I think this is typical of the BCU though, the fact that there are 3 different documents for the award is ridiculous. Syllabus, Trainers notes and Assessors Notes are pretty pointless. There should just be one document that explicitly describes the content of the award, what is required and a description of the strokes/skills to avoid confusion and meaning that everyone is singing of the same hymm sheet. If a coach then chooses to teach a stroke on a higher award then that is at their own discresion.
I find that when I'm teaching braces, low and high, on flat water, I constantly saying "thats fine on flat water, but its a whole different ball game on moving water" which is fine. I think that to a certain extent the braces and roll should be taught simultaneously as they are very similar techniques when you look at the movement of the body and blade. The key is that the paddler is aware of the movement of the hips, the rest of the movement should follow (and as already stated the head could do with getting wet). If you are past the point of no return and try a high brace and try to keep your hair dry, then innevitably the support fails as the body is too rigid to allow the boat to right itself. In slalom, using your hips in this way is key to utilising the power of the water albeit on a ,uch flatter boat.
I am also very much in agreement that there are a number of recreational coaches that have been around for a while that are still teaching the 'old' ways. a classic example of this is that I've been at a pool session where an 'experienced' paddler was trying to get a novice back into the boat, post roll failure, and was getting the person in the water to try and crawl up the stern of a lengthy and high volume plastic boat (because thats how he was shown how to do it many years ago, its worth mentioning he was rescuing her). It took nearly 15 minutes, at the same time I'd had a couple of novices in and out of boats several times and I was on the pool side. This was their first experience of rescues (I described the conventional X rescue). The person in question has been told several times not to show their personal method, by a number of people, but a reluctance to change is meaning that the novices aren't learning what they should be.
Shoulder Injuries in Young Female Paddlers - Shoulder Injuries in Young Female Paddle
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kendall chew
- Posts: 101
- Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:21 pm
- Location: Cheshire
I guess a question to ask would be how do we/ you/the BCU retrain all the coaches, this would have to be mandatory and re enforced for it to be effective. As a member of a profession which has gone through a hugh ammount of navel gazing in order that we can have safe practice, it was gut wrenching and, we lost a fair few good osteopaths and some who should have left the profession a long time ago. It was cathartic but, safe practice now exists to a greater extent. Food for thought!
jjayes wrote:roodthomas wrote:Either way . . . the progression needs to be
1. get the correct technique on the flat through training
2. race on the flat
3. transfer the technique onto slightly bigger water in training (i.e. Matlock/Marple/Sowerby . . .)
4. race on the slightly bigger water
5. transfer the technique to bigger water in training (i.e. HPP)
6. Race
Its a simple progression. You don't learn to race the 100m sprint before you learn to walk . . .
Thomas I could not agree more. As I said before.....
What is needed is good coaching practice and athlete education that emphasizes gradual progression, overload, intensity of physical training, technique work and water used. Even for elite athletes these principals are extremely important when training on the knife edge that is high performance or failure.
I would personally say that part of the problem is that the wrong elements of technique are assessed for the coaching qualifications, and people often try to teach techniques that they do not truly know how to do. I have certainly observed on several occaisions people who did their qualification at the same time as me teaching incorrect technique! And who's to say even I know it correctly!?
As for having all the different assessors notes etc. I think this is a good thing, as it would not be ideal to over-complicate the materials being given to paddlers who are being taught, and yet it can be important to add extra notes, even regarding how to use techniques etc.
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roodthomas
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:33 pm
- Location: Barnsley
its one thing having notes for syllabus and assessors notes as well, but they need to have the same content, and at the moment they don't!! Its one thing to give candidates information, but the syllabus isn't comprehensive enough for candidates who don't know what the names of strokes are!!
You can't really say that the wrong elements of technique are assessed because a bank based coach isn't assessed on technique
You can't really say that the wrong elements of technique are assessed because a bank based coach isn't assessed on technique
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Slow Paddler
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2006 6:21 pm
- Location: Macclesfield
Bank based coaches are assessed on their ability to coach the correct technique. However Mike you need to remember what a level 1 coach means, it is an assistant to a level 2 or higher coach. From a UKCC perspective they should never be left unsupervised.MikeR wrote:I would say the bank based coaches do have to be assessed on technique! If if they are not doing it them selves, they will have to teach it, I would have thought that knowing how to do the techniques you're teaching is nessesary!
