Snappy Exit

The purpose of canoe racing is to make the boat move forward as quickly as possible. There are two basic parts to this:

1. Get as much force as possible on the paddle in a way that puts the majority of the force helps your forward motion.
2. Don’t let the boat slow down during the recovery.

The way you finish off your canoe stroke has a huge effect on keeping the boat running between strokes. This is equally true in any canoe, C-1, C-2, C-4, War Canoe, Dragon Boat, OC-6 or Coleman Canoe. I want to look at the exit today in terms of momentum and the action-reaction forces.

Imagine that at the end of the stroke you are sitting still in the boat. You need to move forward to get into position for the next stroke. Going from sitting still to moving forward requires an acceleration. Acceleration requires force, and physics says that for every force applied there must be an equal and opposite reaction force. From a practical perspective, this means that if you want to push something forward you have to have something to push against.

When you are in the boat the only thing you have to push against is the boat. Whether its your knee or your bum, the point that connects you to the boat is what you are pushing against to move your body forward. Now obviously the boat is not fixed, so what happens when you push against the boat to move yourself forward? The boat wants to move backwards.

We all know this. We can see it especially on the startline - the paddle goes up, the boat moves back. It is even more pronounced in boats like the Dragon Boat with more people all moving at once. When the boat is moving your body cannot cause it to start moving backwards but it will certainly slow down. The best way to minimize this effect is to get as far forward as possible while the paddle is still in the water.

Think back to the rocket ship effect. Making sure that the body is leaning forward before the paddle comes out is actually ensuring that your boat maintains its momentum in between strokes. Try thinking about that when you are learning about the exit.

I wanted to reinforce the point that I made in my last technique post about the shoulder rotation coming only at the last possible moment before the catch. Take a look at this series of photos of Richard Dalton (taken from a video about a year and a half ago).

You can see from this image that Richie has already gotten his hips forward and his paddle almost in front of his knee with NO SHOULDER ROTATION.

The next series of images reinforces this.

You can see that he only gets the chest opened up when the paddle is almost ready to go into the water.

Ever since you started canoeing you have been told that there are two sources of power in the stroke. There is the initial lift and pull you get from dropping your weight on the paddle at the catch and there is the force you apply to the paddle by counter-rotating your body after the stroke. All of that is true.

You also know that in order to get a good pull after the catch you have to have rotated forward with your hips, your back, and your shoulders. That is also true. What almost always get left out of the equation is that the way in which you achieve this rotation is extremely important. What I want to discuss today is the limiting effect that focusing on shoulder rotation has on your stroke.

The proper order of rotation during the recovery of the canoe stroke is hips, back, then shoulders. Too often people seem to think that if they throw their shoulders around first, that momentum will cause the back and hip to rotate as well. But what really happens is that by rotating the shoulders first you end up in a position that will not allow you to get good rotation from your hips and back - and usually leads to a very straight up and down type of stroke.

My advice is always this - Forget about shoulder rotation. It is just a natural consequence of a good stroke. If the rotation starts in the hips and you think about moving both arms forward at the same time then it is easy to get into a position where you have good hip and back rotation. The trick from here is that if you just keep your body falling forward and move your arms so that the paddle is vertical, all the while trying to go forward with both arms, you can’t help but rotate the shoulders.

By doing this you gain several inches of stroke on the catch and you have some shoulder rotation to use as pulling power. So remember, when it comes to rotation, concentrate on the hips and forget about the shoulders.

For all you dragon boaters out there the same principle applies. Move both arms forward during the recovery so that you are cross-checking the person in front of you. As you get close to the catch move the bottom arm under the top one so that the paddle is vertical and you will have excellent shoulder rotation.