I strongly feel that using a feathered paddle will unnecessarily predispose you to injury.

The only (very small) benefit you get from using a feathered paddle is the reduced wind resistance when paddling into a strong wind. But we don't always paddle into strong breezes, do we? With feathered paddles, what you gain when paddling into a strong wind you lose in all other wind directions. When you factor in the energy used to twist that shaft back and forth with each and every stroke, I'd have to say that feathered paddles are much more inefficient. I use an unfeathered paddle with a large blade area and I've paddled into some strong (25mph plus gusts) winds before. I've never felt like the upper blade was pushing me back. Also if you feel the headwind is really pushing you back, you can just use a low angle stroke.

Our bodies (not counting internal organs) are symmetrical on both sides. Our forward paddling stroke should be symmetrical on both sides. When people use feathered paddles, they're not doing the same thing on both sides. Here's a quote from a website I came across a while back, "Feathered paddles provide better forward speed, mainly through better ergonomics and body dynamics." This blew my mind! Better ergonomics and body dynamics?????? Are they smoking crack?? I'm a Physical Therapist - actually I switched to Firefighting, but I still keep my PT license active - and I know that statement is totally incorrect. If you have to flex and extend one wrist with every stroke in order to index the paddle, how can it be ergonomic and how is it better body dynamics? It actually requires your body to do more work.

Our bodies don't like to do isolated movements. If you lift your arm straight up in the air, it's not only your shoulder joint pivoting, your shoulder blade will rotate as well. When you walk, do you bend the knee first, then flex the hip, then extend the knee, then... No, of course not, it all happens as one fluid set of combined motions. When twisting the paddle shaft to index the blades, that motion is not isolated to the wrist. It also combines some elbow and shoulder movements that are not happening on the other side. It's far from ergonomic, is not very good body dynamics, it requires more energy, and is certainly not symmetrical.

After reading posts on paddling.net for a while, I've heard of paddlers having various wrist, elbow, and shoulder injuries. I'm not saying that if you use an unfeathered paddle you'll never have an injury, but I think that using feathered paddles will certainly increase your risk of overuse injuries.

Sorry for the long post,

Pedro Almeida