What part of the stroke in prone paddling causes the ‘up down’ motion rather than forward propulsion?

I prone on my Bark Commander. I’m the only one here in Colorado (as far as I know) and when my hubby watched my stroke her thought the board moved up and down in the water. So I was wondering which part of the stroke I need to work on to get more forward propulsion.

Good for your hubby. She has a good eye.

When paddling on your knees on a stock board, you want to minimize your up and down movement. Slogging the board up and down won’t get your all that far under normal conditions. We address this in our prone paddleboard video under the “bouncing up and down on your knees section.”

Under normal conditions meaning flat-water and in slight bump, bouncing up and down on a stock board will slow you down. In fact if you ever see someone like Brian Szymanski paddle they are gliding along without much up and down motion at all.

Without seeing you paddle it is difficult to say exactly what might be going on but as a general rule  keep your head head low and close to the board then reach forward rather than coming too far up with your head then reaching out somewhere up and in front of the board. I know that didn’t make much sense so let me try again –  avoid moving your upper body and head up and down and try to move forward and back while keeping your head and shoulders moving forward when you reach and straight back (slightly up) when you pull through. I guess what I am trying to say is that your head and shoulders should almost stay in one plane parallel to the surface of water while moving back and forth unless sitting up and pausing.

Finally, be conservative with your motion. You don’t want a lot of splashing around. Don’t  jam your arms into the water. Your stroke should be smooth and don’t start pulling too early. You want to wait until you get most of your arms in the water.

Again, it is really tough to explain what in the heck we are talking about but if you check out our video you will see first hand what a smooth paddler looks like and what a bouncy paddler looks like. We compare them side by side in the video.

No before you go and watch video from Catalina this weekend and scratch your head at what the unlimited guys are doing,  a prone board is A LOT different than an unlimited board. Don’t model your stroke after what they are doing on an unlimited board.  The unlimited board has so much volume the knee paddle stroke is quite a bit different. On an unlimited board you will see guys reaching farther forward and the entire stroke will be a bit more animated.  That is because they need more force to propel the board and the increased volume is opposing their stroke. If you try to do what they are doing on an unlimited board you will be bouncing up and down on your stock board.

Price: $34.95 Prone Paddleboarding: Essential Techniques from breedfreakphoto on Vimeo .