The Finn Sailor

Most people who sail the Finn successfully are of a special breed. Not only do they have to possess the necessary physique and strength but also required is a commitment, tenacity and endurance to get their body and mind into the peak of physical and mental fitness. Nothing less than this gets a Finn sailor to the top. Winning at Finn sailing represents a pinnacle of achievement and there are no short cuts to success. Mental and physical fitness are as much a part of a top sailors preparation as sailing technique and racing skill. The tough demands that are placed on the body and mind during a typical Finn race fully  justify the seemingly excessive preparation that has gone into producing a world class sailor.

Obviously not all are up to this challenge, but it is surprising how far one can progress towards the ideal and how much your racing can improve as a result with just a fraction of the preparation that the top class sailors put in. The preparation required consists of three main areas: personal, physical and mental. Personal preparation is becoming increasingly important, something as simple as decent accommodation at a championship can play a vital part in a successful campaign. Physical fitness is self obvious in its purposes but understanding the physics of getting fit can aid the process immensely. Mental fitness has an aura of mystique surrounding it but getting it right can pay big dividends.

The Finnster is as organised and efficient on the water as off the water. He wears sensible sailing gear with a high stretch capability so that he is not restricted in his movements around the boat and is comfortable at all times. He makes sure he has all the correct gear on board, including food and drink, writing implements, sailing instructions where needed and a good watch. He has also prepared himself fully for the competition, both physically and mentally.

This section provides an overview of the procedures and training plans that can be utilised in getting you, your body and your mind into a fit enough condition to cope with the physical and mental demands of this most elite of dinghy classes. A better picture can be obtained by reading 'Mental and Physical Fitness for Sailing' by Alan Beggs, John Whitmore and John Derbyshire which covers this material in much more depth.
 

Physical Fitness for Finn Sailing

Fitness is a complicated subject, but it is a subject that is important to all sailors; being fit is vital in order to sail at your best, whatever the weather. However, fitness training must be given some thought: it is possible to train in the wrong way, or to train too hard, or not to train enough, and unless you know a little bit about how the body works, and how it uses energy, getting the best from your body will be difficult.

The fitness training described below is based upon running, but the principles can be applied to other forms of exercise such as cycling or swimming. Running is a good form of all round training for anybody: it conditions the whole body and it is easy to do from home (or anywhere else you might be), and needs no equipment apart from a pair of running shoes and a watch.

Energy

Aerobic Exercise: Sailing needs energy. The liver and muscles in your body store glycogen, which is broken down to provide glucose; in a process called oxidation, glucose is 'burnt' to provide energy. The waste product from this process is carbon-dioxide which is expelled through the lungs. So, if you sail or exercise easily and have a good oxygen intake, you can continue exercising comfortably for long periods. This process is aerobic activity ('with oxygen').

When you exercise, you need oxygen to provide energy, as described above. You are only able to take-in oxygen at a certain rate: this limit is referred to as your maximum steady state and is determined by your physical condition, i.e. your cardiovascular fitness. Your cardiovascular fitness determines how much oxygen you can take in and transport around the body for use: the more oxygen your body can take in and use, the more energy you have, i.e. the fitter you are. The object of training is to raise your maximum steady state limit through the proper type of exercise.

Anaerobic Exercise: Intense activity (i.e. above your maximum steady state) causes the metabolic system of your body to change: the oxidation of glucose to provide energy produces a build-up of a waste product called lactic acid. The reason for this is that some of the glucose is broken down without oxygen (because your cardiovascular system cannot supply sufficient oxygen to maintain your level of activity). This process is  anaerobic activity ('without oxygen').

The result of anaerobic activity is an oxygen debt, and it occurs fairly quickly. The associated build up of lactic acid leads to muscle fatigue and cramp. A recovery from the oxygen debt occurs when (after a reduction in the intensity of exercise) continued oxygen intake allows the lactic acid to be broken down into carbon dioxide to be expelled through the lungs. Anaerobic activity is much less economical than aerobic activity; it has a strict limit, beyond which you cannot continue. However, this limit is again extendable by training.

