I have read a number of articles and opinions all dealing with the same problem – achieving a race weight versus running out of gas. I had expected to lose weight over my first build phase of SUP race training, but I am at what appears to be a plateau. I am eating at a level necessary to keep me fueled and training, but it appears that I must be consuming as much as I am burning. How important is optimizing to a race weight versus staying well fueled for training?
- Anonymous, CA

This is a great question and like many past great questions in this column, there isn’t one answer for everyone.  One persons ideal body composition is another person’s anorectic ideal and yet another person’s upper blubber limit.  That’s not some P.C. coach’s statement to make you or anyone else feel good either.  It’s true.

Look, we’ve seen every version of every kind of body have success in this sport.  Granted, the bodies you see crossing the finish line in first tend to be the leanest “samples” of the entire group but there can even be a significant disparity among the body compositions of these front runners.  It’s funny to hear one pro call another pro “fat” when both have ridiculously low body fat percentages but among these weight conscious whippets, the difference between 4 and 10% body fat is noticeable – especially to them.

We believe that, provided there are no prior medical conditions, your body will arrive at its best weight based on the activities it does most.  There are published Body Mass Index (BMI) calculators that purport to provide you with an ideal range for your height, gender and age but all come with varying degrees of accuracy depending on the individual.  Like so many training and physiological factors there are many individual traits that influence results one way or another.

You describe being at a “plateau” with your current weight.  Do you know, however, what your body composition is?  That is, do you know what percentage of your weight is fat vs. muscle/bone (lean mass)?  This is an important consideration for people getting back into training because your body can change pretty dramatically in composition when you start a training program.  You can even gain weight due to increased muscle mass.  Remember, muscle weighs A LOT more than fat due the fact that it’s composed primarily of water.  The question then should be, how do your clothes fit compared to when you started training?  This is a good indication of the changes that can come with changes in body composition.

Yes, there’s no question that at lighter body weight you’ll probably be a better paddler because of the simple concept of strength to weight ratio but with SUP racing the whole power:weight bit is somewhat less important. More muscle is more power. As long as you are not trucking around loads of flab on your belly you are probably on the right track. There are countless examples of SUP racers who arrive on the starting line of a paddle race too light and end up performing worse compared to prior years.

There seems to be a much thinner (no pun intended) line between ideal weight and too light when it comes to longer racing and performance.  During a channel crossing paddle race, many athletes will arrive on the starting line too light and, by the time they are a few miles out to sea, they  seem to have no reserves on which to draw.  This doesn’t make sense intuitively because you should be able to simply fuel and hydrate your body as you go but it’s a phenomenon we continue to see played out each year.  We’ve also seen athletes reach a certain low weight threshold at which they seem to get sick more often.  Both of these scenarios contradict the prevalent thinking among endurance athletes, including competitive SUP racers,  that lighter is better in every way.

Running out of gas is another story entirely.  This is something that is within your control and greatly impacted by intensity (pace) and how much nutrition you can assimilate while paddling.   Running out of gas shouldn’t have as much to do with your weight as it does with your paddle racing nutrition. If you’re running out of gas, there’s usually a reason you can determine by analyzing the situation under which it occurred.  Were you going too hard to absorb the calories and/or fluid you were ingesting?  Did you eat too much?  Were you eating too little?  Etc.

So, what’s your ideal body weight?  We don’t know. Look at some of the BMI calculators and see if you’re within the recommended range and, if so, at what end of the range you lie.  Then, think about what’s realistic considering your build, history, and how you’re feeling and performing at your current weight.

Roch and Huddle