Session Debrief 05 MAR 24.

Hi Crew, great session this morning. It really felt like everyone was starting to paddle well together. For the sessions that I take – I am going to work on stroke correction of individuals as well as crew synergy. For my session debrief on messenger I will keep it generic as the observations I make are relevant to everyone. However, on the water and in our sessions, I will call you out individually where I can see opportunity for improvement. You need to be prepared for that. You also need to know that any constructive comments from the coaches are not personal and not intended to belittle or offend anyone. Please take the feedback as intended and if unsure of what is being asked of you, please speak up. I try to be as clear and descriptive as possible, but communication is two way – if you don’t quite get what I mean I’d rather you let me know as maybe I didn’t explain it well enough.

As well as stroke correction, I’ll be working on progressive overload. For those of you familiar with that concept – you know what hell is about to be unleashed on you. For those not familiar I’ll simplify it. To make significant improvements, you need to gradually increase the load or work done by the body’s systems so that in can adapt to this increased workload. For our purposes, we can increase distance/duration, and workload. You may have noticed the Sunday sessions starting to increase distance and duration. In our short sessions, I can’t really increase distance and duration as we have a predefined time on the water. What I can do is increase workload. We will be working on speed (sprint training) and strength (resistance training) so again you need to be prepared for that.

For those that remember their school science – Force x velocity = power. That’s our goal.

Again, all that I ask is that you turn up ready to give it 100%. I’d rather have 3 paddlers giving 100% than 5 giving 50%. I love giving my time to help develop you all love seeing the results, ALL the coaches do. All we want in return is commitment.

Todays takeaways: Work on reach. We need to make sure everyone has the same power phase and timing. This was much improved today. Work on pulling water “straight”. That means that the paddle must be vertical and pull down the side of the canoe as straight as possible. Anything else is wasted energy and unsettles the smooth running of the canoe. Bottom hand needs to plant and guide the blade as close to the hull as possible. Top hand needs to be directly above the bottom hand. Try to achieve this with good body mechanics, not by leaning. Nobody really wants to swim in the bay in the dark. Keep your heads in the centre of the canoe. If unsure – ask. Final thoughts – your stroke rate was super slow today around the mid 40’s strokes per minute. I don’t think we ever went over 50 BUT, the canoe was humming along with some of our runs going below 6 mins/km. That’s a great improvement. If we work on the small things and minor improvements imagine what we can do when we scale it all up. Great work – looking forward to the next session.