The Cost of Starting Over

Let's be honest about what happens during the racing season.

You show up to practice. You work hard, sweat buckets, paddle your heart out, and make some gains. Your fitness improves, you get more comfortable with your stroke, and you start feeling stronger in the boat.

That's progress.

But here's where progress gets lost: paddlers stop training for their sport. They put paddling on hold until spring and then wonder why they are the same paddler they were last year! 

You've made gains. Why throw them away and start over?

Here's what I want you to understand: your off-season isn't the time to abandon your development. It's your opportunity to build on the work you've already done.

You don't need to train like a world champion all winter. But if you want to become a stronger paddler, develop more stroke power, and be ready to race, you need some kind of plan. Because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

STOP STARTING OVER. GRAB ON TO YOUR GAINS AND BUILD ON THEM!

Your body adapts to dragon boat season. You build strength, develop your energy systems, and improve your ability to handle paddling for your race distances.

But when you stop training, those adaptations begin to decline. This is called detraining.

You don't lose everything overnight, and you don't need to train like you're preparing for a world championship all winter. But if you disappear from training for months, don't expect to pick up where you left off.

You don't have to train harder. You have to train smarter and keep moving forward.

Why start over when you can keep building?

You don't need to train aggressively every day. But what you do need is a progressive plan that maintains your paddling foundation, continues to develop your rotational strength, and gets you amped and ready for spring!

YOUR NEXT GAINS BUILD ON YOUR PREVIOUS GAINS

This is the beauty of sport-specific training.

Training is progressive. You build one capacity and move into developing it further. Your body adapts to the demands you place on it, and your training evolves.

That's progressive overload.

For dragon boat paddlers, this means the off-season is your opportunity to develop the physical qualities that build a powerful stroke.

What should you be working on?

• Strength: Build the ability to produce force in your stroke.
• Rotational patterns: Develop the sequencing of muscles that fire rotation.
• Kinetic chains: Train coordinated movement to transfer strength and power.
• Sport-specific movements: Develop stroke mechanics activation.

These are building blocks of a wicked stroke.

And here's the kicker: your general fitness program is great for living an active lifestyle, but it's not the sport-specific training you need to get ready for dragon boat racing.

Being fit is one thing. Developing the ability to race in a dragon boat is another.

Use your off-season to build your paddling fitness:

Progressively. Purposefully. With a plan.

THE REAL COST OF STARTING OVER

Here is what I have seen when paddlers do nothing sport-related over their off-season ...Other teams may have invested in:

• Technical development
• Progressive Training
• Team development.

And this gives them Performance potential

Cause here’s the bottom line … most teams I coach are really good paddlers. I see the potential, I want SO much more for them, and they want it too.

But they get stuck believing that getting better at paddling means paddling more on the dragon boat. If they truly realized that the gains are made off the boat, they would be a force to be reckoned with. Here is what I would tell all teams who want to shave a few seconds off their time next season:

Your off-season is not downtime. It's development time.

You have an opportunity to build strength, improve mobility, develop sport-specific movement, and prepare your body for the next level of performance.

Don't waste it!