From a club point of view struggling to get enough volunteers, a level 1 coach is unsupervised, hence they feel pressure to teach more than they're comfortable with, hence teach poor technique. In an ideal world this wouldn't happen, however in reality there are not enough volunteers to supervise & mentor these coaches.
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Slow Paddler
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2006 6:21 pm
- Location: Macclesfield
The difference in the training / assessment notes are because the BCU want to give a wider experience of paddlesports covering a large range of skills, but to pass the star awards only the specified skills need to be performed.
I'm a teacher & lecturer - do I just teach to the exam so they can pass or do I try to enhance the experience by teaching a wide range of skills.
I'm a teacher & lecturer - do I just teach to the exam so they can pass or do I try to enhance the experience by teaching a wide range of skills.
Slow Paddler wrote:MikeR wrote:I would say the bank based coaches do have to be assessed on technique! If if they are not doing it them selves, they will have to teach it, I would have thought that knowing how to do the techniques you're teaching is nessesary!
Bank based coaches are assessed on their ability to coach the correct technique. However Mike you need to remember what a level 1 coach means, it is an assistant to a level 2 or higher coach. From a UKCC perspective they should never be left unsupervised.
Level One coaches can coach beginner courses on 'very sheltered water' alone, which is the particular example I was refering to!
One other thought; would it be possible for some form of shoulder stability/general conditioning module to be created for coaches?
The debate is focusing very much on technique at the moment. It is good to remember that all techniques require strength to perform and develop them and it is the ongoing development of strength that is a key factor in injury protection. No matter how good a paddlers technique is they will eventually find themselves out of control on heavy white water and it is at this point they are very vulnerable to injury.
There is also the debate to take care of which asks how to develop strength and at what age to start?
Jim.
There is also the debate to take care of which asks how to develop strength and at what age to start?
Jim.
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roodthomas
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:33 pm
- Location: Barnsley
Hi Jimjjayes wrote:The debate is focusing very much on technique at the moment. It is good to remember that all techniques require strength to perform and develop them and it is the ongoing development of strength that is a key factor in injury protection. No matter how good a paddlers technique is they will eventually find themselves out of control on heavy white water and it is at this point they are very vulnerable to injury.
There is also the debate to take care of which asks how to develop strength and at what age to start?
Jim.
I don't agree with you here - but it is always good to debate. I don't think that you need to be particularly strong to be able to paddle big water safely, the important thing is that your development needs to be in balance. After all, it is only about putting your boat in the right place If you are less strong overall you won't be able to put the same stress on your joints.
I'm not even convinced that paddling unbalances your muscular development, but I am prepared to sit on the fence on that one.
What I am sure of is that badly planned strength training can lead to unbalanced muscular development, and that can lead to injury, so it is better to do no strength training at all than to do the wrong type of strength training.
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John Sturgess
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 12:01 am
- Location: Gedling, Nottingham/Long Preston, North Yorkshire
I was not going to get involved in this; but eventually I could not resist it, because it brings together my four current/recent areas of involvement: Slalom Coach Ed (I trained and assessed nearly 100 coaches under the ‘old’ Slalom Coaching system); Long-Term Athlete Development (SportsCoachUK pays me several thousand a year to travel round the country delivering workshops on the theory and implementation of LTAD); Strength & Conditioning Coaching (I originally got into this because nothing was happening in Slalom; BWLA and UKSCA trained/qualified; I currently run the S&C side of an LTAD Academy for Gifted and Talented children for the Gedling School Sports Partnership); and the development of Coaching structures in Clubs (through RunningSports, a SportEngland programme, and helping Clubs in various sports to achieve Clubmark accreditation).
