29 Apr 2013
Posted by mattwright
Living in Canada we are still waiting for the water to thaw, because of this we have a very condensed season. What would you suggest to accelerate the training program? The book has a 24 week schedule but that would be the end of the season (great book by the way). Thanks for the help.
Delmer, Canada (where it is still cold and the water is frozen)
Answer: We are catching what you are throwing. In The Riding Bumps Book we include a full 24 week beginner battle of the paddle SUP training program. In the ideal world your season would run 24 weeks (or longer). For many paddlers, the ideal world is not the real world. That is why we went with a 16 week program for the rest of our training programs. These programs are condensed quite a bit compared to the 24 week BOP program in the book.
The trick is to do what you can while the weather is not cooperating. That means cross training. Go to a local pool. Run outside or on a treadmill. Bike indoors . Whatever you do, do what you can to get a base of cross training aerobic endurance and then when you can paddle outside, start one of our 16 week programs (NOTE: the short and middle distance programs will be on or before May 15, 2013.)
We wish we had a magic bullet to condense endurance training into an 8 week program or something shorter. The problem is that it takes time to build fitness.
Hope that helps.
Roch
