If you’re looking to find out more about the health benefits from inline skating, you’re in the right place. So, I consulted with professional skaters and fitness health experts, after which I put together these awesome tips. Below is a quick rundown!
- Good exercise for weight loss,
- Muscle development around the core, glutes, hips, and legs,
- Improve body balance,
- Boosts cardiovascular system,
- Help keep diabetes at bay,
- Tones limbs (arms and legs)
- Boosts the production of the feel-good hormone,
- Keep joints strong and healthy,
- Helps with body coordination, and
- Boosts self-esteem and confidence.
That’s only the scratch on the surface. To find out more, I invite you to keep reading. As your fellow inline skater, I desire to see you get the most out of skating. Not just having fun and feeling good, but also growing into a healthy you.
So, without much ado, let’s get to it. Shall we?
Health Benefits of Inline Skating (Rollerblading Benefits)
There is a myriad of inline skating health benefits regardless of your level of skating. The amazing thing about rollerblading is how you have fun while also boosting your health. Below are the benefits of rollerblading. Let’s get going!
1. Good Exercise for Weight loss
Is rollerblading good exercise for weight loss? Absolutely yes! Like many types of body work out, rollerblading engages all parts of the body from your hands to the chest to the abdomen, to the hips and the legs. All these can be summarized to the body core and glutes.
Besides, inline skating is rigorous, intensive, and involving. This means for your body to move smoothly, it needs to produce enough energy in aerobic respiration. What does that even mean, you ask? An aerobic respiration is a process by which your body produces energy.
The process involves burning down body fats in the presence of oxygen to produce energy for powering all body functions. Remember, excess weight is brought about by too many stored calories under your skin. However, when you burn them in aerobic respiration to produce energy for the body, you’re helping your body shade some weight.
BetterMe, in their article ‘How Many Calories Does Rollerblading Burn?’ asserts how it’s possible to lose weight by rollerblading. However, in their opinion, this depends on two things. One is your body weight and the intensity of the workout.
Therefore, if you want quick results, you’ve got to put in the effort and go rollerblading at least three times a week. Besides, the number of calories you lose on every session will depend on your weight. According to their research, a person weighing 160 pounds will burn 913 calories in one hour of rollerblading.
To find out how many calories you’ll burn every time you go inline skating, you can use a free online calories calculator. So, whether you can lose weight or not when rollerblading, it’s already settled. So, keep a regular rollerblading session, drink adequate water and watch out for your food portions.
RELATED: Is Rollerblading a good Exercise for Weight Loss?
2. Muscle Development around the Core, Glutes, Hips, and Legs
According to the US National Library of Medicine and Definitions.net, muscle development leads to the formation of the adult muscular system, which includes differentiation of the various types of muscle cell precursors, migration of myoblasts, activation of myogenesis, and development of muscle anchorage.
Wait, if you think that’s quite a complex definition, here’s the simple one. Muscle development is the transformation of body muscles. In this case, we’re looking at the core, glutes, hips, and legs. So, how does inline skating influence this? You could be wondering.
Before getting into that, let’s hold the thought and see what these body parts by any chance you have a problem knowing where to find them. So, the core area, according to the article ‘Core Training: The What, Why and How’, by Bodybuilding.com, is the body midsection area.
The core muscles around the mid-section include muscles located in your front, sides, and your back. In addition, lower lats, traverse abdominis, obliques, and erector spinae all form part of the core. As you can see, these muscles hold your entire body together.
Therefore, they need to be stronger and healthy all the time. In addition, for remarkable results, the core muscles need to grow and develop to support your body while in motion or rest. So, while rollerblading, the core muscles are actively engaged as you move and glide.
Doing this for a while translates to core exercise, which is a good thing for your core development.
On the other hand, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the glutes are a large muscle of the buttocks. And in another article by BreakingMuscle, the muscles that comprise the glute include; gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus mini.
Staying in the best position for you for a long time trains your core and tones muscles around the core, making them lean. The more you practice, the more you put the core to good use. A stronger core also helps with steady body posture.
