On this page you will find answers to many of the most frequently asked questions about the courses and about paddleboarding in general.
Questions about Learning to paddleboard
It’s really easy. But one important thing is that it’s also really easy to get it wrong. If you teach yourself without any guidance, you’re almost certainly you’re gonna be doing it wrong. And we see this at every lake or bit of water we go to where there’s paddle borders. You can tell the ones that have taught themselves, it’s not necessarily a problem. They’re stood out, they’re having fun, but their paddling will be a lot less efficient, possibly more likely to result in injury. And it also means that if the weather suddenly turned bad or whatever and they’ve gotta get back to shore against the really strong wind or whatever, that their paddling is not gonna be up to the job. So we strongly recommend learning how to do it right, which is why we have created this paddleboarding course.
There is indeed a huge amount of information on the internet, for sure. But much of it is wrong, obsolete, or lacking context. There is no one right way to do things. What works for one paddler isn’t right for the next. Learning from random videos is the easiest way to pick up bad habits, or indeed to injure yourself. Our course is structured to ensure you’re on the right equipment and doing it the right way for your own personal requirements.
No! It’s really important to find the right equipment for your own specific requirements and environment. We spend a lot of time helping you to do this in the course. If you buy equipment without this knowledge there is a high likelihood of getting the wrong equipment.
Don’t worry. In the course we will talk about how to assess whether your existing equipment is suitable for you, and what changes you can make, if necessary.
This question we hear all the time. So many people think they’ve got bad balance and therefore they think they can’t get into paddle boarding. Fortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Paddleboards come in all shapes and sizes. If you’ve got bad balance, you start with a paddleboard offering more stability, and you will be fine.
The really important thing to understand about balance is that it is purely about training the brain. You don’t need to increase your strength or strengthen your tendons or sinews to improve your balance. Balance is really just about your brain knowing which muscles to fire in the right order, and you can learn – or relearn – that at any age. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always improve your balance and paddle boarding is a fabulous way of doing that.
So if you’ve got bad balance, get into paddle boarding! As long as you’re on the right equipment, your balance is going to improve.
Don’t worry about it. If you absolutely hate the water, then paddleboarding’s probably not the right thing for you. But if you’re just not really competent in the water in terms of swimming, don’t worry about it. Wear a life jacket. Lots and lots of people go paddling who are not comfortable in the ocean or lake. Wear a life jacket, so if you fall in, you’re not going to get into trouble. As long as you’re wearing the appropriate safety gear you can make that problem go away entirely.
OK, great question. If you have really bad knees or bad hips, can you paddleboard? Really what it comes down to is if you can stand up, you can stand up paddleboard. And by that I mean if you can stand up from a chair or ideally if you can stand up from a kneeling position, then you can definitely paddleboard. If your hips or your knees are fused absolutely solid and you can’t bend your knee through 90 degrees, then it’s gonna be tricky. I’ve taught plenty of people like that, but we’ve had to work out specific routines for them. It will be a bit more of a challenge, but generally that’s kind of my first rule. If you can stand up, you can stand up paddleboard.
If you speak to any experienced paddleboard instructor, they will have plenty of anecdotal evidence that paddleboarding is really good for your back in that they will have people coming to them saying, my back hurts quite a bit, I’ve got all sorts of non specific pains, aches and twinges. The usual kind of thing that so many suffer from due to spending too long in the office sitting down, just losing all that strength in your core support muscles.
Well the good news is that paddleboarding will sort that out. We hear it time and time again that after a few paddleboard sessions, the client says, you know what? My back has stopped hurting!. I’m waking up in the morning and my back isn’t going, oh, oh, oh. So if you’ve got those non-specific back issues due to everything just being weak and under used, paddle boarding is gonna really help.
If you have a specific injury to your back, you’ve slipped a disc or you’ve had some sort of trauma injury to your back, then it’s a 50 50. Sometimes paddle boarding will help. Other times, no, it’s just causing too much aggravation to that part of the spine. You’d better talk to your surgeon, your chiropractor or whichever medical professional you trust, and see what they think. But definitely, in most cases it helps.
