Benefits of Kayaking

Aside from being an enjoyable and fun activity, kayaking offers many benefits for your physical health and mental health.

Physical Health Benefits of Kayaking

Achieve your ideal body weight

Kayaking is one of the many forms of exercise that can help you to shed some weight. The calories burned in kayaking will reach almost 500 every hour if you paddle at an average of 5 mph. Although it seems as though it is less than what you can burn through other exercises, such as running, you don’t spend only 30 minutes or an hour kayaking and it’s a whole lot more fun than being on a treadmill.

Most people that do kayaking exercises do so for more than an hour, maybe even for the entire afternoon. That means you can burn almost 1,600 calories per kayaking session. If weight loss is one of your goals, you can allocate some of your afternoons per week for the activity and consistently kayak until you achieve your ideal weight.

Aside from being an enjoyable and fun activity, kayaking offers many benefits for your physical health and mental health.

Increase upper body muscle strength

Since you are mainly using your arms throughout the kayak exercise, these body parts become more toned. The exertion while kayaking extends to most of your upper body muscles such as those on your back, shoulders, and chest. Paddling for hours help exercise these muscles.

To travel a mile on your kayak, you’d need to do around 500 strokes, depending on several factors. If you go for even just two miles, you would have done 1,000 repetitions. This amount of work improves your upper body strength.

Develop toned legs

Although the benefits of kayaking are more evident on your arms, shoulders, and upper back, it also has significant effects on your and legs. Leg muscles are still used while you are kayaking. In fact, the movements involved with kayaking are just as impactful on the lower limbs as it is on the upper ones.

While you kayak, your legs apply the needed pressure to keep you balanced on the kayak. Also, when you are trying to turn or manoeuvre, you would unknowingly tighten and loosen the muscles in your legs alternatively countless of times.

Strengthen your core muscles

Your abdomen, obliques, and lower back are also engaged during this workout. In every stroke, as you reach forward, you will be contracting your abs, while as you pull, you contract your muscles on the lower back. When you make any twisting motion, you then engage your obliques. Also, the most effective way of keeping a kayak balanced while sitting on or in it is to sit upright. This keeps your core muscles slightly engaged throughout the activity.

Increase your endurance

Because kayaking is done for hours, it allows you to improve your stamina, which means you can withstand extended periods of effort without getting easily fatigued. Performing moderately intense exercises, such as kayaking, at least three times a week can increase your energy levels by 20%. Not only does this kayaking benefit enable you to do the activity longer, but it also increases the energy you can spend on your daily activities.

Improve heart health

Kayaking is an aerobic sport, which is also known as a cardiac exercise. This type of workout strengthens your heart muscle and improves its efficiency to pump blood. It also improves circulation efficiency and increases the total amount of red blood cells in the body. Kayaking achieves this by increasing your heart rate to a healthy level. If you perform the activity consistently, you will also be exercising your heart regularly, making it more robust and stronger.

Activate Vitamin D in your body

There are some types of food where you can get vitamin D, including but not limited to fatty fish, beef liver, and cheese. We even have the inactive form of the vitamin in our system. However, for it to exhibit its effect in our body, we need to expose ourselves to sunlight.

Vitamin D is essential for strong bones, helps boost the immune system, aids in brain development, supports muscle function, and keeps the heart healthy. Luckily, this sport enables you to bask in the sun, allowing your body to produce vitamin D.

Activate Vitamin D in your body

There are some types of food where you can get vitamin D, including but not limited to fatty fish, beef liver, and cheese. We even have the inactive form of the vitamin in our system. However, for it to exhibit its effect in our body, we need to expose ourselves to sunlight.

Vitamin D is essential for strong bones, helps boost the immune system, aids in brain development, supports muscle function, and keeps the heart healthy. Luckily, this sport enables you to bask in the sun, allowing your body to produce vitamin D.