Exercise - Regular Plank (Core Training)

1. Stay suspended between your elbows and feet on the prone position with your body held straight;
2. Move your hip up and down in a slow and controlled manner.

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Exercise - Side Plank (Core Training)

1. Keep your body suspended on one elbow and both legs with your hip held at such a distance from the floor to make sure that your body is straight.
   Raise your other arm up above, in line with your shoulders;
2. Slowly lower and raise your hip and d as many reps as you are able in a controlled manner;
3. Change side and try to perform the same number of reps.

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Exercise - Superman (Core Training)

1. Lie on the floor face down (prone) and arms spread overhead the way Superman flies;
2. Slowly raise and curl up your arms and legs (it is important that your elbows and knees are off the floor);
3. Hold this position of raise arms and legs and curled up trunk and slowly lower one arm and the opposite leg to the floor and alternate raising and lowering your opposite arms and legs.

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Exercise - Straight Leg Twist (Core Training)

1. Lie on the floor with your arms spread and legs held in a 90 degree angle to your trunk;
2. Slowly rotate your legs down in the direction of the floor while maintaining the 90 degree angle and rotating your head in the opposite direction simultaneously;
3. Slowly raise your legs to the original position and start rotating them downwards on the other side while rotating your head in the opposite direction.

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Exercise - Abdominal Crunch (Core Training)

The core is the place where most paddling movements originate, find their platform and where they enhance or cancel out each other. The muscles of the core also have the structurally important task of protecting the spine and maintaining healthy posture.

Most of the power propelling the boat or board forward are generated by and are passing through the core. Core training is the foundation, the base on which strength training for paddle sports is built on.
The most important core muscles involved in paddling actions are the abdominal obliques, abdominal rectus, lats, serratus, iliopsoas, spinal erector, trapezoid, gluteus and pectorals muscles.

Of the above core muscles list is the so-called "serape" muscles, the lats, rhomboid, serratus and external and internal obliques are the most important originators of movements involving rotation. These muscles are wrapped around the trunk diagonally and it is fair to say that every paddle stroke finds its origin in the stretch-shortening cycle of the serape muscles.

 

There are several exercises that improve core strength. The basic exercise is the abdominal crunch that is aimed at both the abdominus obliques and abdominal rectus muscles. 

1. Lie on a mat with your legs drawn up and hands touching your temples;
2. Press the small of the back into the floor and rotate your trunk up diagonally moving your elbow in the direction of the opposite knee;
3. Slowly lower our trunk back into the starting position and , again, press the small of your back into the floor and rotate your trunk up diagonally with your other elbow moving in the direction of the opposite knee.

Alternate sets of the above xcrunches with regular crunches where you curl your trunk up straight with both elbows moving in the direction of the knees now left elbow to left knee and right elbow to right knee.

 

It is very important to intitiate each repetition with a powerful pelvic tilt, that is pressing the low back into the floor with a slow and controlled manner.

 

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Plyometric Exercises

Plyometric Execises are performed with fast and powerful movements. They develop muscle power and improve specific and overall speed. The muscles undergo a forced eccentric action where they are being stretched and this eccentric action is immediately followed by a powerful concentric action (countermovement).

One needs a good strength base in order to be able to perform plyometric exercises safely. Without a good strength base, the shock of the powerful and repetitive stretch/shortening cycles might overwhelm the tissues and may cause injuries.

There are several plyometric exercises, such as sky jumps, frog jumps, power skating, death jumps, lateral jumps, etc. we will start with the Sky Jump and the Frog Jump.

See videos below (1. Sky Jump  2. Frog Jump).

Exercise - Hand Clap Foot Clap Rebound Push Up

The Hang Clean is a dynamic full body exercise where 85% of the power generated comes from the powerful muscle actions of the legs and hips. Once you have perfected the execution of the Hang Clean and you are able to perform 3 sets of 20 reps with a pair of 10 lbs dumbbells, you can learn another dynamic, full body exercise that is focused on the upper body and the core.

The Hand Clap Foot Clap Rebound Push Up is an explosive, full body exercise way superior to the "static" bench press. While doing bench press tends to increase muscle mass and decrease muscle speed, the Hand Clap Foot Clap Rebound Push Up has exactly the opposite effect: it increases muscle speed without developing a disfunctional mass.

It is a very demanding exercise that stresses the muscle a lot more than regular push ups. Before you attempt to do it, make sure that you can do at least 20 push ups correctly and very fast.

At first, just to generate enough power to be able to get your hands airborne at the end of full arm extension. Once you are able to get airborne at least 10-12 times with some rest in between, try to do it continuously by freefalling from the air, preloading your triceps and pecs and rebounding up in the air (this is called the rebound push up).

When you are able to perform 10-12 rebound push ups in a continuous manner, try to propel your self up with such a force that you can do a hand clap before the start of the freefall. This will need a more powerful and more explosive muscle action of the pecs, triceps, anterior deltoids and of the abs and the iliopsoas muscles as well.

The next step is to propel yourself up with even more force and the added involvement of the hip flexors so that you are able to perform a foot clap as well.

I must emphasize that this is a very demanding exercise where you repeatedly load and reload your muscles and force them to perform powerful countermovements (your body moves with full speed in one direction and immediately at full speed in the opposite direction) and the demands placed on the muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments are huge. Tissue repair and adaptive changes take a lot more time. It is very important that you progress gradually and give at least 48-72 hours for your body to recover.