Using Body Weight when you Paddle

Using body weight is a really important topic to discuss for several reasons. I’m going to talk about the ways in which you use your body weight when you paddle and how to use your body weight to improve different aspects of your stroke technique like steering and board trim. The SUP stroke is a complex, full-body movement. I’m going to talk about how to use your entire body throughout your stroke to propel your board.

Whether you realize it or not, you are using your body weight when you’re paddling. You’re already doing it. Let’s make sure you’re conscious of it and you’re doing it right. How you move your body weight on the board affects how the board moves through the water.

1. Using Body Weight to Steer Your Board

One of the things I talk about often is steering your board and paddling in a sidewind. I’ve talked a lot about your placing more body weight on one foot or the other, shifting weight from side to side in order to steer your board.

I see it a lot, paddlers end up putting a little bit more weight on their paddling side. Every time you take a stroke on that side, in order to paddle in a straight line, the goal is to keep equal body weight in your feet and have your board ride smooth and level through the water. What happens often when we are unconscious of this, is we end up putting more body weight on one side and then to the other.  This causes our board to tip from side to side. What that does is, the side that I am weighing down into, that rail of the board digs into the water a little bit more, and that’s actually going to steer me. It’s not going to turn the board a lot, but it’s going to steer the board away from that side of the board which I am placing more weight

If I’m doing that consciously, I’m going to use a little bit more body weight onto the opposite side that I want to steer. So if I want to steer my board to the left, say I have the wind coming from the left side and I want to steer my board upwind a little bit so I’m not just getting blown down, I’m going to put more body weight on the right side of my board. I’m going to sink the right rail in the opposite way that I want to steer. That’s one of the most common ways we’re using body weight and not even realizing it or maybe we’re realizing it, but that’s definitely something to always be practicing when you’re trying to go in a straight line.

Keeping your body weight equal in both feet and not leaning from one side to the other. Not putting extra weight in that paddling side leg every time  you take a stroke, not leaning one side to the other. Hopefully you can see and feel that. But if you can’t feel it, I recommend video analysis to have your stroke checked. Look at the nose of your board. Is it tipping from side to side? Can you make it ride more smoothly through the water? So a lot more on that in my topics on steering your board.

2. Using Body Weight to Trim your Board

Another way that we are using our body weight when we paddle is to trim your board. The trim of your board is how much of the length of your board from the front (nose) to the back (tail) is in the water.

I just discussed using bodyweight side to side. Now I’m talking about back to front. The further forward I stand on my board, the more I trim the nose down. The further back I stand on my board, the more I trim the tail down. This effects how your board moves through the water.

Different board shapes ride slightly differently. Most boards are made to stand right in the center of the board, right next to the handle. However once the board is up to speed, that center trim point shifts slightly forward of the handle. Most of the time I see people standing too far back on their board. You can use the shifting of your body weight forward and back on your board to adjust the trim to your advantage.

You see this in a big way in downwinding, or surfing. In downwinding or even in any sort of wind, any sort of chop, we are trying to always have the nose of the board riding (depending on the shape of your board) just above the water. We don’t want the nose to be going down and hitting the waves. We don’t want the nose to be way up. We want it to be at all times using as much water line of the board as we can. If we’re in dynamic water, if we have waves, even chop or boat wakes, the water is not perfectly flat. And we need to use our body weight to constantly adjust the trim of the board.

At all times, we use our body weight from side to side to keep the board moving level through the water and we use our body weight from front to back  to maintain the longest waterline of the board by adjusting the trim. We’re always steering one direction or the other and there’s always a little bit of movement to the water, so we’re always going to be adjusting our trim a little bit.

That can be as simple as leaning a little body weight forward or a little body weight back. It can be as subtle as a very small stagger of your feet. You can also do it when you’re drafting. Usually I’ll get back a few inches on my board when I’m drafting so the nose lifts up a little bit, so I can ride the wake of the board of the person in front of me better. Not all boards are the same so you need to practice with moving your body weight on the board to see how that affects it’s glide through the water.
Play with it!

If you have a GPS on your board, even better. You can adjust several inches in one direction or the other, even just a couple inches in one direction or the other. You can play with staggered stance and watch as you’re shifting your body weight forward and backwards. This is great to practice when you’re doing upwind, downwind shifting the body weight forward to get the nose down and shifting the body weight back to get the nose up.

3. Using Body Weight at the Catch

Your distance per stroke is going to factor into your speed. Your distance per stroke is not how far in front of you you can reach. It’s how far in front of you you can get your blade to set.  The reason we use the word “catch” is we’re trying to have our paddle enter the water and we’re trying to catch like we’ve grabbed onto the water so that when we pull our body past the paddle, the paddle is stuck in that spot and we’re not pulling our paddle back towards us. We’ve grabbed on to the water for leverage.

We’re trying to set our blade, and pull ourselves past our paddle. A better indicator of distance per stroke than how far you can reach, is how far out in front of you you can fully bury your blade. I want my paddle to enter the water with forward momentum, to match the momentum of the board.  I want to get my paddle blade fully buried as far out in front of me as possible as opposed to having it be closer to me by the time it’s set. Again, use video analysis to see how far out in front of your, your blade is being set.

The way that I like to coach this is by using the whole entire body. I like to think about the paddle as an extension of my body, and I’m actually using my body to propel myself. I’m trying to think about using my whole entire body to propel myself, as opposed to thinking about using my paddle to pull myself, or using my paddle to propel myself. Like being a pole vaulter.

Therefore the main way that I’m make a fully buried stroke happen us by using my entire body and my body weight.

Here’s a brief break down: The knees bend, the hips flex, the spine stays straight, my upper body lowers down as a result of a hip hinge, not from bending over. The entire body is going forward and in. To get the forward momentum at the catch, at the same time the ankles also flex.

The forward part is ankle flexion.You hear Larry Cain say it as ski boots.

My body weight is on my paddle. It’s holding me up.

If your ankles are tight, this is an area that can be mobilized. You can do ankle mobilities in your warmups in your on land sessions. (I have an entire drill on the forward and in forward and down drill as well as a video on ankle mobility exercises in my Drill Video Series here!) I highly recommend ankle stretching and strengthening exercises because we use them a lot in paddlers.

If you’re good at using your body weight, or if you’re practicing using your body weight, you’re going to be using your ankles a lot.

Quick recap:  Your paddle goes forward and in, body goes forward and down. That forward momentum at the catch is important and keeping a nice neutral spine and stabilized core when you make that happen is important.

Another reason why using body weight at the catch is helpful is because if I actually do transfer weight onto my paddle, and if you’ve ever watched some of my drill videos before and some of the drills, the heels even lift up to exaggerate this… But if you actually are getting body weight onto the paddle, your board is getting lighter because body weight coming off your board onto the paddle. So the board actually lifts up in the water a bit every time you take a stroke. So when your board lifts up and glides up on top of the water a little bit more it’s going to move through the water lighter and easier again, similar to pole vaulting, I’m going to transfer my weight onto my paddle and I’m going to get my body weight up and over.

So when we’re paddling, we’re pulling our hips or our body past the paddle and that’s how we’re propelling ourselves. Paddle goes in the water, we pull ourselves past it.The movement is generated from the hips. So if I got my body weight onto my paddle, the pull, or the drive, is actually getting my body weight back up underneath me.

Im summary, you can practice equal body weight, trimming your board and using body weight at the catch by using my Drill Video Series here.

Thanks for reading another monthly Seychelle SUP blog post.

Keep following for more!