I've been reading this fascinating book Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning ISBN-10: 0736058036, and what peaked my interest was the section on sports psychology. From the book - The role of sport psychology is to help athletes achieve more consistent levels of performance at or near physical potential by carefully managing their physical resources through appropriate psychological strategies and techniques. Which is a fancy way of saying how a coach can help massage egos.

Ideal performance state which is the ultimate goal of every athlete. Some hallmarks noted:

• absence of fear
• narrow focus of attention concentrated on the activity itself
• a sense of effortlessness
• sense of personal control
• distortion of time & space in which time seems slow

Speaking from experience, the last point of time being slow can be a stressful thing too, especially if your in a ring fighting a 3 minute match and you are tired and that last minute seems like one hour trying not to make a mistake and get knocked out.

From the beginning of the season as we first get into the water we as paddlers strive for a common goal while we're on the boat. And that is synchronicity through our stroke then power, then pace, which will build speed to propel the boat forward faster than the other boats to the finish line. Because after all we're in this to win 'it' right?

We are all wired differently from one another and our motivations and desires differ for what we want to accomplish in dragon boating. Our team is fortunate that as 'competitive - recreational' paddlers we get coaching from a world class coach, we train at regular intervals, hold training camps during the summer  and some have done off-season training. All this takes a certain level of commitment since most of the people on this team are considered Masters (40+ yrs old) and/or are working professionals that have life and family commitments. So the motivational phenomena of coming to practice to achieve that common goal of synchronicity and go stronger, faster is what makes this team make up very interesting indeed.

A couple of things I've learned which can apply to many of the members of my team on the Motivational phenomena:

• Intrinsic motivation is important for any athlete
• Able to maintain consistent effort across practice and competition (no brainer)
  
• Has a desire to be competent and self-determining (we all have the common goal to be fast and strong as a team)
  
• Athlete is a self starter because of their love for the game (why am I here again...?)
  

How can this state be maintained or encouraged?

• Appropriate goals especially process or performance goals can increase perceived competence. (This I feel we needed some work on this year since we really didn't have a major goal of striving for something big...until recently)
  
• Giving the athlete some latitude in decision making increases perceived self-determination (Choice of blue pill or the red pill)
  
• Authoritarian behavior is sometimes warranted in sport - in that clear directives are needed in a stressful and competitive environment....(hey someone has to call the shots)

Psychologists theorize that there are 2 opposing personality traits within all people. Motive to achieve success (MAS) and the motive to avoid failure (MAF). MAS is pretty self explanatory, while MAF relates to the desire to protect ones ego and self-esteem.

(This taken from a forum board post - since it was put so eloquently)
MAF athletes tend to be more comfortable in situations where it is either very easy or extremely difficult to achieve success. This is because they either know they have no chance or have worked hard enough to where they are most comfortable with their abilities. When unprepared they have tons of negative self talk and can actually talk themselves into poor performance. Dominated by the WORK HARD (lift heavy) all the time only if it will benefit me. Takes extreme arousal levels to achieve optimal performance and often go passed optimal into higher extremes lowering performance ( to jumpy, quick to react, stuff like that)

MAS athletes tend to do better and are more motivated under EXTREME conditions that are uncertain and challenging, with a 50% chance of winning or losing. These athletes are more competitive, have a level head, and do not require as much arousal to get to optimal performance levels. very rarely feel unprepared and always confident in their abilities. Low amounts of negative self talk. Dominated by train smart, stay healthy, think more about why and what is going into training.

We actually all have both types in us at some point, but one dominates over the other. Certain sports you will see more MAF athletes and some more MAS athletes and others with a good mixture of both. There is no right or wrong way to think, both work just as well for the athlete. Its more of how they approach a problem. They both will get to the same goal different ways.

In a coaching aspect the MAF athlete is much harder to coach, where as a MAS athlete is more open and easily accepts critique and criticism to better themselves.

I'm more of a MAS as failing is all part of learning and growing and it helps me figure out what I need to do next to improve myself, I'm always looking for feedback from the coaches and people who have more experience in the skill I need to learn. Like Paddling, this is only my second year, and most of my teammates have 5 years of paddling experience and many of them have confided in me that they still have a lot to learn. So it's with that attitude that I will approach every year I'm in the water reaching for that synchronicity with power and technique. I work hard to give my best effort and achieve my goals, I approach my tasks with a 'failing is not an option' aspect but it's going to happen at some point so there is no use in fearing or getting angry over it.

As the Dragon Boat season is winding down, I'm looking forward a bit to prepare myself for the next season. Since this is now my second full year, there is still so much to learn. I'm in no way a pro paddler, but I feel my body mechanics for the Dragon Boat stroke has improved, but I still have a ton more to learn. As with everything in life, preparation is the key and I have a better idea now on what and how I should work out to prepare for next year.