Can I go paddle boarding? Yes, not a problem at all. Just wear a spec saver with your glasses. A really important point to understand about paddle boarding is that actually it’s not a getting wet sport. Once you’ve gone past that early beginner stage for normal paddle boarding, you’re not falling in. There’s no need to. You don’t go out to fall in, you go out, you stay dry, you come back. You’re only going to get wet if you’re doing something like surfing or white water paddling where falling in is very much part of the fun. So wearing glasses is really not an issue.
I do most of my work in the South Pacific where to be honest, if you weigh less than 100kg you’re considered undernourished. There’s plenty of big people where I work, and getting them paddleboarding, not a problem. Again, it just comes down to having the right size of board. There are boards for every size of person and big people can go paddle boarding just as well as small people. That’s not a thing to worry about.
There is indeed stuff you need to learn, in order to be safe on the water, but that information is easily available. And in our how to paddleboard course, we’re going to take you through all that kind of knowledge that you need.
There are transferrable skills, maybe I should say transferrable knowledge and what you know about holding a paddle is definitely going to help.
However, there are some significant differences between kayaking and paddle boarding so you are gonna have to change a few things, but just the fact that you’re already comfortable on the water with a paddle in your hand will be a great help.
many paddle boards nowadays actually come with a kayak conversion kit anyway; a seat that goes on the board, a second paddle blade to turn your SUP paddle into a kayak paddle. So stand up, sit down, up to you. Personally, I recommend standing up – you don’t get the wet butt; and it’s definitely better for your back unless you’ve got absolutely perfect kayaking technique. Standing up is a more comfortable natural body position. Be warned that you may well find that after you start paddleboarding, you don’t do too much kayaking any more!
As a surfer you are really comfortable in the ocean and not afraid of getting wet, so you’re going to take to paddle boarding real easy. However, it may be slightly more tricky than you think at first. As an experienced surfer your balance is all about standing on the centre line, one foot behind the other, leaning into the turns, that sort of thing. You think in terms of front foot and back foot. When we paddle boarding our balance is more side to side, so your surfing skills aren’t 100% transferrable, you are going to have to learn some new balance techniques. But overall, you’ll be absolutely fine.
Again, as an experienced sailor you are going to understand the water and the weather, which are really useful skills. If you’re a wind surfer that’s even better because then you are already used to climbing on and off a board. So absolutely you’re going to find paddleboarding easy.
Paddleboarding gear can be anywhere between a hundred or so dollars up to thousands. There’s a huge spectrum of cost of gear and quality of gear. The cheaper gear tends to be lower quality in terms of construction and accessories, and won’t last as long. We will give some recommendations within the course.
Questions about the Use Paddleboarding To Improve Your Fitness course
Building good form is absolutely vital, so we’re going to be focussing heavily on technique throughout the course. Which is great because not only are you going to end up a fitter paddler, you’re also going to end up a much smoother and more capable paddler!
This is absolutely not boot camp. For the first few weeks it won’t be particularly physically challenging at all, and even as you approach the final weeks of the program there will still be relaxed low-impact paddling happening. You can approach this program totally at your own pace.
While there are far too many variables involved to be able to say exactly how much fitter you will get, we can still say pretty categorically that you will get fitter. And in a number of ways. Your cardiovascular system will improve, your body tone will improve, you may well find that you lose a bit of weight, and your balance will improve. And equally importantly, it’s highly likely that your mood and general feeling of wellbeing will improve, because you’ve been paddling 2-3 times a week!
If you want to go to the gym 3 times a week then all power to you. Many people do. And for sure you’ll get stronger/fitter, depending on what exercises you do. However, it’s not everybody’s idea of a great time. Whereas being on the water is a whole lot more pleasurable, and whilst it may not quite so directly target muscle strength as lifting weights, it’s actually much better in terms of improving balance and mental well being.
Absolutely. Indeed, we’d encourage it. Or a yoga or pilates session. This program can totally work in around any other fitness or wellbeing activities you already do. We will discuss this at length throughout the course.
Yes, and we’ll show you how.
Any board and paddle will work. However, as you get fitter and your paddling skills develop, you will find it easier and more productive with a board designed more with purposeful straight line paddling in mind, and a decent quality (non plastic) paddle. We will discuss equipment as the course progresses. But rest assured it is absolutely not a vital requirement. As long as your paddleboard can be paddled in a reasonably straight line, it will do!
You are going to need some way of checking the time while you’re on the water, which is most easily done with a watch.
