sea kayaking wrist pain
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This video is about avoiding getting wrist pain while kayaking.
Here’s when I figured this out.
I’m in the middle of a trip in the deer and broken group. When one of my wrists starts to hurt. Quite badly. It’s getting worse with every paddle stroke.
I'm thinking “is this the end of the trip”? How am I going to get myself out of here?”
My left wrist feels fine,
So I start to pay close attention to what I’m doing differently with my right hand.
And all I find is just one little detail that seems insignificant.
And making just a small adjustment not only gives me a chance to get myself home, but I actually feel my wrist get better even as I paddle. And I finish the trip completely pain free.
Here’s what I discovered.
With my left hand when I’m taking a stroke on the left side, I use my fingers and release my thumb. What I was doing with my right hand is keeping my thumb engaged.
And that was enough to create a small bend in my wrist.
The way to paddle pain free is to push with the palm of your hand, with the thumb somewhat engaged, but the fingers loose. But with the lower hand you want to release the thumb and just use the fingers. It’s what allows you to take a nice long paddle stroke without putting any bend in your wrist.
If you want to keep your wrists strong and healthy you want to keep them straight. In the strongest position. No bending like this or like this.
That’s what I teach my clients to do. But sometimes it’s not just a matter of loosening the grip.
If someone is paddling by bending the arms a lot...it can be very hard to keep the wrists in a strong position.
The first time I met Lesley for example, she had wrist pain. She was about to give up on kayaking because she didn’t know the pain could ever go away.
But before being able to keep her wrist straight, she needed to use less arms when paddling.
And if she’s not using her arms, the power needs to come from somewhere else.
So we loosened the footpegs to give her more room to move her legs to get her hips and pelvis moving.
And with looser footpegs, because her kayak didn’t come with thigh braces, we had to add some. To give her a secure fit without needing to be jammed in.
You can learn all about it in the “Journey to confidence” course when you join the dancing with the sea club. I’ll leave a link to it in the description below this video.
The point is that wrist pain, or other pain is often a result of not using optimal technique. Or not moving your body in a strong and natural way.
The good news is that after making a few tweaks to the fit of her kayak, it’s moving with her like she’s wearing it. Now she can practice using her stronger lower body for power...
And that’s really the secret of the kayak.
All the pain is gone.
And paddling is much easier. And she can go a lot faster.
Because she is moving her pelvis, she has more control of her kayak. Soon she is more comfortable playing in the waves.
And there’s power behind every move she makes, because she keeps her body in a strong position.
Including the wrists.
The extra range of movement she gets from moving her pelvis, is exactly what makes the side scull so easy.
And rolling is just a natural extension of that technique.
Not something hard and complicated that takes years to learn.
If you would like to learn what Lesley learned, to move with more ease, and get rid of all her pain, you can watch the first lesson of “Journey to confidence” for free.
Just go in the description below this video, and click the link to sign up for the first video lesson for free.
Thanks for watching.