Dry land rolling practice

[ian123]

^this

[JimW]

The boat is pretty much on its side. You do a "crunch" trying to lift your onside knee to your forehead. The boat starts to roll to the tipping point, and.........Merde! You fall back in. And you did not pick up your head.

Now you have my situation exactly. How do I get that last little bit of roll to get me past the tipping point? Is there not some kind of weight shifting at that point that gets you over the edge? Or is the problem earlier in the process? How and when do you give yourself the momentum you need?

I don't know if I can claim to be doing it right but there is a point where either I or the boat pauses, I suspect it is me running out of motion in the 'crunch', at that point I swing my body and head across to the centreline, or as I said before possibly even just past it for a moment.

How to do it?
I think I do it mainly by rotating from about or above the waist, probably using my abs. Can't say what my legs are doing at that point, whether I am able to continue the push or if I hold them steady as a platform for moving my body or even actually pull against my offside knee to get my body across?
I am pretty sure that from that pause point I don't use the paddle anymore, as far as I can tell I recover the paddle as I move my body....

I'd suggest trying some stuff and see how it goes, but I really don't think you'll get to feel the transition point from dry land exercises.

[col. mustard]

I've not perfected my roll by any stretch but last winter I was bored and went out in the back yard with my boat and paddle, found a big pile of leaves and practiced my roll. It may have been hilarious to watch but it actually did help me break down each step and create muscle memory. After this session, all my roll attempts were successful on flat, slow water at put in/take outs (actually havent needed it as of yet). Before I was getting hung up and frustrated. So take it for what it's worth. It might look crazy as hades but it helped me get results. Just use a beater paddle because it does put a lot of stress on it.

[jakke]

I've never heard anyone make rolling sound more difficult than Jakke.

Rick, most would agree that the new designs still roll really well despite being quite deep…. just keep your head as low as you can.

Well, clearly you are amongst the more gifted people on this planet when it comes to muscle strenght and coordination... .
I know it's a lot of biomechanical detail, but you can't help people correctly if you don't understand the biomechanics of a roll! If someone really has troubles with a motion, it does not help to give void statements like "drive more from the hips", "keep your head down", "don't push on the blade" or whatever. These statements can about any paddler make who knows how to roll, but it does not help teaching people the biomechanics of rolling.
Surely it's a lot of description and words, and one wouldn't go that far in a hands-on session, there you can help probably more and better by the selection of exercises. Leading up to exactly the same result, without putting it too much into words. But we can't do that here.

@Riverken

Without seeing it, it's hard to tell, but the mistake I see most of the time showing the issue you describe is people who stop driving the rolling motion with their lower body too early. It's not as much a question of lift and push of the knees, but more of a rotational motion from the hips with some side lifting added to it: the high kick motion as I described it.

Really try to get into doing some gluteus medius exercises. Also lay down on the ground sideways on your onside, and turn onto your back driving from the hips, only using your offside foot as a brace, not the onside, really lead from the hips. Your rolling will improve from these exercises!

An example of gluteus medius exercise is the side clam http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/stre ... ion-_6.htm, just don't do it like on the picture. Make sure your head, upper body, hips and upper legs are aligned, folding your legs about 90° backwards to get your legs in the same angles as in the above article. Then do the side motion. The reason for this is that you avoid using the TFL, instead of the gluteus medius. Also be careful not to pull from your back. To avoid that, make sure both lower arms and elbows are touching the ground.

I know it's not rollling motion directly, but a bit of cross training can do miracles for many paddlers! Especially those who spend lots of hours behind a desk, every day, instead of being out and active.

[JimW]

I know it's a lot of biomechanical detail,

I think that's the problem Jan - even I couldn't follow your previous post, a lot of terminology that I'm just not familiar with.

I have no doubt that face to face you could demonstrate that stuff and make it perfectly understandable, but those of us who aren't sports scientists are not likely to get it just by reading

[jakke]

I think that's the problem Jan - even I couldn't follow your previous post, a lot of terminology that I'm just not familiar with.

I have no doubt that face to face you could demonstrate that stuff and make it perfectly understandable, but those of us who aren't sports scientists are not likely to get it just by reading

You're absolutely right Jim, a rightfully bit of critique. Maybe I should get going with a video camera and some animated images . Or fly over to explain, but that would be slightly out of scope I'd say .

