Training – Ventura Canoe & Kayak Club

Spring 2024 Club Update

Drew Story — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 21:39:56 +0000

Spring and early summer are the primary recruiting times of new athletes for our club. While one can indeed paddle year round in southern California, the water in the Ventura Harbor gets cold enough that only the very hardy would consider a sport where one is likely to be swimming a fair amount of the time at the start. Just before our local school district went on Spring Break…

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2022 Fall Update

Drew Story — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 00:55:14 +0000

For much of the late summer and early fall, the club had three workouts a week with solid attendance from all of our beginners. As the water has gotten cold(er) again, and we no longer have much sunlight after 4pm, we’ve cut our water workouts to be only on the weekends. Currently, we paddle on Sunday mornings for an hour or so and have plans for other cross training activities with the club.

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Goal Setting

Drew Story — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 19:32:00 +0000

It’s the end of the sprint canoe and kayak racing season in America. Our Nationals were at the beginning of the month, our Junior World and U23 athletes are competing now, and the Olympic Hopes Regatta will finish soon, too. For most paddlers, now is the time to set goals for the next season. This post will try to distill the lessons taught by our club founder, Bill Bragg.

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Training Plans – What to Do Differently?

Drew Story — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 20:04:59 +0000

The Ventura Olympic Canoe Club has always prided itself on being innovative and willing to try new things in terms of training and equipment; we’re not afraid to experiment. In fact, it’s pretty much a guarantee that what we did for a training program last year will not be the same in the coming year, even if we felt the last year was highly successful. We believe that to be a winner…

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Why we advocate that you use a bent canoe paddle for sprint canoe

Drew Story — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 20:08:23 +0000

For newcomers, a bent blade, or angled canoe paddle, is one that has a forward angle of between ten to fifteen degrees where the shaft meets the paddle. Something like this: Novice paddlers will often put the paddle into the water backwards, with the angle pointing towards them, instead of away from them. (Please don’t make this mistake.) Marathon canoes, outrigger and SUP paddlers are…

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Training Calendar Posted, More Coaching Resources to Be Added

Drew Story — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 17:56:52 +0000

A recent discussion with a new Nelo canoe rep in America reminded me that I have long been bothered that the USACK website, our sport’s governing body, lacks a list of training resources and coaching tips for paddlers. Given how small our sport is, the need to provide such resources to anyone interested in taking up sprint canoe and kayak seems vital. If our governing body won’t do it…

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GoPro Training

Drew Story — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 15:25:06 +0000

We’ve been using a GoPro Silver camera mounted on the front and back of canoes to provide some training videos this past year. One of the most effective things you can do for any athlete is to show them exactly how they look and what they are doing right and wrong. The mental view never quite matches reality. The side shot from the camera of other paddlers is also quite useful — If you’re…

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Goals and Training Logs

Drew Story — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:31:25 +0000

It’s coming up on the last month of this year, so it seems like a good time to discuss training logs and goals. VOCC paddlers were indoctrinated to maintain a training log by Bill Bragg. The act of writing things down makes the chance of achievement far greater, so much so that I think you would be highly unlikely to find an Olympian who doesn’t write down her or his goals.

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