Lactic acid in the blood-stream not only causes muscle fatigue, but lowers the pH of the blood. Long-term accumulation of lactic acid, caused by very hard long-term training, adversely affects the functions of the bloodstream: the results can be tiredness and a susceptibility to injury or illness.

Fitness
Fitness is made up of several elements, including the energy processes described above, all of which have to be trained in order for your body to be fit. However, it is important to remember that the foundation for all-round fitness is aerobic endurance. The elements of fitness are sometimes known as the S Factors:

• Training for Stamina = long steady running (aerobic)
• Training for Strength =  circuits or weight training for muscular endurance
• Training for Speed = interval training or Fartlek (anaerobic)
• Training for Skill = sailing practice
• Training for Suppleness = flexibility and stretching exercises

Training

Aerobic training: Your aim is to increase your oxygen uptake. These training sessions should be at a sufficient speed and intensity in order to have a training effect on the aerobic energy system, but not too fast (which would build up a lactic acid debt and become anaerobic). Through aerobic training you will improve the efficiency of your cardiovascular system, i.e. the efficiency with which your body extracts oxygen from the air and transports it around the body in the blood and then uses it to provide energy. The heart, which is a muscle just like any other in your body, becomes bigger and improves its efficiency: at each stroke it will pump more blood, and the circulatory system improves. Increased fitness can be measured by the lowered resting heart-rate that results.

Anaerobic training: Your aim is to increase your tolerance to oxygen debt and your ability to recover from it. There are several ways of achieving this but the principle is to intersperse training at a fast pace (which builds up an oxygen debt) with gentle steady running to recover. During the fast runs the amount of lactic acid built up will be determined by the speed and duration of your running.

Training for strength: Your aim is to build up muscle strength and endurance.

Training for skill: Your aim is the development of specific sailing skills.

Training for suppleness: Your aim is the development of flexibility through stretching exercises.

Training concepts
The three concepts important to training are:
1 Your body will adapt to gradual increases: so begin training well within your capabilities and gradually increase the loads as your body adapts.
2 Your body overcompensates: rather than just adapting to the load asked of it, your body overcompensates so as to handle a bit more if necessary.
3 Your body needs time both to adapt and to recover: adequate recovery time between training sessions is of vital importance; build in rest-days as part of your training to allow for this - don’t just go on training hard day after day.

The Training Plan
An all round and thorough training system should be based upon a balanced combination of aerobic and anaerobic training. Your training plan will be different at different times of year to fit in with the sailing calendar but should include four cumulative stages:

Stage 1. Stamina: development of general aerobic endurance.
Aim for 3 to 4 sessions a week. Begin with 15 minutes gentle running and aim to gradually increase this to 30 minutes or more per session. Each session should comprise easy running for the allotted time; if you are getting out of breath you are running too fast and you are not training aerobically. Don't worry about the distance you run - just run for the allotted time, at a steady pace as described. Stage 1 training should last from one to three months.

Stage 2. Strength: development of local muscular endurance.
In addition to 2 to 3 sessions of aerobic running a week, add 1 to 2  sessions (of a minimum of 30 minutes) a week of either circuit training or weight training. The object of this stage is to build up muscle strength and endurance. In addition to general exercises, target those muscles which get particular use in sailing: arms, legs, hiking muscles. Stage 2 training should last from one to two months.

Stage 3. Speed: development of anaerobic capacity.
In addition to 2 to 3 sessions of aerobic running a week and 1 to 2 sessions a week of circuit or weight training, add 1 session a week of interval training. This session should comprise, for example, 5 minutes easy running to warm-up thoroughly, then a 20 minute session made up of 30 seconds of hard, fast running and then 1 to 2 minutes of easy, steady running (or walking) to recover; finish off with 5 minutes easy running. The object of this training is to force the body to build up an oxygen debt in the 30 seconds of hard running and then recover in the easy running in between; you are training your body to cope with anaerobic activity. Stage 3 training should last from four to six weeks.

