Stroke Rate for Distance

[yugi]

I think I know why the SUP paddle power meter was never released (beyond limited market) and how to fix the issue. The easy way to add a power meter to a paddle would be a strain gauge on the shaft. I did that with my paddle pod and never got values that seemed usable. Over long-ish distances attempting to measure the force while paddling with consistent effort applied to the shaft the strain gauge values fluctuated wildly. The relatively consistent accelerometer values and vibration curves didn't show any useful correlation to strain. I only measured the acceleration of the paddle blade, not the board, since what I was trying to measure was relative performance of the blades.

...

Said in another way: I bet Travis or Tituan cover a lot more ground than other paddlers for a given amount of force applied to the paddle shaft.



[disclaimer: I’m an engineer]

  If I had to take a guess I’d say they’re applying more power. Just judging by looks Travis has got to be physically stronger than most of the other guys. It’s probably less that they’re covering more ground for a given amount of force and more that they just have higher force in general. Whichever explanation is correct when I saw Travis paddling in person I was amazed at how little effort he appears to be using.

Exactly.

Part of that is smooth efficient stroke and part, I believe, is effeciency of delivery of that power into forward motion of the board. I say Travis and Titou becauce both are really smooth and also both are masters at of deliverin that stroke power to the board.

I reckon forward velocity with respect to stress on the shaft would be an interesting metric to compare efficiency.

[ukgm]

I think I know why the SUP paddle power meter was never released (beyond limited market) and how to fix the issue. The easy way to add a power meter to a paddle would be a strain gauge on the shaft. I did that with my paddle pod and never got values that seemed usable. Over long-ish distances attempting to measure the force while paddling with consistent effort applied to the shaft the strain gauge values fluctuated wildly. The relatively consistent accelerometer values and vibration curves didn't show any useful correlation to strain. I only measured the acceleration of the paddle blade, not the board, since what I was trying to measure was relative performance of the blades.

...

Said in another way: I bet Travis or Tituan cover a lot more ground than other paddlers for a given amount of force applied to the paddle shaft.



[disclaimer: I’m an engineer]

  If I had to take a guess I’d say they’re applying more power. Just judging by looks Travis has got to be physically stronger than most of the other guys. It’s probably less that they’re covering more ground for a given amount of force and more that they just have higher force in general. Whichever explanation is correct when I saw Travis paddling in person I was amazed at how little effort he appears to be using.

I would argue it's not physical strength really. The actual force being applied is very low. Anyone on here could apply the same force..... just not as long in duration. It's an aerobic activity at the end of the day. If you look at Connor and Kai, they are hardly packing the muscle on. It s a technique thing but also power to weight and aerobically driven.

  In general a stronger person can apply that force more efficiently. If you can lift 500 pounds and I can lift 400 and we're working with a load of 300 you'll do reps with a lower effort. I perhaps need to drop to 200 pounds and lift at a higher rate to match your total work output. A part of a plan like paddle monster is gym work to add strength.

There is still is still plenty of debate in endurance sports whether strength training is beneficial or really transferable due to the loads being so load and the specificity of the muscle firing patterns/speed. That said, I do strength and conditioning work. Mainly due to my age now.

[PonoBill]

Warmuth, That doesn't really apply to a water sport, or even anything like bicycling. Weight increases drag exponentially. Human power increases linearly at best, but actually, muscle power lags behind weight substantially. Muscles make up about 30 to 40 percent of human weight. Increase weight by twenty pounds and you might gain eight pounds of muscle, and some of it is in places that you can't use to paddle faster. For males, a lot of the difference in weight is upper body mass, and so there is a gain in useful muscle up to a point. If there weren't, then 90 pound guys would be winning everything. The sweet spot is actually between 165 and 195. The ergonomics and math is a bit complex, and I've never been able to find a wonderful resource I located some time ago that explained it all. Maybe UK knows where that is. But the math worked elegantly and explained to my complete satisfaction why no one is ever going to beat a Tahitian canoe crew. Ever.