So prepare to be bored …
If you want back-up information/evidence on any of the assertions below, e-mail me on ECSTCoach@jsturgess.freeserve.co.uk or [email]john.sturgess@gedling.gov.uk.[/email] And I will be at Tully from Wednesday until after the double Prem …
Long-Term Athlete Development (Andy directly – but effectively most of you)
‘Learning to Train’, ‘Training to Train’, ‘Training to Compete’ are not sequential in the sense that you move on to the next stage when you have completed the previous one. They are not defined by chronological age, nor by Divisional ranking. A young athlete passes from ‘Learning to Train’ to ‘Training to Train’ at the start of the major growth-spurt, and on to ‘Training to Compete’ at the end of that growth-spurt. (And incidentally the BCU should not be redefining those phrases – they are registered Trade Marks…)
Why is it relevant to this thread? Depends whether you believe – as I do – that strength deficit is a major cause of shoulder injury. Because the latter half of Training to Train - after Peak Height Velocity - is the major Window of Opportunity for Strength Training: if it is not properly done at that stage, the athlete will never reach his/her genetic potential strength-wise. And it is not by and large something that is done in British Canoe Slalom (Mike and Shaun you are obviously exceptions) – nor in most other sports in Britain: try getting a 12-year-old girl into a gym!
See the section below on Strength and Conditioning for the implications of that.
Stretching (Dave; Fup Duck; Nathan; Kendall; Mike;)
Confusion (except for Mike) here because people are saying ‘stretching’ when that word covers 2 entirely different things:
‘Static Stretching’: Taking a joint to the limit of its natural range, then applying pressure to increase that range (such as reaching round behind you and grabbing and holding the left-hand edge of the stern with your right hand)
‘Dynamic Stretching’: As part of a warm-up, ensuring that limbs, torso, etc, work at medium intensity through their full natural range. So, wide sweeps, paddling with full body-rotation, bow-rudders and reverse sweeps with full body rotation.
Rules: Dynamic stretching must be a key part of the warm-up. Static stretching is necessary to maintain/increase flexibility. But it should never be part of the warm-up; opinions differ on whether it is appropriate in the cool-down. I teach the athletes I coach to do it last thing at night, separate from all other activity, when they are warm and relaxed.
Origins of the problem: Static Stretching as part of warm-ups came in around the mid-80’s – from the PE Colleges – meant to improve performance and reduce risk of injury – no research foundation – research started as Kendall says in the mid–90’s – all said it was nonsense (I can e-mail details to anyone who wants – ECSTCoach@jsturgess.freeserve.co.uk)
Static stretching permeated coaching across all sports in less than 10 years; at the present rate it will take 50 years to get it out again!
Progression (Nathan; JJ; Kendall; Dave; Mike)
Nathan lays out, and Jimmy endorses, a standard progression from flat water to rough water, with the suggestion from some that the longer is spent on flat or easy water, the better prepared the paddler will be eventually to train and race on rough water (and the more injury-resistant?). Problems with this:
1) It is a particularly British way of doing things. Youngsters learning Rugby in Britain, for instance, start by doing things at a walk; then trot, eventually sprint. That doesn’t mean it is the only way. In France, for instance, kids learn passing etc when running at full speed right from the start. Asked by RFU Coaches why this was, Jean-Pierre Villepreux, guru of French Junior Rugby, replied ‘in England you coach technique. In France we coach children’.
2) LTAD says that the Window of Opportunity for maximum skill learning closes with the onset of the major growth spurt: because by that time the nervous system on which skill-learning depends is fully developed. Istvan Balyi (the father of LTAD) says that in sports that take place in potentially frightening environments (sailing, riding, rough-water canoeing) children need to experience those environments as early as possible (which is why the Slovaks swim children down Bratislava as 8-year olds)
3) Paddling on easy water does not strengthen: no overload; so no role in injury-proofing
Technique (Dave; Mike; Kendall; FupDuck; Andy)
2 Issues here: tho’ they often get confused
1) The Brace
As old editions of the coaching handbook will tell you, there are not 2 types of brace (low and high) but 3: low, high, and hanging (see also the
Both low and high: paddle shaft level with lower chest/stomach. Difference is which way up the paddle is, i.e. are the wrists above the shaft pushing down, or below the shaft pulling down. Both these techniques are safe, because if the water wrenches the paddle backwards, the body catches it.
It is the hanging brace which is dangerous: paddle shaft above head height, so that the paddler appears to hang from it. If the water wrenches the paddle backwards, the shoulder takes the strain, in a very weak position. In my experience, cause of a large proportion of shoulder injuries: when surfing or used as a support stroke. Solution: make paddlers keep top hand below chin level.
2) The Bow-Rudder behind the head
(Mike – this is with the arm behind the head, not wrapping the elbow round the forehead)
Physically, this is done because it is the only way to get the top hand into that position while holding the torso facing the front. And yes, it puts the shoulder joint into a very dangerous position (as with the high brace above).
