There’s no better way to get into shape than to engage your entire body simultaneously in a physically demanding sport.  Paddle boarding gives your body such an amazing workout it’s hard not to immediately fall in love with the sport.  The best part?  You’re cruising around in the sunshine and hardly even realizing just how much you are working out!

Burning Calories

Here’s some estimated calorie counts burned for each kind of SUP:

Recreational

The most docile form of paddle boarding, recreational SUP as well as stand up paddle board surfing, are said to burn nearly twice as many calories as walking. In a single hours’ time, you can typically burn around 305-430 calories paddling about at a fairly relaxed pace.

Yoga

Yoga on a paddle board allows you to escape the crowded studio, take in the fresh air, and enjoy the peacefulness of the outdoors. SUP yoga also burns more calories than yoga on land due to  the added challenges.  These challenges include wind, waves, and maintaining balance, averaging around 416-540 calories an hour.  Did we mention balance?  Yeah, you’re going to work extra hard to prevent that lotus pose from going sideways and into the water!

Incredible Fitness Benefits

An Entire Body Experience

Paddle boarding requires the participation of a wide-range of muscles including your legs, arms, shoulders, neck, back, and core.  And if this wasn’t enough you are generally working all of these muscle groups simultaneously!

Your legs, back and abdominal muscles work to maintain balance.  While simply standing for extended periods of time on a paddle board your will start to feel tired.

Paddling continues to strengthen the arms and shoulders with each stroke. With your whole body being put to work, no particular muscle is being overworked. As a result your muscles will strengthen and gain endurance without too much fatigue at the end of the workout. Contrast this with how it feels after lifting weights intensely with a single muscle group.

A Multi-Functional Exercise

When paddle boarding, you are not just doing one particular type of training. In effect you are altogether working on a number of types of exercise. In fact, paddle boarding covers 3 out of 4 of the major types of exercise all at once: endurance, strength, and balance.

Endurance:

Paddling continuously will easily give your body more endurance.  If you paddle for a steady pace that is challenging enough but continuous you will elevate your heart rate and gain the chance to work on your breathing during this fantastic form of endurance training.

Strength:

Paddle even harder or into the wind and you can’t help but get stronger.  If you ever wanted a muscular upper body paddle boarding could be that new exciting workout that keeps you motivated!

Balance:

Simply standing on a paddle board will engage your core. Your leg muscles will work to control all the micro movements of the board in order to keep you upright and out of the water.  It really is a fantastic way to work on one’s balance.

Flexibility:

The fourth component is flexibility, so if you’re doing SUP yoga, you have all of your bases covered!

Safety First

It’s important to have all of the proper paddle boarding safety equipment in place before you do set out on that amazing journey.  Always make sure you are wearing a personal flotation device suitable for paddle boarding.  While the chance of something bad happening can seem remote remember that it is better to be safe than sorry!

Also, be sure to wear a leash on your leg just in case that board slips away from you.  You can really get a proper workout knowing that you’ve taken all precautions ahead of time!