Many beginners to skateboarding question whether the sport offers any health benefits. If you’ve been searching to find out “is skateboarding good exercise,” the short answer is yes. Skateboarding works the core and your legs while offering a moderate to intense cardiovascular workout depending on how hard you push yourself.
There are several ways that skateboarding provides exercise and health benefits, which we’ll share below. The best part is that you don’t have to be an expert who is pulling tricks to gain some of the benefits; just skating around the neighborhood is more than enough.
It Helps Promote Flexibility
One of the ways that skateboarding can offer great exercise is through promoting flexibility of your core body and legs. When a person spends time on the streets or a ramp on a board, their body has to stay limber while their ankles remain flexible. By virtue of taking part in the activity, your flexibility will improve as you improve at the sport. A person who is amped up and tense is going to have a harder time skating. Learning to relax and be flexible is something that can be useful in everyday life, as well.
Option for a Full-Body Workout
Many people are under the impression that skateboarding only really works on the legs, but that isn’t true. While you will be moving both these and your feet a lot while training, you also use your arms for balance. Riding a skateboard also involves twisting your entire self, which can work the abs and other muscles. Because you are making all sorts of different maneuvers, it will work out the core of your body. So, is skateboarding good exercise? Yes. It also works out many muscle groups all at once.
Improves Physical Endurance
While beginners can jump on a skateboard and spend a few minutes learning, that isn’t the most common choice. Many skateboarders will spend an hour or even longer out in the streets exercising. This can offer health benefits since the longer time spent on skateboarding stuff, the more your physical endurance will rise. That might not mean you’re going to have a stronger core or defined abs quickly, but it does mean you’ll be able to improve more quickly.
Offers a Chance to Learn Precision
Being able to move the body in precise ways can help in all parts of a person’s life. Skateboarding gives the chance to learn precision in a way that is a lot of fun. If you are learning new tricks, it requires doing the same movements time and time again. However, making adjustments to improve is also crucial. Placing your feet on a different part of the board, changing your timing, and altering your speed helps you land differently.
Helps with Coordination
Skateboarding involves the coordination of your legs, arms, feet, and eyes. Not only does the sport offer great exercise, but it can also improve coordination. Whether you skateboard or not, coordination and precision are important for many other things. When you spend time skating, you improve both of these things, which will be a benefit for your overall life. It helps you do everything from climbing to driving and beyond.
Helps in Weight Loss
One of the best things about exercise is that it can help with weight loss. Some forms of exercise burn more calories than others do. Thankfully, since skateboarding is a good cardiovascular activity, it helps burn calories quicker than some other sports might. However, the intensity of your skating has an impact on how many calories you can expect to lose. The average person should expect to burn from 150 to 500 calories in an hour.
Unlike other physical activities that may feel boring at times, skateboarding can be a great way to shed those extra pounds. It’s fun and it’s good for you.
Offers Transferrable Skills
Another way that skateboarding is healthy is by offering skills that can be used in other situations. If you are interested in trying other sports, getting on a skateboard can transfer important skills to do so. This especially applies to similar activities like wakeboarding, surfing, and snowboarding. Many of the people who do those things also skateboard. If the water is cold, there are no waves, or the snow is gone, skateboarding can keep fitness levels up and offer health benefits as an alternative activity.
Improves Patience
For younger people who are skateboarding, the sport and offer a way for them to take risks in a controlled manner. There are potential consequences when a trick goes wrong and isn’t executed in the proper way. Just like a sport such as martial arts, skateboarding takes a good deal of time to master. The fundamental skills associated with the activity require practice and patience, which are both good to understand for all parts of life.
Potential to Prevent Future Injuries
Unlike going out for a run or doing other basic cardio, skateboarding offers the chance to learn to prevent injuries in the future. When training to learn to skateboard, one of the things you learn is how to prevent falling. When falling does occur, you learn how to do it in a way that doesn’t injure you. This is something that can be useful in everyday life. Skateboarding gives you the skills you need to easily recover from trips, stumbles, and slips.
Provides Stress Relief
Just like any other sort of physical activity, skateboarding acts as a form of stress relief. When you are out on the street or a ramp with your board, it can help take your mind off of other things going on in your life. On the other side of the coin, it can also help you think more clearly about things that are bothering you. Whichever you are looking for, the reality is that skateboarding can be just as healthy for your mental health as it is for your physical health. It can give you a sense of control that carries over into other situations.
Helps Your Overall Health
As you can guess from all the other ways that getting on a skateboard can improve your health, this activity can have a positive effect on your health as a whole. Just like running or biking, skateboarding helps reduce your risk of certain health issues such as diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. Skateboarding also helps reduce your triglyceride levels and increase levels of good cholesterol to offer a reduced risk of coronary heart disease.
Who Can Participate in Skateboarding
Now that you are aware of what good exercise skateboarding can be, you might wonder if it’s the right exercise for your own situation. Most people can enjoy skateboarding without issue since it’s fairly low impact and wearing proper shoes can lessen the impact on your legs and ankles. The main thing for skateboarding beginners to keep in mind is that you should start off slow and not push yourself too hard to start.
Are you worried that you are too old to skateboard? You shouldn’t be. While this activity is common among young people, that doesn’t mean it’s something off-limits to you. While injuries can happen with any sport, most of the skateboarding injuries occur when people push harder than they should. As long as you listen to your body and take things slow, this is a good physical activity that anyone can give a shot.
Before you start trying to turn out some crazy tricks like the professionals, it’s best to learn the basics. You should have the ability to ride, balance, and turn without problems before moving to this sort of skating. This helps reduce the chance of injury and lets you get used to the physical factor of skateboarding before you add in an additional challenge. The great thing about skateboarding is that there are tons of different boards and styles of skating and anyone can give it a try.
Keep in mind that getting a skateboard allows you to move many muscles and help you learn to keep your balance. While there is a focus on your lower muscles, like the quads, hamstrings, calves, and buttocks, all of your muscles will get a workout. But getting into this activity is also exceptional for mental health. It can help you meet new people and experience increased endorphins that put you in a better mood.
Conclusion
Skateboarding offers a full-body workout for people of all kinds. It is a great form of cardio that can help your heart be stronger while building the muscles in your core, legs, and arms. This is an activity that can be done anywhere and can be a fun way to mix up your exercise routine. It also offers a great way to lose weight. Even adding an hour of skateboarding to your day a few times a week can result in losing weight to be healthier. If skateboarding is something you are interested in, there’s never been a better time to get started with it. So, grab a board and get out there and give it a shot!