Stage 4. Skill: development of specific sailing skills.
Having acquired a basic level of general fitness, strength and suppleness, maintain your fitness with 2 to 3 sessions of aerobic running a week (and 1 session a week of circuit or weight training if required), begin spending more time on the water in order to work on specific sailing skills. Maintain your fitness in the same way during the racing season.

Suppleness: development of flexibility through stretching exercises.
This is not a separate stage, but should be included as part of all training at all stages. Stretching exercises should be performed before exercise of any sort, both on land or water. Flexibility avoids injury. Work on all areas of the body, gently loosening up the muscles and stretching them.

Rest: There should be a period of rest, probably at the end of the summer sailing season, when you take a complete rest from racing and training to give your body a total break for recovery.

The Training Sessions
Each training session, from whichever Stage, should go as follows:

1 Warm-up. Raise the pulse rate and begin to warm-up the muscles by walking/jogging around. Then loosen-up the muscles with the flexibility exercises.
2 The main training session: Stamina, Strength, Speed or Skill according the particular Stage you are on, for the allotted time.
3 Lower the pulse rate by gentle exercises, as in the warm-up.

Yearly Schedule
The following is a suggested plan to follow throughout the year, using a build-up of the four stages as described above; it can be adapted as necessary to suit. Your starting point at the beginning of the plan should be based upon your level of fitness at the time: adjust the times and pace of each session accordingly to reflect this. This schedule is aimed at building fitness through the winter, when you will probably be sailing less, and then working on more specific skills and training just prior to the main racing season in the summer, and then maintaining your fitness throughout the racing period. Finally, once the season is over, allow your body a complete rest  for several weeks.

NOVEMBER to JANUARY Stage 1
JANUARY and FEBRUARY Stage 2
MARCH   Stage 3
APRIL onwards  Stage 4
MAY to SEPTEMBER Racing /  Maintenance of fitness
OCTOBER  REST

Finally
Fitness is important; you will not only sail better, but you will enjoy it more and get more out of it (as well as putting more into it!) if you are fit. Fitness should also be thought of as a long-term goal. It is something you build up over the years, and it will not only benefit your sailing, but will give you a healthier and better quality of life as a whole, so its worth aiming for. If you don't try it you'll never know!

Once you have attained a reasonable degree of fitness it is important not to lose it by sustaining an injury through sailing. Correct techniques and procedures should be adopted to minimise the risk of damage whilst sailing. Here, Frank Newton, Chairman of the IYRU Medical Committee and former Finnster explains the types of injuries that can be sustained and avoided.
 

Is There a Finn  Specific Sports Injury?

Tennis Elbow, Jumper's Knee, Footballer's Ankle, Javelin Thrower's and Butterfly Swimmer's Shoulder and Hiker's Knee. Who's knee? Is this to do with long Sunday walks over the countryside? No. It is the condition of knee pain associated with the hiking position in dinghy sailing.

Finn sailing in the early days of the class was nothing like that of the present day because the rig was not comparable. Stiff masts, cotton sails without windows and poor control of the boom made life more difficult for the very early Finn sailor and probably more painful. The sails improved, visibility improved, but it was many years before the elevation of the boom could be controlled with anything like certainty. At that time 'Finn Sailor's Elbow' was the reward for a gybe when the wedge refused to adjust itself, and the boom struck the helm smartly on the not so 'funny bone'!

Today's Finn offers a Rolls Royce ride in comparison, and this better control of the rig also takes away some of the desperate last minute excursions outboard. When the sail was far too full, or rising skywards, rapid leaps outboard with consequent risk of hyperextension or excessive rotation of tilt of the lumbar spine, could result in back injury.

Hiking
The hiking position itself was always different in the Finn to those designs with minimal freeboard. The Laser has to be sailed semi straight-legged with the knees flexed by about 15 degrees. The Finn offered the possibility of taking the knee joint to the gunwhale so that in the full hike the thigh bone lay against the hull side. In this posture knee flexion was about 90 degrees.

