The latest fitness craze - stand up paddleboard yoga

Bend and stretch ... Charlotte Piho demonstrates yoga on her paddleboard at Watsons Bay / Pic: Mark Evans

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IT looks painful but bending over backwards on a paddleboard is Charlotte Piho's floating zen.

The Cook Islander is a devotee and teacher of the latest fitness craze hitting Australian beaches - stand up paddleboard yoga.

A fusion of traditional yoga poses and surfing with a paddle, the water work-out has celebrity followers including Jennifer Aniston, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

Ms Piho, 27, is teaching Sydneysiders how to downward dog on a board, with daily classes at Cronulla beach and Gibson's Beach Reserve at Watsons Bay.

The self-confessed fitness fanatic combined her two favourite exercises about a year ago to keep her core muscles toned.

"In the Cook Islands, it is just so hot and the last thing I feel like doing is going into a room and doing yoga," Ms Piho said.

"So I started doing it on the beach and then I thought, why don't I just do it on the board. Yoga is about finding your inner self and being out on the water you're embracing nature, and so together they make sense."

The Wests Tigers recovery trainer said the "total body workout" has cut her daily exercise time down from four hours to two.

"You get twice as much of a workout. It's like going for a run and doing sit-ups at the same time," she said.

Source:

http://www.news.com.au