Posts Tagged ‘Surf Ski Technique’
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
 Surf Ski Paddling Tips As you begin your journey at mastering the balance on a ski you may find your thigh muscles become tight. How do you prevent this?
You see experienced Paddlers smoothly glide by and you are sure they do not have the feeling of uncomfortable tight thigh muscles as you do. Their balance is relaxed, yet you feel unsteady in the craft and now the muscles in your thighs are tight and there is a threat they will cramp. This is a common issue with new paddlers in the surf as well as flat water like canals and rivers. After 10 to 15 minutes paddling, you have not fallen in, but survival to prevent this is to paddle slow. Pretty soon your endurance and time you want to stay on the ski runs out as it becomes too uncomfortable sitting in the saddle as your thighs are tense.
The good news is that correcting this problem is a simple adjustment to two elements of your technique.
What is the technique and skill needed to relax these muscles? Its all in the Surf Ski Supremacy eBook. Click through to the home page for more information.
Tags: surf ski paddling, Surf Ski Technique, surf ski tips
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Thursday, August 11th, 2011
 Surf Ski Technique The most effective position for blade is vertical in the water. Surf ski paddlers modify this by going off vertical to compensate for changing environmental conditions and to assist balance.This should be avoided.
The power of the stroke is when the blade is accelerated between the knees and the hips during the trunk twist and heel pressure. Blade entry is between 45 and 50 degrees to the water. The stroke makes a line following the wash of the bow of the craft (Kayak) and inside the wash of a surf ski because it has a longer bow.
Strength is required in the back and abdominals of the athlete. The optimal technique requires the paddler to lean on the blade during the pull phase and arm and elbow are at 90 degrees. At exit the elbow and arm position is at 90 degrees and the shaft raises to parallel to shoulder height.
During exit the blade is turned on its side (90 degrees) to give a quick release from the water with minimal drag.
Tags: surf ski paddling, Surf Ski Technique
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Thursday, July 28th, 2011
 Learn Surf Ski Technique Speed is gained by spinning the stroke.
Being tense and muscling the stroke reduces speed.
Accelerate the blade through the water and shorten the stroke. Tenseness causes you to pull the blade through the water at the same velocity. Speed is gained by accelerating the blade through the water. Lean on the stroke. Think of the Spinning the wheel: When you have a bike upside down and want to spin the wheel, you start by grabbing it and flinging it down. From there, you don’t grab it and muscle it an more. Doing so would stop the wheel and restart it. Inefficient. Rather, you tap it when spinning, minimising impact of the current velocity while increasing speed.
Surf ski padding is the same.
Tags: surf ski paddling, surf ski speed, Surf Ski Technique
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011
 Choppy conditions: You spend most of your time on survival. That is, technique has gone out the window, remaining on the ski and not falling off is your priority. You are struggling to maintain balance and you may find after every three or four strokes you fall off your ski.
Relax. How do you relax? Relax by breathing out. Use deep breaths and let them out with a sigh. Stop paddling with legs over the sides and paddle resting in the water. Relax, let the whole body relax.
Rest on your paddle. A paddle is similar to a tight rope walkers pole. They use the pole for balance not the body. Similarly use the paddle for balance not correct with the body. The body is kept relaxed. Core strength is important.
Now start up again, heel pressure with leg tense on stroke side, other side relaxed. Concentrate on how your body feels. When paddling at all times note the bow of your ski. Keep it flat, no rock. In all conditions good balance is measured by the bow being flat or level at all times.
Tags: paddling choppy waves, surf ski paddling, Surf Ski Technique
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Monday, October 4th, 2010
 Surf Ski Coaching I still get coached and attend regular coached surf ski group sessions. Why? Its simple. Coaches who observe their students will pick up many things that the students do not even know they are doing wrong. They also have such a wealth of experience and knowledge in the sport, that good coaches will teach (or re-teach) their students, something new every single session.
These lessons are often simple things. But these simple things often make the biggest difference to your performance in the water, or on race day. One great example is core rotation. Rotating and using your core to paddle, rather than your arms, is where you get the majority of power out of your surf ski. A paddler using his arms too much will always be beaten by a paddler who correctly paddles through his core. This is one aspect of my paddling that I always think I do well, right up to the moment where my coach points out how badly I am doing it, corrects my technique and has me “re-feeling” correct technique.
Just the other day also, I was given a golden nugget of advice. I was paddling along with the group, going along on my merry way but failing to gather much speed. My coach pointed out that I was paddling at the speed my ski was going. How could I expect my ski to go faster, when the paddle was going at the same speed? To increase speed, I needed to accelerate my paddle while it was in the water. Such a simple piece of advice, but something that made a real difference to my craft speed. I never would have made this logical connection myself.
