Premise

With the arrival of the on-water season coming fast, it also means the beginning of 3 dragonboat practices (with post-practice workouts) and 1 outrigger canoe practice each week. You are also still expected to fulfill your quotas. The intensity, frequency, and amount of time spent in these practices requires you to shift your focus away from building strength in the weight room to maintaining your strength over the paddling season. Luckily, maintaining your strength requires significantly less time than trying to build it.

Methodology

The goal of the maintenance program is to maintain your strength, muscle mass, and power that you have obtained over the last few months. This will involve actually increasing the intensity (weight) of the compound exercises while performing significantly less repetitions. The idea is to preserve as much maximal strength that you can, while you increase your paddling endurance in practices.

Compound exercises are the focus as they recruit the most muscles, and they apply to paddling more than isolation exercises (can you think of a sport that only uses one or two muscles?). Furthermore, training volume is the biggest contributor to fatigue, and in consequence, injuries. By decreasing training volume but increasing intensity, we can effectively maintain maximal strength without increasing the risk of overuse injury.

Remember that our goal is to become elite paddlers, not national-level powerlifters or bodybuilders. We spent that last few months in the weight room in preparation for the stressors of the on-water season. Now, it’s time to maintain your strength and focus on paddling.

Maintenance Program (Week 1 - Week 5)

For the first five weeks (April 15th - May 19th), the program focuses on gradually lowering training volume while increasing intensity (weight). The 5th week is a lower-intensity week to prepare you for the next phase.

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Sets x Reps 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Percentage of 1Rep Max 75% 77% 80% 85% 70%

Exercises with a different set \(\times\) rep scheme should be done at a low training intensity. If you are uncertain about your one-rep max for a certain exercise, start by underestimating it. Choose a weight where finishing all of the sets is challenging but you are not at risk of failure. Alternatively, if you wish to attempt a one-rep max test, please consult a training director for guidance. For your bench press, refer to your fitness test scores and use that at your one-rep max. The following workout pairs should be performed each week (i.e. two workouts each week, alternating push and pull or alternating upper and lower). Your quota exercises should be done in addition to this.

Notes:

Push/Pull

Maintenance Program: Push
Exercise Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Bench Press 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Squat 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Overhead Press 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Cable Triceps Extension 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Cable Torso Rotation 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15
Maintenance Program: Pull
Exercises Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Deadlift 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Weighted Pullups 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Barbell Row 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Face Pulls 3x8 3x8 3x8 3x8 3x8
Cable Torso Rotation 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15

Upper/Lower

Maintenance Program: Upper
Exercise Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Weighted Pullups 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Bench Press 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Barbell Row 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Overhead Press 4x5 4x4 3x4 3x3 2x3
Face Pulls 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15
Maintenance Program: Lower
Exercise Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Squat 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Deadlift 4x5 3x5 3x4 3x3 2x3
Cable Torso Rotation 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Back Hyperextension 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12 2x12
Hanging Leg Raises 2x12 3x12 3x12 3x12 3x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15 3x15

Additional Exercises

“I want to do more.”


If you feel that you aren’t “doing enough”, you can add additional ENDURANCE exercises after your compound exercises. These are extremely low intensity isolation exercises (recruits one or two muscles) or bodyweight exercises. Bodyweight exercises such as pushups, body rows, burpees, jump squats, jackknife etc. are all fantastic exercises that train your endurance. Adding in additional sets of heavy weights is counterproductive to the concept of maintenance, and will increase the risk of injury.

For example, adding in one or two sets of light bicep curls (isolation exercise) after the heavy compound exercises poses little or no injury risk. Just keep it light, and the rep ranges high (15-20+ for muscular endurance).

Maintenance Program (Week 6 - CCWC)

From Week 6 and forward, the maintenance program will remain the same each week. Your goal is to try to maintain the same weight lifted until CCWC.

Push/Pull and Upper/Lower

Maintenance Program - Push/Pull (Week 6+): 3x3’s are done at 85-90% of 1RM
Push Exercises Pull Exercises
Bench Press 3x3 Deadlift 3x3
Squat 3x3 Weighted Pullups 3x3
Overhead Press 3x3 Barbell Row 3x3
Cable Triceps Extension 2x10 Face Pulls 3x8
Cable Torso Rotation 3x12 Cable Torso Rotation 3x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 Internal/External Rotation 3x15
Maintenance Program - Upper/Lower (Week 6+): 3x3’s are done at 85-90% of 1RM
Upper Body Exercises Lower Body Exercises
Weighted Pullups 3x3 Squat 3x3
Bench Press 3x3 Deadlift 3x3
Barbell Row 3x3 Cable Torso Rotation 3x3
Overhead Press 3x3 Back Hyperextension 3x3
Face Pulls 2x12 Hanging Leg Raises 2x12
Internal/External Rotation 3x15 Internal/External Rotation 3x15

Structuring/Timing Your Workouts

With three lake practices and one OC practice it’s important to know when is the optimal time to workout in the weight room. You know your body best, so the following is a general guideline.

Morning vs. Evening Workouts

There are many arguments for when to workout, but it comes down to your preference; you know when you perform the best. However, you may have work schedules or other commitments that limit your workout time options. It’s recommended to workout on non-practice days to try to maximize recovery time. This means that you will have 1 day of full rest, with 2 days in the weight room, 3 days on a dragon boat, and 1 day on an OC.

If you want 2 full days of rest, then it’s recommended that one of your workouts be on the same day as your OC practice. You can workout that morning or before/after the OC practice, and treat your time on the OC like cardio.

If you have to workout in the morning of dragon boat practice days, then decrease the intensity by 5%, and try to avoid heavy deadlifts and rows on these days.

Preparing for Regattas

In preparation for local regattas (i.e. excluding CCWC), you need to take at minimum 48 hours of rest, ideally 72 hours. On these weeks, you may only be able to finish one workout in the weight room. Just continue your workout plan the next week.

For CCWC, the week of July 1st to July 7th should be your last week of weight training and at a dramatically lower intensity. You will need as much rest time as you can in preparation for 1 week straight of paddling. For July 8th to July 12th, paddling practice should be the only time you are exercising. Any exercises you do in the weight room in this week will not make our boat faster, but will probably slow it down.

Injury Prevention

It’s important that you don’t stubbornly follow this program and ignore what your body is telling you. It’s okay to have to decrease the intensity at times on days where you aren’t feeling recovered. Listen to your body, and let a training director know if you have any sharp pains.

It is imperative that you perform the internal/external rotations using a cable (or a dumbbell) as they cover all four rotator cuffs; a group of muscles that stabilize your shoulder and rotate the arm internally and externally. One of the most important ones for paddling is the subscapularis. It internally rotates your shoulder, which is critical for the exit of your stroke.

Please refer to the supplementary links on exercises for shoulder injury prevention/rehabilitation:

Changelog