Solution: get the paddler to turn torso 90 degrees towards the paddle: stroke is stronger, shoulder is not endangered
Try this: boat on grass. Paddler in boat, tightly locked in. Get paddler to do a ‘behind the head’ bow rudder. Then get hold of the paddler’s hands so that neither they nor the paddler shaft can move. Then get the paddler to rotate their torso towards the paddle-shaft. Lo and behold, the arm is no longer behind the head: it pushes straight out from the shoulder. Stroke stronger because ‘push-pull’ action can be used, like a draw-stroke. Shoulder is stronger because the arm is in the centre of its range, not at the edge (general principle that all strokes should be performed with the shaft in front of the body, not round to the side: stronger and safer).
Strength and Conditioning: (Kendall; Dave; Leo; Donna; Fup Duck; Michelle; John; Andy)
This is not historically something that Slalom has been good at! A few important points:
General Principles:
1) Strength & Conditioning must focus both on performance improvement and on injury-proofing participants.
2) Overload and Adaptation. One of the few principles that has not changed: to improve yourself physically (and mentally) you have to overload muscles (including the heart and lungs, which are just big muscles), and/or the nervous system; then they adapt so as to be able to support a greater load next time. That is why ‘training aerobically’ (i.e. at a pace where you do not get out of breath) does not deliver ‘aerobic training’ – because you are not overloading the heart and lungs (Paavo Nurni invented fartlek in 1926; Bill Endicott’s paddlers stopped doing ‘long slow distance’ in the late 1970’s; the first thing Dave Reddin did when he took over as S&C Coach to the England Rugby Team before the 2003 World Cup was to cut out steady-speed endurance work).
3) Train movements not muscles. If you isolate a muscle or a group of muscles and train them you create a weak spot where the strengthened bits join the non-strengthened bits. Ideally, use training exercises that use the whole body – like the snatch and clean & jerk, where the explosion starts with an explosion of the feet against the ground.
4) Individualise by analysing both sport and athlete. All sports have different demands; all athletes have different deficits in regards to the demands of their sports.
5) Get rid of the Focus on Fuel, and focus instead on the generic outputs: Strenth, Speed, Endurance. In Slalom coaches still tend to structure their coaching around fuel systems – ATP/CP, anaerobic lactic, aerobic. This prevents their appreciating the role of the nervous system (we still do not know much about fuel for the nervous system. It also means that the role of strength and speed are ignored or devalued in favour of a focus on muscle-endurance (Plisk; Bompa). If I want my Reliant Robin to do 150 mph I can’t achieve it by putting in a bigger fuel tank.
Training for Performance:
1) Strength vs Endurance. Much of what slalom coaches call strength training is in fact endurance training. To put it in weight-lifting terms: if you lift a weight that you can lift more than 3 or 4 times (3RM or 4 RM) you are building endurance rather than strength (Bompa)
2) Strength & Power. This is not an either/or: Power = Strength x Speed (of muscle contraction). Therefore to maximise Power – which is what Slalom requires – you have to maximise both Strength & Speed.
3) Strength & Muscle Bulk. It is often assumed that the heavier the weights you lift, the more the muscle bulk you put on. In fact the opposite is true. Athletes who need muscle bulk (hypertrophy) lift lighter weights, slower, far more sets/reps (Bompa; Poliquin). This is because lifting heavy weights explosively depends much more on the neural system than on the muscles.
4) Olympic Lifts (and their derivatives) vs Power Lifts (and their derivatives). The big difference is in explosiveness. If you cannot clean & jerk or snatch a given weight explosively, you cannot do it at all. Whereas normally you can bench press or squat a heavier weight slowly than you can fast. Lifting slowly accustoms the motor neurons to fire the muscles slowly – whereas Slalom (like most sports) requires explosiveness.
Conditioning for Injury-Prevention:
1) My impression is that most shoulder-injuries in Slalom (unlike, perhaps, in sprint canoeing) are traumatic rather than repetitive strain injuries. Therefore training in this respect must focus on readying the body to meet violent shocks.