[Area 10]

The elite paddlers, especially those with relatively slow cadences like Danny and Michael (although their cadences are still fast compared to most of us) are clearly generating a lot of “power at the blade”, otherwise they wouldn’t be going so fast. The question is how, and how they are managing to do efficiently translate this into forward speed. It’s clearly not just one thing or we’d all be fast. And being fast is more than just power-to-weight because some big guys can be very fast (despite, OK, never being likely to be top 10 in the world in a flatwater race).

So, it’s presumably a large number of factors that each contribute a small amount, and which may interact with each other such that the result appears more than the sum of its parts. That’s where the magic occurs. That’s probably the missing ingredient we can’t all quite put our fingers on - including the people who do it themselves, in all probability.

I was once told that it was Goethe who said that you wouldn’t be able to understand how a fly flies by pulling it apart into its constituent components. It was probably someone else who actually said it, but it’s a nice point: if true understanding of an effect comes from understanding a series of formal interactions (in the statistical sense of the word) then no wonder it is hard for us to be able to explain here why e.g. Michael Booth can do what he does: interactions are notoriously hard to understand. Two-Way interactions are tricky enough, but I was once told by an eminent statistician that no human is really clever enough to truly understand anything more than a 3-way interaction. So let’s hope that the magic of the top paddlers doesn’t consist of a series of 4-way interactions because it could be a very long time before we’ll ever understand it

[ukgm]

The elite paddlers, especially those with relatively slow cadences like Danny and Michael (although their cadences are still fast compared to most of us) are clearly generating a lot of “power at the blade”, otherwise they wouldn’t be going so fast. The question is how, and how they are managing to do efficiently translate this into forward speed. It’s clearly not just one thing or we’d all be fast. And being fast is more than just power-to-weight because some big guys can be very fast (despite, OK, never being likely to be top 10 in the world in a flatwater race).

So, it’s presumably a large number of factors that each contribute a small amount, and which may interact with each other such that the result appears more than the sum of its parts. That’s where the magic occurs. That’s probably the missing ingredient we can’t all quite put our fingers on - including the people who do it themselves, in all probability.

I was once told that it was Goethe who said that you wouldn’t be able to understand how a fly flies by pulling it apart into its constituent components. It was probably someone else who actually said it, but it’s a nice point: if true understanding of an effect comes from understanding a series of formal interactions (in the statistical sense of the word) then no wonder it is hard for us to be able to explain here why e.g. Michael Booth can do what he does: interactions are notoriously hard to understand. Two-Way interactions are tricky enough, but I was once told by an eminent statistician that no human is really clever enough to truly understand anything more than a 3-way interaction. So let’s hope that the magic of the top paddlers doesn’t consist of a series of 4-way interactions because it could be a very long time before we’ll ever understand it

Nice summary 

[ukgm]

I think I know why the SUP paddle power meter was never released (beyond limited market) and how to fix the issue. The easy way to add a power meter to a paddle would be a strain gauge on the shaft. I did that with my paddle pod and never got values that seemed usable. Over long-ish distances attempting to measure the force while paddling with consistent effort applied to the shaft the strain gauge values fluctuated wildly. The relatively consistent accelerometer values and vibration curves didn't show any useful correlation to strain. I only measured the acceleration of the paddle blade, not the board, since what I was trying to measure was relative performance of the blades.

...

Said in another way: I bet Travis or Tituan cover a lot more ground than other paddlers for a given amount of force applied to the paddle shaft.



[disclaimer: I’m an engineer]

  If I had to take a guess I’d say they’re applying more power. Just judging by looks Travis has got to be physically stronger than most of the other guys. It’s probably less that they’re covering more ground for a given amount of force and more that they just have higher force in general. Whichever explanation is correct when I saw Travis paddling in person I was amazed at how little effort he appears to be using.

Exactly.

Part of that is smooth efficient stroke and part, I believe, is effeciency of delivery of that power into forward motion of the board. I say Travis and Titou becauce both are really smooth and also both are masters at of deliverin that stroke power to the board.

I reckon forward velocity with respect to stress on the shaft would be an interesting metric to compare efficiency.

It's a good idea. From that, I'd instead opt for a metric that I would track that would be a ratio between forward velocity as a vector and the paddlers power output (calculated by taking into account stroke rate and force at the blade). It doesn't address all of the dynamics probably involved but it would be made up of elements you could target through training, would infer the paddlers efficiency and would be actionable intelligence.

