Sprint Kayaking vs. Rowing

Hey guys! Welcome to our second ever Damp Rat life blog post. Today we’re going to be talking to you guys about sprint kayaking compared to rowing. So many people ask, “what’s the difference between sprint kayaking and rowing? Aren’t they the same?” But the answer is, we’re both on water but that’s about all we have in common.

---

Sprint Kayaks and Racing (Rowing) Shells

To understand the differences, let’s look a little bit deeper into what is different about our boats. A sprint kayak is a carbon fiber shell with a closed cockpit with an adjustable board to rest your feet on and an adjustable seat. Along with your boat, you have a paddle to pull you forward. With rowing you have a carbon fiber shell (like a kayak but it’s bigger) and you also have an outrigger and long oars that help with leverage. In kayaking we have boats for 1,2, and 4 people, while with rowing they have boats for 1,2,4, and 8 people. Rowers are also able to move a little faster than kayakers because they have more leverage, with their oars being bigger and farther away from the boat than our paddles.

Movements in the Boats

Not only are our boats different but our movements are not the same. Rowing seats have wheels on them and rowers move back and forth with their legs moving the oar through the water. In sprint kayaking we also use our legs. Now I know what you're thinking, “ummm girl...you’re crazy! Sprint kayaking is not a lower body sport.” And yeah tons of people say to us, “I bet your arms are super strong form kayaking so much!” and why yes our arms are very buff, but we use a lot of leg and core muscles. Our legs are set up to be a bit bent so that it’s hard to straighten them. Then when we put our paddle in the water we begin to move one hip backwards as the other moves forward, making our hips rotate. In rotating, our hips help rotate our upper body and it moves our paddle through the water instead of leaving all that pulling up to just our arms. All this work pushing our hips back and forth definitely makes our legs strong, and if we only used arms, we wouldn’t make it through a 200 meter sprint.

---

Being a sprint kayaker in a rower’s world is definitely challenging. All the time people come over to you and call you a rower and it’s definitely disappointing to put so much hard work into a sport that no one understands. Which is why we have this blog and podcast! We want to turn the tables around and bring kayaking into the light so people can realize just how hard we work and to join the sport and the fun with us. To wrap this all up, both rowing and kayaking are cool sports (kayakers are cooler though according to science) but we are super different and shouldn’t be confused with each other.

If you have questions let us know in the comments and don’t forget to give us a like if you’ve made it this far! Peace out ✌🏼-The Damp Rats