Tags: surf ski coaching, surf ski paddling, surf ski speed, Surf Ski Technique
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Monday, August 2nd, 2010
Surf Ski Skills Guide On Saturday morning, I competed in a surf life saving endurance race, paddling my surf ski over a 12km course in the ocean. There was not much swell on the day, but the night before, a good stiff wind had blown up, leaving the ocean angry on race day, frothing, and boiling in extremely choppy conditions. The chop was running in all directions with minimal consistency, varied between 0.5 and 3 metres on the faces and with a 20 knot wind to boot, it made for a very difficult race.
I’ve had it so good recently that I’d forgotten just how challenging these types of conditions are. Often you just go into survival mode, doing nothing other than trying to keep your craft upright. Having fallen off before the first turning buoy myself, I got angry. I searched my memory banks and remembered all the techniques you have to follow to be effective in these conditions. I employed these tips to immediate effect.
At the end of the day and in retrospect, it was really great having the hit-out in such difficult conditions. Once you get past the survival point, choppy water is just so good for your surf ski strength conditioning. I woke up on Sunday really sore, with a deep and satisfying muscle soreness that I hadn’t experienced for a long time.
Having returned, I reviewed Surf Ski Supremacy and added a new chapter. The new chapter covers these types of extreme ocean conditions and the 5 things you can do to move from survival mode and into competitor mode.
Tags: surf ski paddling, surf ski practise, Surf Ski Racing, Surf Ski Technique
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Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Learn Surf Ski Technique Last weekend I paddled in a 12 km ocean race at Byron Bay in Australia. It was a lot of fun – it was my first distance paddling race.
I was actually coming off 3 weeks of illness, so I was not very competitive, but I enjoyed participating and love collecting the t-shirts you get in these races.
One thing I thought was interesting though was the observations of my wife, who was watching from the beach with our 2 year old daughter. She made 2 observations:
- At the start of the race, my technique was terrible – I looked like I was bobbing up and down like crazy
- At the end of the race, so many competitors had terrible technique, they were such different paddlers to what they were at the start of the race.
I can remember the start, I tried to stay out of everyone’s way at the back of the pack, thinking I’d pick up people as I go. It is not a great strategy. All the people in front of you really churn up the water, making it super bumpy. I am sure this is what gave the “bumpy” view that my wife saw. When paddling through these bumps, you really need to rate up your stroke.
At the end of the race, people are getting fatigued and as they do, they lose correct technique, paddle inefficiently and subsequently fatigue faster. It is a great argument for the long sessions in flat water, honing technique while improving fitness. He who paddles efficiently over the course of the whole race has such an advantage over he who loses efficiency as he gets tired.
My final observation is that surf ski races are so different to running races. If you participate in a half marathon or similar distance race, you always get the non-runners participating, the punters having a go. You don’t get this in surf ski races due to the costs involved in buying equipment and the dedication involved in learning simple balance. In surf ski races, everyone competing is a paddler. So don’t be embarrassed if you find yourself down the back at the end, just work harder for the next race.
Tags: ocean paddling technique, paddling technique, Surf Ski Technique
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Saturday, June 5th, 2010
Come Fly With Me Today I was out paddling with my coach, we paddled for just under an hour and then followed up with some technique work on the ergo machine.
One of the things that my coach has been talking about recently is to not put on the brakes by paddling too hard. He says that paddling should be similar to spinning a bike wheel. (while the bike is upside down) To start, you grab it and give it a good hard spin. When it has momentum though, all you need to do is help it along with lighter surface taps. If you keep grabbing it to spin it, each time you grab it, you stop the momentum so you have to use additional energy to start it again.
My coach pointed out that this is how I paddle. I am paddling so hard that each stroke grabs the water, slowing my surf ski down, then starts to push through again.
Following my hour paddle in the ocean this morning, we went into the gym to work on this a bit. We have a surf ski ergo machine there. When my coach started paddling, he was paddling at a rate of about 105 strokes per minute and was producing about 135 watts. When it was my turn, I struggled to get my rating above 80 strokes per minute, yet I was producing about 170 watts.
I could only increase my rating to 100 strokes per minute, by really focusing on reducing the watts I was producing. And guess what I had to do to achieve that… If you guessed stop using my arms – you would have been spot on. My current stroke is still too much arms. I really dig in and try and bully my way through the water. In doing so, every catch puts the brakes on a little, meaning every stroke is a little less efficient. By concentrating instead on core trunk rotation, a more efficient stroke ensued. I could much more easily maintain the higher stroke rating without tiring and there was much less “brake” at the catch part of the stroke.
So bringing this experience back out into the water, one thing you can do to judge whether you are using too much arm power and not enough core power, is look at your rating. Can you increase it and maintain a rating over 100 strokes per minute? If not – try lightening your stroke power and increasing your trunk rotation.
Tags: ocean paddling, surf ski paddling, surf ski paddling form, Surf Ski Technique
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