[PonoBill]

Yes, nice to have a direct measurement instead of deriving the values. The biggest issue in deriving force accurately is that the precise curve of total drag for a given board and rider isn't known. If you did know that then you can derive the force from the resultant acceleration just as accurately as you could directly measure it.

I think the big issue with a SUP paddle is that the shaft is so long and the hand position on the shaft is highly variable. I thought about sticking a load cell at the top inside of the shaft and running a Kevlar cord under tension to the blade end. I think that's what it would actually take to make direct measure, and that's nothing with any commercial potential. I have some bulk Kevlar non-woven cord, so if I get some free time I might try something, but that's a dim hope. Working with the cord is freaky and a little nervewracking. It's dangerous stuff. I cut the shit out of my hand just straightening a length of it.

[pdxmike]

The elite paddlers, especially those with relatively slow cadences like Danny and Michael (although their cadences are still fast compared to most of us) are clearly generating a lot of “power at the blade”, otherwise they wouldn’t be going so fast. The question is how, and how they are managing to do efficiently translate this into forward speed. It’s clearly not just one thing or we’d all be fast. And being fast is more than just power-to-weight because some big guys can be very fast (despite, OK, never being likely to be top 10 in the world in a flatwater race).

So, it’s presumably a large number of factors that each contribute a small amount, and which may interact with each other such that the result appears more than the sum of its parts. That’s where the magic occurs. That’s probably the missing ingredient we can’t all quite put our fingers on - including the people who do it themselves, in all probability.

That's certainly true with swimming, and I think (could be wrong) that swimming has been analyzed a lot more than paddling.  I've swum with fast swimmers, and watching them in the next lane, above water or below, they don't look like they're doing anything much differently than anyone else, but they go remarkably farther with a stroke, and remarkably faster.  Many of them (and coaches) say exactly what you said--they're doing all kinds of actions, each a bit better than other people, and putting them together better.  Even very good swimmers who can match each component action don't get the results of top swimmers, because they don't put them together as well.  I think it's clear to anyone paddling that even if your stroke looked identical on video to a top paddler, that doesn't mean you get the same results.  They just seem to explode forward and you don't.


Back to swimming, even a simple component, like pushing off from the wall and gliding, is made up of all kinds of actions and body positions. Roque Santos, a former Olympian, swam on my team and once went the length of a 25-yard pool with only a pushoff--no pull or kick.  That's double what a very good swimmer can do, and it seems like there's almost nothing to it.  He looks human, and he looks normal pushing off, he just goes double or triple the distance.


It's also something how incredibly wrong people have been over the years with their explanations of what swimmers are doing with their strokes and why it's working.  It seems like every few years things swing to the opposite of what was previously the final, scientific word.  Then they swing back, but with new explanations.

[burchas]

I think it's clear to anyone paddling that even if your stroke looked identical on video to a top paddler, that doesn't mean you get the same results.  They just seem to explode forward and you don't.

So very true! I think it's most likely the things you can't see on the video. Travis Grant talks a lot about core engagement, that's very hard to see on video and nearly impossible
to replicate and apply by your self. It is as natural movement as biting your toe nails (don't ask me how I know) but when successfully applied, the benefits are immense.

Tried it few times to the best of my understanding of how and when in the sequence of the stroke. The GPS don't lie, I could immediately see the jump in pace and the relief on other muscles.
I can only imagine the results if I was to apply it really well and improve the sequencing. The problem is it takes so much focus and drive, much more than I have to give. Every now and again
I lose sleep over it and then give it one more shot the next day, it lasts about 15 minutes...

[Area 10]

Yes. I remember some years ago someone doing an EMG study of the muscles used in paddling. If an updated version of that were used with the kinds of sophisticated temporal modelling available today (combined with other physiological and performance monitoring) then we might be able to understand how and why elite paddlers are so fast. But it would take a team of expert scientists, and no-one is going to spend the amount of money it would cost to do it. So we will probably remain in the dark in perpetuity, allowing enough explanatory wiggle-room for lots of people to sell us dubious training ideas for many years to come.

