By inventing your own workouts and experimenting, you keep your training interesting. A variety of training makes you more excited to train harder. At the start of a race, the speed of even the best trained athletes begins decreasing after15 to 20 seconds. At a certain point, your body needs a large increase in power to receive a small increase in speed. There are times during the race when you want to add a burst of speed.
Technique is everything.
Try to work the large muscle groups of your back. Teamwork and timing is everything, especially during a short quarter-mile sprint. Nobody I know can accelerate a 400-pound boat by themselves. A crew of six talented, strong one-man paddlers thrown into a canoe, all with different styles, will find it hard to get the outrigger to glide. Everyone must bury their blade and pull as one to get the outrigger to run as smoothly as possible.