would need to ensure that his lungs will be able to last throughout the entire set. Novice teams would usually not be able to hold speeds beyond 30-40 seconds into the race for the fact that they most often than not, lack the time to build such fitness levels even if they were to build this fitness out of the water. Most top level teams however, have either the time to train their aerobic capacity leading ultimately to better overall average speeds.

2) Strength Endurance
Also related to aerobic fitness, strength endurance of a paddler refers to the amount of strength that a paddler is able to sustain throughout an aerobic piece typically found in the maintenance phase. That's why top teams who also have the ability to get access to proper gym facilities and a specific program targeted for strength endurance, will be able to hold speeds near the optimal. Repetitions may range from 20-40 repetitions with sustained effort throughout the set.

3) Coordination and timing
There are teams although they may lack that intensity at the starts, do pretty well at the maintenance phase due to their ability to feel the rhythm and glide of the boat. Together with better coordination and timing, they tend to get ahead of their rivals who may have punched out a few seats ahead to match them seat for seat.

Although I never put up anything extensive here, I still do believe the maintenance phase becomes more critical as the race piece extends from 200m to 1000m, something which I may have the chance of speaking about in future. With that I hope you enjoyed this post and share it with you fellow friends and paddlers alike!

Body Lean: Do you really need it?

In this post, I put up a very interesting article by Geoff  Fong from http://sfldbt.wordpress.comon Body lean. Although quintessential, is it necessary? Read the article to find out. 

Body Lean

How far does a paddler need to lean forward with their trunk to get a long pull?  How much lean is needed for a strong pull?  Probably not as much as you’d think.

What propels the boat?  The paddlers.

How do paddlers propel the boat?  They use their paddles.

Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the paddle blade is the business end.  Skillful paddlers can impart both great work and control to their paddle blade as it moves through the water.  Remember that work is defined as force over a distance.  Pulling the paddle faster through the water requires greater force.  The limits of human arthrokinematics and equipment leverage along with a paddlers physical strength determine some max value for work.  It probably looks like a bell-curve.  A paddler is only as strong as they are at that moment, but paddling technique has everything to do with paddling efficiency to reach the peak of that bell curve.

If you’re thinking of paddling from the perspective of how a paddle interacts with the water, the goal becomes how to move your body in a way that applies max leverage to the paddle through some optimum amount of paddle travel/displacement.  Several things happen when a paddler leans all the way down to the gunnel:

-  They lose reach at the paddle blade resulting in a shorter pull.  While it’s true that full lean to the gunnel may put the outside/bottom hand at its farthest forward distance from the bench, it doesn’t mean the same for the paddle blade (the business end).  Full lean takes away from our spinal mobility.  When your joints are taken to a maximum range in one direction, it becomes more and more difficult to move in other directions.  In this case, full trunk flexion takes away from rotation.  Try sitting in a chair, leaning forward and rotating your trunk to either side (don’t hurt yourself).  Now sit up straight and rotate in place.  You can probably rotate farther sitting up than curled over.  Decreased trunk rotation during the reach puts both hands at a similar distance from the bench, making a more vertical paddle angle on the entry, cutting actual reach at the paddle blade.

-  They have less strength.  Leaning forward fully during the reach puts most muscles used in paddling on full or very stretched position.  Glut max, hamstrings, lumbar extensors, lat dorsi, teres major, deltoids, rhomboids/mid and lower trapezei are out of their optimum zone for force production.  Your muscles are happiest and strongest in their mid-range.  For a simple example, think of curling a heavy weight.  It’s tough to start the lift from elbow fully extended and, when you’re fatigued, most folks struggle to get the weight all the way up to finish the rep (elbow fully flexed).  This is because 90 deg of elbow bend is about the middle of the elbow flexor muscle length (and coincidentally the joint angle of about the most mechanically efficient line of pull).

