Kayak Technique

written by Paul Carvill (photos by Björn Olin / www.essingen.com)

Learning to Kayak is not as easy as it looks and can be quite difficult to bring everything together for an efficient and fast pace. The basics can be learned at most swimming pools that have a canoe club attached such as the Ancholme Leisure centre or from a qualified BCU instructor. This will give you a basic competency and teach you deepwater capsize drills. A starter Kayak / Canoe will be what they class as a stable Kayak, meaning that you will not be as prone to tipping out. As your confidence grows you can progress onto more streamline race type Kayaks. Kayaks are rated for stability, 1 is the most tippiest and then down to 10 the most stable. The Kayaks in the photos by Björn Olin are rated as 1 and are built to slice through the water.

Here are a few Kayak types available from Nelo

Paddling Technique

Nelo

The primary stroke for propelling a kayak forward with a paddle.
Sit up straight. Slouching forward or backwards limits your upper body's ability to move. You can get more power by using your upper body than by using just your arms.

Don't apply power to the paddle until the paddle blade is completely under the water. Don't use just the tip of the blade. If the paddle is making gurgling/bubbling noises, you are wasting effort. If you are pulling a lot of air down into the water you are also wasting your effort.

Push with your upper arm at the same time you pull with your lower arm. Rotate your torso to follow the paddle. You should feel like you are pulling the boat past the paddle. You may push your upper hand across the centerline of the boat.

Don't pull your lower hand past your hip. If you rotate your torso, this point may be a little farther back than if you don't rotate.

Don't lift water at the end of the stroke. If you are splashing a lot, you are wasting your effort.

Tip: Also make sure that you are reaching forward when you are placing the blade in the water, you may want to use a marker on the front of your boat to make sure you are doing this everytime.

GB Marathon Paddler

Torso Rotation

Torso rotation means basically that you rotate your body from the waist. However, sprint and marathon paddlers rotate below the waist. They rotate on the seat using leg push on the active paddle side and often sit on a rotating seat. Almost all but the well trained sprint and marathon k-1 paddlers DO NOT rotate no matter how much they think they do. It's easy to fool yourself, but if you are not spinning back and forth on the seat you are not rotating in the method that delivers a real power to the stroke that comes from the legs. Push the boat forward via the bottoms of one foot at a time and not from the seat of your butt.

The reason for using torso rotation is that the torso muscles are large. These are capable of working for long periods of time generating large amounts of work. Arm muscles, on the other hand, are smaller and are better suited to lower levels of output for shorter periods of time. However, arms can be moved faster and at very high stroke rates. If you watch a top sprinter at a race start, you will see that they are all arms for the first few strokes till they get their boat up and out of the hole, and moving at higher speed where they transition into full rotation using the legs and back and abs via rotation. If you try to paddle using only your arms, you will limit your speed an endurance.

One problem that some paddlers have is that they strive for torso rotation but actually perform only shoulder rotation. That is, they are rotating their torso somewhat but the major portion of the motion and work is coming from the arms rotating at the shoulders. While stronger and having more endurance than just the arm muscles, shoulders do not have the power that the torso has.

Wash Hanging in Marathon Racing

Wash Hanging

Something that you will hear mentioned in Kayak Marathon racing is "Wash Hanging", this refers to using someones wash to reduce the required effort to maintain the same speed. It is similar in theory to that of drafting on a bike. The positioning is important and you need to be slightly behind and to the side as shown above, the guy at the front is doing a lot of the work and the two guys to either side are using his wake to make life easier and the guy behind is getting the best tow of all. Sometimes people will take in turns to lead, effectively creating a more efficient group. When you are in the right position, you will physically feel the nose of the kayak drop and you will need to counter act the forces that will try and draw you into the lead kayak. Its not as easy and simple as it looks and requires practice. Some people who can't do this call it cheating. :-)

Bungee Cords

To create more drag in the water some people use Bungee cords to wrap around the nose of the boat to effectively create drag, you can even add a humble tennis ball to the cord and this will give you enough drag to get those muscles screaming.

Click here to read the blaggers guide to Kayaking.

- Information on the British Canoe Union (BCU)