Let’s talk about your warm up before paddling… oh wait, we don’t warm up do we?

Let’s face it, other than maybe a handful of brave paddlers willing to jump on early for a few minutes of paddling before the start of the race, it’s hard to find anyone actively warming up on the bank before a training session let alone a race.

The 18-year-olds amoungst us can almost get away with not warming up but for those of us getting a bit older (and tighter and less flexible and more diesel engine trained), and for those who take themselves seriously when it comes to racing, we should be warming up!

The warm-up is not designed to wear you out. It will activate your muscles by generating blood flow to them; waking up firing patterns; and flushing fluid through your joints to ‘oil them up’ before you race off through the backline. How many times during an interval session do you find yourself thinking that the first two intervals you felt lethargic and you were hurting but then the third and fourth intervals are generally way better? That’s because your body is warming up. So why do we all start the race ‘cold’?

Read the rest of this awesome article…. Issue 1 of 2018: https://issuu.com/thepaddlemag/docs/tpm_1_2018