Competition warm-up strategies in sub-elite and elite flat-water sprint kayak athletes

ABSTRACT

This study compared warm-up strategies employed by sub-elite and world-class elite sprint kayak athletes, evaluating their impact on subsequent race performance. Forty-seven (n = 33 male, n = 14 female) athletes competing at a National Sprint Kayak Championships had Global Navigation Satellite System devices fitted to their kayak to measure speed, distance and stroke rate during the on-water warm-up before racing (OW_WU), and during racing. The OW_WU total duration, average/peak speeds and stroke rates, and the time spent in speed-zones classified based upon athletes’ relative race-pace (low-to-moderate, moderate-to-high, and race-specific) were compared between events, sexes, and athlete standard. The relationship of these variables to subsequent race performance, expressed as a percentage of the best time-to-completion for each event (%racebest), was also examined. Women spent greater OW_WU time at moderate-to-high and race-specific speeds compared to men prior to 200-m and 500-m races (P ≤.001). Sub-elite men reported greater total OW_WU duration for 200-m and 500-m (P ≤.025), but not for 1000-m races (P >.05) compared to elite men. Finally, %racebest had large inverse correlations to OW_WU peak speed for men’s 200-m (r = −.53), and average stroke rate for women’s 500-m races (r = −.50). This study provides valuable insight for competition warm-up routines based upon data from an elite athlete population.

KEYWORDS:

• On-water
• speed
• racing
• regatta
• performance
• intensity

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the athletes for their assistance with this study. The authors also extend their appreciation to the South Australian Sports Institute, the New South Wales Institute of Sport, the Queensland Academy of Sport and Paddle Australia for their assistance with this research. Finally, the authors wish to thank Ramon Andersson for his assistance with this research and Dr Leanne Lester for her assistance with the statistical analysis section of this manuscript.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2020.1857105.

Additional information

Funding

The author, Cruz Hogan, was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and a Western Australian Institute of Sport, High Performance Research Centre Scholarship. The authors did not receive external funding for this study and do not have any conflicts of interest that are directly related to the described content of this manuscript.