Outdoor Adventurous Activities- Physical Endurance or Technical Skills?

A topic of conversation that often arises when looking into Outdoor Adventurous Activities and everything that they consist of is the argument of are they purely sports designed and catered for athletes who have a high tolerance and physique for competing and performing or are they a little more complex than that looking at the technique, body position and co-ordination required to succeed in various activities within the Outdoor Industry.

From my personal opinion I would see majority of outdoor activities to be a balance of both characteristics but on closer inspection; examples such as Kayaking I would see as having a larger proportion of Physical Endurance required than technical skill seeing it as a hands on, quick on your feet style of sport. In contrast I would see Canoeing as a gentler, technical sport although it does require physical endurance to initially power the canoe, once up and running the sport requires a more technical stroke in order to maintain the boat’s drive through the water. When the title ‘Canoeing’ is mentioned my initial interpretation, when I think canoeing I picture the classic Native American paddling along a vast open expanse of lake, calm, relaxed and tranquil in setting as the canoe softly glides on route to its destination. Within this visualisation can be seen some of the personal prejudices I have picked up taken from my background in Outdoor Education as each individual will interpret each sport differently.

                                Figure 1. Kayaking on White-Water (The Kayaking Journal, 2011).

The technical skill side of activities appears as part of the muscle memory section of learning as you aim to improve and perfect your technique you compile methods and stages of memory in order to allow you to know as well as feel when you’re completing that technique correctly. In water-sports particularly such as Kayaking, Sailing and Dragonboating all from my personal experience the thought of ending a session less focused on physical endurance and instead more focused upon achieving the best possible technique in order to end on a high note is a key importance in the coaching of individuals. If as a coach you are able to get the participant to finish each session on a good point having achieved even the slightest of things from the session this will in turn gradually improve the person’s abilities, boosting their self-efficacy along with their confidence. The last strokes of a session are the ones the paddler will recall at the start of their next session in order to build upon being at the fore-front of their minds; in this case if the paddler ends the session with a poor, un-coordinated technique thus will set the foundations for error and bad habits along the paddler’s development stage.

Figure 2. Dragonboating (Georgetown Penang Heritage Site, 2009).

In evaluating all this I believe that the physical endurance side can be developed by individuals over time by committing to the activity and perceiving throughout training and competitions aspiring to have the attitude to want to do better, whereas the technical skill side of the activity is part of the core fundamentals of all sports and these should carry the weight of most coaching sessions whilst also aiming to strike a balance somewhere between the two characteristics.

Image References

Georgetown Penang Heritage Site, (2009). Penang International Dragon Boat Festival - Georgetown Penang Heritage Site. [online] Available at: http://georgetown-penang.com/cultural-events/penang-international-dragon-boat-festival/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

The Kayaking Journal, (2011). Are you nuts? Why White Water Kayaking?. [online] Available at: https://kayakjournal.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/are-you-nuts-why-white-water-kayaking/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].