I know you can make everything difficult, even smiling, if you go deep down enough into biomechanics. Now as long as you have one or a limited number of flaws in your movement patterns, and you can compensate in other area's, you're fine. But if you have multiple flaws, which prevent you from compensating, it's a lot harder to fix.
Those who say rolling is easy, probably have no or only minor flaws in their movement pattern. Those who have a hard time, often have multiple issues, for various reasons. Now I think one should make things as easy as possible, and as complex as needed. If you can roll with setup, hip-flick, sweep, perfect, brilliant! If you want to squeeze out a few extra percentages, or have a tough time nailing your roll, we need to detail more.

Ok, all these details are probably not for everybody, not to say only a handful of people. And given the right instruction, you don't need to know about all these details, your instructor will take care of it, with the selected exercises and progression, eventually by giving you homework. But if you have multiple flaws and don't want to take instruction, or can't find any suited instruction, you have no other option but to figure things out on your own. That's the moment where you start getting into the dirty biomechanics details .

So the best thing Riverken could do is get into contact with a paddling instructor (could be just as well a kayak instructor, biomechanically it's very similar) who has at least a basic understanding of the biomechanics of a roll. Not just the "keep your head down", "read the markings on your boat", "don't look up" kind of statements, but someone who can guide you in the process (and I personally don't know too many here in Europe who can do this!).
Or, get in touch with a physiotherapist with a strong foundation of functional movement and so on. Maybe get him/her to a pool session so they can try and understand the biomechanics of the roll, and they should be able to sort you out. There again, finding the right physiotherapist could be a challenge, but you'll have more chances of finding someone skilled and willing to help you out.

Have a look at this video https://vimeo.com/75507670 at 8:33, there I'm introducing someone into rolling a canoe. The exercise is that he does his setup and then allows me to roll his boat externally. This is one of these guys with a crazy disconnection between upper and lower body, so he actually has to actively sweep in. Most other people get pulled into their boat by their lower body once the boat has reached a critical point in rotation. The fragment just before is letting a student driving that boat rotation from the lower body, and the pressure on his hands is direct feedback of how much is done by upper and lower body. It is just a way of breaking things down, and no golden formula.

Now these sequences work often, for those with minor flaws in their movement patterns. If you have bigger flaws, it's harder to identify them and fix them before the above workflow could work. I'm not educated to do these assessments, but the usual suspects are most of the time involved. Plenty of readings, popular and scientific, to be found on the net. It's a lot harder to figure out how to deal with them, cause there are tons of crap out there on the internet, making things actually worse.

The bit that s*cks is that the roll is probably one of the hardest movements to learn if you have functional movement issues. The sweet thing on the other hand is, if you invest on fixing these, it'll have a very positive influence on all other aspects of your paddling too!
<bit nerdy biomechanics again>You need to stabilize your spine quite a bit for example, to setup for your roll and maximize the ability of your lower body to roll your boat, and that with extended arms. But if you can do that for a roll, you'll be able to do the same in a forward stroke or a boof stroke, allowing for a way better power transfer from your blade, through your stable spine, through your hips and into the boat. You don't need it in order to be able to paddle forward or get a somewhat acceptable boof, but once you can use it, benefits will be noticably be there.
<end of nerdy biomechanics>

Just a few extra exercises to try and see if my reasoning makes sense.
Go stand sidways on a staircase or trep or so, one leg on a higher level than the other ,(like this http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hzvIk-vBjLc/maxresdefault.jpg. Now try to lift your lower leg up, by just lifting it, keeping your hips facing the same direction (90° to the staircase shelf).
Now try to do the same motion by standing same position on the staircase, but instead of lifting your leg, rotate your hip from the lower standing leg, towards the higher standing leg. You'll notice the rotational movement goes initially a lot easier than the lifting movement.
The last variation, but now rotate towards your lower leg, keep your spine stable and low, and rotate from the hips, leading with the hips, lifting your lower leg. There you are, dry land rolling exercise!

