From Kid to Athlete - A Transition that Requires Your Full Attention

Opti sailing is great. And some kids will start sailing the Opti as young as 5 year old.  It's an amazing evolution, when they are learning new skills, participating in their first green fleet races, but also meeting many new friends.

The years go on, and then, the kid is ... growing ... reaching adolescence, and getting better and better at sailing. And then, the Optimist, which was just a bit of a big toy, is becoming a demanding race boat - and physical fitness becomes increasingly important.

And physical fitness is getting even more important when the Opti sailors moves to a larger boat - the Laser, the 420, the 29er or another dinghy class.

In Canada, you can't count on sailing time on the water for your kid to get fit, because of the very short sailing season. In fact, this is a problem also in countries with much longer sailing seasons.

So kids need to get fit for their sailing, and train at the gym and/or do other sports to best prepare for sailing.

Sailing requires a well rounded physical fitness, including endurance, strength including core strength, speed, flexibility.

Proper physical fitness is synonym to injury prevention. Sailing is not at all an injury free sport. Most common injuries involve the lower back and knees. There are other types of injuries that can occur, including concussions and shoulder dislocation.

Injury prevention requires a careful choice of the boat being sailed, and proper physical fitness. Failure to pay attention to this can not only lead to injury, but also bring your sailor to dislike the sport and simply abandon it.

- choice of the boat: it's critical to select a boat that is appropriate to the sailor's skills, weight, strength - for single handed, this clearly stresses the role of a transition single-handed boat after the Optimist - and, as discussed elsewhere in this blog, this transition boat is now the Laser 4.7 ; and for double-handed boats, the most logical choice out of the Opti is the Club 420 - or possibly the I420 and 29er - taking into account that higher crew weight and skills are required for the two latter boats.

- physical preparation: the sailors needs to adopt a well rounded physical fitness, including endurance, strength including core strength, speed, flexibility, which can be done in part through other sports, or through time spent at the gym with a proper training plan. Mountain / trail cycling is typically recommended for sailor's fitness preparation, not only for cardio, but for muscular strengthening that is particularly appropriate for hiking.   There is a range of approaches for physical preparation at the gym - something we will check in more details in another post. We will also cover in another post selected scientific publications focusing on dinghy sailors typical injuries and appropriate fitness approaches for them.

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