Together with your legs, your torso (core and back muscles) is responsible for generating most of the power of your paddle stroke.

In another paddling tip https://hamptoncanoeclub.org/legs-and-hips/ we discussed how alternately pushing against the footrest with each leg rotated your pelvis on the seat. Your torso should follow this rotation which starts at the hips i.e. your torso is effectively ‘locked’ into your hips. Common errors include nicely rotating your hips on the seat but not continuing the rotation of your torso using your core muscles to assist, or more commonly, not rotating your hips and starting the rotation at the base of your spine (or of course not rotating at all!). In other words, your whole torso from hips upwards should be rotating in unison: the whole unit driven by your legs.

For most efficient paddling and torso rotation, we need to be sitting up straight and tall on the seat or leaning (not hunching) slightly forward from the hips. Think about a string being attached to the top of your head pulling you upwards.

Core strength is key to good paddling technique as well as stability in the boat – something we can all work on.