I've had some experience now paddling on the different areas of the dragon boat (back, middle, front) and alternating from right (my natural side) to left. Things that I'll be working on during the wind down and the off-season:

BACK TO BASICS of the Stroke

The Catch
To do this lean forward then turn your body slightly toward your partner and plunged your paddle in the water. Be sure that the full blade catches the water.

The Pull
In this phase, you have to lean back to pull the water. The water resistance that you feel is based on countering the propulsion of the boat so that the boat will experience its maximum propulsion as the full blades of the 20 paddlers catch and pull at the same time.

The Finish
It signals the completion of your first stroke and preparation for the next stroke as you pull the blade out of the water.

The Reach
In this phase, you have to lean forward again to get ready for the catch phase of your next stroke.

In order for me to practice this, I'll look into off season pool paddling. I'd really like to nail that 'pause' part of The Reach of the stroke. I'll also train using both sides to balance out my body and be more useful in race situations. My over-all strategy will help me move into other paddling disciplines.

A couple of things I can do to prepare myself physically for the stroke, is strength training. Shoulders, back, arms, legs and ABs. That whole core training thing is not a myth. I'll re-draw up a new training regimen post it up and track my progress. One major thing I will work on during the off-season is endurance training. I want to bring my anaerobic capacity to peak performance with better strength added. My plan is to go to a hi-performance level and I'd like to be able to put in a consistent 65 stroke at 500 and 2000 meters with no problems. And the only way to achieve this is not by typing it on here or going crazy and leave my current life to train...but in small steady doses. I'm no spring chicken but I do love competition. I'll post my endurance training regimen and track my progress here too.

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So this past Monday instead of our normal practice, I came in on a rainy cold day and met up with a bunch of paddlers of all ages at the club. I guess this practice was an informal training session to prepare for the Oct. 17, 2010 Prairie crew qualifier. We had enough for 3 boats and the way Jan made up the teams was to have everyone line up as a right or left paddler and he counted each person 1-2-3 and whatever number you were given you sat on the assigned boat.

I chose left and I was on boat 1. The people that I can recall and know by name were Dene, Lori, Mike, Debbie, Ed and Gord, Mike was our steersperson (he's also the main steersperson for the Eh Team). There were about 16 paddlers for each boat, Jan steered one boat and Taz was steering the last boat. I know that on Taz's boat Skippy and Carolyn were the pacers and I believe Big Wayne was there too. We did starts to 500m then a pursuit to 500m and another start to 500m up to the St. Vital Bridge.

I sat in the 4th position left behind Dene and my rightie was a young girl. When we got to the St. Vital Bridge we turned back and I asked Gord if I can come up front to pace. So Ed graciously gave up his spot for me so I can see what the front of the boat was all about...and things got blurry. First off, I'm not a tall person at 5' 6" and I had no footing at the front. Now I know why Carolyn, who is our right pacer carries around this 'pillow' when we paddle, it's used as a foot brace to keep yourself stable...more on this later. Second thing is you have to pull A LOT of water when you start off. And the difference is quite noticeable (at least to me). Paddling in the back the water is moving so fast, I don't feel too much resistance in paddling. It's only when you have to do a power up that you have to 'pull' the boat out of the water to give it that vrooom. Seeing the water rush past you is kinda neat, but having no brace or footing and almost falling into the Red River is pretty damn embarrassing.

As we were coming back to the docks we were doing a start to 500m. And as we were called to attention and go! Since I didn't have that foot brace, I literally slipped went forward and half my body was leaning over the side of the damn boat. Swearing under my breath, I flopped around and was able to get myself stable (not going to lie and say I was able to quickly get up...) and continue paddling, Lori told me she lost 3 strokes when I went down. We fell back terribly from that start and Gord decided he needed to go to a 65 pace to catch up and catch up we did and eventually pulled away...but man I tell you. I literally had NO breath at the end of that practice. Plus I was soaked to the bone and cold. But pacing was fun...

We are into the last week before our first event the MPA - 2010 River City Dragon Boat Festival and we were working on our sprint intervals. It was noted by our coach Jan, that our team has very strong starts, a pretty decent middle but we just die at the end. From my observations we've rarely had a full boat, we sometimes miss key pieces to the team which seems to hinder our overall speed, but not to take the cop-out route - we just need to get better. Which is a very fine line with our boat and the boat that we compete with. They put in a lot of off season training and practicing together, so they have that middle stroke and end stroke combination down. We just started practicing in April and we are still learning to gel together as a team.

