For those of you who live on the coast or near a lake and are looking for a fun cross-training activity, look no further than Stand Up Paddle Boarding. After one workout, you'll soon realize how much this water sport works your core muscles-- and without pounding your joints. We asked Garmin Pro SUP athlete Jenny Kalmbach to give us an inside look at one of her workouts:

Structured interval training workouts are key to building speed, power and endurance. By combining shorts burst of of speed with slower, recovery phases you will work both the aerobic and anaerobic systems, leading to an increase in cardiovascular efficiency and an increased tolerance to lactic acid buildup. Another benefit to interval training is it allows a paddler to train harder without over training, which is especially important in a repetitive sport like standup paddling.

I recommend training with a fitness watch.  Not only will it make it easier to properly keep track of time but you can later analyze your workouts at home on the computer. I use the Garmin Forerunner 910XT which has a lot of cool functions including GPS, heart rate, speed, time and you can plug in any workout you want! Just go to Garmin Connect and sign in with your free account. Here, you can input the workout below and send it directly to your 910.

3/2 SUP INTERVALS 

Warm-up 10 minutes

3 min PI (power interval)

2 min recovery

3 min PI

2 min recovery

3 min PI

5 min recovery

Do this 2-3 times

Cool-down 10 minutes

Tip: The power interval should be challenging and you should aim to maintain the same speed throughout. It’s not an all out sprint but it should be hard. During recovery, slow down and keep an easy pace, allowing your heart rate to recover before the next PI set.