2) Most injuries in Slalom seem to be shoulder-injuries: does this mean that Slalomists all have atypically weak shoulders? Statistically most unlikely! Because of the way it is constructed, the shoulder-joint is the weakest part of the posterior kinetic chain; the shocks that occur in rough-water canoeing travel along the whole kinetic chain, because typically they are applied between the boat and the paddle-blade. So the whole posterior kinetic chain must be strengthened.
3) In sport as a whole, and particularly in strength and conditioning coaching, it is generally accepted that weaknesses and imbalances elsewhere in the body (particularly winging scapulae, Neanderthal postural problems, weaknesses of the lumbar spine, glute-ham imbalance, etc) are often the ‘real’ causes of shoulder injury.
4) Slalom (like many sports) generally ignores one of the basic precepts both of Long-Term Athlete Development and of Strength & Conditioning Coaching: that it is necessary first to create an athlete, and then to develop that athlete into a performer of a particular sport or sports. So early coaching concentrates on sport-specific technique in largely unloaded situations, which causes problems when the loads come on later.
5) Before the body is conditioned it needs to be functioning properly, and unless positive action is taken this function tends to deteriorate when the growth-spurt sets in. Can children still do a deep squat keeping their torso upright? Do their knees come together (valgus) when they try to do so? Are their backs rounded, and their shoulders pulled forwards (Neanderthal posture)? Can they comfortably execute behind-the-neck presses (not weighted: try them out with a broomstick)? Can they hold their hips and lumbar-spine facing forward, and rotate from the thoracic spine? Can they perform effective scapular press-ups?
6) A lot gets written and said these days about ‘core stability’. Three problems I come across: (a) it separates the ‘core’ from the rest of the kinetic chain (b) a lot of what is recommended for core stability work does not overload the system (so no relevant adaptation to guard against traumatic injury) © work on Swiss Balls tends to promote mobility of the lumbar spine, a weak point in the kinetic chain: focus needs to be on holding the lumbar spine solid, and rotating from the thoracic spine (look at golfers and tennis players)
7) Once the systems are sorted out, the needs of gaining strength and resisting traumatic injury are the same, and in my (perhaps controversial in British Slalom) view are best promoted by a programme that focuses on 3-4 RM Olympic Lifting.
So prepare to be bored …
If you want back-up information/evidence on any of the assertions below, e-mail me on ECSTCoach@jsturgess.freeserve.co.uk or [email]john.sturgess@gedling.gov.uk.[/email] And I will be at Tully from Wednesday until after the double Prem …
Long-Term Athlete Development (Andy directly – but effectively most of you)
‘Learning to Train’, ‘Training to Train’, ‘Training to Compete’ are not sequential in the sense that you move on to the next stage when you have completed the previous one. They are not defined by chronological age, nor by Divisional ranking. A young athlete passes from ‘Learning to Train’ to ‘Training to Train’ at the start of the major growth-spurt, and on to ‘Training to Compete’ at the end of that growth-spurt. (And incidentally the BCU should not be redefining those phrases – they are registered Trade Marks…)
Why is it relevant to this thread? Depends whether you believe – as I do – that strength deficit is a major cause of shoulder injury. Because the latter half of Training to Train - after Peak Height Velocity - is the major Window of Opportunity for Strength Training: if it is not properly done at that stage, the athlete will never reach his/her genetic potential strength-wise. And it is not by and large something that is done in British Canoe Slalom (Mike and Shaun you are obviously exceptions) – nor in most other sports in Britain: try getting a 12-year-old girl into a gym!
See the section below on Strength and Conditioning for the implications of that.
Stretching (Dave; Fup Duck; Nathan; Kendall; Mike;)
Confusion (except for Mike) here because people are saying ‘stretching’ when that word covers 2 entirely different things:
‘Static Stretching’: Taking a joint to the limit of its natural range, then applying pressure to increase that range (such as reaching round behind you and grabbing and holding the left-hand edge of the stern with your right hand)
‘Dynamic Stretching’: As part of a warm-up, ensuring that limbs, torso, etc, work at medium intensity through their full natural range. So, wide sweeps, paddling with full body-rotation, bow-rudders and reverse sweeps with full body rotation.
Rules: Dynamic stretching must be a key part of the warm-up. Static stretching is necessary to maintain/increase flexibility. But it should never be part of the warm-up; opinions differ on whether it is appropriate in the cool-down. I teach the athletes I coach to do it last thing at night, separate from all other activity, when they are warm and relaxed.