Give the side clam exercise of my previous post a try, but my variation, not the variation from the article. If you're exhausted after 2/3 series of 10 reps, that's a working area for you. Btw, this is the working area:
http://www.hiparthroscopydoctor.com/con ... medius.php

That doesn't mean it's the only working area, but in most cases I've observed, this is one of the major ones, and very common in the seating dominated world like ours. Another usual suspect is the mobility of the middle back (thoracic spine if you want to google it), and hip rotation, internal and external.

Enough writing, conclusion is: go find help from a skilled person, or dive into the nitty gritty details of biomechanics for yourself . Beware, it's a very interesting (or at least so do I think) but also very complex road down the biomechanics. It is about details and timings and little things. Once you know what to tackle and how to tackle it, the first rewards usually become visible quite fast (not saying you'll have a bomb proof roll in 2 weeks though!!) And for some things, you simmply have to consult a skilled physiotherapist or alike, cause you can't figure everything out by yourself.

[Wodza]

I second the Bob Foote rolling video. It is a very thorough break down, great visuals in slow-mo with him explaining what he is doing in a voice over.

[ian123]

Jake,

I like thinking about biomechanics to optimize my own technique but you don't have understand the biomechanics of a task to perform a task. Gait is pretty complicated but most people walk pretty well.

People are different and different people roll in different ways…. even if an understanding of biomechanics was essential, you could argue at length about what "good biomechanics" was…. or what "proper" rolling technique is.

It's better start with general instruction and see what a person does naturally and then "clean up" the movement afterwards.

People who have less kinaesthetic awareness might take a little longer to learn but it doesn't mean that they need a team of professionals to teach them to wipe their butt.

(Assuming by "functional movement issue", you re not referring to people with neurological impairments)

I ve enjoyed reading your posts but I think we might just have to agree to disagree.

[ian123]

Not to say that professional advice can't help

[Riverken]

I am afraid I am among the less gifted in this endeavor (that's putting it mildly), and having it broken down into small elements is good for me. I did not know a lot of the terminology in Jakke's post, but, hey, it's the Internet, and I found all the definitions on line.

I will reread this thread many times for this is much to learn here, but, for those who are interested, here is what I have learned so far.

1. People can get passionate about the strangest things! Rolling a [b]edited by moderator for language[/b] canoe, for example.

2. There probably is no way to recreate the same situation on land as in water (no surprise there).

3. I already know what to do technically, but I am so inept that I take a long time to do it, and I stop in between steps while I try to figure out what to do next. I lose my momentum and can't get past the tipping point. I need to practice doing all three steps in a fluid motion. For that I am afraid I will need water.

4. On the other hand, I can work on exercises that require me to identify the muscle groups in question and use them so that when I get to the water I will start from a higher level.

BTW, I have had some very good professional instruction, and it worked. Unfortunately, it tends not to stick, which is no reflection on the instructors, but rather just a factor of the poor material with which they had to work. I wanted to practice over the winter when I couldn't paddle; thus the question about dry land exercises.

[jakke]

ian123,

I'd love to agree to disagree, but I actually think we agree on quite a few subjects here.

Simple where it can be simple, works for the majority of the people. And often a variation of an exercise or movement is enough to make the click. Because not al phrasing works for everybody.

And please don't let everybody get into biomechanics. I don't want to be discussing gluteus medius or other muscle on my paddling trips .
knowing which muscles are involved, helps to do a more dedicated form of cross-training, but I've already made that point, so no need to elaborate there.

Nops, not talking about neurological impairments, haven't gotten into that yet.

I think our vision differs on how and when professional advice can be valuable, but that was not the matter. I guess I'd seek professional advice earlier than you'd do. Clearly not for whiping your butt, ambitions for a long distance runner would be a good move to have someone check you out properly early in your career, in my opinion. to give an example.

I've clearly lost myself into biomechanical details, where the message about which exercises could help out got lost into muscle names and biomechanics. That's less of an issue when someone is face to face. No need to elaborate verbally when you can do it with exercises, tests and demo's. Elaborating can be done of course if it's within the interest of the student .

At least I hope someone is getting some valuable input from this discussion, with our without nitty gritty details.

I'm glad you're getting something from this discussion too Riverken! And *blush* I'm a technique freak, so it's not "just rolling that edited by moderator for language canoe", it's much more paddling technique for me, and more and more human motion in general .

