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What makes flatwater kayaking so unique

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When learning something new, progress almost never happens in a linear fashion. In many sports, the learning curve varies depending on the individual and their ability to adapt to the new stressors that typically involve a combination of physical and mental engagement. Flatwater kayaking is a little different.  Learning how to paddle efficiently is a life long process. It combines gradual neuromuscular and psychodynamic adaptations in conjunction with strength/power and endurance development. And because all those elements play their significant role into paddling speed and efficiency, the progress is far from being linear. Farther than any other sport in my opinion.  Improvements in power, speed and endurance can be monitored in a more straightforward way - similarly to weight lifting or running and cycling. However, the improvements in neuromuscular and psychological adaptations, the feel for the water, the balance and relaxation on the boat, the right body coordination and muscle en
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The magic feel of finding the water

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Water can be soft and gentle like air. When you float or paddle on it can sometimes feel like flying. But water can also be hard and painful. When you dive off a ten-meter platform it can actually hurt you like hitting a concrete wall.   This is what makes this element so fascinating because when pressure is applied on it, forces always counteract that pressure. For many water related activities such as swimming, kayaking or rowing (just to name a few), it takes an incredible tactile or sensory ability to feel and understand how the water behaves when applying various pressures with palms, paddles, oars or other equipment at various angles and at various water currents, air winds, temperatures or other environmental factors. Finding the feel of the water Feeling the water, holding it, squeezing it or however you want to call it, describes an almost magical ability to understand how to apply pressure on the water, use the counteracting force in the most productive way, gain traction and
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A great coach is hard to find and impossible to forget

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If there was an attention deficit disorder in sports, I think I could serve as a prime example. Growing up, nobody in my family understood or encouraged sports, and in actuality, my parents put an effort to limit any kind of physical activity over mental pursuits. But because my heart was always in for the physical challenges and not the mental ones, from the moment I broke loose from home at the age of 19, I have been jumping around the elite sports arena for more than two decades. Spanning different sports in different countries and going through a variety of clubs and coaching systems, I have learned that evidently, there is no right or wrong method when it comes to ways of improving human performance in any sport. A lot comes into the athlete's physicality and mentality as a whole, and some scientific knowledge plays a role but the majority of success boils down to the coach's quality and skillset that can bring it all together. Generally speaking, it's easy to find one
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Performance and metabolic benefits after sleeping in a high-altitude tent

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       A multi-dimensional n-of-1 study ~ Have you ever wondered what it feels like to spend 2 months sleeping at 11,000ft in an altitude tent set-up in your bed, while living and training in your everyday environment at sea-level? And more importantly, does it really do any good to you or is all the hype just a placebo effect? Well ... I decided to answer those questions through a personal study designed to recapitulate the standard performance high altitude protocol (ref. [1]) and extend it by one more month. In this post, I will try to describe the process, what I experienced and what really changed in my physiology throughout a 13-week long experiment. To give you a sense of the magnitude of this study, it entailed tracking and analyzing over 5,000 data points for 90+ days. The data collection included most physiological parameters previously reported in scientific literature that change with high altitude exposure. To make things exciting and get rid of the thrilling anticipation,
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The speed training and other myths that are slowing you down

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Speed training is an essential component of performance in many racing sports but it is often butchered. Ideas, methods and personal opinions of training schemes and speed training methods that are not supported by science or consistent results are still far too common. I thought it may be fun to outline below a few myths related to endurance and speed-endurance in sports including kayaking and how these may actually block you from progressing and getting faster. Myth 1 : Higher average speed at training days or races means you are getting faster Being able to generate faster speeds for a longer time may increase your average speed or even top-end speed on a training day or during a race. Observing such metrics is not a bad idea, however, these should be put in the right context and within a carefully outlined training plan. They should be part of monitoring progress in the long haul and not be indicative of performance (either personal or boat-specific) during random training days or
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The art of being wrong and the beauty of learning

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"The unexamined life is not worth living" ~ Socrates [The pursuit of knowledge and wisdom through questioning, logical argument, examining and thinking] Lately,  I have been observing how people, including my own self, react to criticism, disagreement and challenging expressions. There is always an embedded instinct that drives a strong defend to our beliefs as those beliefs are attached somehow to our egos, self-worth and self-existence. When these beliefs get occasionally challenged, we feel exposed and vulnerable. Being wrong is scary. And it is our reaction to vulnerability and fear that drives our forces to either accept criticism - even if that seems to us fundamentally wrong - or reject criticism - even if that seems to us fundamentally right. Learning something from scratch at a later age can be exciting but also challenging. When considering learning a new sport as a former athlete coming from a different sport, things can get more complicated. We are not talking her
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Benefits of transcending all metabolic systems

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Have you tried to run immediately after a tough weight lifting session? Or, have you tried to lift heavy after a long run? It's pretty tough when you do it for the first time, whether you are a runner or a weight lifter or just a fitness pal. There is more to it than just being a difficult workout and there is a reason why weight lifters do not enjoy "cardio" workouts or why runners do not enjoy spending much time in the weight room. This is because our muscles utilize different metabolic systems to produce energy during an activity depending on the duration and the intensity of the activity. Jumping from one system to another is not a smooth transition. During a workout, our muscles utilize a various avenues to seek energy and do the job we are asking them to do. Depending on how hard or how long we ask them to perform, they tap into the following three energy paths: ATP-phosphocreatine (ATP-PC), glycolysis and aerobic metabolism or a combination of those. Typically, for
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