I am a 6'2\" woman paddling a wavesport EZG60 for my playboat and river runner. I love this sport intensley, but I am having issues learning how to throw the boat. Whenever I try to initiate a plow under or cartwheel, a shooting pain goes through both legs when I am almost to the balance point. I think the pain is my hamstrings and runs the entire length of my legs. Needless to say, this is somewhat distracting and holding me back from learning new tricks. I have borrowed other, smaller volume boats that are better suited to my weight, and I still have the same problem. I have tried to increase my flexibility through Yoga and stretching, but I am wondering if it is due to my limited flexibility or rather a pressure point from the hip pads or seat. I am rather thin and don't have a lot of extra padding. I know a few paddlers who have had similar problems and they just don't cartwheel. Has anyone had experience with this and a better outcome? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've never heard of anything like this before. My guess is that perhaps continue to tinker with your outfitting until it's comfortable!

Also could you describe the pain a bit more? Where is it coming from? Try to figure out what is causing it? Are you pushing awkward with one of your legs? Or are you sliding sideways around in your seat and hitting awkward on one of the hip pads? Is it when you're putting a lot of weight on your foot block? Maybe try and put a towel or something in the end to push against instead of the foot block and see if the pain still occurs? Or maybe you're catching your knees on the thigh braces and this is putting pressure on the Hamstrings? Try doing it with the thigh braces off or loose and see if you're still getting the pain. Does it feel like the muscles are stiffening up and grabbing? Or something else??

These are just a bunch of idea's of how you could narrow it down a little. Until you know what's causing the issue you can't really begin to fix it.

You said you've been working on your flexibility, if that was the only reason for the pain then it should be getting better, but it sounds like it isn't. I'm not very flexible at all, I've never been able to touch my toes but don't get these kinds of pains. In my case I'm not flexible mainly due to my nerves being too tight more than my muscles. If I do specific nerve system stretches then I can go forward and touch my toes no hassles and without the pain.

Thanks for the response. What you said about stretching your nerves sounded really interesting. I think this is all realted to nerves- my legs also fall asleep in any boat after about 20 minutes of paddling. The pain is totally nerve pain- not pressure or joint pain. Have you ever turned your head too fast and felt a shooting pain down your neck? Thats what my legs feel like and then it subsides.

Can you try to explain to me how you stretch your nerves? I have never heard of that before!

Ugh! That sounds awful. I'm with Pishk, though, in that it definitely sounds more like nerve pain. My guess would be the outfitting. Unfortunately, most kayak seats are built with men in mind, and we women are built differently. My legs used to fall asleep as well until I found the right boat. The fact that your legs are going to sleep is an immediate warning sign that your nerves are not happy (as well as your circulatory system). Your best bet is going to be to start looking around for a better boat for your body. Something in the seat or hip pads is putting pressure on your nerves, so you need to find a better outfit. Also, a shooting pain down your hamstrings can also mean your hips, rather than your hammies are tight. Your sciatic nerve runs down the back of the leg. Oftentimes, the nerve runs through some of the muscles. Even if it doesn't, though, tight hips will cause impingement of the nerves. Try some hip stretches, rather than hamstring stretches. I think getting your hips looser AND finding a better boat will help you out. Maybe one day they will figure out that men and women are built differently. Good luck!

Jajauma:

I'm in the process of designing the new seats for all the Fluid kayaks. I would be interested to hear what you think causes the pain. You said that some kayaks are designed for only men in mind. Your opinion would be valuable.

Thanks!

Frogleg:

I've had friends who had their legs fall asleep very quickly. It was due to hip pads being too tight. That has happend to me too. On a K1 type boat, dead legs happen quickly when too much pressure is put on the sciatic nerve which is right under your ass. I hope you get your problem sorted out. Get someone else to paddle your boat. They might notice something you haven't. So many times, I've jumped into someone else's boat and pointed out where they can improve. It's worth a shot. Good luck! It doesn't sound like you're having much fun..

