8 Ways to Stay in Shape on Maui
[elfsight_instagram_feed id=”34″]Standup Paddleboarding
Not only is stand-up paddleboarding a great way to check out the water, but it can also be a great workout. To those who haven’t tried it before, it might look like SUP-er’s aren’t doing much out there. After all, they’re just standing on a board out there, right?
Wrong.
Standup paddleboarding can be a full body workout. To stand on the board on the water, you’re using your legs and core to stabilize and keep from tipping over. It only takes one lapse in focus and you’re off the board and swimming in the water.
Standup paddleboarding is a great way to get outside. get on the water and get a good workout all in a few hours.
Sprinting on the Beach
While running and jogging is great aerobic exercise, one the best ways to really get your heart moving is to go all out and run as hard as you can.
Sprinting can do wonders for your endurance, stamina and overall health. It keeps you burning calories for hours after you stop exercising, it’s great for your heart and you can also speed up your workouts, so you don’t end up spending half of your day working out (if you don’t want to). After all, you are on vacation.
Not only that, sprinting on the beach is much easier on your body than when you hit the pavement. Since you don’t hit the hard concrete when you’re running on the beach, you’re sparing your knees the extra stress so you can get a great workout without worrying about the potential injuries that running on pavement tends to bring to many runners.
Paddling
Paddling goes way back in Hawaiian culture. Talk to any paddler on the islands and you’ll soon see that they sometimes view it as a full-time job, lifestyle and morning ritual. Some people wake up every morning and go out for a few hours, without fail and if they miss a session, then their whole day feels off.
While it may seem that paddling is only an upper-body workout, don’t be fooled. Paddling and rowing is a full body workout.
It also builds camaraderie amongst all those sharing the canoe. If one person is out of sync, the whole team suffers. Working on the same goal with other people not only is great for the community (which is maybe why this is such a popular sport amongst a group of people that live on an island together) but is also great for maintaining a strong motivation to keep going through the end of the workout.
Without question, paddling is a great way to stay in shape on Maui!
Biking
Maui, being the paradise it is, makes for the perfect place to spend time outside. There are those die-hard cyclists who plan their vacations around where they can bike on the road.
Some make a trip out of it to bike Maui’s western loop, bike the road to Hana or bike down Haleakala, Maui’s dormant volcano.
Those crazy more intense have the goal to bike UP the 10,000+ foot elevation to the summit from Haleakala’s base.
Whatever your poison, biking is a great way to venture across the island. The weather is just about always right to attempt a day bike-ride (at least temperature-wise, Iao Valley is one of the wettest places in the world).
You can rent high-end bicycles on the island or chances are if you one who might attempt any of these rides, you have an easily packable bike that you’re used to checking on a plane.
Hiking
Want to hike through the rainforest to a waterfall? That’s something you can accomplish on Maui.
Maui’s Road to Hana is a road through Maui’s lush and tropical rainforest. The air just smells cleaner here. You could probably pull off anywhere on the side of the road and find your own little tropical paradise in the rainforest (I’m not advising this at all).
One of the more popular spots is the Pipiwai trail in Hana. Kipahulu, an area affectionately known as the Seven Sacred Pools, begins a trail up to a 200- foot waterfall known as the Pipiwai Trail.
It takes you through a bamboo forest and you’ve probably seen pictures of it if you’ve researched Maui to any extent.
Surfing, Windsurfing and Kiteboarding
Crossfit
They say throughout the military community that people who served in the Army were in the army; those who served in the Navy were in the Navy; but those who were Marines ARE Marines.
The same can be said for crossfitters. They don’t stop when they go on vacation. Crossfitters seek out the nearest CrossFit and train religiously, even when they are supposed to be taking a break from the toils of daily life. For many crossfitters, Crossfit is life and life is Crossfit.
Maui has a handful of options when it comes to Crossfit and being that there are a few Crossfit gyms on the island, those who train religiously don’t have to break routine when they come to visit Maui.
Running Rocks
Maui is home and a haven to big wave surfers. While the northern shore of Maui during the summer months tends to be pretty mild, the winter season is much different.
Maui is home to Peahi and the Peahi Challenge. This location, also locally known as Jaws, when it’s firing, can have waves up to 80-feet and more. The challenge itself never has a set date and only gives a short window of time in advance for big-wave surfers around the world.
When the challenge is announced, the surfers have to drop what they’re doing to come and face Jaws.
One of the biggest challenges of Jaws happens if one of those surfers falls off of the waves.
Swells of that size roll and tumble the surfer and they could be trapped underneath the water’s surface for minutes. These fearless surfers need to be able to remain calm underwater and be able to hold their breath long enough to wait out the wave so they can come to the surface.
One of the training drills big-wave surfers use is running rocks.
Essentially, you free-drive to the bottom of the ocean in shallow water, find the biggest rock that you can pick up on the ocean floor and run as far as you can as hard as you can on what breath you have left. Once you can’t do it anymore, drop the rock and swim to the water’s surface.
NOTE: Definitely do not do this unattended and without the supervision of a trained professional.
This super challenging exercise helps to train and strengthen your bodies lungs and also works to train you mentally. It’s certainly not the typical training you’re likely to encounter anywhere but an island, but it’s one of the ways these incredible humans have found to help them attempt to conquer one of the world’s wonders and themselves.
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Biggest factor?
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