How to Fix 10 Common Endurance Mistakes

At the first endurance workout with the team, the paddlers looked relaxed, but by the end of the session, their faces were turning red, and their breathing was labored. Instead of maintaining a steady pace, they pushed each other harder, speeding up the stroke rate at times and speeding it up even more at other times. They ended their endurance sessions exhausted.

As we circled around after practice, I had the unenviable job of explaining that by going out too hard, they sabotaged the adaptations they were aiming for.

This hardworking, committed group of athletes didn’t intend to sabotage their training. Like many athletes, they believed that all training was about exhaustion. But getting exhausted in endurance training is like cranking the stove too high and burning everything to a crisp.  

The truth is that all training is about creating the conditions to make an adaptation. Some things are done better on a low simmer, and others are done better on a boil. 

Fix: To train endurance, you need nonstop, low-intensity efforts without fatigue. If you finish your session tired, you worked too hard, or your session was longer than you were ready for. Hard interval and low-intensity endurance sessions are kept separate because they target different energy systems. Endurance training is different because it barely produces any lactate. This is low-cost and easy to recover from, whereas intensity produces lactate and strains your muscles, which is costly for fatigue and recovery.

In that aforementioned workout, I noticed that their technique faded. Their posture collapsed—shoulders hunched, rotation gone, pulling with their arms, not their backs, and they weren’t hinging. Losing technique as the training session progresses leaves you open to injuries arising from misaligned joints and not using your larger muscles, which reduces your speed potential when you go hard.

There are several reasons why you might lose your technique during a paddle. 

Reason 1: Distraction. Sometimes, we have a lot on our minds and are focused on what happened before we got to paddling or what we are doing after. 

Fix: Clear your mind when you arrive and focus on each stroke, one stroke at a time, while you paddle.

Reasons 2 & 3: Not knowing when your technique is slipping and/ or not knowing the correct technique. Sometimes, people don’t know that their technique is slipping because they haven’t practiced their muscle activation and established the muscle memory and cues to know what it feels like when their posture has slipped, or they have stopped using specific muscles. Still, others might not have learned to activate all their muscles and align properly fully.  

Fix: If you lack the muscle memory, cues, and ongoing toolbox to continually keep your technique fine-tuned, I highly recommend prioritizing this. This is such a critical part of training, which is why I developed the Precision Paddling program. Read about Precision Paddling technique training here.

Reason 4: Going out for too long. 

Fix: First, go for shorter workouts, only as long as your technique can hang, and then increase duration incrementally week after week. Second, make sure that you are training towards a goal. 

The amount of endurance training you need will depend on the duration (time, not distance) of the event you are training for.  If you are training for a 90-minute race, you don’t need to do 2 hours of base training. If you are training for a 4-hour race, you need to build up to nearly 4 hours of base training. 

Fix: Figure out how many hours and minutes you expect the event to take. Gradually build up to just under that amount of time (not distance), focusing on the details outlined above to help you get the most out of each session. 

Chasing the pack or trying to stay in front of people almost guarantees you’ll work too hard. There are many reasons why this happens. 

Reason 1: The person we paddle with has a different focus for the workout. Or perhaps their goal is a lactate threshold and not endurance, and then you feel the pressure to keep up.  

Fix: Paddle alone or with a friend who understands the focus and preferably has the same goal. If you don’t want to paddle alone, then hang back from the group and tell them you are doing your own thing so there are no expectations to keep up. 

Reason 2: Measuring your progress against another person. Paddlers commonly get pushed harder because they are measuring themselves against that person. They don’t have the technology to measure their own effort, and they don’t know what their measurements should be.  

Fix: Make sure you have a heart rate monitor and/or a tempo trainer and know how to use them.