It sounds more like you have a problem with your outfitting than anything else, but I'll try to explain the nerve stretch. It's similar to the stretch where you sit down, put one leg out in front of you and reach for your toes.

I'll explain it stretching your RIGHT leg.
1) Sit on your bum on the ground, put your right leg out straight in front of you, and your left leg should be bent with your left foot resting near your right knee.
2) Get a small towel, or some rope or something and loop it over the end of your right foot up near the ball of your foot.
3) Keep your back straight and sit up straight. I think you can lean slightly forward, but bend at the hips and keep your back straight.
4) pull the towel that is looped over your right foot toward you, then release. Keep pulling/releasing for 30seconds or so.

I think my explanation is a little confusing, and I couldn't find anything better on google. Basically you're sitting up straight and pulling the top of your foot back and forth to stretch the nerve, but don't hold the stretch, just pull it back and then release, then repeat. You need something like a towel or rope to reach your foot to pull it back because if you lean forward to grab it with your hand, then you're just stretching the muscles.

I hope you can figure it out from all of this! But if you're muscles are tighter than your nerves, this wont do much. Worth a try though.

disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or in any position where I should be giving out advice....so if you or anyone hurts themselves, it's your own fault !

Hi,

Just to clear up a few comments here:

You can't stretch nerve tissue like muscles; therefore those 'nerve streches' are called nerve tissue mobilisations, put it simple the nerve has to slide freely through it's surrounding tissue like muscels etc.

Bending forward while flexing your spine in the seated position will put a provocative stretch on your nerve tissue: shooting pain. I think it comes from your lower back since it's similair on l/r side.

You could try to hold your back more extended while pushing your heels down.
It might sound as well that the boat's to big for you: try a smaller one see if the same thing happens.

Don't pull your backrest too hard into your lower back; you should be able to keep your lower spine free so that it can move around. So if you use your backrest for holding your butt down on the seat: your seatpod is too big: padding will help! Start with about 1 cm of foam extra under your butt: this will lift you up and will put thus less stretch on your lower spine/ nervetissue. Then padd around the hips.

Still doesn't work? Get a smaller boat! It should fit your weight/ height ratio as best as possible!

Good luck!

To Adrian:
If you want some ideas for new seat: just drop me a line...

I like the Necky Chronic as it is easier for me to throw around, but I still get the pain. I'll be on the lookout for a new boat. My Remix is the most comfortable boat I have ever sat in, but obviously a little large to try cartwheeling, so I don't know if I would get the pain. Maybe I'll try the CrossRiver with the new outfitting, as I think the comfy seat may help the problem. I think I can jam my legs in one too. Being a tall, girl, paddler is just as hard as being a small paddler as I only fit in huge boats but don't have the same strength as a man my size or weigh the same!

A friend of mine is a tall woman paddler: she has the JK All Star, fits her very well. The nice thing is that you can adjust the position of the footrest as well. Give a try?

I have been considering that as well and I do love the new purple! I need to borrow a friend's All Star!

frogleg wrote:

I have been considering that as well and I do love the new purple! I need to borrow a friend's All Star!

The Fluid Spice, comes in purple.. That's me in the medium. I'm at 6' around 85kg. Lots of space, great boat. I only recently got my own but I love it.

