After looking at American SUP sites and reading internet articles about strength and conditioning training for stand up paddle boarding, I realised that there is very little information  available for us over here in the UK.

When you combine family, work and other commitments with near arctic conditions outside and the fact that it’s dark when you get up and dark when you get home, your time on the water becomes sacred. Therefore, the last thing you want is to be wobbling around and gasping for air when you finally do get out for a paddle! This got me thinking, wouldn’t it be great to have a training programme that can be done indoors, with minimal equipment and be flexible to the time you have available?! So following Laird Hamilton’s 5^th commandment (see www.supgower.com), I used the Christmas break to try out a few things, and here is what I came up with.

As an Exercise Physiologist I know the first thing you should do before designing any training programme is a movement analysis. Although this sounds complicated, it basically means you work out which joints are being moved in which direction by which muscles. When paddling you’re using both arms and although it looks like your arms are doing different things, they are in fact making the same over all movement. To demonstrate, put your arm up and out at 45º in front of you, lower it down and towards the centre of your body, then when your arm is pointing at 45º downward bring it back towards you hip, feel familiar?  The basis of this movements is known as shoulder extension which use the latisimus doris, posterior (rear) deltoid, pectoralis major, terres major and the triceps muscles. However, the top arm moves towards the centre of the body which means the pectoralis major comes into play more and the anterior (front) deltoid is engaged. Following from this, as the bottom arm pulls the blade through the water the scapular is retracted (moves outwards and towards the spine) and the shoulder is pulled back in order to generate power along the length of the stroke. This increases the activity of the posterior deltoid and latisimus doris and engages the trapizeus and romboid muscles of the back. If you watch top paddlers, you will notice that there bottom arm bends very little during the final part of the power stroke, and instead they rotate their torso (see Jim Terrell’s video at www.quickbladepaddles.com). The numerous muscles is your back which twist and bend your body are much stronger and more fatigue resistance (mainly because they hold you upright all day long!!) than your biceps which only bend your arm, therefore keeping a straighter arm and rotating into your stroke allows you to paddle harder for longer without feeling the burn in your arms. Core stability and balance are major players in stand up paddle boarding and this is where the legs and core muscles come into play. Even if you’re paddling on flat water your legs are constantly performing small squats, your hips are neutralising the lateral movements and you abs are keeping you whole body balanced and stable allowing you to make full strong paddle strokes. Therefore, considerable attention has to be paid to these areas, after all you can’t build a brick house on soft sand!

I have taken the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) approach to the training I’ve been doing, which means minimal equipment, no complicated legs round your head yoga guru type stuff and exercises which can be done anywhere. Your body weight is the cheapest and most effective piece of gym equipment on the market today (also the fatter you are the more value for money you get!!). Yoga jokes aside, we have all seen the Californian yoga instructors with Calvin Klein underwear model bodies without going within 300 yards of a nautilus machine! However there are some exercises which are either not possible to do with body weight, or the muscles which produce the movement are not strong enough to lift your mass in that particular direction. This is where resistance bands/tubes come in. I’m sure you have all seen them is some shape or form at the gym, in magazines and even on the shelves at Tesco. They are cheap, come in different strengths and can be tied, looped or lashed to anything that will not turn into a projectile when you start pulling on them. I personally have a set of 3 different tubes with handles which I attach to the door handle in my spare room. As my strength has improved I’ve started to use more than one band at once to increase the resistance.

As it is very difficult to fully simulate the paddling movement off the water, some exercises I do are aimed at the top arm (the one holding the T-Piece) and others the Bottom arm (the one holding the paddle shaft), however most work equally well for both. You should always start a resistance training session by doing exercise which work large groups of strong muscle, this not only increases the work done by the stronger muscles (e.g. pecs, lats etcs) but also means that you don’t over work smaller muscles which can lead to failure on later exercises or injury. I like to start my sessions with press ups, I know the thought of press ups fills many people with dread because they are hard and never seem to get any easier (well not if you do it right). Beginners can start off with a few box press ups (knees on the ground and the legs at right  angles to the back), as you get stronger move your legs back until your in a full press up position, from here let you imagination go wild! Lift you feet up to increase the weight on your shoulders and upper chest, put you hand closer together and further back to work you lower chest, from there you can go for a piked press up (bring you feet up and keep you legs straight so your bum sticks up in the air) or even a full handstand press (not advised unless your very advanced or have a strong neck and thick skull!). Another good upper body exercise if you have a place to do them are chin ups, which work pretty much the whole of your upper body to some extent, however they are often very hard for beginners who may need assistance and therefore deviates from my KISS philosophy. Sit ups are another great exercise which can be adapted as you grow stronger and fitter. Starting of with simple crunches, progressing to full sit ups to which you can then incorporate your legs to engaging lower abs. Holding your arm straight out behind you makes the sit up harder and eventually you can progress to holding a dumbbell (For loads more back and abdominal exercises check out this website www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/WaistWt.html#anchor1944764). A type of sit up I think deserves a special mention due to its direct application to stand up paddling is the Russian twist. Do a normal sit up but stop half way up, now twist your torso so your looking to the left hold for a second, twist back to the centre and then do the same to the right, repeat this for as many reps as you want then sit back down again. This exercise works your obliques, abdominals, transverse abs and the muscle which run up your spine. These are the muscles which are important for the torso twist during paddling which I spoke of earlier.

