1: INJURY PREVENTION
Now that people are starting into more difficult whitewater, it might be helpful to start thinking of injury prevention!
A dislocated shoulder is usually the end of your kayaking forever irrespective of how much you love the sport I know of very few people who have managed to come back from one successfully.
Your shoulders play a massive part in kayaking, and people mightn't know, but your shoulder is held in place by a number of really small muscles! Primarily the muscles of your rotator cuff and trap 3's. Rolling and bracing, when done sloppily or without perfect technique, place massive pressure on these tiny muscles, and if they can't cope, you can dislocate your shoulder... so below are a few really simple exercises I fit into my day that you can do at home to toughen these guy up.
These are tiny muscles and these exercises should be done with perfect form not worrying about the weight. For instance, I do these regularly and I only use 5kg or less so for some of you, a bag of sugar (about 1kg) might be enough to start with.
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Remember you have a free gym on campus these can take as little as 15mins to do and if done regularly will bombproof your shoulders from any of the ridiculous moves you might try!
2. Stretching
The current thinking on stretching at the moment is that static stretching before something is BAD! warmups should be just that running, jumping, push up, those games you guys have pre river are actually excellent warm ups.
This can be followed by dynamic stretching as seen on this video and then do whichever kayaking you like.
Following a river trip conventional static stretching is ok!
3: BOMB PROOF YOUR CORE
Kayaking involves a huge amount of ab and trunk muscle work. These muscles in conjunction with your TVA (transverse abdominis, hidden beneath your six pack), intercostals (between your ribs) and lower back muscles make up you CORE muscles.
A forward stroke if done correctly involves very little arm push/pull and a large amount of trunk rotation. This means that a powerful kayaking stroke comes from powerful core muscles!
The great thing about training your CORE is that it will benefit your sports performance, kayaking, and improves your posture and helps protect you from injury. so here a work your CORE at home routine
1. Front plank
2. Side plank
3. Ab exercise 1: Choose one of any of the following list
- Butt ups
- Air biker
4. lower back exercise 2
5. Front plank
The bridges should be more concrete road bridge then rope suspension bridge. so if your finding that after a few secs your lower back is weakening and dipping then stop, take a break, and start again. Also any ab crunch type exercise should always be paired with a lower back exercise to prevent developing imbalances.
A sample beginner routine might look like this
1. 30 secs
2. 20 secs each side
3. 25 reps
4. 25 reps
5. 30 secs
NO BREAK in-between
repeat three times (3 times a week)
If you struggle with the times here start low and build up gradually. you'll be shocked how quickly you'll go from 10 second front planks to 3minutes!
The planks also work your shoulders and lower back so don't be surprised if your shoulders tire quickly when you first start.
This takes less then ten minutes and is well worth it in conjunction with shoulder protection will really help bring on your kayaking and help prevent injury (including kerry related partying injury)
p.s. its a common misconception that huge amounts of ab work will get you a six pack! wrong. Get your body fat below 10 percent and bam instant abs! a help is doing your bridges, strengthening your TVA pushes your abs forward so even if you've got some insulation you might get some early 6 pack action (or at the very least a flatter stomach).