This summer I’ve had two occasions to try stand up paddle board yoga. The first was on my beach trip last month. We had a board at the house and took turns going out and goofing around on it.

I got a good feel for the board but fell in the water MANY, MANY times. Especially playing with balancing poses!

The second time was on Friday when I did a stand up paddle board yoga class on Lake Wylie with Om Yoga. The owner of our studio actually led us through a whole class on our paddle boards. We did sun salutations, backbends, balancing poses and seated hip openers. The class was a mix of yoga and paddling. Every 15 minutes or so we’d have to stop our yoga to all paddle back together. We also had some incidents of boaters and jet skiers purposefully creating wake to mess with us and try and make us fall but we took it in stride.

Stand up paddle board yoga has been a growing trend over the last couple of years and now I know why! It’s a great mixture of fun, challenging and relaxing. Every pose feels 10 times harder and you have to really take your time and move into them slowly and intentionally. You can feel every muscle in your body working while you’re trying to maintain the pose. I managed to stay dry on Friday until we got to half moon pose…and then I was wet! One leg balancing poses are SO hard on the board.

My favorite poses to do on the paddle board are backbends and inversions (which are also my favorite poses to do in general!). It was also really nice to do hip openers like pigeon and frog on the paddle board. It was so relaxing just to float around and close your eyes.

I highly recommend trying stand up paddle board yoga. It’s a great way to get playful with your practice in a beautiful setting!

Have you ever tried SUP Yoga? 

And here’s a rundown on this week’s workouts. I skipped last week. Is this even something that y’all want me to keep doing? Does it help or give you ideas at all? If not, I’ll cut it out. I feel like the blog world runneth over with workout recaps. Just let me know.

Monday

5 mile run

Tuesday

CrossFit + 60 GHD Sit Ups

15 minute AMRAP (Finished 5 rounds)

10 box jumps
15 front squats (65#)
20 kettlebell swings (35#)

Wednesday

5 mile run

Thursday

CrossFit

Chipper (Finished in 24 minutes RX)

40 DU
400 meter row
40 KB swings 53/36
40 box jumps 24/20
40 v-ups
40 Double unders
40 slam balls 25/20
40 burpees
40 DB snatches 35/20
400 meter run
40 DU

Friday

Hot Yoga + Stand Up Paddle Board Yoga

Saturday 

CrossFit

20 minute AMRAP (I finished 10 rounds)

5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 ab mat sit ups
*With power cleans at the beginning of every round. 1 on round 1, 2 on round 2, 3 on round 3, 4 on round four and so on…I did those at 85#. They got really hard by round 6!

Sunday

REST

I took an evening walk with the pup while I chatted with my grandmother.