The PSK Hub – Performance Sea Paddling Stuff
by Richard Atkinson
These are the updates written during my solo journey around mainland Britain in 2002, they tell the story of my solo kayak voyage around mainland UK that summer. The journey began on 5th May in Spey Bay, Moray Firth, travelling clockwise and returning to Spey Bay September 2nd. At the end I’ve added some appendices which may be helpful to those preparing a similar trip.
by John Willacy
An article aimed at higher national level canoe slalom competitors in relation to rest and recovery within a training programme.
by John Willacy
An article aimed at higher national level canoe slalom competitors preparing for a specific race.
by Richard Peevor
It’s 05:15 on a Sunday morning when the alarm goes off… Despite struggling to get to sleep last night and probably only sleeping for four hours (thanks to simply going over and over how I am going to go round a red buoy and get back to a slipway) I’m wide awake. I’m into the car and on the road by 05:45, in the dark. I’ve got an excited but nervous feeling in my stomach. All this is just to get on the water early enough to get the ideal tidal window to do the Menai Challenge. We are in a high pressure at the moment, it’s the first weekend of decent weather in ages, with no wind forecast… perfect conditions. To most people this challenge will mean nothing and getting up to do it at silly o’clock on a Sunday, even more of a waste of time; but to me, it means a lot.
by John Willacy
In the moderate climate of the UK, paddling and training throughout the winter is reasonably straightforward. That said, the weather can still make things a challenge or on some days downright uncomfortable.
The trick to paddling through the winter is to get warm and stay warm; training performance will be enhanced and the whole affair can be more appealing. It’s so obvious, eh?
by John Willacy
Time is precious; none of us have enough of it. Training time eats into family life, work commitments, social life, study time and pretty much everything else. The trick is to get the most out of training with the least amount of time committed.
So we need to make training efficient and effective. Train hard, then get off the water and head home to get on with life until the next session. To get the best out of training takes a little reflection and bit of application. So let’s take a look at how to make the most of our training time.
by John Willacy
A question that is often asked on the edge of the Performance Sea Kayaking world is – should I paddle wings? Closely followed by – so which wings should I buy?
by John Willacy
Going back a few years, I took part in the Hebridean Challenge. At the end of a tiring but rewarding day I found myself sat on a beach with Bennie. Bennie was a fellow competitor and we were discussing canoeing tales of past and future, as well as his rather strange tent with no poles. Bennie regaled me with details of his trips across the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland; it all sounded impressive and rather intriguing… could I paddle that far? Bennie made it sound like an (almost) everyday occurrence, though it sounded an unfeasibly long way to me…
by John Willacy
A regular question goes along the lines of ‘What sort of training should I do?’ Tricky… it takes you into the ‘how long is a piece of string?’ sort of area. So here are a few ideas of Framework Sessions that all sorts of training and sessions, at all levels, can be built upon.
by John Willacy
Performance Sea Kayaking demands a range of skills – across a wide spectrum of technical, physical and psychological abilities. The training toolbox of a Performance Sea Kayaker is usually pretty large, and composed of many different strategies, techniques and sessions. For this paddling discipline we need to work the range of physical systems, using a gamut of sessions to do this: Speed-Work, Speed-Endurance, Lactic, and of course Aerobic sessions. PSK requires it all.