Origins of the problem: Static Stretching as part of warm-ups came in around the mid-80’s – from the PE Colleges – meant to improve performance and reduce risk of injury – no research foundation – research started as Kendall says in the mid–90’s – all said it was nonsense (I can e-mail details to anyone who wants – ECSTCoach@jsturgess.freeserve.co.uk)
Static stretching permeated coaching across all sports in less than 10 years; at the present rate it will take 50 years to get it out again!
Progression (Nathan; JJ; Kendall; Dave; Mike)
Nathan lays out, and Jimmy endorses, a standard progression from flat water to rough water, with the suggestion from some that the longer is spent on flat or easy water, the better prepared the paddler will be eventually to train and race on rough water (and the more injury-resistant?). Problems with this:
1) It is a particularly British way of doing things. Youngsters learning Rugby in Britain, for instance, start by doing things at a walk; then trot, eventually sprint. That doesn’t mean it is the only way. In France, for instance, kids learn passing etc when running at full speed right from the start. Asked by RFU Coaches why this was, Jean-Pierre Villepreux, guru of French Junior Rugby, replied ‘in England you coach technique. In France we coach children’.
2) LTAD says that the Window of Opportunity for maximum skill learning closes with the onset of the major growth spurt: because by that time the nervous system on which skill-learning depends is fully developed. Istvan Balyi (the father of LTAD) says that in sports that take place in potentially frightening environments (sailing, riding, rough-water canoeing) children need to experience those environments as early as possible (which is why the Slovaks swim children down Bratislava as 8-year olds)
3) Paddling on easy water does not strengthen: no overload; so no role in injury-proofing
Technique (Dave; Mike; Kendall; FupDuck; Andy)
2 Issues here: tho’ they often get confused
1) The Brace
As old editions of the coaching handbook will tell you, there are not 2 types of brace (low and high) but 3: low, high, and hanging (see also the
Both low and high: paddle shaft level with lower chest/stomach. Difference is which way up the paddle is, i.e. are the wrists above the shaft pushing down, or below the shaft pulling down. Both these techniques are safe, because if the water wrenches the paddle backwards, the body catches it.
It is the hanging brace which is dangerous: paddle shaft above head height, so that the paddler appears to hang from it. If the water wrenches the paddle backwards, the shoulder takes the strain, in a very weak position. In my experience, cause of a large proportion of shoulder injuries: when surfing or used as a support stroke. Solution: make paddlers keep top hand below chin level.
2) The Bow-Rudder behind the head
(Mike – this is with the arm behind the head, not wrapping the elbow round the forehead)
Physically, this is done because it is the only way to get the top hand into that position while holding the torso facing the front. And yes, it puts the shoulder joint into a very dangerous position (as with the high brace above).
Solution: get the paddler to turn torso 90 degrees towards the paddle: stroke is stronger, shoulder is not endangered
Try this: boat on grass. Paddler in boat, tightly locked in. Get paddler to do a ‘behind the head’ bow rudder. Then get hold of the paddler’s hands so that neither they nor the paddler shaft can move. Then get the paddler to rotate their torso towards the paddle-shaft. Lo and behold, the arm is no longer behind the head: it pushes straight out from the shoulder. Stroke stronger because ‘push-pull’ action can be used, like a draw-stroke. Shoulder is stronger because the arm is in the centre of its range, not at the edge (general principle that all strokes should be performed with the shaft in front of the body, not round to the side: stronger and safer).
Strength and Conditioning: (Kendall; Dave; Leo; Donna; Fup Duck; Michelle; John; Andy)
This is not historically something that Slalom has been good at! A few important points:
General Principles:
1) Strength & Conditioning must focus both on performance improvement and on injury-proofing participants.
2) Overload and Adaptation. One of the few principles that has not changed: to improve yourself physically (and mentally) you have to overload muscles (including the heart and lungs, which are just big muscles), and/or the nervous system; then they adapt so as to be able to support a greater load next time. That is why ‘training aerobically’ (i.e. at a pace where you do not get out of breath) does not deliver ‘aerobic training’ – because you are not overloading the heart and lungs (Paavo Nurni invented fartlek in 1926; Bill Endicott’s paddlers stopped doing ‘long slow distance’ in the late 1970’s; the first thing Dave Reddin did when he took over as S&C Coach to the England Rugby Team before the 2003 World Cup was to cut out steady-speed endurance work).
