For the body pull-up, lie face-up on the floor under the edge of a table and wrap your fingers around the edge of the table.  Your arms should be near straight and hands about shoulder-width apart.  With knees bent about 90 degrees, pull your chest up to touch the underside of the table and lower back down.

A minimum of 10 to 30 minutes wall-sitting (interrupted by body pulls) will make this session worthwhile.  For example, work on a four-minute rotation:  Start with two minutes of wall-sitting, then hop under the table and do 20 body pulls at your leisure, aiming to finish just before the four minutes is up.  Repeat the rotation five times, increasing the duration of the wall-sit slightly each time, to total 20 minutes. 

Simulator training:

No wind, too much wind, too cold, broken mast and so on are all good excuses not to do your scheduled on-water session.  In these situations you can bring your sailing simulator out to play.  There are a few different ways to go about this, depending on what you sail. 

Go for a short run, ride or skip to get the circulation going, and then stretch all your tight muscles before beginning you simulator exercises. 

For hikers, plan to stay hiking (on and off) for 10 to 30 minutes or more to get some benefit, and longer to approximate the duration of a long-course race.

 

There are a number of variations that can be used to help maintain interest. You could watch a video of yourself sailing, trying to mimic the actions and thoughts that would take place on the water. You could attach a ‘mainsheet’ (made of rope and shock cord) and hold a tiller extension in the other hand to simulate your sheeting and steering actions. Or, just watch TV, read a book or listen to music while hiking. Whatever, include ‘tacks’ in your routine to give yourself a break and to (albeit temporarily) increase the comfort level.

 

It’s not hard to make yourself a hiking bench out of wood or fibreglass and appropriate designs can be found, for example, on Laser class websites.  First, measure the dimensions of your boat, particularly the distance from the hiking strap to the gunwale.  Use heavy screws of bolts to secure the pieces together because you’ll be placing quite a load on the bench, as you get fitter.

Once completed, you should add a ‘hike-o-matic’ – a round bar placed under and perpendicular to the longitudinal frame of the bench.  The bench is now a mini sea-saw, which will rock back when you hike hard enough.  You can put markings on the bench and move the bar in or out to adjust how hard you need to hike to rock backwards.  Now, you can actually record how long and how hard you are hiking.

It’s difficult to set-up a simulator for a crew of a two-handed boat, so it’s easier to anchor your boat solidly on its trolley or trailer, jump in and do boat-handling work.  The boat should be rigged with all relevant ropes, but there’s no real need to fly any sails.  Sheets can be tied off or shock cord added to simulate the wind.  Practice moving through the boat during a tack and pay attention to where each hand and foot fall.  Try to develop a consistent pattern of movement.  Practice spinnaker sets and gybes in a similar fashion.

© Michael Blackburn

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