The SUP Race Training Week Continues: Jacko’s Gym, Day 5
Boss Man’s note: Paul Jackson is sharing his intense SUP race training regime with us all this week, as he and his squad prepare for next month’s Battle of the Paddle. This is Day 5, so be sure to check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 if you missed ’em.
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Day Five (morning session)
We’re back for Day Five! Hope you’re getting a lot out of the week so far. Only one day left and then you can take a day off!
Ok so seeing a lot of us are preparing specifically for the Battle of the Paddle (BoP), we like to train in race conditions as much as possible (i.e. in and out through the waves, around buoy turns, etc).
We’re lucky to have a perfect training spot: wide, protected, flat-water creek with good beaches, which is right next to good surf spots. So we can get all kinds of training in no matter what the weather’s doing.
SUP race training // pic © Pieter Plooy
If the surf is too big for our race boards or if the wind has blown it out of control, we’ll just stay in the protected flats. But when there’s nice little waves we like to get out there and simulate the BoP race conditions.
We’ll set a mini BoP course using buoys, and depending on the conditions it’ll be about 500m for flat-water or a bit longer if we’re going in and out through the waves.
So if you’re training for a race like the Battle, try and get a couple of surf paddles in each week. Also do heaps of buoy-turn practice, no matter whether you’re paddling in flat water or on the ocean. If you’ve seen some of the Battle of the Paddle chaos, you’ll know how important it can be to stay on your feet round those turns!
Practice your buoy-turns so you can survive the Battle of the Paddle chaos! // pic © Jason Kenworthy
Ok so this morning we’re training stuff like kick-turns and doing a bit of BoP course practice. But we’re also going to try and keep our heart-rate a bit lower (80%) so we can really focus on the technical stuff. Here’s how it looks…
- 1km warm-up paddle
- Work on kick-turns
- 6x laps of 500m BoP course non-stop
- Few minutes rest
- 6x laps of 500m BoP course non-stop
- Few minutes rest
- 5x 400m intervals: 200m sprint + 200m easy
- 1km warm-down paddle
During yesterday’s SUP training session, my heart-rate was 180+ for the intervals, but today I kept it around 155-165. Good to mix things up.
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Day Five (afternoon session)
We’re just doing a gym weight session this arvo. It’ll be similar to Day One, with a good mix of both heavy weight/low reps and light weight/high reps.
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Ok so that’s it for today.
Five days gone, almost there! Tomorrow’s Day Six, Saturday morning… if you’ve made it this far and can get through one more SUP race training session, you’ll be looking good for your next race!
Cya tomorrow,
– Jacko