And then there is the issue that knowing how someone else does it does not mean that we can do it ourselves, or train someone else to. If we knew everything about what makes Roger Federer capable of doing what he does would that mean we could all play like him, or teach our children to? Nope. Knowing is one thing, but doing is another. Some things the elite performers do are probably only possible because they are who they are. Travis Grant may say to me “if you do the following things all simultaneously it allows your body to develop paddling muscles that you couldn’t otherwise develop: engage your core, while matching the speed of the blade at the catch perfectly to the speed of the board so there is no splash, while keeping the board on a perfectly even keel, and relax the muscles of your arm between blade exit and catch, while stretching the muscles of the abdomen and bracing your thigh muscles but stretching your knee, and breathing in through your nose not your mouth and looking forwards not down... etc etc does this mean I could do it and unleash the extra potential of those special paddling muscles. Again, nope. Maybe even, I’d be better off trying to find a technique that works for my own limitations rather than emulating too closely what the Usain Bolts of the paddling world do. Maybe even, trying to do what they do could even be dangerous for me (e.g. the extreme bending of the back that some elite paddlers seem to do), just as it would be for me to attempt the kind of perilous jumps that top mountain bikers do. You gotta work with what you’ve got.

[Luc Benac]

So very true! I think it's most likely the things you can't see on the video. Travis Grant talks a lot about core engagement, that's very hard to see on video and nearly impossible
to replicate and apply by your self. It is as natural movement as biting your toe nails (don't ask me how I know) but when successfully applied, the benefits are immense.
Tried it few times to the best of my understanding of how and when in the sequence of the stroke. The GPS don't lie, I could immediately see the jump in pace and the relief on other muscles.
I can only imagine the results if I was to apply it really well and improve the sequencing. The problem is it takes so much focus and drive, much more than I have to give. Every now and again
I lose sleep over it and then give it one more shot the next day, it lasts about 15 minutes...

Funny timing.
I have been trying to do the same, remembering right after the catch to contract abdominal while tilting the pelvis slightly (my form of SUP yoga :-) ) and I also noticed the GPS liking it. The problem is how long can you keep it up. Hopefully it starts to get more ingrained. I also noticed that my abs were hurting after the session regardless that I have a good core thanks to yoga.

[burchas]

The problem is how long can you keep it up. Hopefully it starts to get more ingrained.

Yes, core engamsment and hip thrust for that matter seem the most tricky aspects of the stroke.
The sequencing of those 2 alone got me into trouble with the police as someone called-in reporting
a man in distress humping his paddle. That should answer your of question how long can you keep it up

I remember someone on the zone posting a video of Georges Cronsteadt doing gym training just for those
moves, not for sequencing but for building muscle memory seemed like a real chore but you get the idea of how
much one have to put into it to get to the next level.

[Luc Benac]

I remember someone on the zone posting a video of Georges Cronsteadt doing gym training just for those
moves, not for sequencing but for building muscle memory seemed like a real chore but you get the idea of how
much one have to put into it to get to the next level.

Yes I remember seeing that one with a kind of sled on rails at the gym. Hip thrusting to move himself forward.

[jsupsocal]

I liken a stand up paddle stroke to that of a golf swing..... and as complex and subtle to master, with most of "us" never achieving, or having only fleeting moments, then followed by incidents of complete technique breakdown, and frustration.

From my experience as a golfer, and when I was playing at my best, I tried to concentrate one one to three "essential" swing thoughts (technique adjectives), and as the great Jack Nicklaus often opined "never forget to hit the ball".

I think the wisdom of the great golfers make for easy and effective transitions to SUP stroke mastery and enjoyment.

[connector14]

"I’d be better off trying to find a technique that works for my own limitations rather than emulating too closely what the Usain Bolts of the paddling world do."
Glad someone said this as I have decided it is the best approach for my paddling goals. We can't all be "winners" but it is at least beneficial to appreciate all of the different aspects that go into a simple paddle session.
Paddleboarding,  like golf, tennis and many other sports,  is something that just about anyone can get into for a variety of benefits to mind, body and spirit. Like music......it does a body good.