Kayak Cross Fit

Over the years that I have been involved in kayaking, mountain biking, snowboarding, climbing, and other adventure sports, training usually meant to simply go do the sport. Of course I spent plenty of hours in the pool in my kayak, or at the rock gym climbing on plastic but thats still just doing the sport. Recently, I was introduced to Cross Fit by a fellow kayaker and what an eye opener that was! After my first workout of 20 pushups, 20 Burpees, 20 air squats, and 20 sit ups, four times through, I could barely move. So I decided it was time to up the fitness game. Over the past few months, I have noticed a huge improvement at all activities, general body awareness, and injury prevention. As my coach always says, “Stronger people are harder to kill, and just more useful in general.”

The main premise behind the way I have been training is high intensity work outs, for relatively short periods of time, while blending a multitude of movements. The idea is to just go hard until you are finished with the prescribed work out. No rests, no quitting early, just charging until you are done.

I think most people would agree that whitewater kayaking is a workout in itself. It demands core strength, balance, quick reaction time, and of course, focus. But what about using kayaking as only part of a work out?

So I built a workout incorporating kayaking, running, carrying the kayak, loading the kayak on the car, and driving to from the put in to the take out.

Check out this video and let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Tom Potter