‘The Flow State is being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter: Every action, movement and thought flows inevitably from the previous one. Your whole being is involved, you're using your skills to the utmost and the result is a feeling of spontaneous joy.’ - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Live2Flow is the concept of a man trapped in an unfulfilling career who decided to pursue a life of Flow. This blog is documents the activities of a man who swapped a desk for the great outdoors, dedicating himself to better his personal performance in his chosen sports and to pursue his passion of coaching and training others; the objective is to literally Live2Flow. This is not a selfish obsession, Live2Flow aims to take these experiences to others and through passionate coaching and guiding help them experience Flow for themselves.
It was a beautiful, clear, crisp winter’s evening that I found myself out training on the canal under the moonlight. Gliding along, enjoying the rhythmic motion of paddling, the physical exertion and resultant speed, my mind wandered and asked the question ‘Why don’t I see more people out doing this?’
Most recreational paddlers don’t train in their boats. Coming from a whitewater background I find even the keen, talented paddlers signing up for every trip mostly don’t go out and paddle for fitness. However, competition poaddlers have known for some time that the performance gains from a few simple training sessions can be enormous, improving everything from cardiovascular fitness to muscle memory and efficiency of stroke. The fact I regularly went alone to the local canal and paddled purely as a physical training exercise was my secret weapon, the way in which the coach always had reserves of energy, could go that extra mile when needed. It was time for me to share this now…
But how to get others involved? I went about introducing the idea of Paddling Fitness to the club by offering to run sessions on a weekday evening through the winter where the darkness added an extra element of attraction. All were welcome, this needed to be as inclusive as possible, so the only requirement was that you could paddle in a straight line.
I have no background in competition paddling but have trained for major endurance events before so felt comfortable using popular, well proven training principles to run the Paddling Fitness groups. However, it is fairly straightforward to introduce this kind of session into your club calendar if you follow a few simple principles:
When reading Blogs like this I get frustrated if everything is generalized so I wanted to include some specific advice. Firstly, I prefer to deliver the session as a participant as I find being amongst the group is the best way to gauge the intensity of the session and judge what to do next. However, having taken part in many sessions I now feel more comfortable in making that call from the bank too. In terms of session content, here are a few sample activities I have used that apply the principles above:
A final thought on the subject is to ask ‘Could we not consider Paddling for Fitness an end in itself?’ People run the streets, sweat in gyms, jump on bikes and travel to swimming pools often not for enjoyment of the activity but simply because it keeps them fit; a means to an end. For some understandable but other less obvious reasons paddlesport has missed this market despite the fact it has so much to offer. The introduction of sessions such as those outlined above alongside accessibility of boats and basic coaching at a waterside location and there is scope to introduce a whole different type of paddler to a club.
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