“Whether you get into it for fitness or not, you’re going to see changes in your body,” said Gregg, who’s now based in Oregon’s Hood River area and has dedicated herself to all things SUP. “The muscles you haven’t been using are going to wake up and talk to you.”

Gregg said that most SUP newbies will feel the workout in their feet, then ankles, then calves.

The legs burn before you really feel an arm workout, she said, because the real test is in learning to stand on the board.

Then it hits the core muscles, your abdominals and the lower back that help you stabilize — and improve your posture while slimming your waistline.

“A lot of people are surprised, because they think it’s going to be a complete upper body workout,” Gregg said. “It’s a toes-to-nose workout.”

(Photos courtesy of Nikki Gregg/Starboard)

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Melanie Seiler knew stand up paddling was going to have serious impact on her musculature after her first day on a board. She woke up the following morning and felt the workout in her pinky toes.

But that only motivated Seiler, who now runs the SUP tour and instruction program at West Virginia’s Adventures On The Gorge resort.

“Things just built from there and my body grew to where I could produce speed I had never felt before,” she said. “Which surprised me, since I had been a paddler for 15 years before ever standing on a board.”

There are a variety of forms of SUP to explore your favorite environment, she said. You can try surfing ocean waves, river whitewater or flat-water paddling on lakes. You can cruise, or you can race. Some people are even combining yoga and stand up paddling.

In the end, Seiler pointed out, the benefits of SUP might not lie in the muscles, but in the mind.

“I have to say that’s been the best worked-out muscle — the power of looking forward to the next outing, the satisfaction while gliding along the shore line, the intrigue of people interested in what I’m doing,” she said.

“What do you call that powerful feeling of Mother Nature and calmness and power with speed?” she added. “Isn’t that sexy to you?”

(Photos courtesy of Nikki Gregg/Starboard)

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