Speaking for myself, I like to work on the tasks at hand when it comes to Dragon Boating. It's a team sport and since I sit at the back of the boat, my task is to keep my head up and stroke rate in sync with the pacers. My contribution is my strength and conditioning and ensuring that I have the correct stroke technique to help propel the boat forward with all of my strength. A fellow paddler (Chris S.) told me his mind set that he just concentrates on the next stroke, if the stroke he finished was not perfect or strong he quickly let it go and prepared himself for the next one. I've framed my mindset to that mantra, of just focus on the next stroke ensuring I put in the proper technique of 'catch, pull, finish, recovery.'

Learning to push oneself to their limits is another thing. I read this great quote by a computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra:

Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.

This is the part in Dragon Boating, that you most have to be responsible for. How much can you push yourself?

Last year I sat in a boat with Carolyn who is our pacer helping out another team race. As this was a very in-experienced crew, she was tasked with pacing and counting out loud the stroke rate. Technique was probably very foreign to the paddlers on the boat. When the race started and we were half way to the finish, she suddenly started screaming out loud to the whole boat. She was screaming at the top of her lungs "Leave it all in the boat!" over and over again like a battle cry. This was great in the sense that I can sense the paddlers picking up on this and I'm sure everyone there dug in deep and through all the excruciating pain that paddling can bring, brought forth their last bit of strength and pushed the boat to the finish line in first place.

And last night as we were doing our first 500m sprint against the other boat, we were in the middle stroke when we suddenly started dying. You could feel it, but my job is not to be the voice of the boat, we have the steersperson for that. But for myself, I was feeling the weight of the paddle getting heavy, and my muscles were straining, my breathing was not there but I started screaming out loud to force breathe into me and from my past experience was to bring myself past my limits. In my mind, I was constantly shouting to myself to not give up, do not drop your strength, do not give up...goooo! It's finding that edge, and staring out and down the precipice of giving up is where you truly figure out if you've got the guts to keep going forward. That is the part of Dragon Boating that I like and enjoy. The team aspect of being in sync is one thing, but the individual mindset of being responsible for your actions in order to help the team is what I believe makes or breaks you.

~Going forward with strength and determination.

So after 3 weeks of strength training, last night I got chance to test what I've been training for, and that is a powerful steady stroke. Getting my physical conditioning to this level involved a whole new work out regimen and I'm starting to see some physiological changes in my body. I'm getting noticeably stronger and my physique is starting to shape up. Still have a little too much body fat for my liking, but if I continue with my training plan, I should see noticeable results by beginning of August.

I've stopped doing weight training and started focusing on bodyweight exercises. I didn't want the bulky bodybuilder look so I changed up from weight based to pull ups, chin ups, resistance band training, push ups just using my body weight.

My workouts outline:
Resistance band training

• Sit Bench
• Butterflys
• Wolverines
• Lateral Raises
• Upright Rows
• Shoulder Press
• Bicep Curls
• Boxing

Chin up Bar Training:

• Arms in close grip palms out (works chest)
• Arms in close grip palms in (works chest & biceps)
• Shoulder width grip palms out (works back)
• Wide grip palms out (works shoulders)
• Wider grip palms out - pull up to 90degrees (works traps)
• Close grip palms in or out legs in L position (works abs)

Push ups:

• Shoulder length spread
• Close spread
• Diamond
• Knuckle

With Dragon Boat practice on Mondays and Thursdays, I normally fit in the workouts Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday. From the 3 groups I'll do 3-4 from Resistance Band 2-3 from Chin up bar and 2 from the push up groups. The only exception for doing weights is on Monday and Thursdays (Dragon Boat days) is when I do complexes on a barbell.

That's when I'll use about 60% of my body weight to do a number of exercises performed in succession. I'll normally do them in 3 sets of 8-10 repetitions.

Complexes:

• Bent over rows
  
• Military press
  
• Squats
  
• Up right rows
  

I've cobbled together some interesting articles and information on this which would pertain to Dragon Boating. Writing in Green are my observations.

The key to a good training program is to determine the energy demands of the race and train to improve the efficiency by which the particular sources of fuel are converted to power. The different fuels are mobilized at different times depending on the duration and intensity of work, allowing our bodies to perform a great range of activities, from sprint races to ultra- marathon events.

The greatest concern from a training point of view relates to the limitations of each fuel, the corresponding effects of the by - products which result from energy expenditure and the time it takes to restore the fuel supplies. This is of paramount significant in short and middle distance races where the primary source of energy is Glycogen.

