Stand Up Paddle Boarding - Calories Burned?

I've been Stand-up paddling for about 6 months in Hawaii & Washington. I've run for many years & compared the effort I feel & heart rate I achieve. In calm water, the effort seems to match moderate hiking. If I put my Jack Russell on the board with me, or if I'm pulling against a wind or a surge, it seems to match the effort of jogging at about 10 minute miles. I put it in the myfitnesspal cardio database at 10 kcal per minute (60 minutes = 600 kcal). I think the 800-1,000 per hour estimate on Wikipedia (likely from the Tampa Bay article) seems too high.
Would love to hear other opinions.

I have also just started paddel boarding on weekends and was curious! thanks!

I disagree. When I'm on my board I am doing crunches and squats on almost every stroke. It's also more physically demanding than kayaking and I believe that burns about 400 per hour. You get out what you put in.

Thanks all....

If you just worked your arms (or your arms are sore) then you are doing it wrong. A proper technique is straight arms and bending/rotating at the hips to propel the paddle.

Yesterday I was in the back bay at newport and the wind kicked up something fierce. Ended up on my knees doing more of a kayak move. Went out an hour and it took 2 hours to get back to the dock.

"once you get your balance right, you stop engaging your core, SUP IS NOT A HIGH INTENSITY EXCERSICE!, you are working your upper body, "

WOW, clearly you don't know what you're talking about and this comment only proves it. Try telling Kai Lenny, Jamie Mitchell, Danny Ching or Conner Baxter that they're not engaging their core while paddling! They'll laugh in your face. I just competed in a 13 mile SUP race half of which involved paddling into a 15-20MPH headwind. My heart rate was just as elevated as it was the last time I ran a marathon or competed in a 40k cycling time trial and the following morning my back and core muscles were a whole lot more sore than my arms. I can safely say that was just as intense as many other events I've done (and that list includes more than a decade of USCF licensed bicycle racing - we're talking real racing, not just riding a century; a handful of triathlons and several running ultramarathons!) Proper paddling technique relies on your core muscles precisely because those muscles are stronger than your arm and shoulder muscles. If you are only working your upper body and not your core then your technique is crap. PERIOD. You're not going to get proper extension without using your core.

Here's a good article:
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Many-Calories-Burned-While-SUPing?-(Stand-Up-Paddle-Boarding)&id=5875773

My heart rate monitor arrives in a couple days... Right now I'm going with a safe average of 9 kcal/min. Guys my size (180 lbs) can average 800 kcal/hour on another site I read. I'll report back after a couple workouts.

Excellent information Brody. Thank you for jumping in. This confirms what I suspected, with regards to burn rate. When I race train, I tend to burn 800-1000 calories. What I have been doing more recently is the equivalent of jogging in a paddling sense. I am paddling at a lower pace than when I race or train, but at a far better pace than a casual paddle, with some sprints added in from time to time to keep it interesting. Based on your information, I am figuring I burn between 500-600 per hour on these type of paddles.

First off, Brody is the man, take what he says to the bank. I always tell people what you put into paddle boarding is what you get out of it. When I am training for races, I easily burn 1,000 calories within 60 minutes. I am able to sustain an average heart rate of 168bpm. All this information coming from my heart rate monitor of coarse. With that said, when I am cruising on my paddle board with friends, I won't even touch half that amount of calories within a hour.

I SUP in the surf, and it's hard to figure how much I burn because the conditions vary so much.

Got started with SUP last weekend and love it! One of the best workouts ever and so much fun. For those of you who use an HRM, what kind do you use and is it a problem if you fall off and it gets wet? That was my only concern there.

Kindeo:
I use a heart rate monitor strap when I SUP and have never had an issue with it getting wet. Most are sealed to keep sweat out, and so long as you're just jumping in to cool off (or if you happen to fall in) the rubber gasket around the battery compartment door should keep the water out just fine. I'd just avoid snorkeling or scuba diving unless you know the HRM strap is rated for that depth...

Scubadivr205:
I think (to put on the geeky hat here) that any "calorie" calculations that come out of an HRM and Garmin (or whatever other generic device is used independent of brand) will be guesstimates that may not (and in most cases, will not) be accurate for either the person using the HRM nor for anyone else who may try to calculate their caloric burn from the numbers that the user posts. Here is the short version of why... First off - in the "chalk that one up in the duh column" - we are all different. We all have our own metabolic burn rate, min and max hrm, different "zones" (which need to be computed by using specific testing, not just % of Max, etc) and so on. Secondly - these computers are working with very few data points. As an example, I use a Garmin 500 which is designed as a cycling computer. It does allow me to enter in my "equipment" weight, my body weight, hr zones, my age and gender; but it then calculates caloric burn based off of a set of formulas that I don't have access to. I'm assuming it is using my hr relative to my max hr, perhaps it is using my zone info (I did get that done by a certified training center - steady efforts while breathing into a tube while they measured wattage, hr, cadence, etc), perhaps it is also using the %grade, some factor for wind resistance (based on my speed), and so on. However it calculates it, there is no setting in my Garmin to let me tell it that I'm now on the water SUPing, or running, or rock climbing, or hiking... so I think my Garmin is optimized to calculate cycling calories. I don't think we can assume that if cycling at one heart rate burns 500 calories in an hour, that SUPping at the same heart rate will burn that same 500 (or whatever) calories an hour.

Clear as mud?

I think that (at best) these numbers can be used to gage relative effort between various workouts in the same discipline, but can't be used to get an accurate measure of calories burned.

Super helpful, thanks!

Using my HRM and going pretty hard for 2 hours, HRM said 1625.

It was around 5 miles on a pretty slow river keeping a 3-4 MPH pace against the slow current and 4-5 with.

500-600 would be easy to do per hour with the proper teqnique.

I was digging in racing style.