Snappy Exit

I received this comment today and it has spurred me on to write this post.

Steve, can you comment a bit on the exit of the stroke? I understand how pulling hard while the blade becomes negative pulls the boat down and into the water but from photos/videos of sprint races I’ve seen, including the olympic finals, I notice that a lot of sprint canoe paddlers become neutral while the paddle is still fairly “in front” of them and carry though the stroke a bit with it negative before they exit.

I’ve also heard a bit about applying some extra force during the exit of the stroke but still do not really understand it. I was hoping you could comment a bit on that too.

Basically what the commenter is saying and what I sort of ignored (actually I completely ignored it because it was an introductory post) is that most successful canoe athletes actually spend a fair amount of time with their paddles at a negative angle. The most famous Negative Angle Paddler (NAPer) is also one of the most succesful canoe athletes in the history of the sport - Gyorgy Kolonics.

I always thought it was an ugly stroke, even when he was kicking my but up and down the lake. So what is going on that allows him to do this and still go fast? There is no great secret here, once again it all comes down to physics - although it is slightly more complicated than what we looked at before.

Remember this image where I asserted that at this point in your stroke you have started to push the boat down and not forward? Well the assumption that I didn’t state is that all of the power is being applied by the bottom hand (i.e. along a line from the bottom hand to the bottom shoulder). Obviously there is (at least) one other force at play and that is of course (remember the jam jar?) the downward force of the top arm.

Take a look at this digram.

Now,  as long as the force is in-line with the shaft you can simply transpose to onto the blade.  What you should note is that:

• It looks as though a force directed along the shaft of the paddle will counteract the force that is sinking your boat. That is - by pressing down you keep the paddle from moving up thus keeping the boat from moving down.  I think this is not really true and that if I could get further into this I would see that the movement of the paddle, and the ability of the blade to hold the water come into play.  So - ignore that for now.
• But what id definitely real is - the downward force of your top arm can actually contribute to your forward motion!

The reason that (I think) coaches don’t generally talk about this is that everything goes to pot if the force is not applied straight along the shaft. Take a look at this diagram.

What I am trying to show here is what happens when you drive the top arm forward. The bottom hand basically acts as a fulcrum.  What this means is that the force is no longer translated directly down the shaft, but is changed as shown above.  It’s not reall detrimental to the stroke, but you can see that instead of lifting the boat and driving it forward you are mostly just sinking the boat. And the harder you push forward with the top arm, the harder you push the boat down.  Now the reason Kolonics can spend so much time in this position and still go fast is because he can feel when he is applying force in the proper direction.

I think that this may be one of the most important differences between good paddlers and great paddlers. In fact this may be what people mean when they say that someone has a good feel for the water. They can feel that they are applying a force that is making the boat move faster regardless of what position they are in, how choppy the water is or even what boat they are in. It doesn’t always have to be pretty.

Now for extra credit - there is something else that changes when you increase the negative angle of your paddle that will negatively affect your boat speed. Anyone know what I am thinking of?

A few more gems from the best technique coach I have ever seen.

 Free Energy:

This is one that always made me smirk.  Everyone who has ever taken a basic physics course knows that there is no such thing as “free energy”.  But Tony was always on to me about using the free energy in my stroke.  All he meant was to allow the weight transfer to move the boat down the lake.  Get the weight on the paddle and it contributes way more power than any part of the pulling stoke.  Of course the energy isn’t free, you have to get your body into position and that requires energy, but it certainly is cheap.

 Annnnn-A:

If Tony has coached you before I know you have heard this one (usually while he is standing in the motorboat pretending to paddle) and wondered why he was making such funny noises.  Well, this one was actually stolen from a Hungarian coach that we met during a training camp in Budapest in 1988 (yes while I was still a junior).  The coach said that to get the feel for pushing the hips forward forcefully on the exit, and to help keep a good connection between the hips, and paddle, the athlete should say their girlfriend’s name as they paddled.  Now, this assumes that your girlfriend has a two syllable name.  The first syllable is drawn out to last the whole length of the pull and the second syllable is short and powerful as you thrust your hip forward and propel the boat through the exit.  Anna was the example used by the Hungarian coach and, well, it just stuck.

The majority of the power in the canoe stroke comes from transferring your weight onto the paddle at the catch.  It provides lift for the boat and a surge of “free energy” (that’s another Tonyism by the way) that you will not get from any other action in the stroke.  Think about how hard you would have to pull with the hips to equal a 180lb man falling on the catch.

That is nothing new, and it appliles equally to every canoe stroke, whether it is C-1, Dragon Boat or even Outrigger (although I have actually only been in an outrigger once - I know that this is true).  The trick is to get your weight on the catch and:

• still be in a good posiotion to pull with the hips back and shoulders
• keep as much weight as possible off the front foot.

Keeping your weight off your front foot is mostly about discipline and practice and faith in the fact that if you take your weight off the front foot you will be supported by the paddle and not fall in the lake.  It is also a direct result of keeping your body in a good posiotion to pull with the hips back and shoulders.

So, first things first - you have to get the forward rotation happening in the right order.  Need a refresher?  Link. Link.

Now look at this series of images of Mark Oldershaw (taken in Racize, Czech republic in 2005 - I believe Mark was still recovering from hand surgery, but he is pretty tough and paddled amazingly well even when he was in a lot of pain). 

Notice how the hip stays forward, the bottom shoulder drops down and forward, and the entire torso drops as he puts the paddle in the water.  Those three actions together allow mark to get his weight on the catch and maintain rotation (even improve rotation) as he does it.

Now, when the weight drops on the catch, Mark will support himself with all of his counter-rotational muscles and his top shoulder - failure to do that properly will of course ruin all of your efforts on the catch - but I will deal with that in a separate post.

A couple of points I want to drive home.

1. The weight is dropped on the catch - not driven down with the top arm.
2. You have to commit the hips to hold you on the paddle side of the boat.  If the hips release to the other side you will not be able to get the weight onto the paddle (it’s a center of gravity thing).
3. The same principle applies to Dragon Boat - without the kneeling position.  Keep the bottom shoulder moving forward as the torso drops and do not try to drive the top arm through the water. 
4. Your paddle will keep you from falling in.
5. In fact - your paddle should be the ONLY thing keeping you from falling in.

I remember seeing a video of Larry Cain taken in Florida one year.  Tamas and Larry came in from practice very excited looking to show all the rest of us National Team guys Larry’s revolutionary new technique for getting his weight on the catch.  The video started great, along came Larry paddling very well with his famous big catch.  Apparently he forgot to wash off his sunscreen, because on one stroke his bottom hand slipped right up the shaft - and of course he was head first into the water.  We all had a good laugh, Larry laughing most of all, but it goes to show the kind of commitment necessary to paddle at that level.