Hey! Do not drop me.
I will fight you!
(HITTING THE WALL)
(KELSEY & DC)
(TRAIN FOR CANOE SLALOM)
OK. Good day in London.
- Yeah. - It's nice out.
It is indeed. And, today, we're meeting an Olympian called
Joe who does the canoe slalom.
Yes. And I'm really excited to see what
the training is going to be like
because it's probably intense.
It probably is.
Let's go meet him and see what he's got for us.
OK. Let's do it.
(WALTHAM CROSS, UNITED KINGDOM)
I'm Joe Clarke. I'm a canoe slalom athlete.
And I won Gold in the Rio 2016 Olympics.
What motivates me to keep going is the thought
of the next Olympics.
Standing on the top of that podium,
hearing the national anthem.
I've most definitely hit the wall in my career.
But you just look for a way to go around it or get over it.
It's kind of a hurdle.
You decide how big it's going to be.
(LEE VALLEY WHITE WATER CENTRE)
- There's Joe. - Oh! There he is!
Here he is. Let's bring him in.
The balance, the strength, everything.
- Go, Joe! - Very nicely done.
He makes it look effortless.
I'll tell you what, I'm impressed with that.
Hello. I am Kelsey.
Joe. Nice to meet you.
- How's it going? - Good to meet you, mate.
Great to see you.
We just saw you out on the water.
Massively impressed.
Is that what a typical training session would look like?
I normally do, like, one of those each morning.
And then depending on the day, we're
in the gym or back out on the water again.
What kind of gym exercise would you do?
I guess a lot of the stuff would obviously
need to translate to what you're doing on the water.
- A lot of heavy weight stuff. - OK.
So, basically, the more weight the better.
A bit of everything, really.
The only thing is I skip leg, though.
That's one thing I don't do.
Smaller legs, the better.
They really don't do too much
in there, do you know what I mean?
It's kind of very much just dead weight.
Right, that makes sense.
The heavier they are, the more weight you've got to pull.
What about balance?
How important would that be in what you do?
Core strength is kind of the building
block you kind of work from.
When you get tired, it's quite easy to kind of slump over.
And that's when mistakes start happening.
Well, should we get out there and have a little look?
- Yeah, definitely. - All right, let's do it.
- Let's go. - Don't kill us.
(CANOE SLALOM WARM-UP)
So guys, welcome to the gym.
- Oh! Very nice. - That is nuts.
- Wow. - It's awesome.
Got his own name on it. Of course he has.
Of course he'd have his own gym.
So kettlebell is a pretty straightforward workout,
hopefully.
Just do a shoulder-width apart.
(KETTLEBELL SWINGS 10 REPS)
Drop it down to your legs, and just
swing it up to, like, kind of face height.
So I normally do, like, 10 of those.
Just try and, like, lock through the back.
Don't sound too out of breath as well, when you do it.
Kind of adjust your grip slightly
so you kind of hold it close to your chest.
I know I said we don't do legs. We do a little bit.
You've got to to work the body.
And down, 10 of those.
Let's get into synchronization.
- Come on, guys. - We know.
Didn't know a canoe slalom was a synchronised sport.
So are there any sport-specific exercises that you
do for your upper body?
Because it's, like, beast mode out there.
Yeah, there's plenty, so I hope you're ready,
got your arm straps on, your lats,
- your core. Ready to go? - Feeling good.
- Let's do it. - Cool. Let's do it.
(CANOE SLALOM TRAINING)
So this is a bit more specific now.
Like I said, we don't do legs.
So no more legs, you'll be happy to know.
Anyway, we're on the pull-ups now.
Upper body. Going to go for a neutral grip.
Head above the bar, back down.
(PULL-UPS 10 REPS)
- Right. - Just warming up.
All the way down, all the way up.
- Yeah. - So, go.
Oh, he's done this before, hasn't he?
- Oh, just a couple times. - Just a few times, yeah.
It is pretty hard. I'm not going to lie.
So a band here, hopefully give you some assistance.
This is fun.
It's like a swing.
- Oh, yeah. - There we are.
This makes me look really cool.
- There we go. - Nice.
Second exercise, pretty straightforward.
You've probably all done it before. Bench press.
So I'll be here to spot if you need it.
Nice.
Oh, God, help!
I thought you were here to spot.
- I know for a fact... - I got it.
I got it.
- Ready? - Go!
All right, and...
Oh! It's not light at all!
That was one, and you went without any assistance.
- Well done. - Oh, that was awesome.
Oh, yes.
So this is, like, a real key part of it.
We'd obviously have the bow rudder, which
is a turn that brings the boat around.
So on the up streams.
So it's kind of a lot of pec, kind of a lot of sweeps,
so kind of arm, kind of back, and stuff like that.
