You are hereWintertime for Laser Sailors
Wintertime for Laser Sailors
Stress and Recovery
I was working on my Laser sailing today as I sat reading a book and tending the fireplace. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not kidding myself into thinking that carrying the logs inside and lifting them into the log holder is building performance strength. No, this is my time for recovery.
Anybody who regularly works-out to increase strength, endurance and boat-handling skills needs time away from the grind, and I use my winter time for that. Performance training requires work and rest.
Muscles develop increased strength and endurance from being stressed to the point of breakdown and then being allowed to build additional capacity during a recovery period. If you skip the recovery periods then you will start to break down muscles even more before they have time to rebuild and eventually you will also break down your immune system and general health.
Your fitness will also benefit from longer breaks from the routines of your sport training. During these longer breaks your body thoroughly recovers and stabilizes. When you begin again to train you are working with a more resilient basic foundation. The interesting thing is that you will also be able to build to a bit higher level of performance strength each year.
The first year you stress your quads, knees and abdominal muscles on your Laser you will not have the durability you will have after a couple of years of training and sailing. This is one of the reasons that starting out sailing on a lake where the stresses are less is a great strategy for long-term sailing health.
If you don’t work very hard at building your strength and endurance then taking time off is unnecessary.
As you may have figured out from these writings, I’m past the age when my body recovers with just a day of rest; this is of course one of the delights of aging. I seem to need about two days when I’ve pushed my workout past the maintenance stage.
So, as the snow comes and goes I do light workouts and longer recoveries. More on this next time.
Base Building
Sailing performance is built on a foundational base-layer of fundamental fitness. Your foundational fitness is a combination of strength and aerobic capacity. Many people who exercise are surprised by how one builds this base layer of fitness – long, slow, aerobic workouts year after year.
When your body is asked to perform endurance feats like staying active throughout a multi-race day or a multi-day regatta, it will burn fuel – either carbohydrates or fat. You have very little carbohydrates stored in your body (perhaps 2000 cal) but lots of fats (perhaps 100,000 cal), so if your body can learn to burn fat during endurance events you will have more staying power. Slow long workouts to build a base of fitness will teach your body to use its more plentiful fat stores.
When I’m building my base for Laser sailing I do lots of cross-training on my bike, treadmill and elliptical or rowing machines, but the bike is my main equipment. Bicycling is a great prep for sailing a hiking-boat like the Laser. Cycling puts demands on your quads, requires your core muscles to work at keeping balance and calls for aerobic capacity.
I start eight to twelve weeks before the sailing season begins; January 1st has a nicepush to it for an April 1st launch. Each week I try to get in three aerobic workouts (not too hard), every other day. And I try for two to three strength building workouts per week.
I have no flexibility, so I go for stretching after every workout and before I go to bed if I can wake up enough to remember. By mid-March I am ready to begin workouts that push me to the top of my aerobic range, but by then I know that I have taught my body to burn those fats during the long regattas.
But the truth, of course is I don’t always get the work done. Hey, I’m old and tired and lack a fundamental base layer of willpower. But the research shows even occasional workouts are superior to no workouts so I plug away at it.
If you’re new to Laser sailing and you’re not a wiz-kid, I want to let you know that an aerobic capacity is helpful on the Laser. I find that when I’m dumped into cold water my heart rate and breathing shoot right up. I have an adrenaline rush, I’m swimming, and I’m climbing onto a centerboard that requires I do a pull-up with my elbows. It’s really handy to have the capacity for a quick recovery once I have the boat back on its bottom.
On a windy day you not only have to endure, you may have to do multiple recoveries, sort of like a marathon with wind-sprints thrown in for the amusement of your fellow competitors.
