Winter training has settled into a routine allowing David time, uninterrupted by the distraction of travel or competition, to concentrate on perfecting stroke technique and overall consistency.
On the water twice a day and under the watchful eye of his coach, attention is paid to the small and subtle changes required to improve performance. For David, this means that he has double the work as he is training once in the C1 canoe to better his individual performance and once with C2 partner Richard Hounslow in the double canoe.
The team has a morning slot booked on the white water course, but this is first preceded with a warm up session on the flat water. Starting with some gentle paddling, David builds up the pace and then brings in some turning strokes for flexibility and sprints to improve heart rate. Then on to the white water course, the training gets technical. Explaining, David said, “With each race so fast, there are only small gains to be made at each point, but they can make all the difference.”
“Upstream gates, the red ones, are my main focus at the moment. You’re paddling against the current; it’s how you tackle the water flow, how adapting your stroke at a point approaching the gate will improve the outcome. Working with my coach, I’ll maybe paddle through two to four gates, the coach will be videoing it. We’ll re-run it and discuss what was done, what can be adapted: then I’ll do it all over again. We’ll cover 100 upstream gates in a session; consistency is what I’m aiming for.”