So Joe, this exercise looks a lot more sport specific.
Yeah, I thought I'd take you on this.
This is your paddle. This is your boat.
You got to use your imagination here.
Got to hold it kind of, like, even-ish.
And then just pull it through.
Nice. That looks fun.
- All right. - That's it. that's it.
You're getting the hang of this.
Yeah, she's got this now. She's got this now.
That's not easy at all.
Well, I definitely feel this in my lats.
Oh, my gosh, and my core.
Slow yourself coming back down.
So, like, fast out, slow yourself back down.
That's it. He's got the hang of this.
Yeah, that's it.
As you pull through, just keep it,
like, kind of in front of you.
But don't drop it so much.
Try and keep it, like, so it kind of
engages the last part of your lat.
That's it there.
Core, core, core.
Like I said, it's really kind of the building block
for what you kind of build the strength off.
Around The World is the first one.
Familiar with Around The World?
Oh, shoot!
So it's kind of like hang off, bring your legs up, around.
And around the world you go.
- And around the world you go. - Just like that.
Second one.
Lift yourself up, kind of get yourself into that position.
Your windscreen wipers on the car.
Nice.
And up on the P bars.
Oh, they're the killer... Oh, no.
Oh, those ones.
We will see.
- We will see. - I hate those ones.
Come on.
Almost leaning back more as you do it.
Yeah.
- Small world. - Small world.
That's five in total.
- You've got it. - There you go, that's good.
I don't think I can do it!
I'd do, like, five.
- In, down. - That's nice.
- Sound effects. - That's good.
- Two... - That's good.
Three, four...
- Oh, it's not easy. - Five.
Those are some serious core exercises.
This is not "no more muffin top" YouTube workouts.
Just try and get the body kind of more central.
- Like that? - Yeah, that's better.
Kind of lock out, like keep your lats long as...
- A bit longer. - Yeah, that's it.
You can breathe, though, you know?
- There you go. - That's good.
You're going to feel that tomorrow.
And if that wasn't enough, you've got a third exercise
to do here.
That's it, yeah.
Bam!
One more!
Doing something aerial like that was brilliant.
Really hard.
Now, we've suitably tired you out, let's get out of there,
let's get in a wetsuit, let's put you head to head.
- This is the challenge, right? - For a challenge.
This is what it's all been about.
- How are you feeling? - Winner takes all.
- Let's do this. - Yeah?
Don't leave me hanging, great.
Canoe slalom consists of two events for men
and two for women.
Both men and women have a kayak single event
and a canoe single event. Each competitor has a paddle,
double blade for kayak or single blade for canoe,
which they use to navigate their boat through the course.
Originally modelled on ski slalom,
the canoe slalom is all about
getting down the rapids the fastest while going
through the gates.
(HITTING THE WALL)
(5-GATE CANOE SLALOM COURSE)
So the challenge is pretty straightforward.
We've got three downstream gates, which are green.
We've got one upstream gate, which is red,
and then we finish on the green gate.
It's going to be timed on the stopwatch, Dan versus Kelsey.
The winner takes all.
Well, takes this medal, actually.
3, 2, 1, go!
He's off to a strong start,
is DC.
He's down through the first gate.
He's picking up some speed.
He's coming into some of the tricky part now, the upstream.
Oh, very good.
Smashed it, mate! Smashed it!
3, 2, 1, go!
That's a good start.
Push hard on the right. Right strokes!
Right strokes!
That's it. That's OK.
Keep going!
Back stroke, yeah, keep...
Go right, left, keep going now!
Keep going! Come on!
Right, both sides equal now!
So how do you think it went, then?
I enjoyed it.
I went fast for a couple of seconds.
Yeah, for a couple of seconds.
- You know? - Let's waste no time.
Drumroll, come on.
In second place, we have Kelsey with 39.6 plus 2.
And, in first place, we have the big DC,
31.8 with no penalties.
- So... - Victory.
Wait no longer. Let's give him the medal.
Yeah, will it go over?
It will. Oh, it feels so right.
It was really cool to meet Kelsey and DC,
and put them through my training.
Meeting Joe was really fun. I think he's a great guy.
You can tell he's all business when it comes to training.
And he's also got some good football skills, too.
He might skip leg day, but he definitely doesn't skip out
on core training.
Seeing them trying to do some of the core
moves in the gym and some of the other exercises,
quite a nice booster.
Since being on the water is basically
what Joe does for a living, it was actually
great to experience that ourselves.
For you, it was also good to get in the water.
And you kind of went for it.
Next time on Hitting The Wall...
We're going to meet up with Olympic water polo
player, Matteo Aicardi.
Let's make a splash. Hey.
(HITTING THE WALL)
(OLYMPIC CHANNEL ORIGINAL SERIES)