SUP Training Video Adding New Dimensions to Your Stand Up Paddle Performance

These exercises will help you increase your overall SUP performance. They are presented with a clear progression from easier to advanced. All levels of paddlers can take away a few new training tips and techniques here.

As a trainer and paddler, I want to introduce a new concept that will help keep your brain and stand up paddling skills extra sharp in all dimensions.

What I mean by this is that we live and paddle in one dimension. We walk forward, we swim forward, we surf forward and we all can say we paddle forward. Sure we turn, we cut back and I have seen some paddle backwards to goof off, but we usually train and paddle in one dimension.

Now I have experienced, not on purpose; the act of sliding sideways on a big downwind glide. It’s almost like drifting in a racecar or doing what we call in the rally world, a 4-point drift! (Best freak’n, exciting rush ever!) Have you ever felt your board skid sideways? What did you? How did you react? Did you fight it or did you think it was way cool and go with it?

Have you practiced time and time again to step up; hop up over that small or medium sized wave or beach break attempting to get out, only to find yourself quickly stepping off the nose or back of board? These exercises will help you get up and over that small or medium side chop or wave.

Do you know how to brace yourself with your paddle before you fall? Can you instinctively plant your paddle without looking and confidently know it will be exactly where you need it, without falling off your board? Are you having trouble with quick turns into a wave or around a buoy? If so, these exercises will help you improve those skills too.

I want to tune you in to something that I do here in the studio or at the beach with some of my SUP folks and they don’t even know it. I’m training their brain to paddle and be in all dimensions at every moment. It’s not voodoo or island magic, it’s called training in different “dimensions or planes” of motion. I do this with force, no force, with weights or without weights.

For example we paddle forward on the right or left side of board in the sagittal plane, then we look and twist with our lower body to catch a wave or turn around a buoy in the transverse plane or lower superior of body. Sometimes when you’re doing a cut back, you’re paddling in all planes at once. As your board is sliding or floating across the lip of the wave you are now in the coronal or frontal plane.

This is trainer speak for and illustrated like this:

 

3 primary planes – transverse plane, frontal plane, and the sagittal plane.

Sagittal plane: divides body into right and left sides – We paddle left or right of board. Bracing with paddle lands us here.

Frontal plane: divides body into front/back – We respond, react and shift our weight as needed to recover, catch a bump or catch a wave here.

Transverse plane: divides body into top and bottom – We compress, uncoil, recoil, thrust, twist body in opposite direction for cut back, floater or to step turn into a wave.

(There is a test after this article. Get the answers correct and get date withNaish Team Rider, Chuck Patterson)

 How does it relate to SUP?  It’s like storing unique imprints of body reactions that you can reach for at any moment in time just in case you’re trying to push off the lip, or free falling maybe a bit sideways down the face of a big wave, or air dropping down the “back” side of a small wave that you’ve decided last minute to not ride down, but paddle up the face and stick it!   Make sense yet?

Or let’s say you’re practicing your step turns, bracing with your paddle to help stop a fall, or you’re venturing into a few bigger waves, rapids or glides; you need a powerful and sharp, left to right, up and down even though we are still paddling straight.

Somehow your brain has allowed you to perform at the most intense, extreme level humanly possible without your Spiderman  (or woman) suit, in some instances and you execute perfectly. Your brain already has an idea on how to help you do it. Now we train to reinforce it.

There is a way to train for these moments and I want to show you some exercises that relate directly to SUP, stand up paddling, so when you’re faced with the unthinkable, or your calm mellow no wind day turns to victory at sea, or when you think you can drop in on something big or small, your brain and body will be fully present and not leave you on the shore crumbled up in a lump of shame! ( kidding )

Pre Training Notes:

Perform these exercises on the grass or sand, not cement or hard surface. Also you may not want to use your best paddle in case you land too hard. A broom or flexible stick works well too! You can choose to be barefoot or in shoes. You should be free of any ankle or knee injuries.

Performing on sand will increase the intensity. Helmet not required!

Equipment: (to complete all exercises as presented): paddle, or broom, 1-2 BOSUs + (1) Indo Board Gigante Flo Cushion, ( Get your Flo Cushion here)

Inflate Indo Board Gigante Flo Cushion to about 80% for maximum challenge. Center Gigante Flo Cushion under center of board, nubby side up.

Step up on board with caution and grace just as you would on the water. Look forward and make sure feet are in proper placement. Everybody does the shake and bake, don’t worry it will get easier! That means that your brain has no idea what to do with you, so do you must. Practice your steps, position for pivot turns while your bracing to stop a fall and than finally reach behind you for cutback.

You can be sure your SUP performance will definitely improve after you’ve done these exercises even a few times. Be sure to progress safely and wisely, hydrate before, during and after each training session.

For more stand up paddling fitness training tips, go to NaishSurfing.com

Also check out my websites at StandupPaddlingFitness.com and SuzieTrainsMaui.com

Mahalo,

Suzie Cooney, CPT

Naish Team Rider

Owner of Suzie Trains Maui, LLC