I have SUP raced for a few years and just got a prone. Your video was fabulous in getting me started. Thanks much!!!

I realize I love both SUP and prone but can only paddle once a day. What do you suggest as a balance between the two each week? I would like to be competitive at both.

Or asked another way; how to people combine the two disciplines and make it work for both?

Ahhhh –the jack of all trades but master of none question. The good news is that with paddling you might be able to have your cake and eat it too. Now, for the answer without any more cliché’s.

Although it is kind of outside the scope of this forum to give you a full training program, as a general approach, what we would do is mix up your workouts and vary your distance/intensity between the two disciplines as follows switching off every other week. One week go long in one discipline and follow up the next week with a long workout in the other.

Week 1:

Tuesday: harder/high quality prone

Thursday: harder/high quality SUP

Saturday: long prone

Sunday: technical SUP workout

Week2:

Tuesday: harder/high quality SUP

Thursday: harder/high quality prone

Saturday: long SUP

Sunday: technical PRONE workout

Week 3: repeat week 1 or take a rest week and dial everything back ( see our 16 week programs for more information about how to structure a rest week)

Remember – getting good at anything, especially endurance sports, means that you are going to need to do your motion a bazillion times. Splitting time will ultimately limit your performance in each discipline. That said, you should keep in mind a few things:

1. Chances are that you are not a professional athlete. It is, therefore, perfectly acceptable to get pretty good at a lot of things but not achieve your absolute potential in any if that is what you want to do. You are not alone. This is what many athletes chose to do. Don’t second guess yourself if this is the path you chose.
2. There is A LOT of overlap/synergy between the two. You are going to get the aerobic benefits of the workout and you may even be saving your SUP or prone specific muscles while you work the other discipline. Stated another way, prone training will help your SUP and  SUP training with help your prone
3. There are significant cross training benefits of mixing up your workouts. Your glutes and lower back are going to benefit from those prone workouts for sure
4. When it comes to endurance sports and getting faster coaches know that it is pretty easy to reach 80% of your potential, somewhat easy to reach 90% of your potential but after that you need to put in a HUGE effort to get that last 10%. What we are saying is that with mixed training it is possible that you may reach 80% (or even 90%?) of your potential in both and this is probably good enough knowing that you are going to have to go absolutely all in to get that final 10-20% anyway which you, along with many other amateur athletes, might not want to commit to.

Your question also touched upon another question we routinely get when we have paddlers ask how they can mix cycling and SUP, or running and SUP, or whatever. The same approach can work for mixing any sport but, with non-water sports or sports that are not as similar as prone and SUP, the crossover you get between your chosen disciplines might not be as great as you would see from similar disciplines such as prone paddling and SUP.