3) Train movements not muscles. If you isolate a muscle or a group of muscles and train them you create a weak spot where the strengthened bits join the non-strengthened bits. Ideally, use training exercises that use the whole body – like the snatch and clean & jerk, where the explosion starts with an explosion of the feet against the ground.
4) Individualise by analysing both sport and athlete. All sports have different demands; all athletes have different deficits in regards to the demands of their sports.
5) Get rid of the Focus on Fuel, and focus instead on the generic outputs: Strenth, Speed, Endurance. In Slalom coaches still tend to structure their coaching around fuel systems – ATP/CP, anaerobic lactic, aerobic. This prevents their appreciating the role of the nervous system (we still do not know much about fuel for the nervous system. It also means that the role of strength and speed are ignored or devalued in favour of a focus on muscle-endurance (Plisk; Bompa). If I want my Reliant Robin to do 150 mph I can’t achieve it by putting in a bigger fuel tank.
Training for Performance:
1) Strength vs Endurance. Much of what slalom coaches call strength training is in fact endurance training. To put it in weight-lifting terms: if you lift a weight that you can lift more than 3 or 4 times (3RM or 4 RM) you are building endurance rather than strength (Bompa)
2) Strength & Power. This is not an either/or: Power = Strength x Speed (of muscle contraction). Therefore to maximise Power – which is what Slalom requires – you have to maximise both Strength & Speed.
3) Strength & Muscle Bulk. It is often assumed that the heavier the weights you lift, the more the muscle bulk you put on. In fact the opposite is true. Athletes who need muscle bulk (hypertrophy) lift lighter weights, slower, far more sets/reps (Bompa; Poliquin). This is because lifting heavy weights explosively depends much more on the neural system than on the muscles.
4) Olympic Lifts (and their derivatives) vs Power Lifts (and their derivatives). The big difference is in explosiveness. If you cannot clean & jerk or snatch a given weight explosively, you cannot do it at all. Whereas normally you can bench press or squat a heavier weight slowly than you can fast. Lifting slowly accustoms the motor neurons to fire the muscles slowly – whereas Slalom (like most sports) requires explosiveness.
Conditioning for Injury-Prevention:
1) My impression is that most shoulder-injuries in Slalom (unlike, perhaps, in sprint canoeing) are traumatic rather than repetitive strain injuries. Therefore training in this respect must focus on readying the body to meet violent shocks.
2) Most injuries in Slalom seem to be shoulder-injuries: does this mean that Slalomists all have atypically weak shoulders? Statistically most unlikely! Because of the way it is constructed, the shoulder-joint is the weakest part of the posterior kinetic chain; the shocks that occur in rough-water canoeing travel along the whole kinetic chain, because typically they are applied between the boat and the paddle-blade. So the whole posterior kinetic chain must be strengthened.
3) In sport as a whole, and particularly in strength and conditioning coaching, it is generally accepted that weaknesses and imbalances elsewhere in the body (particularly winging scapulae, Neanderthal postural problems, weaknesses of the lumbar spine, glute-ham imbalance, etc) are often the ‘real’ causes of shoulder injury.
4) Slalom (like many sports) generally ignores one of the basic precepts both of Long-Term Athlete Development and of Strength & Conditioning Coaching: that it is necessary first to create an athlete, and then to develop that athlete into a performer of a particular sport or sports. So early coaching concentrates on sport-specific technique in largely unloaded situations, which causes problems when the loads come on later.
5) Before the body is conditioned it needs to be functioning properly, and unless positive action is taken this function tends to deteriorate when the growth-spurt sets in. Can children still do a deep squat keeping their torso upright? Do their knees come together (valgus) when they try to do so? Are their backs rounded, and their shoulders pulled forwards (Neanderthal posture)? Can they comfortably execute behind-the-neck presses (not weighted: try them out with a broomstick)? Can they hold their hips and lumbar-spine facing forward, and rotate from the thoracic spine? Can they perform effective scapular press-ups?