[Einar]

My excuse is my "ample waistline" bumps over the gunnel and slows me down. It also seems to de'amplify my hip snap, limiting it's distance of travel.
Lean guys seem to roll easier.
It's not my reason, it's just my excuse.
e

[Riverken]

I went to the gym today and lay on the mat trying to replicate the position I would be in for rolling. The closest I could get was this:

1. Lay flat on your back.

2. Let both of your knees fall in the direction that would be the bow of the canoe (that is to say, the knee that is touching the mat is the offside knee). Now, your lower body is rotated 90 degrees from your upper body (as close as possible, anyway). This is sort of the set up position for a roll.

3. Try to pull your onside knee up to your head. You could also try to raise your body to meet your knee; that is quite difficult.

What say you experts? Would this help? Hurt?

[pmp]

Wow, what a ton of info. (i admit more than i can sit and read:) but tell ya what. if you see me at ALF, i'd be happy to take a look at your roll. Hey, i'm even sure Andrew westwood will demo in the freezing water while i critique from cozy dry shore:)
seriously though a few minutes and you'll nail the "step and flipper" technique that seems to really work with the aforementioned deeper hulls.
cheers
paul

[jakke]

Ok riverken, you're asking for it now . Bit of nerdy muscle talk, so you might have to google a term or two .

WARNING: no guarantees here though, and beware if you have medical issues you're not aware of (herniated disks or other issues). So either you accept the possible risks if you start training (strengthening and mobilizing) or go see a physiotherapist or doctor to have you checked out.

The exercise you describe, is a classic one, but I'm not satisfied with it. The main reason is because the main target group are your obliques (diagonal abdominal muscles). For sure you do need your obliques while rolling, but these kind of side crunches are not really the answer.
The side crunching part works well for most people, it's the last 15 to 20% of rolling the boat that is missing most of the time, as is in your case. At that point you've maxed out the range of motion of your side crunch (not to mention you'd probably don't need that much of an active side crunch, but that's a different discussion).
Those last 15 to 20% of a roll are mainly depending on the glutes and thoracic mobility.

If you see something in my idea that rolling is more of a pelvic rotation motion instead of a side-crunching motion, try the following:

A better way (in my opinion) to simulate rolling is the following:
1. lay on your side onside
2. place your offside foot on the ground, knee pointing upwards
3. hook your onside foot behind the ankle of your offside leg (the one you positioned in 2.)
4. bring your offside knee further down to the ground (not to your other leg, but the opposite side), drive from the hips, and only allow to push to the ground with your offside foot. Stay on your side as long as possible. You'll notice it's quite a bit of work to drive that knee down, from your hips. In this exercise you have the luxury of having air and being on a stable surface. You don't have that while rolling!

Example for a righty:
1. lay on your right side
2. left foot on the ground, left knee in the air
3. hook right foot behind left ankle
4. swing left knee further down to the left, drive from the hips. You'll notice that at some point your upper body is pulled over because you're driving the left knee down.

You can strengthen the glutes with:
- side clam as I explained in a previous post
- regular squats (with miniband just above the knees to force the gluteus medius to activate), search the web for good form examples. Knees should stay above ankles, certainly not in front of the toes, but should go back, spine straight and neutral, so no compensations in the lower back and certainly not middle back.
- pistol squats (make sure you get the foundations right though, before you start here)

Getting your thoracic spine a bit looser (so you can drive your hips longer, without your upper body following) can for example be done like this

- miniband just above the knees
- go into a light squat position (miniband forces the glutes to activate and stabilize the pelvis)
- hold another miniband in your hands, about shoulder width and have some tension on it. Pull your shoulders back and down, making your upper body long. Now rotate actively left and right. But slow, and in controll, to the tension but not through the tension.

I could tell a big difference in glutes training and the above roll simulation after a week training.

You're a big boy, so make up your own mind if you'd like to try the above. Just do me the favor of giving feedback if you tried some of the above and how it impacted your rolling .

Oh, and if you can, go and see Paul and/or Andrew at ALF. They are good and experienced (so I've heard, never met them in person ), and hands on training is anyway better than written down. . If you do, make sure you get Andrew on video rolling in the icy water :8

guess when we're done here, I have all the stuff together to put an article on my website, once it's online again