In standing, the Centre of Gravity (CG) acts through a vertical line that passes by design close to the hip and knee joints. This results in the muscles working those joints having to do less work in maintaining the upright position. Evolution had sought the most energy effective system.

In most sports the athlete is erect. Fully 30 per cent of young persons have a tendency towards a roughening of the under surface of the patella (knee cap) which tends to rub against the underlying lower end of the thigh bone (femur) when working under a load. This causes the most common 'sports injury' seen in young attenders at the Sports Injury Clinic.

In the hiking position, be it the full hike as in the early Finn helm, the Star crew or the Soling crew; or the semi-hike as in the 470 helm; or the near straight leg hike of the Laser; the line of action of the CG has moved well away from the knee. As a consequence the loading on the patella in pressing against the femoral surface below is altered.

The quadricep muscles, at the front of the thigh, pull strongly upon the upper edge of the patella to which they are fastened. This pull is equalled by the resultant pull on the patella tendon, which anchors the lower edge of the patella to the top of the shin below the knee. There is, because of the bent angle of the knee, a resultant force applying the patella strongly towards the knee joint.

In a relaxed standing position this force may be equal to body weight, at 30 degrees knee bend from the straight position 2-4 times body weight, and at 40 degrees 6 times, rising to 10 times at 70 degrees of bend. With a roughened patella surface this will clearly cause pain in some persons.

Hiking Muscles
Whether there is discomfort does not entirely depend upon whether the patella articular surface is rough. More it depends upon whether the roughness gets into the wrong place, and this depends upon the tracking of the patella along the groove made for it on the lower articular end of the femur. This tracking is determined by the balance in the action of the four component muscles of the quadriceps. Three of the four pull the knee straight but tend to take the patella too far towards the outside, or lateral side of the knee joint. The fourth, the medial quads muscle, also pulls the knee straight but takes the patella towards the inner side of the knee.

There should be a balance. If there is not it is usual for the outer three to win and for the patella to scrape along the outside of the groove and cause pain. In such circumstances the Finn sailor should perform specific physical exercises to improve the medial quads. Any qualified physiotherapist will teach these to you. At times a spell of sailing in the Laser dinghy with its more straight legged hike will be a more enjoyable form of therapy to enable you to return to the Finn with your medial quads in better shape, since they benefit from working in a less flexed position.

Knee Pain
Runners are also troubled by Hiker's Knee in which case it may be called 'Anterior Knee Pain' (AKP), or by the more old fashioned name of 'Chondromalacia Patella' (which is more correctly the name for the roughened patella surface). Biomechanics, the study of mechanical laws relating to body movement, has shown that runners who excessively 'pronate' the feet (flat footed) are helped by lifting the inner side of the foot with an 'orthotic' insert. For every degree the foot pronates the shin bone rotates inwards along its length by one degree. This adversely affects the biomechanics of the knee and the tracking of the patella.

It follows therefore, that in hiking, if the feet are crossed over one another in the toe straps, as when one is tired on a long beat, this affect will be the same as a weary runner pronating his feet and enjoying his AKP. The feet should therefore be alongside one another and the toe straps positioned so that the strap is over the ankle rather than the toe end of the foot. In the case of short persons there should be no element of the sailor straining to reach straps that are just out of reach. This will generate a 'pronation effect'. In particular the aft end of the toe strap should not be in the centreline of the floor. The straps should be parallel to the mid line of the boat if the sailor has AKP, and within easy reach.