6) A lot gets written and said these days about ‘core stability’. Three problems I come across: (a) it separates the ‘core’ from the rest of the kinetic chain (b) a lot of what is recommended for core stability work does not overload the system (so no relevant adaptation to guard against traumatic injury) © work on Swiss Balls tends to promote mobility of the lumbar spine, a weak point in the kinetic chain: focus needs to be on holding the lumbar spine solid, and rotating from the thoracic spine (look at golfers and tennis players)
7) Once the systems are sorted out, the needs of gaining strength and resisting traumatic injury are the same, and in my (perhaps controversial in British Slalom) view are best promoted by a programme that focuses on 3-4 RM Olympic Lifting.
John Sturgess wrote:1) My impression is that most shoulder-injuries in Slalom (unlike, perhaps, in sprint canoeing) are traumatic rather than repetitive strain injuries. Therefore training in this respect must focus on readying the body to meet violent shocks.
I think quite a few shloulder injuries may be due to repetative strains; micro-tears in muscles that are frequently stretched to the edge of their ROM; minor joint damage due to impact-stress (this can cause problems for knees while running, yes there is less force in canoeing, but the shoulder may often be at the edge of the joint's own ROM); repeated subluxation (partial dislocation); and tendonitis are all possible, and can all be caused by completely different movements/events. The big problem is, if any micro-injuries occur, they may worsen the consequences of any large trauma, or indeed cause some form of trauma if the paddler 'compensates' for it. Either way, I guess the remedy is probably the same with strength training.
Another issue: surely endurance training for these muscles is still important for them to continue 'doing their job' while fatigued? I have noticed that many runners tended to injure themselves toward the end of sessions, or actually in the warm down, and would be unsurprised if the same was the case in canoeing.
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c2canoeslalom
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Fri May 28, 2004 10:36 pm
- Location: Sheffield
Hi John,
Regarding the evidence for Mr Balyi's LTAD.....where is it? There is a dearth of academic, peer reviewed research which validates the success of such a program across all sports. Correct me if I'm wrong but the model was based on an 8 year plan for Alpine skiers. However, countless sports have readily accepted its teachings as gospel and generally without question. Why?
The fact that you highlighted that the model is trademarked only demonstrates how lucrative Balyi's career has become. All of this based on the ASSUMPTION that his model is universal!
As an academic I cannot buy in to a model until the it is underpinned by scientific research. I noticed you referenced Bompa with regard to endurance training. Can you provide me with a similar academic reference validating Balyi's assertions? Drop me an email:
c2canoeslalom@hotmail.com
Gaz
P.S. Is the lung a muscle??? I am pretty sure it is not.
Regarding the evidence for Mr Balyi's LTAD.....where is it? There is a dearth of academic, peer reviewed research which validates the success of such a program across all sports. Correct me if I'm wrong but the model was based on an 8 year plan for Alpine skiers. However, countless sports have readily accepted its teachings as gospel and generally without question. Why?
The fact that you highlighted that the model is trademarked only demonstrates how lucrative Balyi's career has become. All of this based on the ASSUMPTION that his model is universal!
As an academic I cannot buy in to a model until the it is underpinned by scientific research. I noticed you referenced Bompa with regard to endurance training. Can you provide me with a similar academic reference validating Balyi's assertions? Drop me an email:
c2canoeslalom@hotmail.com
Gaz
P.S. Is the lung a muscle??? I am pretty sure it is not.
RESIST OR SERVE
c2canoeslalom wrote:Regarding the evidence for Mr Balyi's LTAD.....where is it? There is a dearth of academic, peer reviewed research which validates the success of such a program across all sports. Correct me if I'm wrong but the model was based on an 8 year plan for Alpine skiers. However, countless sports have readily accepted its teachings as gospel and generally without question. Why?
P.S. Is the lung a muscle??? I am pretty sure it is not.
I would say the majority of Balyi's LTAD model is logic; how you apply it should differ from sport to sport, but there still has to be some form of progression, and the 'windows of oppotunity' for strength development, balance etc. are scientifically proven.
As far as I know the lungs aren't muscles, however they still behave in some wayds similarly to muscles; in that training them improves the blood supply to them and therefore increases performance; which from my understanding was the main reason for any aerobic training (other than active recovery/fat burning)
Edit: Surely you would also train the diaphragm and intercostal muscles, which may increase lung capacity? (Not sure on that one)