Analyse my stroke

i wont annalyse your stroke , i am very new to the sport. I went to a great ski semminar last weekend with some top ocean ski paddlers presenting. one thing they kept impressing on us was top hand drive.
Type in dean beamont and check out his semminars on google. I am not saying its the best coaching but seemed like some great advice for us newbies,the more the better. the rest is time on the water and hook up with some good paddlers, they always seem keen to see the sport grow and help out.












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happy paddling

boss wrote: hook up with some good paddlers, they always seem keen to see the sport grow and help out.

Cheers, thoroughly agree, I wouldn't be where I was now without the help of the guys I paddle with each Saturday. A couple of them are older kayakers who in their time were top sprint K1 paddlers and still keep the younger ones working very hard, while others are still top ocean ski paddlers. I am constantly asking for feedback in order to improve.

RAB may be on the money with the "going hard" ethos that when you are looking for speed you do reach and rotate....the videos I posted were at my 14-20km pace. When I do the sprint drills with the squad I'm with they seem to think I'm doing ok

They are well thought of locally with the local surf life saving club juniors getting some informal coaching during and after our paddles when they're parents bring them down to join us.

Kocho said...
The one thing I did not see mentioned here yet is that the ski is wobbling a lot. Here in the second set of videos, the water is a bit choppy, so some of the wobbling seems due to balance. But even there I think I see a pattern that you are edging the ski on each stroke - this is more visible in the race segment where you wobble with each stroke from left to right.

What do the more skilled think about the ski wobbling?

And don't listen about the hair - it reminds me of Simon and Garfunkel's look and I like their music so, why not ... Of course, if you are still wearing pants that widen below the knee and hide most of your shoes, then there might be some deeper

Yes well the hair is for a bit of fun, wouldnt you have a mop if you could, a couple of follicle challenged friends are constantly teasing me, they're just jealous Will tone it down some when I rejoin the workforce next year.

As for the boat rocking, as I tend to do most of my paddling in the ocean I am very used to the primary stability of the boat and don't tend to react to the boat moving under me, this may be lazy or weakness but I almost never come out no matter how big conditions get and am able to keep the power on. Now if this boat rocking is an issue in flat water and I should be able to keep the boat level all the time this will take some work, I haven't considered it until now.

I will keep all this in the back of my mind and try to improve.

This thread is not just for me though, hopefully we can build on the knowledge base and others will post their video's for group coaching

boss wrote: I went to a great ski semminar last weekend with some top ocean ski paddlers presenting. one thing they kept impressing on us was top hand drive.












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happy paddling

This seems to be a widely coached technique by coaches and practised by paddlers, except by Oscar Chalupsky who says its the hardest fault he trys to coach out of paddlers, and also a top Olympic paddler who I met a few weeks ago, he also does not agree with driving out the top hand, both say that from a bio mechanical aspect that if the top hand drives forward that the paddle moves to far away from vertical and lifts water, thus loosing leverage and power. The catch is still placed well forward, just there is not an emphasis on driving the top hand forward to full extension however this used to be emphasised with flat paddles before wing paddles. Just saying as I'm just a novice and not qualified to say what is right or wrong, but what they say makes sense to me and find it interesting that there are opposing views out there.

The Olympic paddler I met with this view emphasised continuing the stroke once the paddle left the water, much like continuing a golf swing, exit the stroke hand higher than the forward hand and setting yourself up for torso unwinding on the catch.

I agree, the pushing forward of the top arm is only done at the very end of the stroke to begin the initiation of the reach and catch for the next, or you are merely trying to submerge the boat.
The top arm should rotate with your body and be comfortably bent during the power phase.
This keeps the paddle closer to the vertical.

But don't do as I say, listen to me only and form your own opinion, I haven't paddled very long and this thread could very well be labelled the blind leading the blind.

The most interesting thing that I have noted when talking to K1 paddlers, and this seems to be across the board is this;

The thing they all seem to say to me is,'I didn't seem to fit the standard model and tend to do this or that different to what I was taught'.

Now to me, that is a sure sign that there is no correct standard model, just a bunch of opinions, some more considered than others.

So for me, as in everything I do, it's back to the very basics, forget how high/where hands are and all those sorts of those little things that people notice, look at the paddle, is it applying power in the direction required, is the paddler making the best use of their musculature.
In the end that is all that matters.
If I am told that I should be doing something other than what I am doing, what I want to hear is, why.

Your top hand is too low! could be said.
But it is better to say that your top hand looks low and this is causing/because of this/that to happen/happening.

So if all the fuss about errors in what your stroke looks like doesn't come back to keeping the paddling forces going forward or using your body to the best, then it is merely you and your own unique weirdness, and as such is not problem.


I would go so far as to say that if you have a squad that are all paddling the same, then half of them are doing it wrong.

That's an interesting topic about the top arm pushing/not pushing and how much... Just read some of Greg Barton's notes on this on Epic's web site

www.epickayaks.com/news/news/bartons-forward-stroke

Note also his thoughts on the "trying to get a 'high pivot' point on the shaft".

Everyone says try to keep the paddle vertical during the stroke (when seen from the side). But this is something I'm questionning. If I try to keep vertical I seem to lose leverage. The reality for me seems to be that the paddle is vertical for just a split second. It is tilted back first at the catch, goes through vertical when I pull the hardest (via rotation and with both hands nearly straight), then it is tilted forwards as it slices off to the side. To keep it vertical, I would have to start bending my top hand while the paddle is still in the water starting shortly after the peak in the power phase. I've tried that but maybe I can't do it right since I seem to lose speed this way. For me, I see a clear and rather substantial increase in speed (without much change in heart rate) if I do put some effort to push forward with my top hand rather than trying to keep the shaft vertical longer. Maybe this compensates for some other problem I'm having, maybe this is how it is supposed to work... Got to film myself and see what my technique looks like from the side as it is hard to tell how my form is otherwise...