The breakdown of glycogen occurs either in the absence of oxygen, which is called the ANAEROBIC system or in the presence of oxygen which is called the AEROBIC system of energy production. The INTENSITY and duration of work done will determine the degree to which each system will be utilized, which largely effects how quickly glycogen stores are spent and the extent to which biochemical by- products will induce muscular fatigue. Taken from here.

1) Aerobic energy system

Aerobic means ‘with air’.

Aerobic workouts are often also called ‘steady state’. This is because, during them, the body’s energy demands are balanced by energy supply. This allows us to continuously exercise – hence the steady state. When the steady state is breached, for example, by increasing our effort and using more energy, our body will change the way it produces energy. It will do this with less oxygen and energy will be produced anaerobically – see below. Taken from here

I find my aerobic system kicking in when we do the 'long' strokes at the 50-55 pace. I will take a long deep breath when I do my catch, pull, release and expel all the oxygen during the recovery phase of the stroke and deep breath again at the catch. This was actually given to me as a guideline by our coach Jan Kruk, last season, but I finally was able to put it all together this season. It takes some concentrated effort to 'get this' but once it all comes together you pretty much can keep up the pace with strength during the pull phase for long distances. And I actually feel relaxed.

Fat as a fuel source for the aerobic energy system

Although carbohydrate is the body’s preferred source of fuel during activity, fat also supplies energy. Aerobic training increases the body’s ability to mobilise fat as an energy source at sub-maximal intensities (as well as improving carbohydrate metabolism). This will significantly improve the ‘range’ of endurance athletes. To develop an improved fat burning capability you need to train religiously at about 80% of maximum heart rate (HRmax). Taken from here

To prepare for this, my dryland training consists of just doing 2-3km jogs at a steady aerobic pace where I can control my breathing in cadence with my jogging pace. This helps prepare me for the long distance part of dragon boating and helps practice my breathing.

Anaerobic means without oxygen

When our bodies generate energy through the immediate anaerobic system, no reliance is placed on oxygen. Consequently, it supplies energy for no more than 6-8 seconds. To get its power it uses ‘high energy’ stored body chemicals – such as adenosine troposphere (ATP) and creatine phosphate (CP) and a chemical reaction that ‘fires’ them up.

Explosive energy

You might like to think of the immediate anaerobic energy system as being like an explosion. An incredible amount of energy is released in a very short time. From this you can appreciate that this is the energy system of choice for equally explosive athletes, such as power and weight lifters and sprinters.

Too much aerobic training can dull this explosiveness. It can reduce the power capability of our power and speed generating fast twitch muscle fibres. Taken from here

This is the part where we do the 'starts' and the 300m sprints. I love this part of the sport and race where it's all focus with my eyes closed seeing nothing but black but being aware (also called "Mushin") and you hear "One minute to start" and you have your paddle in the water. By that time I've expelled dead air from my lungs and have taken a deep breath...then I hear "GO!" I don't exhale as so much as shout/grunt, sort of like you hear tennis players grunt after a return. And then you just go...

The short-term anaerobic energy system

This energy system is exemplified by the efforts of a 400m runner. Their high-intensity effort passes well beyond the energy supply capabilities of the immediate system and consequently huge amounts of energy are released by further intra-muscular chemical reactions. Many of us will be familiar with the burning sensations we feel in our muscles after a near flat-out effort (this is the result of the short-term energy system going into overdrive and the over spilling of one of the energy producing chemicals, lactate and its conversion to lactic acid). Invariably, during such an effort, our hearts will reach maximum output. These are the physiological consequences of our body (and in particular its muscles) crying out for more and more oxygen but not getting it. Taken from here

Insufficient oxygen supply

As short-term anaerobic energy system production passes the 20-second mark, more and more demand is placed on oxygen as a fuel source, after 30 seconds, 20% of the energy produced is done so aerobically and after 60 seconds, 30%. As the one-and-a half minute mark is reached, no amount of oxygen gulping will save the anaerobic ‘engine’ and we will grind to a potentially painful halt. Taken from here

Boost your anaerobic energy supplies

Training the anaerobic energy system (by interval training, for example) will increase your body’s ability to replenish the high energy phosphates used to generate energy. This will, in turn, extend their ability to produce more high powered efforts, as long as adequate rest is allowed. Taken from here

My training for this comes in coordination with my jogging. I have a route I normally jog and when I get to a certain landmark, I mark out landmark pacers like the street lamps on Inkster Blvd. where I will sprint all out from one lamp post to the other, then jog normal, not stopping or walking, but learning to catch my breath and composure and jog my way to the next lamp post. By the time I reach the jogged lamp post, I'll sprint again, going balls out to the next lamp post. This helps with the explosiveness and learning to run 'with out' oxygen. I will do this 3 times which sort of simulates our river training.