While it may come as a surprise, paddleboarding is currently the fastest-growing water sport in the world. This sport has experienced a surge in popularity, and thousands of water sport enthusiasts worldwide are practicing the activity for the very first time.
There are many factors contributing to the tremendous growth of paddleboarding activity. However, we’ve gone an extra mile in research and come up with a list that includes the major reasons. The following are the top reasons why paddleboarding is one of the best water sports:
Paddleboarding is Affordable
Most people believe that this water sport is for the rich and celebrities, but the truth is that paddleboarding is truly affordable, and anyone can enjoy it. Paddleboarding doesn’t require expensive travel arrangements, preparations, costly training, highly-priced lift tickets, or special gear to participate.
Paddleboards come into different types; inflatable boards and hard boards. Inflatable paddleboards are more affordable than hard boards, and they pack down to a fraction of their size. This means you don’t need any special equipment such as a roof rack to travel with your inflatable paddleboard.
Additionally, other paddleboarding accessories such as paddle blades and essential gear like waterproof bags are also less expensive. With just a travel bag included with the necessary paddleboarding package, you can enjoy this water sport anywhere in the world.
Paddleboarding Is a Great Activity for Socializing
With its affordability and mass appeal, paddleboarding has created room for local and international paddling clubs, events, and meet-ups that make it pretty easy to meet new people and make new friends.
Whether you love paddling with your dog, you’re a river or lake paddling enthusiast, SUP yoga lover, a fitness buff, or ocean clean and conversation advocate. There’s an endless number of paddleboarding destinations everywhere in the world where you can meet like-minded paddleboarders who share your interests. The most outstanding attribute of paddleboarders is cordiality.
Paddleboarding Has Numerous Benefits
Paddleboarding provides substantial health and fitness benefits that exceed simple cardio. From providing an optimal space for meditation to improving your balance, there’s more to this water sport that meets the eye. Anyone, regardless of their fitness level, can expect the following excellent benefits from paddleboarding:
- Stress reduction
- Posture improvement
- Muscle tone improvement
- Substantial calorie burning
- Full-body workout
- Notable weight loss
- Cardiovascular health regeneration
- Increased vitamin D production
- Increased joint strength
No Age or Skrill Limit
Paddleboarding doesn’t distinguish the participants based on their age or paddling skill. Any person can benefit from paddleboarding’s thrill and relaxation since no one is too old or too young to try the sport. While a bit of assistance from an experienced paddleboarder is required, anyone will quickly pick up the skill on their own despite their age.
Exposing People to Surf Culture
The trendy surf lifestyle is undeniably contagious, but unfortunately, a lot of people can’t participate because they’re not close to a beach. Luckily, paddleboarding is easily accessible to people anywhere, and the surf culture is comparable.
Paddleboarding allows you to experience surf culture without necessarily surfing across the ocean waves. As long as you’re within walking or driving distance to a water body like a river, lake, or small pod, you can undoubtedly enjoy the paddleboarding (surf culture) lifestyle. Additionally, getting started with paddleboarding is much easier than surfing which requires lots of practice.
Exploring the Outdoors
Paddleboarding is a great water sport that gives the riders unmatched access to some of the most breathtaking spots in existence. Paddleboarding allows you to maneuver and explore some amazingly stunning areas that’d be otherwise inaccessible.
Among all the water sports available, no matched activity provides a great way to experience nature than paddleboarding. The amazing sights and sounds of nature that paddleboarders experience are always spectacular and memorable.
Paddleboarding Can Combine With Yoga
Combining paddleboarding with yoga, also known as stand-up paddleboarding (SUP), has increasingly become popular for yogis and paddleboarders across the world. Many yogis say that SUP yoga helps improve their yoga skills because it requires more balance, strength, and focus. SUP yoga offers tremendous benefits than practicing yoga on land or yoga studios.
Paddleboarding for 30 minutes and completing at least a 15-minute yoga session make a practical full-body workout challenge. According to our research, stand-up paddleboarding yoga provides the following extra benefits:
- Strengthens new muscles
- Improves your breathing techniques
- Increases flexibility and stability
- Improves circulation through your body
- Refines yoga technique
- Immeasurable fun!
The Whole Family Can Enjoy Paddleboarding
Finally, paddleboarding is also a family-friendly water sport that all ages and fitness levels can enjoy. Of course, it’s an incredibly easy-to-do activity and something that kids love just as much as elders.
Bottom Line
Paddleboarding is relatively new to the water sports sequence, but it’s incredibly exploding in popularity worldwide. In this article, we’ve discussed eight major reasons why paddleboarding is one of the great water sports.
