BloggerOn
Are you considering taking up a new sport? It can be important to know what you’re going to get from it before you start. And with something like stand up paddle boarding, it’s especially important as you may end up investing a lot of time and money into the sport. Happily, it offers a range of health benefits, both physical and mental.
In this post, we’ll look at the very best health benefits you get from stand up paddleboarding. Hopefully, you’ll be able to decide if SUP is the water sport for you. Let’s check them out!
Good for your core
The first thing that many stand up paddle boarders start to notice is how much impact SUP has on their core. So much that in fact, people who want abs of steel are often encouraged to do paddle boarding. As you paddle across a beautiful alpine lake or along the shoreline of a sandy beach, you’ll be twisting and turning and engaging your core, abdominal, and back muscles (and plenty of others too).
Improves Balance, Stability, and Flexibility
A good core means improved balance and stability. But it’s not just your core that works to keep your stable and upright. Your leg muscles are constantly engaged as you’ll be standing upright on an unstable surface. While maintaining your centre of gravity, your shoulders and arms will be paddling to propel you through the water. While not as highly engaged as the core, it’s still a great way to get muscle tone and a full-body workout.
Great cardio
When people say that stand up paddle boarding works every muscle in the body, they really do mean it. Including the most important one of all – the heart. Not only does stand up paddle boarding improve cardiovascular endurance, it speeds up your body’s circulation as your heart is working hard to pump blood to all of the muscles that are engaged. In the short term, this is a large part of what makes you feel good about SUP. Long term benefits are even better – keeping a healthy heart means that in the future strokes, heart attacks and diabetes are less likely to happen.
Helps you lose weight
It makes sense really, considering all of the work that SUP does on your muscles. With one of the key motivations for people to start a new sport being to lose weight, it’s good to know that SUP delivers on that front too. Even the most gentle SUP workout is likely to burn between 300 and 450 calories an hour. That’s twice what you’d get from a walk at an average pace.
Obviously, if you’re willing to go harder and faster you’re going to see the benefits even more. Increasing the difficulty level gradually sees you arrive at SUP yoga next. With that, you can be burning 500 calories per session. Then, it’s SUP surf, which burns between 700 and 1,000 calories an hour. Once you’ve mastered the basics of SUP and found that you’re quite good, you might even be tempted to race competitively. You’ll have already seen results in muscle tone and weight loss by then, but get ready to burn more than 1,000 calories an hour!
Low impact
You would think that with all the calories you’re burning and muscles that are engaged that after a session of SUP you’d be exhausted. But that’s often not the case. You may be a little sore across your body, but that’s normal and shows your body strength is building. As a low impact exercise, it engages your muscles without putting extra stress on them (the same goes for joints and ligaments). SUP, much like swimming, is a great way for rehabilitation, especially if you’re coming back from injury.
Boost levels of Vitamin D
There’s nothing to stop you paddle boarding in rainy and cloudy weather, however, it’s best to do it in the sun. If you’re at work all week or spend a lot of time indoors, getting out in the sun and topping up your levels of Vitamin D is invaluable. You might get a nice tan too!
While it’s great that you’re boosting your levels of Vitamin D, do remember to protect yourself against the sun. There are a number of ways you can do this. Wearing a wetsuit will completely block UV rays on the areas it covers. If you’d prefer to go in just your swimsuit, be sure to lather up with plenty of sun protection (reef-safe is best for the environment) and take sunglasses and a hat too.
Reduces Stress
Everything that we’ve looked at so far on this list is about SUP benefits your physical health. But that’s not all. The gentle nature of paddle boarding and being surrounded by nature means that your stress levels will go right down. Also, did you know you can paddle board with your dog? I don’t know about you, but just being around my dog calms me down! With the ability to disconnect from the trials and tribulations of daily life, you can focus on being in the present moment – meaning your brain will release serotonin and endorphins and improve your mood. Do this regularly, and it’ll be a boost for your mental health in the long term too.
