First lets jump into the differences between practicing yoga on land vs in the water. While on land you are always grounded to your yoga mat. In the water on your SUP yoga board, the board will be constantly moving from your balance shifting, the water moving, wind, and all the elements playing with your yoga paddle board.

Since you are not grounded on your yoga mat, you will need to carefully plan and execute all your yoga poses. Your yoga routine will come alive and you will use all your muscles to stabilize your body as you move around on the paddle board. Your mind will also get a new workout as you will not be able to zone out, you will be focused on keeping your mind-body connection as you learn to flow with the unstable paddle board that is now your personal floating yoga studio.

And the best part about sup yoga is your will be practicing outside in nature on the water. Every breath you take you will be breathing in the beautiful outside air and your vision will be rewarded with incredible views that you can only get from being on a paddle board practicing yoga.

Benefits of SUP Yoga

Full Body Workout

Paddling boarding is a great full-body workout on its own, but add in SUP yoga and your workout will go to a whole new level. Paddle boarding works out your entire body from your arms, back, core, legs, and all your stabilizer muscles. SUP yoga will allow you to focus on all these muscle groups in a mindful way and allow you to work on your breathing while doing your yoga practice. Paddling to your SUP yoga location then practicing yoga will have not only have your body feeling great, but your mind will feel well-rested and focused. You will be dreaming of your next SUP yoga class before you even get back on land.

Strengthen New Muscles

Practicing yoga on a paddle board will challenge all of your muscles as will be doing your yoga practice on a unstable surface. This type of training is commonly referred to as Aquatic Based Stability Training or ABST. ABST will work your central nervous system in a new way, it will recruit and engage more muscles fibers compared to doing the same exercise off the water. This will strengthen your stabilizer muscles, and if you have a preferred side for your yoga poses SUP yoga will quickly bring those to your attention. Practicing paddle board yoga will teach your body to be balanced and to improve your technique as well as strengthen weak or underutilized muscles. SUP yoga will make you think about your yoga sessions and you will be having a blast while doing it!

Increase Your Balance

SUP yoga will give you a great increase in balance in a relatively short time. While yoga paddle boards are very stable compared to an all-around paddle board they are still considered an unstable surface while practicing yoga. SUP yoga will take even a basic practice and have it challenge your balance. And by working on yoga poses that you have learned on land, the water will make them even more challenging. And your body will quickly adapt to the unstable surface and your balance will improve extremely fast. Many people notice that after just a few sample sup yoga routine they notice an improvement to their balance not only while practicing yoga on land, but in daily life. Simply put practicing sup yoga on your paddle board will have a great impact on your overall balance.

Relieve Stress

I think everyone can agree the last few years have been stressful. We are living in a global pandemic, the rules change every few weeks, there are supply chain issues, work is constantly changing, and the list goes on and on. SUP yoga will help your reduce some of that stress. Just the matter of being out on the water in the fresh air will greatly calm your body and mind. And then being able to do a yoga session while out in nature, that just is the icing on the cake. For me, there is no place I would rather be than out on the water and that makes SUP yoga the ultimate stress reducer. I love to practice yoga by myself on a calm morning, and then having the chance to take a yoga class at sunset would be a perfect day.

Refine Your Land Yoga Skills

I think this will go without saying but adding a sup yoga class to your routine will drastically increase your land yoga skills. Your SUP yoga instructor will be able to lead you through a meaningful full practice and guide you on any weakness you have in your various poses whether they are fundamental or advanced yoga poses. Sup yoga classes are a lot of fun and that alone is reason enough to dedicate sup yoga to your workout routine, but you will find that SUP yoga will improve your land practice and and refine all your techniques.

What To Look For In a Dedicated Yoga Board

If you have fallen in love with SUP yoga and want to purchase a dedicated yoga board for yourself here are some of the main things to look for when making your purchase.

You will want your yoga board to have a full length deck pad, this will make the board much more comfortable to practice SUP yoga on. The deck pad should also be flat and not have a texture. A good yoga board will have a brushed EVA pad that is very comfortable on your hands and feet. You can get either an inflatable paddle board or a hard yoga board depending on your preference.

A dedicated yoga board should be a stable board and be a versatile board that should have center carry handle, large deck space, center fin, and a large weight capacity.

An inflatable paddle board should have all the accessories like a dual-chamber pump, fiberglass paddle, rolling bag, leash, and repair kit.

And if you are looking for the best yoga board on the market you are in the right place! The Glide Lotus Inflatable paddle board has been the choice of yoga sups for all the major yoga festivals for over 10 years. Learn more about your yoga paddle boards by clicking the link. And as always if you have any questions on buying your first dedicated yoga sup please reach out to us over email, chat or phone call! We are around 9-4pm MST and would be happy to go over yoga poses, or talk yoga paddle boards and answer any of your paddle board questions!

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