Thoughts?

Now would be a good time for an experience technique coach to chime in and put their reputation on the line.

But like I said,I don't think there is any one right way, so no matter what you say, you are going to get hammered by somebody that doesn't agree.

Paddling with your blade angled toward the bottom may feel good as it is still something to pull against, but is the energy going into forward motion or just making you feel good because it is hard work?

A vertical paddle can never be realised in reality, our bodies just don't work that way, so there is always a compromise.

But I still believe that getting the paddle out earlier and using that time towards another stoke is better than trying to get anything out of the back part of the stroke.
Hence my belief in a short paddle and a high cadence.

You apply less power per stroke as in area under the curve, but in the end spend a greater percentage of time with the direction of force correct and more strokes thanks to a shortened overall stroke with more strokes per given time.

So explain what you mean by leverage?
The top hand merely needs to control the paddle whilst the lower hand applies the power generated in the torso and legs.

Off to read the linked article now....

I am an "experienced Technique Coach" and my take on it is;

by rotating your upper body bringing your shoulder/arm/blade forward you do a couple of things
1)plant the blade further forward, this is desirable so as to keep the blade in the most powerful/efficient part of the stroke for as long as possible
2)"winds up" your torso like a spring providing extra power to your stroke as it unwinds
3)helps bring the blade out of the water earlier at the back of the stroke as long as your top hand does not cross the center line of the ski

by pushing with your top arm you are
1)transferring power onto the pulling blade and creating less work for the pulling arm
2)getting to the front of the recovery stroke sooner thus pulling the active blade out of the water sooner
3)helps rotatation
4)helps to engage the larger muscles needed to make you go faster for longer
(test it, hold your bottom arm straightand just push the top arm your ski will gain slight forward momentum)

"wing" paddles are shaped like propellers so by sliding the blade out away from the boat through the stroke
1)you use the propeller effect for extra lift
2)keep the blade moving onto "dead" water ie water that hasn't already been moved by your blade and therefore has momentum, making the stroke less efficient
3)helps prevent over angling of the active blade so it slices up out of the water cleanly

There are alot of little things adding up to the whole and although there is no 1 correct total there are key points that all successful paddlers are all doing to get themselves across the line in front of all the others

Interesting you should say that the top hand should not cross the centre line.
I've heard this a lot.

But

From watching and analysing heaps of you tube videos, the thing I see is that the 'elbow' comes to about the centreline or very close.

To be honest it is a pretty wide centerline and there is definately a margin for error however it is something to consider and aim toward as it does tend to fix alot of what you are talking about in your previous post

BTW we used video loaded in to sillicon coach to analyse common traits of years worth of Sprint kayak World champions to give us our base model of technique, also strength testing in simulated environments for application of power through the stroke to further understand what the videos were showing us. Still looking for more ways to be more efficient though!

So did all this analysis show up any important consistent angles?

Like torso angle, rotation amount?

Not sure what you mean by torso angle
re rotation as much as you can. Really
paddle shaft Angle @ blade entry =45deg +/-5deg
blade tip should go thru an almost perfect circle when viewed from the side

torso, forward lean?

AAh, nothing new, that magic 5deg but I have had the most success with my clients by not focusing on that number and getting them to simply keep their weight forward

What do you mean by "an almost perfect circle"?

And is the 45 +/- 5 the angle of the blade to the water when seen from the side or when seen from the front (I'm guessing the side here)...

kiwial wrote: Not sure what you mean by torso angle
re rotation as much as you can. Really
paddle shaft Angle @ blade entry =45deg +/-5deg
blade tip should go thru an almost perfect circle when viewed from the side

What do you mean by almost perfect circle? In the air after recovery?

kiwial wrote: Really paddle shaft Angle @ blade entry =45deg +/-5deg blade tip should go thru an almost perfect circle
when viewed from the side

45deg as seen from the side, and the circle, from the side again is the path that the tip of the blade goes through for each stroke if the paddlers body was stationary

Rightarmbad wrote: Interesting you should say that the top hand should not cross the centre line.
I've heard this a lot.

But

From watching and analysing heaps of you tube videos, the thing I see is that the 'elbow' comes to about the centreline or very close.

I've heard a number of coaches say that the top hand shouldn't come across the centre line of the torso. Since the torso is rotated at the end of the stroke the top hand will cross the centreline of the kayak, but not necessarily the torso.

I think the main message for amateurs is just to be careful that the top hand isn't coming way across the at the end of the stroke.

So Kiwial, what are the key things you look for when analysing somebodies stroke?
As in, what are the true fundamental things you look for to distinguish a real problem from just personal differences?

How does personal strengths effect the basic stroke?
Like, how does basic flexibility, body proportions, strength etc, change the ideal stroke for a given person?

Glad to just be pointed to links or book names if you don't want to elaborate extensively online.

I've learn't the most by simply loading software that is downloaded free from paddle force and gps/accelerometer based measurement systems and dissecting the supplied demo files.
I find them especially useful when they also synchronise with video footage.

My earlier post pretty much covers it, add in leg drive and hand height and you are generally on track. once you have them down there are alot of small things that really affect the whole stroke so I would reccomend finding a good local coach to help you out. in so far as books links etc. sorry I don't have any but will say the Epic DVD is pretty good for the fundamentals