Muscle groups involved in dragonboating

[Vault Boy]

Anyone got a detailed academic idea of what particular muscle groups are involved during dragon boating?

[dboater]

I would say the 'punching arm's' front deltoid do alot of work 'punching' the paddle into the water and withdrawing them for recovery. The trapezius probably got worked because of the punching too. The lats are involved too due to the lifting and lowering of the punching arm.

The pulling arm rear deltoid, lats from the pulling action. The forearm got a lot of workout from flipping the paddle.

The main torso muscled of the abs and lower back will be involved due to the twisting motion.

The legs are probably involved in a small way when you 'kick' the boat.

Anymore academic I don't know already.  

[Nautilus]

I would say the 'punching arm's' front deltoid do alot of work 'punching' the paddle into the water and withdrawing them for recovery....

I would agree with most of the muscle groups involved except for the delts of the punching arm. The front delts would probably be used yes but very minimally. If your stroke is correct, the punching motion, or spearing motion only requires that the blade be fully immersed in water before the pull and the degree of movement is minimal. Also the recovery action will be assisted by 'flip'. Thus the front deltoids should not be involved in alot of strain.

The major 'weight' of the punch should be borne by the  traps and lower back. The rear delt would be utilised during the pull as you bring your punching arm towards you. Note that the punching arm now  guides the paddle to be as vertical as possible during the pulling motion. This increases the force applied to the paddle for the entire pulling stroke before the recovering flip. (Compare this to allowing the paddle to be swept backwards at an incline in the water. The force applied in water decreases with the angle of incline.)

[dboater]

you mentioned minimal degree on movement, i presume you are talking about the degree of raising and lowering of the arm. I would not say its minimal since I feel my delts being sore after a good training.

[merman]

dboater, the soreness would probably be the rotator cuffs not the posterior deltoids. The think the punching of the paddle wont go so deep that your posterior delts will be activated.

Lower back is super important, especially when you need to do long strokes. Any good lower exercise to recommend?  :wink:

[Vault Boy]

try doing 'good morning'. put a bar behind ur neck on the shoulders. bend forward like you are bowing to someone while keeping the back straight or slightly arched throughout the motion. this exercise was made famous when bruce lee injured his back doing it to failure.

[Nautilus]

oh of course, we forgot about the hip-flexor, which is hit quite hard from rocking the torso to & fro. Usually the side of the hip next to the gunwale is the one that got 'nuked' pretty bad. perhaps because im not that tall, and thus my leaning has to be more pronounced to achieve the same stroke length as the rest of the crew  :p  :shrug:

[Vault Boy]

what is exactly the hip flexor? Isn't t more like abs that got trained when you rock your body to and fro?

[Dayna]

hip flexor is the part where your torso connects to your thighs.