The exercise

Last autumn and winter I had to stay out of the water and snow for months due to injured back. Most probably the reason was years of working in the office and sitting in a bit too comfortable and a little incorrect posture. Even though I thought I was in shape and that I do exercise just enough, it didn't seem to help too much.

Anyway, after months of not being able to do almost anything, I had to activate the supporting muscles again and start training from scratch. To activate the whole body I had to exercise regularily and keep the volume of the exercise on a certain level. This got me thinking about kiteboarding as exercise and not just as a fun thing to do.  What are the benefits of the sport from an exercise point of view? To get more information I wore a heart rate monitor and headed out to water. I had some initial thoughts where the heart rate might be but  I was also surprised.

I had three different kinds of sessions a couple of times. The first one was just cruising, the second was throwing some jumps and riding more actively and the third was really pushing the speed to the limit, getting harder upwind and downwind and trying to do everything at maximum effort. This also clearly separated the heart rate areas in each  session as you can guess.

Just cruising. This was the easiest one. I enjoyed a nice and warm day, easy speed in medium winds, reasonable upwind and downwind angles and threw some hooked oldschool jumps and transitions every now and then. The result was that the heart rate was about  62% to 70% of the maximum heart rate, the average being a little more on the lower part of the area. It feels that you could do this all day and it is not only wearing out some specific muscles.

Active riding. I added trials of basic unhooked tricks and hooked in jumps to every second or third run in medium wind and in stronger wind I really tried to launch the hooked in jumps from good speed to get air time. This was showing in heart rate right away. The total area was from about 70% to close to 80% of maximum heart rate. The heart rate was peaking higher in the first attemps to jump and also every time I got really high air or close to crashing massively but still somehow recovered. It was also clear that this riding burns energy faster but still feels all over the body.

Speed and air demon. Finally there was a strong wind to really go speeding and boosting with my 8m2. I started to push it hard right away. I rode full speed through the chop and tried to get as quickly upwind as possible. Then I was trying to find ramps to get good airs and throw  kiteloops to get them down. I rode back downwind with as much speed as I could get or let's say was able to stand since I still need to worry about my back a little and try to avoid the worst crashes. Pushing hard upwind starts to burn your leg muscles and make you breath harder quickly. Coming down from a kiteloop with speed makes you gasp for air from excitement. Heart is really pounding when you bear downwind with burning leg muscles and get close to speed where you may crash after the next wave if not fully committed. I thought the heart rate would be a little higher and it really was. It was ranging from 78% to close to 88% and peaking even higher just after the kiteloops.

There are defined values for correct exercise levels depending on what you want to gain. 50-60% is light exercise to start training for the first time or recovering after an injury and burning fat. 60-70% is medium training to get the best excercise for your heart. On this level it is still easy to work for a long time and you are still mostly burning fat but in the upper range you start to use the carbohydrates as the main energy source. 70-80% is the aerobic area that is good for your heart and lungs. This area is used to train harder and get quicker into shape. In this area you  get the energy mostly from carbohydrates. 80-90% is the anaerobic area and this is used to train hard and make the body cope with lactic acids which are created when the muscles cannot get enough oxygen anymore.

In kiteboarding you can find all levels of exercise if you want. You can cruise and stay out there for hours to get basic training and burn fat. Conversely, you can change to high peak riding and try to learn new tricks actively. This will make you burn all your energy in less than an hour and have a high intensity workout. So to summarise, kiteboarding is good exercise so let's go where the wind blows.