The Stand Up Paddle (or SUP for the initiated) is the aquatic sport to make the summer by the sea and the preferred means of transport of the sports-eco-stars like Gisele Bündchen.
Playful, it allows you to have fun while sculpting its silhouette the air of nothing.
What if we put ourselves in it?
What is Stand Up Paddle?
In English, Stand Up means "standing" and paddle "paddle".
It is the ancestor of modern surfing: a board of 3 to 4.5 meters that formerly Polynesians cut into a tree trunk and used to move from island to island standing with a paddle. The paddle was brought up to date in the 1940's by a Hawaiian swimming champion and his band of friends, the first beach boys. In the sixties, these same neo-surfers used it on the beach of Waikiki to take pictures of tourists who came to surf. Driven by surfing, Stand Up Paddle returned to the limelight in 2004, in Hawaii, when the famous Polynesian island hopping races were revived.
Since then, American stars and models have popularized this summer activity that can be practiced everywhere, even on the Seine in Paris!
How to practice?
To get into the Stand Up Paddle, we get the famous board (rigid or inflatable) and a paddle, which we choose according to its size and its use.
If you start, better start with a walk on a sea or a calm water type lake. The most experienced, them, use it to surf, to go shopping or to descend currents in white water.
Those who do not have a good sense of balance can be reassured: Stand Up Paddling is not necessarily done standing up, you can either stay on your knees or sit.
A discipline that works the whole body
A complete sport par excellence, the SUP, if practiced correctly, makes it possible to improve one's cardio , to burn a maximum of calories (up to 1000 per hour!) And to tone the arms, back, shoulders, abdominal strap, thighs and glutes.
It is also an ideal activity to work on its proprioception, that is to say the perception of the position of our body in space and the reflex mechanisms that allow us to remain stable.
Good news for the most athletic among us: hybrid disciplines like Stand Up Paddle Yoga and Stand Up Paddle Fitness are offered in many pools. A good way to get ready all year to show off on the beach all summer with our acrobatic prowess.
