Workout suggestions - whitewater kayaking

[Soapdish]

Happy Monday, everyone.

 

Hooray for Daylight Savings Time!  There's almost enough sun to go kayaking after work!

 

OK, I started working on diet and exercise in December (with some slippage for the holidays, of course) in preparation for this year's whitewater kayaking season.  I've dropped about 20lbs since last season and I can feel a change in how my boat handles (for the better) already.  I'm doing mostly Paleo (80/20 is a good guesstimate - life's too short to not have beer and pizza with friends) and my workout has been yoga twice a week and (the much-loathed here at NF) elipitical machine four days a week (I had planned on running but I had a knee doing weird things).  While I have no love for weight training I'm seriously thinking about adding it to my routines.  Here's where the questions start to come in....

 

When the water is up I'm planning on going playboating after work whenever possible, but that's not exactly predictable.  Sometimes it's every day for two weeks, sometimes it's not at all for two weeks.  What are some ideas of balance between cardio/strength/yoga/kayaking?  Given the desired rest periods for strength training, is going boating before/after going to negatively impact either my boating or my strength recovery?  This also becomes a question of time balance as well.  I'd still like to keep my 2x a week yoga for sure and that I can figure out how to fit but the rest?  What's a good balance?

 

Thoughts for the n00b?

[Kishi]

Well, if you want some thoughts...

 

one of the things that we try to do as nerds is we try to get really super efficient with everything that we do. Everything is suddenly an opportunity to workout and exercise, and we want to get the most out of it, with the least amount of pain we can possibly experience.

 

When it comes to play activities, though, it gets really tricky to quantify activity. I mean, take a look at kayaking. In kayaking, you are propelling a boat downriver, navigating it by paddle. You're working a push, a pull, and engaging your core to a certain extent, within a rapidly changing environment.

 

Even if you go down the same stretch of river, there's no guarantee that you're going to hit the exact same conditions day by day. I mean, really, are you going to make sure that you go down the river in just such a way that you have to deal with one set of rocks on the left exactly the same way each time, and hit the next current exactly the same way each and every time? Really?

 

Why encumber something you enjoy so much with so much baggage?

 

I'm going to offer you a pair of definitions that I picked up from Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body. Exercise is any routine thing you submit your body to with the expectation of producing adaptation. It can be running, yoga, calisthenics/weight training. So long as it's a measurable, trackable thing, it's exercise. Recreation is anything you do that you enjoy, regardless of the physical component. Kayaking is recreation in this definition, as is my beloved martial arts, even if it does give you a workout. The reason for this distinction is specifically to address the difficulties in quantifying such unorthodox physical activity.

 

You exercise so that you can enjoy recreation. That is the proper relationship between the two.

 

As far as recovery, time balance, and the things you desire to do... a lot of that is up to you. As discomfiting as it may be, you have to figure out for yourself what your body can handle. If you can eat right and sleep right, and your body can do three days of strength training, two days of yoga (which is its own kind of strength training [no, really]), and kayaking every day, then what are the numbers to tell you anything? Set some goals, try 'em out, listen to what your body tells you, and do what it says.

 

/rant

 

Does that address any of your questions?

[Soapdish]

That was actually a very long and well thought out response.  Thank you.  My body is a bad judge for advice, tho.  It wants me to stay at home and eat pizza.