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SRR Race Report, Captain’s Message And Our Featured Writer This Week
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Misconceptions About Dragon Boating
Misconceptions About Dragon BoatingBy Chin “Coach” Waihong |
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Strength endurance
Strength and endurance are at the spectrum of the strength-endurance continuum. Lifting heavy weights for lower repetitions lead to greater gains in strength while lifting light weights for higher repetitions lead to greater gains in endurance.
The main difference between endurance and strength is that people with strength are better at producing force in a single effort while people with endurance are better at producing force repeatedly. While strength training works the anaerobic system, endurance training works the aerobic system.
There are many who do better in strength training. Meaning they can lift heavy weights if they get ample rest between sets, or during the set itself. When needed to lift heavy weights repetitively beyond the time frame of a set or reduce the accustomed rest time, their strength won’t hold up.
So what is strength endurance?
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| Strength to weight ratio (SWR)
Very often when mentioned swr, we will calculate the number of reps that we can lift till failure base on our body weight. For example, a 70kg man can do 5 reps of 70kg squats has a swr of 5:1. This is the simplest form of calculation for paddlers.
The actual way to calculate swr is by dividing your strength (amount of weight you can lift for 1 repetition maximum with proper form) by your body weight. For example, a 70kg man can squat 100kg has a swr of 1.4 (100kg/70kg).
To obtain the most accurate total body swr, one needs to perform 3 different movements; squat, deadlift and bench press. Calculate the swr of each movement, then divide by 3. For example, the swr of each movements are 1.3, 1.4, and 1. Adding them up and dividing it by 3 will give you a total body swr of 1.2.
It’s important for paddlers to know their swr of each movement as it is a good indicator of muscle imbalance. Thereafter, training emphasis will have to be adjusted to suit the individual. |
| Flexibility vs mobility A person with good mobility is able to perform functional movements with no restriction in range of motion. A person with good flexibility will have a full range of motion but may not have the core strength, balance and coordination to perform a functional movement. Simply put, mobility is the movement of the joints, and flexibility lies in the length of muscle. Mobility can be affected by various factors. Flexibility is an important component in mobility because it’s difficult to move a joint if the connecting muscles are too tight or short.
Other common considerations that lead to low mobility are inadequate strength to perform the movement, soft tissue damage or other joint problems affecting the particular joint that is needed in the same chain of joint movement. Hence, having good flexibility does not mean better mobility as mobility can be constricted by other factors as well.
People often use supports or guards to facilitate strength exertion. Supports and guards are meant for prevention and not correction of a faulty movement. Using them for corrective purposes will prevent the joint to work, balance and absorb like it’s supposed to. In time, this will lead to other joint problem or muscle imbalance as it is compensating it’s deficiency with other connecting muscles or joints in the same chain of joint movement. In dragonboat, should you have a shoulder problem thats not fixed, and you use more of your arms to exert strength to compensate, there may be a possibility of it implicating the elbow and wrist. Similarly, if use more of your back to compensate for your shoulder, you may implicate upwards to the traps, lats or rhomboids.
Simple mobility issues can be fixed by stretching, mobility drills, myofascial release (foam rolling and trigger ball), strength and conditioning.
These are the few things that we’ll be working on next year. So come for training regularly!
Cheers, |
35th Singapore River Regatta and Our Gaelic Of The Month
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Gaelic Halloween-Themed Week With Our Featured Writer
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Our Strongest And Most Powerful Muscle
Our Strongest And Most Powerful MuscleBy Peter Butsch |
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The biceps – our strongest and a most powerful muscle.
For millions of years the biceps have helped humans to build empires, brought soldiers to this world and evoked fear amongst enemies, pushing entire civilizations into the abyss. I am sure you have found yourself looking up to the stars, drawn to the importance of this muscle. It seems it has come from outer space and that its power is only exceeded by its mysteriousness.
But what happened? Where is the biceps nowadays? Why are we not using this all-mighty weapon anymore?
The biceps or also biceps brachiosaurus (lat. “two-headed muscle” of the arm) got its name from our ancestors, who discovered that they can use it to wrestle two dinosaurs (brachiosaurus) at the same time and provide food to their families. It is also well known that the first animals emerged from the ocean using a “one-arm row” to pull themselves onto the Kallang riverbank. But after the humans wrestled all dinosaurs into extinction, we began to question it.
Can the biceps be controlled? And are they too powerful to be given to mankind? |
| So, we started to create lies – lies that would detain us from ever using them again. The Romans made us believe that there is nothing more powerful than the lightning of Zeus. The Vikings thought power lies in the hammer of Thor and, as MC Hammer told us, that you cannot touch this. This may be one of the saddest lessons of history: If you have been fooled long enough, you tend to reject any evidence of the lie. We are no longer interested in finding out the truth. The lie has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give power to somebody to rule you, you almost never get it back.
Some say this is the reason why aliens have never spoken to us. We could have been building a galactic supersonic weapon, but we decided to throw the towel. It’s like a llama on rollerblades trying to walk up an escalator. Weird to look at and a waste of everybody’s time. Or choosing tears to come out of your eyes instead of lasers, chainsaws or fire. What would you choose? We all know what Superman chose. In dragon boating, we have decided to use our lower back and not our biceps to pull the boat forward. OUR BACK? HUH?!? I always thought that is something old people have problems with, like a disease. Could we then also use leprosy to paddle? … just thinking out loud. |
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But hope is the last thing ever lost. Like at 11:29am on a Sunday morning during a paddling session with Wai Hong. You are hoping for the magic words: “Let’s go back”. And when you move your sore body onto the beach, tired, almost dying, don’t you sometimes look up to the stars? And when you concentrate, don’t you suddenly hear that voice screaming from a far distance?
And, as you listen closely, you notice that it is not far away. It is very near. It is coming from your biceps.
And then you can see it. You can see that there is a tiny dragon living in your biceps, talking to you. He says: “Gaelic, I can feel your breath. I can hear your heartbeat. Rise, rise and shine. Paddle and don’t stop until you bring me gold.” As he says that, your bicep starts glowing in the most beautiful light you have ever seen. You are overwhelmed with the feelings of joy, freedom and strength. And you instantly know what to do. You know, you have to use this weapon that was given to you and bring glory to the Gaelic Dragons and their families, because gold is the only thing that matters.
#bicepsstories #riseandshine #goforgold |
The Battle Continues!
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AustCham 10Km Challenge Completed!
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AustCham 10K Challenge This Weekend And Our Gaelic Of The Month
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A Tribute To Our Founding Father By Our Featured Writer This Week
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