How to be comfortable in a sea kayak | Sea kayak comfort and agility

How to be comfortable in a sea kayak | Sea kayak comfort and agility

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This video is about an unusual way to adjust the backrest of your sea kayak to allow you to paddle efficiently. And still leaves you comfortable to kayak all day long.

And what can happen if you don’t have a good back rest.

You want to be able to use your legs to move your thighs forward and back.

To have more power for your forward stroke.

And get your pelvis moving.

For more of the flexibility that makes you agile and comfortable in the conditions.

It requires rotation.

But how do you rotate like that and keep your back against a back rest?

If you don’t rotate you will be using a lot of arms in your paddling. And you will likely be slow, and get tired quickly. You may develop elbow and shoulder pain.

My favorite backrest is no backrest. Nothing. The first thing I do when I get a new kayak is take the back rest off.

That may be a little extreme. I could keep it there and not use it for paddling. And I would have the option to lean back and rest my back every now and again.

Another option is just to have a piece of foam in the middle of your back. It doesn’t have to come up very high. A little bit of support on your lower back can help you, without interfering with your forward stroke too much.

What I like for paddling is an upright posture that encourages a healthy curve in my lower back. I find it helps me get more rotation.

More importantly, it’s what keeps my back healthy.

In fact I think paddling like this is what completely healed a degenerated disk in my lower back.

Now if you’re used to leaning back on the back rest, you can expect to have very tired back muscles the first few times you try paddling without it.

You want to build this up slowly.

As the muscles around your spine become stronger, you will likely find that you have more power and agility.

Paddling becomes a healthy workout that leaves you feeling stronger than you imagined possible. Especially if you’re a more mature paddler.

And if you ever have back pain, don’t be surprised if this makes it go away completely.

You may be wondering “how do you stay in place if you’re not making contact with a backrest as you paddle?”


If you want more agility, and you want to learn how to outfit your kayak to make this work, sign up for my free “unlock your agility” mini course.

Just click on the link in the description below this video.

Thanks for watching.