Fundamentals of Peak Performance: Assessment

You have your goals. They are specific, attainable, and honest. And speaking of honest, it's time to look at your abilities with respect to performance. This is where you can recognize your assets and develop your weaknesses. Look at these different factors and try to realistically assess and catalog your abilities.

Physical:

There are three basic abilities you rely on as a paddler: strength, endurance, and technique skills. Everything else is built on this framework. Strength is your ability to generate force by propelling you and your body along the water. Endurance is your ability to do so for a long period of time. Technique is your ability to perform the most efficient movements possible.

You want to grade yourself on your strength, endurance, and technique. If you feel yourself lacking, that's okay - commitment can go far with paddling and training. 

Mental:

Consider your confidence, attitude, ability to overcome adversity, focus, visualization, and motivation. These all play a role in training and peak performance.

Additional factors:

Additional factors include your experience and comfort on the water in various conditions, social support of friends and family, tendency to overtrain, adequate recovery, injuries, and nutrition. 

Training factors:
There are a few additional factors that relate directly to training. For examply, the amount of time you'll have available to devote to training and how often. What about your age, i.e. the amount of time it takes to recover from a serious workout. And finally, take your paddling and training experience into account. If you've been training and racing for several years, your body will be better suited to training than if it was the first month on a paddleboard (but don't let that discourage you!)

You know your goals. Hopefully you'll be able to develop some training objectives based on your assessment of strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if you paddle all day long, but lack good paddling technique, then you know you'll need to spend additional time and focus on your technique.

Next: Reported Percieved Exertion