Paddleboarding is a lot of fun, and it’s all the rage in the water sports community. Besides keeping you active, you get a full-body workout and improved stamina. Here are nine health benefits of paddleboarding.
What is paddleboarding?
Since you’re here, you probably know what paddleboarding is already. Paddleboarding is a common water sport that involves people standing or kneeling on a paddleboard on the ocean or any other body of water. The sport is not only fun, but it also does a lot for your overall wellness and fitness.
9 Health Benefits of Paddle Boarding
1. Keeps You Active and Boosts Cardiovascular Health
One of the most basic yet important advantages of paddleboarding is getting you on your feet! Also referred to as stand-up paddleboarding, this sport keeps you active as you get out of the house and get on the water with your paddleboard and a paddle.
The sport is a low-impact workout that isn’t too hard on your ligaments, joints, and tendons, perfect for individuals and athletes that struggle with hip pain, knee pain, and shin splints. As a result, it’s an excellent sport for anyone recovering from injuries – not too demanding to worsen them but effective enough to keep them in good shape.
Physical exercise has always been positively linked to cardiovascular health. The activity of rowing and gliding across the waves keeps your heart pumping and significantly boosts your cardiovascular health. Since power boarding provides a similar exercising pattern to cross-training, running, and aerobics, it could help you reduce your risk of suffering from a stroke or heart attack and other related diseases.
2. Provides a Full Body Workout
Are you tired of spending hours on a treadmill staring at a wall at the gym? Do you desperately need a change of scenery while exercising and instead use your time doing something much more enjoyable? Paddleboarding as an exercise will simultaneously target several muscle groups across your body and give you a thrilling experience.
As you paddle across the water, you give your upper body an intense workout. You’ll feel the effects in your arms, chest, shoulders, and the rest of your torso. Balancing on the board as you ride the waves and overcome the challenging water conditions will significantly work out your leg muscles. In no time, you’ll find that you have a full-body workout doing this one activity that you love!
3. Improves Balance and Joint Stability
In one of your first paddleboarding lessons, you’ll find out how challenging it can be to balance on a paddleboard on water. Sure, the pros might make it look easy, but the sport requires a lot of balance to stand up and stay standing. Suppose you practice and learn how to balance on the board. In that case, you’re guaranteed to have better balance doing pretty much everything else, from dancing to running and even regular ol’ walking.
Your joints will also thank you! Balancing on your cool paddleboard will improve your balance and strengthen your ankles, knees, and hip joints through stability training. Don’t forget that this sport is also low-impact. It’ll give you stability and balance without damaging your joints as high-intensity exercises would.
Paddleboarding is especially great for people who have conditions like plantar fasciitis. It activates all the small muscles of the feet and lower legs, mimicking the effects and benefits of actual physical therapy!
4. Improved Core Strength and Endurance
Have you been looking to earn those abs of steel? Well, here’s your chance. Paddleboarding thoroughly works out your core muscles as you twist, turn, balance, and paddle across the water. It’s also a great way to build your stamina and endurance. It simultaneously provides strength training and works your aerobic system.
Paddleboarding will keep you fit and lean, with strengthened abominable muscles, arms, back, and shoulders.
5. Increased Range of Motion
Range of motion describes how far you can move your joints in different directions and at varying degrees. Paddleboarding is a thoroughly engaging exercise that helps move your joints through their full range of motion. This can help keep you flexible and relieve any pain or difficulty you may have been experiencing with moving your joints.
6. Improved Mental Health and Reduced Stress Level
Exercise improves your mental health and reduces stress significantly. There’s nothing quite as relaxing as being out on the water, enjoying nature, breathing in the salt air, and experiencing the indescribable thrill of standing on water.
Whether you choose to socialize with other paddlers or take some time to be alone, you’re guaranteed to experience a tremendous boost in your mental health.
Get on the water with your board if you find yourself in a funk or a mood! Paddleboarding can also help with combating depression in place of prescription drug use. It helps relax your mind while increasing the release of serotonin and endorphins. Cue the happy feeling and feelings of contentment.
7. Increased Absorption of Vitamin D
Paddleboarding gets you out on the water and in the sun, giving you ample opportunity to soak up the sunlight and produce vitamin D in your body. Vitamin D is essential for several beneficial functions and processes in your body, including calcium production, bone development, mental alertness, heart health, and immune system strengthening.
8. Improved Posture
In this day and age, the average individual spends most of their days sedentary, either hunched over their computers or staring at their phone screens. Poor posture is a modern-day epidemic, and it’s gotten so common that even kids as young as ten years old have begun demonstrating signs of spinal degeneration.
If you’re on your phone a lot or at your desk a lot, it might be time to pick up paddleboarding to make up for it.
Taking up paddle boarding can help alleviate the strain on your posture and improve your spine alignment. It specifically targets a group of muscles supporting the back of the leg and spine called the posterior chain – the biceps femoris, gluteus maximus, the latissimus dorsi, the erector spinae, and the trapezius.
9. Helps With Weight Loss
So many people run to the gym or hop on every new fad diet in hopes of losing weight. Some of these alternatives might work, such as exercising and adopting a clean diet.
However, paddleboarding is an even more fun way to hit your weight loss goals.
Several studies have shown that paddleboarding significantly lowers body fat and improves muscle tone – far better than any excessive cut-out diet or pills you could buy. Find more details on the benefits of paddleboarding here.
Tips for Starting With paddle boarding
Now that you know all these incredible benefits of paddleboarding, it’s safe to assume that you’re not going in blind. Still, here are some tips to help you get started with paddleboarding.
- The chances of falling over from your board your first few times are pretty high. So, to ensure that you’re safe in that event, know how to swim and stay calm in the water.
- Use a leash to stay attached to your board: Your safety is vital, and we don’t want your board drifting away! A leash ensures that you’re within a safe distance of your board if you find yourself in the water.
- Practice on solid ground before hitting the water
- Start practicing on your knees to get used to being on the water.
- Learn how to stand up on a paddleboard in one fluid motion for better balance.
- Get paddling as soon as you stand.
- Keep your hands on the paddle’s shaft and directly in front of your knees with fingers spread wide. Place the paddle in the water with the bent part facing forward.
- Learn how to fall away from the board to avoid injuring or ruining your board
- Bend your legs at the waist and knees for better balance
- Practice looking ahead and not down at your feet or the water
- Learn how to paddle with different strokes
- Practice a lot!
Summary
So there you have it, all the benefits paddleboarding offers for your health. Paddleboarding can be fun and super beneficial to your physical and mental health. It’s a stress-relieving workout and activity that you can enjoy no matter your age! The water and the cool salt air are waiting for you. Have a happy paddling experience!