An examination of the on-water forces developed by elite and sub-elite sprint kayak paddlers

The aim of this study was to measure and analyse the on-water forces developed by sprint kayak paddlers to determine those biomechanical characteristics that made one paddler more successful than another. Ten male subjects (5 elite and 5 sub-elite) participated in this study where forces were rneasured1 using a system developed by Aitken and Neal (1992) 1 as they raced over 500m. Significant differences (p<.05) were found for the time the paddle was in contact with the water1 the time to peak force, stroke distance and the coefficient of variation of force time curves. It was found that the elite paddlers mean stroke distance was 1.67m whereas sub-elite stroke distance was 1.45m and that the paddle was in contact with the water for an average time of 0.39s and 0.34s (elite and sub-elite respectively) 1 with peak force being reached in 0.18s (sub-elite 0.16s). A very small co-efficient of variation (7%) was found for the elite paddlers compared to 16% for the sub-elite group.