Fit to Paddle: Workout Routine
Being on the 40 side of 35 now, training to keep my lifestyle has become more important than ever.Fitness and injury prevention can be the difference between being able to travel, work, and just keep up in general.
Prior to heading out for four weeks of travel and paddling in January, I made some dedicated time to really ramping up my training regimen to work towards being able to maintain 20+ days of hard kayaking.
Mostly, I wanted to avoid injury in Mexico. Paddling big drops can be hard on your body and I know this first hand. In early 2014 I dislocated my ribs landing funny of one of the smaller drops on the Rio Alseseca. This sidelined me for the rest of the trip and for a number of weeks following.
Take it from me: sitting all day while your buddies head out to the river really sucks especially when there isn’t much else to do in that area.
I am not a trainer nor am I an authority on fitness but here is the regimen that I did in order to hit all the targets that I wanted for paddling and travel:
Strength Training:I usually work a routine that goes for heavy weight and low rep targeting major muscle groups. This includes squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press.
Sprint Training: For me this is an area where I see great results. In the early winter I was using a pretty nice elliptical machine at the gym. I was doing 5 circuits of 1 minute all out (to the last second) and a 3 minute rest. This after a 5 minute warmup and cool down.
Core Training: Check out this link from Canoe & Kayak . I love this workout and it really works.
Circuit Training:I would do the following circuit 5X
Jump Rope 1 min
Single Leg Step up with Kettle Bell 1 min
Kettle Bell Swings x 60
Torso twists with medicine ball 1 min
Bonus: Knee lifts on the bosu (see photo) to help you rock the boofs
I would follow this up with circuits on the Krank machine:
45 seconds all out with the setting pretty high and 3 min rest. I do this 5X
Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, feedback, ideas, etc.I would love to hear more as I am about to ramp up for a lot of paddling / filming starting in late Feb.