A quote from Adam van Koeverden touching on a topic that was recently raised here:

"I'm always a no-bull---- racer. I win heats. I win semifinals. I come prepared to win every race."

I think a lot of teams would benefit more from adopting this kind of attitude and learning how to push themselves beyond their self-imposed limits, rather than racing “strategically” in order to save their strength or get themselves into a lower final so they can win it.

..ok?

That's because in his sport the only way to assure success is to win every race. Winning your heat puts you in the best lane for the semi and winning your semi puts you in the best lane for the final. There is only one winner.

that would be the same in DB, no? Except you can with the "G" final...

No. What organizers consider the best lane isn't necessarily what the best lane is, in practice.

CKC tends to only hold their important regattas at courses where there is no lane bias (ie Ottawa and Welland in Ontario).
Also the stakes are much higher than the trinkets handed out, so you definitely want to be winning the A Final (there are also very few B finals)

Ottawa unbiased? Not fully true - though it is certainly one of the better courses.

The point is that racers would benefit more from learning how to push themselves harder than they would from holding back for whatever reason. Most athletes have to learn how to push through their self-imposed limits (i.e., learning that it hurts - A LOT - to push yourself really hard, and realizing that when you think you're giving everything you can, there's probably a bit more left that you could give). It's not something that comes automatically to most people. I think the erg is a perfect test of this - how much are you prepared to suffer??

Have paddle, will suffer. Lots.

A good athelete won't even be warmed up until after at least 3-4 races. So for most festivals, there is no advantage to paddling below capacity as this simply means you won't be as ready for the final.

Isn't it just the weekend warrior types that go in with the attitude of saving themselves for the final?

He said that he comes prepared to win every heat not that he puts forward 110% effort for every heat. I guarantee you that if he is comfortable in front in a preliminary heat that he backs off and saves something for the races to follow.

Maybe true. But I'm willing to bet that he knows what it feels like to give absolutely every ounce of himself in a race. Most non-elite paddlers probably don't and could thus use all the practice at it that they can get!

Then the question becomes, "how do you get maximum effort out of non-elite paddlers?"

Most non- elite paddlers think they are giving 100% when they have something more to give or something left for the finish. So how do you get the performance from them?

I think there are way too many places to hide in a dragon boat so the strategy would have to include (in addition to whatever you do in the boat) some smaller boats (say OC-2s), or perhaps more realistically, goal-based fitness testing that includes an ergometer test. Goal-based so you have people pushing to outperform themselves each time, and throw the erg in there because it hurts as much as anything I know!

And please note that I'm not talking about stupid pain, like paddling injured or permanently damaging yourself. I'm talking about the kind of pain associated with maximum, sustained physical effort. The kind where it feels like your throat is bleeding, your lungs are going to explode and you want to puke and pass out. You know, the good kind of pain.

You want to learn to push yourself then have the crew train in solo's (oc1) .There is no hiding here folks and the motivation here is you don't want to be ,the guy or guys ,at the back of the pack during sprint training pieces . This shows who is truely pulling their weight and who is not .There are no excuses if your at the back ,it means you are slow ,period .The excuse "I'm better in a dragonboat " is BS and just means you hide while everypone else pulls your "useless ass" down the course . You want to be fast,train solo and push each other.Its amazing how much motivation there is once you see yourself falling behind and then it hits you " Holy Crap ! I better f'n move it or they will think I really suck "

Interesting points, 7:48. I wonder if using a different boat to practice pushing yourself to the limit only works well if you are as proficient in the other boat as in dragon boat?

Maybe it comes down, once again, to very good coaching, with workouts designed to force paddlers to work at varying levels of intensity, including all out. This is much harder to do when coaching crew boats than in singles, and another reason why dragon boat coaching is so hard to do well.

Outrigger does not take that long to learn if you already are a good paddler .Within a month or so you feel fairly comfortable and can reeally start to lay the power down ,so to speak .Take some courses on oc1 as its the closest to dragonboat probably .It will pay off huge in the long run plus you will learn to luv crosstrain and maybe even enter oc1 races

I had a lengthy beer-induced discussion with a coaching buddy of mine after CANMAS (roughly CKC equivalent of DB racing), about the merits of war canoe training over small boats. Some clubs focus on small boats and throw in a couple of war canoe sessions while others do the opposite. It seems that the ones who do the best overall are the ones who practice small boats. (of course they also get points for the small boat races).

So I think there is some merit to spending significant time in small boats (OC 1s seem to be the boat of choice for DB). The challenge might be having the resources to get a DB crew out in small boats.

I agree with comment of getting lost in a dragonboat while others are pulling you. It happens alot and ppl get the delusion that they're really good because they're on a half decent team with strong paddlers.