Snappy Exit

As an canoe athlete in Canada I was always looking for ways to beat the winter cold and get a jump on my competitors,  and I often turned to the ergometer.  Now, in many sports people have found ways to make realistic training machines that do a rather good job at simulating the sport.  Rowing and Cycling being the two most obvious.  At the very least they allow you to train the right muscles and keep some semblance of the technique that you require in your sport.  I have yet to find a canoe ergometer that came very close to allowing me to feel like I was in an actual boat.

I used several machines over the years and found that the best ones were the ones with a moving platform.  They allowed the hips to move in a way that was very close to a real canoe, not just while you were pulling, but more importantly, on the exit.  They also helped to get the feel for keeping the boat gliding on the recovery as all of your body motions translated into movements on the platform so it was very easy to see the effects of throwing your weight forward (the platform would shoot back).

The major issue I had with paddling ergs was that my right hip (I paddle on the left) would always tighten up within minutes of me getting on the machine.  This was not something that I ever experienced in a real boat and it was enough to limit any erg workout so that there were no pieces longer than 3 minutes.

I attribute it to the following problems:

 Problem 1 - The platform is too stable.

Obviously the platform is usually a piece of plywood bolted to a sliding apparatus.  It does not rock side to side, it does not bounce up and down.  This is a problem because it does not allow you to feel the actual movements of a boat, and the rigid platform does not give way as your body moves forward, putting your front leg in a different position than where it would be in a real boat.

To solve this, I rasied my paltform onto some very springy springs.  They had to be quite rigid so that my body weight did not fully compress them.  The effect was good - the boat bounced and rocked - but I had to be extra careful because falling off an erg is both embarrassing and painful.

Problem 2 - All of the pull is front to back.

Even after creating some give on te platform of the erg, I was still having leg/hip problems.  So it I tried to make the stroke even more like an actual stroke.

We all know that a big part of the canoe stroke is the downward force you apply to the water by dropping your weight on the paddle.  I have yet to see an ergometer with any effective way to apply downward pressure.   Most ergometers create resistance using a pulley of some description - a good idea to create the front to back resistance.  This same resistance can be translated into vertical force by raising the pulley.  The higher the pulley, the more downward force you can apply; however, by raising the pulley you also raise the point of contact for the stroke resistance, effectively changing the stroke.  I was thinking that this problem is what caused my hip pain, since I was constantly trying to hold myself up instead of allowing my weight to fall on the paddle.

My solution to this was somewhat less elegant than the spring solution (and somewhat less effective).   Since I was in my own basement, I attached a stiff bungy cord (the black rubber kind) between the bottom of my erg paddle and the ceiling, just above the place where I start my catch.  It worked well on the catch, but interfered a bit with my top arm during the pull and felt really odd on the exit as the paddle was yanked out of the “water”.  But it was better than nothing and helped with my hip issues.

Of course, the first time the bungy broke I was cought completely off guard and went down to the floor fairly hard.  After that I checked the bungy regularly for wear and tear.

Overall my ergometer experience was less than satisfactory.  Has anyone out there had a positive experience using an erg on a regular basis for physical training?

I am often asked some very specific things about training and preparation.  Things like -

• What is your ideal heart rate for such and such a workout?
• What is your VO2Max?
• What speed do you reach when doing pacing workouts?
• How fast should your stroke rate be?

Now, what this all really relates to is how much monitoring should an athlete be doing and what things should an athlete monitor?  The answer is simple.  You can monitor anything you like, but whatever you are monitoring, be consistent and look for a correlation between what you are measuring and what you are hoping to find out.

When you decide that you want to measure something in training I always believe that you should take a somewhat scientific approach.  That’s not to say that you need to be doing ground breaking research or trying to get published in a scientific journal.  But you should always follow a few basic rules.

1.  Have an Objective

That is, what do you hope to accomplish?  Are you measuring heart rate to note improvements in fitness, or to gauge your energy levels? 

2.  Keep a Record

If you want to see if something is a true measure of fitness or preparedness then you have to watch it over time to see what the data means.  Take heart rate agin as an example.  For a long time I measured my heart rate at the end of each workout.  Nothing high-tech, just counting heartbeats for 10 seconds immediately after the last piece and the again a minute later.  Over time I knew that when I was in good shape and rested my heart rate would be between 30 and 32 for after an intense piece and would fall below 25 after a minute.  I knew from this record that if I varied from this that something was wrong.

3.  Look For a Correlation

How many 2km time controls have you done in your life?  Does your time actually reflect how you will perform in the 100m and 500m races?  For me it definitely did.   I did 2km  time controls up until two weeks before the World Championships and by the end of my career I knew that if my time was down around 8:30 then I was in moving the boat really well.  However, I also did a lot of 2 minute bench press testing that seemed to have no correlation to my racing speed.

If you are not following this process then you are collecting information for nothing and you will invariably just end up comparing your information to your teamates and your peers.  This doesn’t tell you anythin about yourself and your progress or fitness.  It can lead you to think that you are doing better than you are, or worse than you are, or in a worst case scenario can lead to overtraining because you missed all of the symptoms that would have been obvious if you were tracking a few simple things.

When I was training there were a few key things that I measured fairly consistently.  They were:

• Heart Rate after a workout
• Boat speed for 500m pacing
• Stroke rate
• 2km Time

The measurements were mostly very basic, but were very effective at keeping me on track througout the summer.

 What do you measure in your workouts?

Are you and your coach using these measurements appropriately?

Leave some comments and let me know.