Leaning far out over the side with your feet locked under the hiking straps, countering the heel with your own weight. A quasi-isometric hold that lives mostly in the quads.
Hiking looks like a pose and is actually strength work. In simulated dinghy sailing over 20-minute upwind legs, blood pressure climbs to around 172 over 100 mmHg while oxygen uptake stays moderate — your circulation is not sprinting, but under the isometric load your quads clamp off their own blood supply. That is the burn. Two mistakes cost the most: holding from the back instead of the legs — lower back and knees are the most common overuse sites in sailing — and hanging out at full stretch the whole time. Pulse with the conditions instead: further out in a gust, briefly off the load in a lull. And the encouraging bit from the research: maximum isometric quad strength explained 57.8 per cent of fatigue resistance, which in turn explained 46.5 per cent of the sailing level reached. Leg strength is not a side effect here.