Now for the more paddle specific exercises which require the resistance tubes. There are two ways I like to use the tubes, one is to stand on it so you can lift your arms upwards and outwards against the resistance. The other way is to double it up and attach to a post or door handle allowing you to move your arms away or towards your body.

Paddle row

Attach the tubes to something steady (I find a door handle is a good height), take an end in each hand and stand so you can pull against the resistance of the tube with your arms straight. With your arm out stretched in front of you, hands shoulder width apart and elbows slightly bend, pull you hands straight back towards and past your hips. The resistance should feel equal on both sides and even through the whole movement (move yourself and the band around until it does). This exercise mimics the whole paddle stroke for both arms in a basic way, but if you want to make it more like the top arm, kneel down or raise the anchor point of the tube. This is also good for prone surfing if you bend over and mimic paddling against the resistance. You can do this for a set number of reps, but I normally do this until I feel it burning across my shoulder and then squeeze out 5-10 more.

Bent arm row

Almost the same as the paddle row except your elbows bend to 90 ° as you pull towards you hips (imagine how you would pull a heavy door open). This is a little easier than the paddle row but works the biceps and the muscle in the middle of your back (trapizeus and rhomboids) a bit more. Even if you don’t paddle with a bent arm, this exercise will work the muscle of your shoulders and back involved in the movement of the bottom arm during paddling.

Wood chop

This exercise mimics the movement of the top arm during the paddle stroke. Either by kneeling down or attaching the tube higher up, turn sideways onto the anchor point so that your holding the end of the tube with your arm pointing upwards at 45° (think Saturday night fever). Now keeping your arm straight (but not locked out) bring your hand down and across your body to you opposite hip, this should feel something like the movement you make when paddling. You will have to repeat this on both sides unless you can figure some way of setting up two bands to work both arms at once Samson style.

Chain saw

The opposite movement to the wood chop, the tube is attached lower down so the movement starts with your hand at the hip and extends outwards and upwards (again flairs and theme music optional). Although this movement is not part of the propulsion phase of the stroke, it is part of the recovery phase and therefore is important for a quick, smooth paddle action. Also only working muscle involved in propulsion will cause an imbalance which ultimately leads to injury.

These 4 exercises work whole muscle groups in a similar way to when your paddling, however you can use the tubes to work smaller groups or each muscle individually. This is where you can get inventive and see what works for you. I find by standing on the tube you can lift you arms out to the side to work you lateral deltoids and traps, arms out in front works your deltoids, pecs and biceps and lifting your hands straight up your body from you hips to your shoulders (as if you’re pulling your trousers up to your nipples like Simon Cowell) again works your deltoids, lats, traps and smaller shoulder muscles. You can even do bicep curls for that Venice beach look. Once you have a few basic moves down, you can start to be imaginative. Try doing some exercises on an indo board, do them on one leg, add in some free squats or jumps. The important thing is to think, why am I doing this and what is it improving? Try keeping a note of what you do so you can mix up your sessions to stop you getting bored or stale with the same 5 things every time.

There are several ways in which to gain a maximum work out in the shortest possible time. Firstly you can choose a few key exercises (press up, sit up, paddle row, wood chop   ) which you perform to failure, rest and repeat 3 or 4 times, depending on how many reps you can do before failure, this should be a quick session (15-20 minute) that leaves you burning in all the right places. An alternative method involves a ‘crossfit’ approach, where 4-5 exercise are chosen which between them either work the whole body or a specific area.

For example;

Press ups x 30

Free squats x 30

Paddle row x 40

Twists x 12 each side

Repeat twice more with 2-3 minutes rest between each.

These exercises are done for a high number of reps or for a set time period, one after another in a circuit training fashion, after a period of rest this can be repeated as many times as required. I personally like this style of resistance training as it adds an element of aerobic training to the session without forfeiting the quality of the strength development exercises. The main thing is to experiment, set yourself a time limit and fit in what you can, starting with key exercises which work a group of muscles and work your way down to more specific single muscle ones.

Remember most stand up paddle races are endurance events which last an hour or more, so although it may feel nice to be able to push out 5 or 6 heavy reps in the gym, the massive arms and rippling pecs you develop as a consequence are not going to be much comfort to you when your half way through a race, a mile offshore and some skinny kid comes flying past you with a much higher paddle rate. However, the correct type of strength training will allow you to paddle faster for longer, be able to battle headwinds and who knows, win that sprint finish. Finally keep in mind something is always better than nothing and making small changes which fit into your daily routine will be easier to keep up and  more beneficial over time than a radical new exercise programme.

Rich Morton
Starboard SUP Race Team Member