Low Back Pain
The avoidance of Low Back Pain (LBP) associated with sailing is best achieved by the adoption of Proper Movement Patterns (PMP) within the dinghy. The lumbar spine (the spine relating to the low back below the ribs) is the origin of the most powerful of the muscles concerned with flexion of the hip joint. Ilios-psoas muscle arises from the five lumber vertebrae and from the inner rim of the pelvis. It is used to bring the body inboard from the hiking position, to hold it in the hiking position, and to lower it rapidly outboard into the hiking position. It will therefore be working concentrically, isometrically or eccentrically. It works in conjunction with Rectus Femoris (RF), which is only one of the quadriceps muscles to cross the hip joint. RF therefore is a knee extensor in holding the angle of the knee fixed in hiking, and also helps Ilios-psoas to move the body inboard and outboard. If the abdominal muscles are not strong enough they fail in their duty in holding the body in a fixed position in relation to the pelvis. The body tends to arch backwards upon the pelvis by an increase in the hollowing of the lumbar area as a result of the strong pull of Ilios-psoas. This is the position of hyperextension. When combined with rotation of the lumbar spine associated with sheeting the sail, or tilting sideways in an effort to move weight fore and aft when going over waves, or worse a combination of all three movements under the stress of the heavy jacket, then this is a recipe for Low Back Pain. In older sailor the stress will be upon the front of the spine and discs, in those still growing upon the rear of the vertebrae causing stress fractures.

For maintaining a pain free back therefore, the sailor should avoid hyperextension of the lumbar spine, particularly combined with rotation and tilt. In other words there should be correct movement patterns within the boat. Plus a suitable programme of regular abdominal exercises for the low back.

Hiking Bench
During hiking the discomfort that increases over time is due to the muscles of the abdomen, and of the quads, being held constantly in a contracted state. This is 'isometric' contraction and is characterised by the muscle neither shortening nor lengthening as it works. The muscle becomes so tense that the circulating blood cannot enter the muscle, which therefore has to work anaerobically with local accumulation of lactic acid. Ischaemia causes pain. Training to improve hiking therefore should be aimed at a lesser percentage of maximum effort. When they can do this the circulation can enter the muscle which then works aerobically. The best way to train these muscles is to construct a hiking bench to the Finn side deck profile and to spend increasing time in the sit-out position. This will be more effective than spending all your time running, swimming or doing similar conventional endurance type training.

Fortunately since the Rectus Femoris muscle helps to control both the knee flexion and hip flexion it is not constantly acting isometrically. As it changes its length to help to alter the body position some fresh blood supply enters the muscle and relieves some of the quads discomfort.

The Fit Finn Sailor
The present day Finn sailor is fortunate that the configuration and length of Olympic Courses have changed. The early 2 mile windward leg at major championships with race durations of over two hours have changed. The fifteen minute windward leg now entails less long hikes on one tack. The overall race length of about fifty minutes is considerably shorter. The sailing technique may therefore become one in which a more 'semi hike' than 'full hike' position is adopted for longer portions of the race. Hiking bench training position should reflect this. The training effect is joint angle specific.

The avoidance of a Finn Specific Sports Injury will entail thought being given to the layout and accessibility of controls and of toe straps to give optimum race biomechanics. Also required are:

• The adoption of a good flexibility and muscle stretch programme.
• The adoption of Proper Movements Patterns within the dinghy.
• Time devoted to a structured Hiking Bench Training Programme to minimise isometric muscle discomfort, which will increase sitting out time.

If you do all these then take care when handling the Finn ashore that you do not sustain an injury before you launch! An injury is an injury, is an injury..........
 

Mentally Fit?

As well as ensuring that your body is as physically fit as necessary for the level of racing you are taking part in, don't underestimate the mental fitness that is also required. Although this a quite a technical and in-depth topic to cover, the basics will be attempted here.

The level of mental discipline required during an event is obviously dependent upon the level of the competition you are in. While you may win every club race in sight, you get to the Nationals and it all starts falling to pieces. Confidence in your ability in the key issue here. Confidence in what you know you can achieve and the unstinting belief that you can maintain that level of ability without faltering up to the end of the race. This is often achieved by a relaxed, but positive attitude towards your sailing - a bit of fun. You need to be able to channel aggression where is is required, for instance at the start, but also not to get nervous in the process. Maintain a calm, straight-thinking mental attitude when under pressure and control the concentration at the correct level - don't concentrate too much - it's supposed to be fun!
 

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