•  They are slower paddlers.  Sitting up from a fully reached position on a pull requires bringing up your whole trunk.  This takes a lot of time and energy because your trunk is a long lever arm.  Think of a long pendulum and how it swings slower than a short one (or takes much more force to swing faster than a short pendulum).  Slower movement sets paddling rate limitations.  When you’re racing fast, the water moves fast and you need to be able to move your paddle faster than the water to exert force on it.  Using a slow body movement like trunk flexion and extension will cap your ability to hold a faster rate to meet fast hull speeds.

How much lean is optimal?

The short answer is it depends.  The long answer is that there is no one answer and it depends.  (ha)

I am an advocate for a paddle stroke that has minimal trunk flexion/extension during the stroke and relatively more degrees of rotation.  My reason is that rotation allows for the paddle blade to get more positive on the catch and set the blade more forward than a negative/neutral angle, which increases the length of pull (possibly allowing more work to be performed).  Rotation is also mechanically more efficient for generating force to the paddle because the distance of your shoulders to your spine is less than the distance of your shoulders to your hips (shorter torque arm for rotation means less of a mechanical disadvantage compared to hip hinging alone).  One thing I am not a proponent of is sitting straight up and paddling.  It sets your shoulders way above the water line and, with it, your paddle resulting in less water contact and a shorter pull.  It also makes you work harder to resist the forces against the paddle (trunk as a long lever arm resisting paddle force at 90 degrees is the most mechanical disadvantage you can face).

I’ve never really paddled OC, but the stroke generally seems much more constrained than the typical dragon boat technique being used by local rec teams.  Part of the reason for less body excursion and more paddle movement is for energy conservation, which makes sense to me with OC’s racing for many miles.  I can see how allowing *some* increased trunk excursion may be desired in DB because the power gains may outweigh the need for energy conservation when you’re racing for sub 2 minutes or a 100-500 meter race.

On a side note, I think this is one of the reasons why senior/masters level teams can do as well/better than some youth teams is because masters paddlers may have 1) better water “feel” 2) physically less ability to flex their hips/spines so default to more rotation 3) better strength from a longer history of resistance training.

Credit to http://sfldbt.wordpress.com

Goals: How to Stay Focused When You Get Bored of your Sport

Having been a student athlete for the past decade plus of my life, I have had constant goals and dreams which i have always wanted to achieve in the course of my athletic pursuits. However, as many of you would have encountered, it can be difficult to stick to these goals. Every step of the way, I would hear of an athlete who comes in with lots of enthusiasm in the sport, seems to possess all the talents necessary of the sport; fit, athletic, extremely well built and runs like a bull on the track. Traits many might imagine may be perfect like a sport like dragon boat.
But as the drudgery of school, relationships and family commitments move along in their tertiary life, they fall out of the sport in pursuit of things that matter more. 

Photo by Getty Images

Race Piece Breakdown Part 1: The Starts

The starts in a dragon boat race set has been and still is the most adrenaline pumping moment for any racer who takes part in a race. Let me paint the scenario a little more clearly through the eyes of a racer called Jackson. 

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!

Featured Team of the Month: OneWest Dragon Zone Canada

As part of my exclusive takes on Dragon boat teams around the world, I will just do a simple feature on dragon boat teams in the world for my readers to really think about what it takes to be a phenomenon in the dragon boat world. As this is my first post on a feature and without  much information from the team themselves (I'm sure they prefer to keep their training secret), I shall have to just base on facts that I have picked up on videos and the type of training methods they employ to achieve the level of success they have today. 

ONE WEST Dragon Zone (Canada)

This team was initially built from a backbone of under 23 paddlers who have come from all sorts of backgrounds in Vancouver Canada. they are a competitive team based out of Dragon Zone Paddling Club in Vancouver. Only in their 3rd season, they have climbed the dragon boat ranks to become of the most prolific dragon boat teams in Canada.For those who have trouble figuring out where Vancouver is, the google map screenshot will give you a really good idea. 

