Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Stand Up Paddling is excellent exercise

If you have read most of the postings on this blog (and there are many) you may have come across some posts where I speak about using a stand up paddle board or SUP. Here you can see what the board looks like:
IMG_6874sm

Anyway, when there are waves around those of us who have these boards and love surfing just paddle out to find them. Here you see Nik surfing a lovely wave:
IMG_6376sm

The beauty about surfing on a SUP is that you can paddle on to the wave before you would normally be able to while laying on a regular surf board. This means you can take off and be on the wave further out and away from the critical section of the wave. This gives you time to move around and get perfect positioning on the wave. There are many other reasons that SUP has become so attractive to traditional wave surfers.
The biggest group of SUP users are those that simple paddle on flat water to exercise and explore in the same way that many people kayak. I don't usually show photos or video of myself, but my wife gave me a lovely new waterproof camera for Christmas and it works well on the SUP. This is my first test video. (IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO VIEW THE VIDEO WITH MUSIC PLEASE CHANGE THE SETTINGS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE VIDEO FROM 360p TO 460p.) The workout is great and so much more enjoyable that hitting the gym in my opinion.


There are many sizes and shapes of SUP boards depending on what you are planning on doing. The board I am using is a good all around board that you can surf in the waves, do long down wind runs and or just do a little afternoon exploring and exercise. I hope to see you out there.