Surfski How to Fix Imbalances in your Paddling Stroke

How to fix imbalances in your surfski stroke. Most people are typically stronger and have better developed fine motor control skills on one side. It's something that happens quite naturally as we learn to write, pick up/put things down, and play ball sports. We develop skills unilaterally, generally favouring one side, and then when we need to do a bilateral sport like paddling where both sides need to function equally, we tend to find that one side works a little more easily than the other.
In this video we would like to try and help you identify if you have an imbalance in your paddle stroke. When we paddle it's often hard to measure and notice subtle differences with our left vs right paddle stroke, without the use of videos, a technique coach on-hand, or specific testing apparatus.
On the water:
One of Durban's famous coaches Lee McGregor always promotes paddling on one side at a time, during his technique sessions. Doing this so many times with him a few years ago, made me pay a lot of attention to the speed I could hold on my left vs right paddle stroke. Here's what to do for this simple drill: paddle 10 strokes on just your right side, dragging the paddle back on top of the water before placing the next catch, then repeat 10 strokes on the left side, then complete 20 strokes (counting each side) paddling both sides together as normal.
What we recommend paying attention to:
1) Look at your speed during the 10 on the right and 10 on the left - is the speed the same or does one side show higher speed?
2) Feel - do you feel less balanced or shaky or battle to place the catch more on one side vs the other side?
3) Connection - can you see or feel that your body moves better or connects better on one side vs the other?
If you can notice differences with any of the above when comparing left vs right then the chances are you have an imbalance. Now if we can't paddle 'even' strokes when we are going slowly on a nice calm day, how are we going to do it at race pace when we are bleeding lactate and fighting for the win? Imagine the compensation patterns and 'bad habits' we are constantly reinforcing every time we paddle. So our goal is to try and help you to even out that imbalance in the hope to have a better stroke and be more efficient in the long run.
Gym strength endurance tests:
1) The first gym test you can do targets the level of strength / conditioning of the chest and anterior shoulder: single arm chest press using a dumbbell
2) Choose a weight that you believe your dominate side can handle for 15 to 20 reps and perform one set on your dominant side noting your perception of how difficult it feels to move that weight for 15 to 20 reps and how good your control of the weight is throughout each rep; then repeat on the non-dominant side and compare how each side felt. And maybe you won't actually be able to comfortably complete an equal number of reps on both sides which will also indicate a strength and / or endurance deficit between the two.
This video is step one of helping you firstly identify if you may have an imbalance in your stroke, and then one gym based option to help further confirm or identify an imbalance.
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