Once we get further through the programme, being able to monitor your heart rate is also a really valuable part of the programme. It makes a huge difference in being able to target your progress and understand how your body is responding. So we’d really strongly recommend getting a sports watch that talks to a good quality heart rate monitor, either worn around your chest or your upper arm, as it really helps. And this is going to require a bit of outlay. However, it’s a one off purchase that you will find useful in any other fitness related activities you do from here onwards.
Unfortunately, we really haven’t found any watches that give reliable heart rate readings for SUP. We suspect it’s something to do with the arm action involved in paddling, but whatever the reason, the general consensus is that you will get far more accurate results with a chest HRM strap or upper arm HRM strap.
Yes, you can, and you will still absolutely get fitter. But you will get far more understanding of how your body responds to load and how efficiently you’re paddling, if you can monitor your heart rate.
Don’t worry, all this will be explained in detail throughout the programme. You’re going to learn a lot!
Ideally you need somewhere sheltered, so that the water is fairly flat. If your current skill level is such that you can cope with bumpier conditions, you can for sure complete this programme in choppy water, but it will work better if you do have some flatter water to use also.
If your venue is tidal, can you paddle at most states of the tide? If not, this may make it very difficult to schedule your 2-3 sessions per week.
The programme will work best if you have a venue that allows you to paddle for at least 500m in one direction before you have to turn around. (A slight bend in the course is fine!). If you don’t have a clear run of 500m to paddle, it will still be possible, but less easy.
On the plus side, if your body of water is that small, the chances are that it will be extremely flat and sheltered!
Yes, we fully understand that you will lose sessions due to weather, illness other commitments or unexpected issues. Don’t worry, just get back on the horse when you can. Try not to miss sessions if possible, but if it’s unavoidable, do not lose heart.
We don’t recommend just taking a week off for the hell of it, but if you have to go away, or have unavoidable commitments such that you just can’t get onto the water for a week, then so be it. Just pick up where you left off the following week. So, for example, if you’ve done weeks 1-3 but then can’t paddle at all in week 4, in week 5 you could either:
Repeat week 3, if you found it quite challenging, or
Do the week 4 programme.
Don’t ever skip over a week of the actual course.
The point is that it’s not about the program lasting exactly 12 weeks. It might take 15, or 18, or howevermany weeks for you to work right through it. It doesn’t matter. If you miss a week, just pick up where you left off the following week, or feel free to repeat the previous week’s schedule if you’d rather.
Yes, absolutely. We’ll give guidance each week about what the best options are if you need to drop a session, or add an extra session.
Totally fine. Indeed, that’s absolutely great! You’ll really feel the benefits!
Ok, this is a tricky one. If you’re already paddling 4-5 times a week then for sure, paddling just 3x per week is going to seem like stepping back rather than forward. However, there’s a very real risk of injury from over training if you paddle actively more than around 4 x per week, if you’re not already extremely paddling-fit, and even more importantly, young! As we get older, the risk of injuries is greatly increased.
If you’re coming into this programme at Level 1 or Level 2, then we’d strongly recommend not paddling more than 3x per week. If you’re coming in at Level 3, then make it 4, maximum. If you’re coming in at Levels 4-5, then we’ll talk about what’s best in those levels.
If you’re itching to do more exercise in your week, then rather than extra paddling, do some resistance training or another activity that offers aerobic benefits, such as running, swimming, cycling, brisk walking, etc.
Yes absolutely. It’s entirely flexible, and about what works for you. If you found a week particularly challenging and the idea of moving to the next level is a bit daunting, then repeat that week.
Not at all. If you end up only doing 10 weeks, you’ll still be fitter. Fitness is a spectrum. Each week will benefit you. It’s not like all the benefits suddenly arrive in week 12.
Great question. It’s usually better in the morning, because there is generally less wind then. Psychologically it works better too. Get up, go for your paddle – and it’s done. It’s in the bag. Whatever else happens during the day, nobody can take it away from you! And you’ll feel good from it all day too, those endorphins stick around in the body for quite a while.
Generally, yes, it’s fine, although this will vary from individual to individual. If you’re a coffee drinker then a cup before paddling is a very good idea to give you that morning kickstart, but otherwise, paddling on an empty stomach is not a bad thing. (When we get into the longer-duration paddles later in the program this advice will change.)