Courtesy of Google Maps

Accomplishments  (from their FB page) 

2013:

- Gold, Division A (FCRCC Spring Knockout)
- Gold, Division A (Dragon Zone 500m Regatta)

2012:
- Gold, Premier Open (Canadian National Championships, Montreal)
- Silver, Premier Mixed (Canadian National Championships, Montreal)
- Gold, Competitive A (Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival)
- Gold, Division A (Harrison Dragon Boat Regatta)
- Gold, Division A (FCRCC Spring Knockout)
- Gold, Division A (Deep Cove Dash)

2011:
- Gold, Comp A/Open/Women/Visitor's Cup (San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival)
- Gold, U23 Division (IDBF World Championships in Tampa Bay)
- Silver, Competitive A (Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival)
- Gold, Division A (FCRCC Spring Regatta)
- Silver, Division A (Deep Cove Dash)

At the Rinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival

Sunny acting weird.. I think its a Korean thing

Club Crew World Championships 2014
Anyway, it has come to my attention recently that they have just recently qualified for a place in the upcoming Club Crew World Championships aka CCWC in Ravenna on the east coast of Italy. Of course, there are definitely better teams with better timings with the likes of Slip and Ares. But this bunch of people I felt were very special because of the uniqueness of the crew and ultimately most of them being Asians. A friend of mine, Sunny who was involved in dragon boat when he was on exchange in Singapore, ultimately moved on to paddle for this team when he went back to Canada. It was really a good feeling to see how we have contributed to his achievements in the sport. 


The CCWC will definitely be an exciting race to watch in such an exotic location (at least exotic enough to Asians anyway). FYI Ravenna is about a 2 hour bus ride away from Florence which is where you can find all the romance you can get apart from Rome. Congratulations again to Team ONEWEST for their achievements. The following are the race timings they achieved over at the Canadian National Championships where they pitted themselves among the best in Canada. 

Premier mixed A Final

Premier opens A Final

Time Trials in OC1 with a Dragon boat paddle

Sunny racing his heart out in his OC1

Having clocked a 2:02.35 min for a mixed team is indeed a feat many would admire because few teams can ever reach these timings as far as they have been training. Of course, there may be many other factors that have favoured them to get these remarkable timings as a club team which in Singapore only achievable by the tertiary teams. Indeed, the use of champion boats in local races in Canada has allowed paddlers to fully maximise efforts in training as they are able to race in the boats they train in which is far from the case in Singapore. Our teams in Singapore can only dream about these timings as they don't see the possibility of doing so unless they come from the few top level teams in Singapore. But what exactly makes One West so strong? 

Apart from the usual training in a dragon boat as well as trainings in the gym, OneWest has clearly emphasised on the ability of the paddler to take up personal accountability through paddling an OC1 (Ocean Canoe 1 single paddler). Although I may not have tried paddling on the OC1, it definitely has very similar benefits to paddling a flatwater C1 or kayaking in terms of building up individual fitness and refining technique on the dragon boat. I did mention about this in my previous article here. They have a strong sense of camaderie nonetheless understanding that the goals of the team are made of up of the sum of the individual's goals. 

Coaching takes a different approach in the West (no pun intended) where the coach is more of a facilitator to manage the team's expectations and apply his teaching skills to maximise the potential of the individual. Very different from that of the Singaporean team coach where he is mostly instructional by nature; whether it has been by habit or by copying styles and approaches that his previous coaches have used for him. Such is this "western" style very suitable as an approach to mould the paddler at the highest level possible. These guys have jobs and other stuff to do, but their unwavering effort and determination to get them towards their goals are deeply inspiring. 

Yes I'm pretty sure that they are not the best in the world, knowing how much other teams from around the world train as well. But this team is definitely going places and a team to watch. In fact, I am largely following their stroke style to the team that I am coaching because they have a simple stroke that fits the style of my team. 

All the best to Team OneWest! For those who want to find out more. Catch them at their Facebok Page @https://www.facebook.com/oneteam.onewest

Quote of the Day

Do it at your best!