BALANCED SUP TRAINING TO HELP PREVENT INJURY: PART ONE Stand up paddling is no doubt taking the world by storm, and while you don’t need to be in the greatest shape to paddle, you’ll soon discover the benefits. As you begin to improve your technique, experiment with new gear and maybe decide to enter a race or wave competition, it’s a good idea to learn how to train in a balanced way to prevent injury so that you can enjoy paddling even more and stay on the water. As the sport continues to evolve, and as a trainer who specializes in educating people how to paddle stronger and better improve their performance, I’d like to share with you first an overview of some of the known complaints...

INCREASE YOUR PADDLE POWER   This has been a full summer of paddling for sure, whatever your style: downwinders, flat-water, waves or the Moto X of SUP: SUPCross. I’ve been getting lots of emails from you as you improve your SUP skills and increase your strength. That’s awesome! I'm glad the SUP-specific fitness tips I’ve designed for you are working and will continue to help you each and every session. By now, your core, legs and upper body are getting stronger and you are learning the fine dynamics of building your strength specifically for stand up paddling. So it's time to go to the level of power here. In these exercises, we’re not only going to engage our core to the highest degree, but I’m going to give...

BUILDING YOUR DYNAMIC CORE   Want to explode your paddling core strength? You got it. These exercises require that you understand how to engage your core muscles both before and during the entire set. You become the stabilizing factor as you perform these movements. Also, I’d like you to pay close attention to the tubing or TRX Rip Trainer cord so that it is always taut and under tension throughout the entire series. I call this "time under tension". If you “let go” of this concept, or your core, you won't benefit fully from this workout. Training Note: It's your choice if you wear shoes or not, or if you train on an unstable surface such as the beach (which is more challenging). I try to train barefoot...

MORE ON THE "CORE"   By now you’ve hopefully worked into your training routine some of the total body exercises I designed specifically for stand up paddling; to work everything, including your core and hope you’re also working on your leg strength. In this series, I’m going to ramp up your core work and take you to a higher level of core training for SUP. You will REALLY notice the difference as you train for the waves, flat water and downwinders. Without a strong core, your paddling will suffer. I have so many core exercises to show you, so please always check back here. Remember, the core is defined as “everything excluding the extremities” also referred to as the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex. Think of the core to be where...

DEVELOP STRONG LEGS FOR GLIDING POWER   Training for power comes with time and one should have a pretty good base of fitness before attempting some of these exercises. Extra precautions should be warranted to those who may have ankle weakness or other orthopedic challenges. You may have heard of plyometrics, which refers to very powerful, 2 legged, explosive like exercises that help speed and power. Training Note: It's your choice if you wear shoes or not, or if you train on an unstable surface such as the beach (which is more challenging). I try to train barefoot so that I can mimic the feel of the board. If working with weights, be careful not to drop them on your feet! Everyone’s training needs and experience...

STRENGTH AND BALANCE FOR YOUR LEGS   Powerful legs can help stabilize you as you push off the lip of a wave or simply make sure you’re still standing as you enter and exit big glides. They can also keep you from dancing off the nose or tail of your board in a critical situation. In order to be successful in all the above, you first need to be familiar with what muscles to fire to make your legs work both together and independently. Take the surfer stance on an SUP for example, your back leg is in charge of thrusting, pushing, stabilizing and helping you carve as you paddle. Your front leg may share in that, but you push more on the front leg to increase...

ENDURANCE WORKOUT FOR SUPER LEGS   Last week we focused on recruiting the finite muscles around your feet, ankles, knees, inner thighs and hips to promote quicker reaction times and improve your stability and balance. This week, I'll be walking you through exercises to improve your leg strength, endurance and power. Remember when you were first learning to stand up paddle? You may have felt like your legs were like jello and your feet and arches may have burned a little too while you were death-gripping the deck and trying to put it all together. That too shall pass as you develop and strengthen the muscles of your legs and simply spend more time on the water!  Training Note: It's your choice if you wear shoes or...

UPPER BODY AND CORE WORKOUT   Whether you’re new to the sport of stand up paddling or preparing for an exciting Maui Maliko downwinder, having upper body paddling endurance and excellent balance will get you through the deepest troughs, maybe help you pass a competitor or help you enter bigger waves and swells with extra confidence and success! I like to be as efficient as possible when training, so combining the two is perfect. The following exercise is just a sample of what you can do to get stronger, develop faster reflexes, increase the rapid firing of your finite muscles that stabilizes your larger muscles, improve your timed runs and possibly reduce fatigue and/or risk of overuse injuries. It’s well known that SUP requires the entire body to perform...

STABILIZING AND BALANCE WORKOUT   Stand up paddling on flat water, waves or riding a board like the 14' Glide and catching a 50 yard glide, requires your legs to be strong together and independently. I’ve written articles before on leg strength, but I want to get really specific here for stand up paddling. These exercises are designed to demonstrate techniques to use your own body instead of machines to achieve your goals, allowing your body to become the machine and your arms and legs to be powerful and stay in control. Over the course of a few weeks, I’ll be sharing with you lots of excellent leg exercises that will help you catch more waves, dig your rails a little harder for a faster buoy turn and introduce...