Adrian: Obviously there are a lot of reasons for the legs to numb/pain to shoot down the leg in both men and women. Improper hip pad placement; pushing through the feet too much into the lower back causing compression of the spine; the sheer weight of the butt on the lower extremity nerves/arteries; and we couple this with external rotation of the hips to get the knees under the hip pads, thus squishing the sciatic nerve even more, along with the associated veins/arteries. So why are women even more affected? I think it has something to do with our pelvises being much more anteriorly tilted. So not only are we affected by all of the above things, but now our pelvis is tilted forward putting even more pressure in front of the sitz bones. Unfortunately, most kayaking seats have an upward tilt at the front. So we are tilted forward and the seat is tilted back into us, doubling the squish (highly technical terms here ) So, we have the tilted pelvis and we are also wider in both the pelvis area and the greater trochanters (hips, essentially). Very few kayaks accommodate the shape of a woman's hips. Some women I know end up taking out the hip pads because they hit the body in the wrong spot, but then they don't feel very locked in. I am a tall woman built like a T-Rex--all legs, small torso. Women like me face an even bigger challenge--not only is the cockpit not going to accommodate my hips and pelvic tilt appropriately (and I have small hips), but now my inseam length is going to try to push me into a bigger boat that my upper body and lighter weight won't be able to manage--sounds like Frogleg is in the same situation. As you can see, it becomes very difficult for a woman that isn't kid-sized to find a kayak that will fit. Wow--am I rambling, or did any of that make sense? I like the Jacksons in that I can make the seat fit my rear better. Hard plastic seats or even semi-molded ones will only fit the generic butt for which they were made--meaning very few real people. I think a boat with a molded seat, not so much posterior tilt to it, hip pads that adjust up/down/forward and backward, and some kind of consideration for knee position and leg length would be the perfect fit. We'll see what gets built. I'll stop babbling now...

Jajauma: I am totally with you on many of your points: The hard plastic seats do cause increased pressure points on my nerves, causing numbness and discomfort (maybe the source of most of my problems). I do have to paddle boats on the edge of slightly above my weight range because of my inseam. Women typically have shorter torsos and longer inseams than men. I am looking for the same amount of legroom, with about 10 less gallons of volume. Also, when I tried out creekers, I felt that my pelvis was tipped back too far in many off the boats, causing my lower back to cave out and my balance to be thrown backwards causing the boat to want to squitr out from under me. I think I may need to shim the rear of the seats of my boats to keep my weight forward and increase the angle of my pelvis.

I use this seat in my play and creekboat, its foamseat and i like it, no presure, no pain

www.zelezny.cz/en/outfitting.htm

...and it's superlight;)

another option you might consider is the jackson sweet cheeks seat pad: www.jacksonkayak.com/store/product.cfm?product=sweetcheeks

i put one of those in my creekboat, and i went from having pain similar to what you're describing everytime i paddled it for more than 10 minutes to no pain. it's true that i could have easily (and far more cheaply) accomplished the same thing with foam, but i love how configurable that seat pad thing is.

d.

I was going to suggest the same thing..

Although I don't have pain in my legs, my left foot is bound to fall asleep every time I'm in the kayak. It would even fall asleep in my jackson 4-fun.. But as soon as I got my Project 52 it stopped happening. and it's a lot smaller!! Weird I know, but this is what I can suggest from my experience. go sit in some kayaks and maybe find one that has some outfitting/padding that feels more comfortable than your own and perhaps try and purchase the outfitting.

The other thing I have which is more reasonable..
One reason my legs no longer fall asleep or ache is because i placed some shims under the front part of my seat pad, pushing my knees up into my thigh/knee brace. This I am hypothesizing, took some weight off my butt where i was pinching some of the nerves in my leg, as well as more evenly distributing the weight onto my lower extremeties. You could try the JK happy seat, or some beach balls that will lift your legs into your thigh/knee braces, giving you better control and fit, where you lack a good fit at the hip pads, and maybe better comfort, or some reduction of your pain.

My fluid seat is quite comfy ...
when legs fall asleep, it's partially 'tight' unstretched or inflexible muscles, but more likely a 'pinch point' somewhere on your back, bum, legs, causing restricted blood flow - put that on top of an 'unnatural' position, and little movement in the legs, and they go to sleep...
try in the pool, with less clothing (!), and pay very close attention to ANY pressure points.. what seems like a small pressure point can easily 'put your leg to sleep' over half an hour...
Good luck!