Lower Back Pain

Traditional kayak paddling technique, a.k.a. kayaking is based on torso rotation initiated from your hips. This motion is impossible to perform while you’re leaning backward (“slouching”) and it’s best performed while you’re sitting straight or preferably, slightly leaning forward. The combination of leaning with continuous, repetitive rotation puts strain on the lower part of your spine, known as the lumber spine, because it has to support your upper body even while rotating. What makes things significantly worse is the fact that while your lumbar spine is constantly rotating, your legs compress it against the backrest of your seat in order to transmit your paddling effort from your paddle, through your body, to your kayak, so as tom propel it forward through the water. This considerable force is applied constantly on your lower spine, a vulnerable area that has no other bones to protect or support it.

Regardless of how much padding your so-called “ergonomic” kayak seat my have, you will always feel discomfort to some degree, as long as you paddle either sit-in or SOT kayaks.

Only W kayaks do not require from you to be seated in the L position, and only W kayaks offer a wide range of paddling positions that you can switch to anytime you feel like it. The ability to introduce change into your posture offers to reduce stress levels from particular areas in the body, and provides relief. In addition, the W kayak’s saddle offers you the ability to stretch your body, and this feature is highly beneficial in this regard.

Sciatica

The L seated position in a kayak forces the lowest part of your spine, known as the tailbone, down onto the sciatic nerve, which is the largest nerve in the body. The sciatic nerve is formed by nerve roots coming out of the spinal cord in the lower back, and it runs from the lower back down through the buttocks to the feet.

Prolonged sitting in the L kayak position can result in pinching of the sciatic nerve. As a result, you will feel an acute pain starting deep in the rear that could travel down the leg. Before such pain is felt, you could experience other, milder symptoms in your legs, such as leg numbness.

Needless to say that being unable to stand up, stretch, or merely switch to another sitting position will increase the severity of the problem.

Shoulder Pain

The rotator cuff is a group of tendons and muscles in your shoulder, which connect the upper arm (humerus) to the shoulder blade (scapula).

In kayaking, the rotator cuff has to withstand a great deal of torque (twisting motion), especially in turning maneuvers and paddle strokes aimed at controlling your kayak. Such force applied on the shoulder can result in injury in the the rotator cuff tendons and muscles.

Here too, being able to change paddling positions and paddling styles is beneficial, as well as changing paddle strokes, but only W kayaks offer a variety of options that are sufficiently different from each other.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Wrist Injury

Carpus is a Latin word derived from the Greek word karpos, meaning ‘wrist’. The wrist joint is surrounded by a band of fibrous tissue that normally supports it. The Carpal Tunnel is tight space between this fibrous band and the wrist bones. The median nerve passes through the carpal tunnel and receives sensations from the thumb, index, and middle fingers.

Carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms include numbness and tingling of the hand in the distribution of the median nerve, that is the thumb, index, middle, and part of the fourth fingers. Carpal tunnel syndrome may be a temporary condition that completely resolves, or it can persist and progress.

Traditional kayaking technique involves repeated, typical wrist flexion in combination with wrist torsion, and can result in carpal tunnel syndrome. In order to minimize the risk for such injury to occur, you need to be able to change paddling styles and paddle strokes as often as you feel like, but the range of change and motion that common sit-in and SOT kayaks present is minimal.

Only W kayaks enable you to switch between a wide variety of paddling styles and paddle strokes, and paddle from positions that are totally different from each other , including standing up.

Foot Pain and Ankle Pain

When you sit in a sit-in or sit-on-top kayak, your feet are positioned at an unnatural angle, and they serve to lock you in the kayak, so that you keep being well connected to it at all times. This is especially true when you’re paddling and controlling the kayak, but it’s true for when you’re just fishing.

This position and activity of your feet frequently leads to injuries known as Pain in the Arches (I.E. the arches of your feet), Achilles Tendon (in the back of your ankle), and Ankle pain.

The ‘Yak Back’ symptoms include leg numbness and cramps, discomfort in the hips and buttocks, pressure and pain in the lower back (lumbar) area, and premature fatigue.

Paddlers and fishermen suffering from Yak back feel a strong urge to change positions, stand up, walk, and stretch.  Early Yak Back symptoms can appear as early as half an hour from launching, and they tend to aggravate as the hours go by.

It is not uncommon that people who paddle sit-in and SOT kayaks and fish from them develop a chronic Yak Back condition, manifested mainly as an acute sensitivity to pressure on their lower back, and sometimes even chronic lower back pain that forces many of them to abandon kayak paddling and kayak fishing.

The Yak Back is the result of being seated in an unnatural position often called the ‘L position’, in which your own legs push your lower back against your kayak seat’s backrest. The pressure applied is constant, and generated by the most powerful set of muscles in your body, which is why cushioning the seat’s backrest is quite useless.

Traditional sit-in and SOT kayaks offer too little stability to begin with, which is why as a paddler or fisherman who uses them, you’re required to keep your center of gravity (CG) as low as possible by sitting as low as possible and throwing your legs forward. As you do that, your legs change roles from naturally supporting your upper body to actively pressuring it in your spine’s lower part, which is a vulnerable place.

Native people of the Arctic who invented kayaks never used backrests, because they were used to sitting this way, so they didn’t need lumbar support. However, this is not an option for you because without a backrest you’re likely to find it impossible to keep your body in the L position for more than a few minutes.

The W kayak is the only kayak that offers your legs their natural role in supporting your upper body in your balancing, control, paddling and fishing efforts. Since your legs support your upper body you don’t need a backrest to support your back, and therefore there is nothing that can cause you discomfort, fatigue or pain.

The W kayak also offers you the possibility to switch between a variety of different paddling and fishing positions, including standing, which helps you stay fresh and comfy, and avoid Yak Back symptoms.

For these reasons the W got its nickname ‘Back Saver’.

Read more about ergonomics in kayak design.