Get into skating for a while, and you’ll see the many transformations around your core, butts, hips, hands, and legs. As you skate, all your body parts are involved.
Moving your hands and switching from one to another helps improve the muscles around them. This also happens to your leg muscles when you glide on the surface.
Overall, rollerblading is vigorous and keeps all the body muscles in shape. When your muscles are healthy, it translates into a healthy body.
3. Improve Body Balance
One of the drills for mastering inline skating is going on one foot for a few seconds. This exercise is meant to help you master your balance and weight transfer on rollerblades when done right. Why is body balance important, you ask?
See, in everyday life, you need to walk from one place to another, carry an item or two, or engage in other sporting activities. It can be such a hassle running your day-to-day activities when you don’t have proper body balance.
In a statement by Nina Strang, a certified physical therapist, the right body balance contributes to good posture. The key benefit of good posture, according to Nina Strang, is how it enables muscles around the spine to relax for a more composed body.
Lastly, an improved body balance is beneficial in anyways. Typical examples include; reduced incidents of back pains, reduced headaches, more energy, relaxed shoulders, and neck,
4. Boosts Cardiovascular System
For starters, the cardiovascular system comprises the heart and the blood vessels—capillaries, veins, and arteries. A key component of the system is blood which flows to all parts of the body. Therefore, the heart pumps blood through the blood vessel to distribute oxygenated blood and other essential nutrients to all body parts.
A healthy cardiovascular system is essential for human survival. That’s why it’s advisable to watch over your heart’s health and other blood vessels. The good news is, inline skating is a rigorous and intensive sporting activity that helps keep the heart young and healthy.
While you’re skating, you burn calories, thereby reducing the quantity of fats stored in your body and, in particular, the cardiovascular system. in the process, the heart is kept active as it pumps blood to all body parts that need oxygen for energy production.
5. Helps Keep Diabetes at Bay
In a comprehensive study by Mayo Clinic, Diabetes is a lifestyle disease brought about by excess weight, unhealthy diet, and affects how the body uses glucose—blood sugar. So why is glucose essential to the body, you ask.
Your body needs the energy to run all functions, and this energy is drawn from glucose in anaerobic respiration. When there’s too much sugar in the blood, you risk a diabetes attack.
The potential dangers of diabetes include; heart disease, nerve damage, kidney damage, eye damage, foot damage, hearing impairment, skin conditions, and even depression.
According to Mayo Clinic, one can prevent diabetes by; eating healthy foods, getting more physical activity, and losing excess weight.
If you’re wondering a cool way of getting physically fit and dropping off some pounds, that’s where rollerblading comes in. The sport is vigorous and helps reduce excess blood sugar levels by converting it to energy for your body cells and muscles in aerobic respiration.
6. Tones Limbs (Arms and Legs)
Inline skating engages both the lower limbs and the upper limbs while you’re in motion. Normally, to push yourself forward, you’d have to swing your hands sideways as you glide. But, sometimes, your hands will be calm and probably resting on your back while you’re bending.
Whichever is the case, rollerblading helps tone the muscles in your arms. This includes the biceps, triceps, and all other arm muscles. So while your hands are in a swing mode, they’re using energy generated in your arm muscles.
If there are fat deposits in your arms, they’re converted to energy in aerobic respiration leaving behind lean muscles. The same applies to your legs and the glutes.
When you’re bending, the muscles around the legs, hips, and glutes are engaged in producing enough energy to keep you moving.
This energy is generated from the muscles around these body parts. And like I’ve already mentioned, this helps to burn fat around these parts, thereby toning them down.
7. Boosts the Production of Feel-Good Hormone
If you’re wondering how this is a health benefit, here’s the thing! Rollerblading is fun and exciting. In addition, rolling on your skates helps in boosting the production of dopamine—the feel-good hormone.
In an article, ‘What Dopamine does in the Brain,’ PNAS reports how dopamine production contributes to feeling good in the body. Without dopamine, feeling and reacting to pleasure would be a monumental task.
Whenever you feel the pleasure and you’re relaxed, your mental health also improves. Everyone wants to feel good, and I believe you’re no different. And most importantly, we all need to watch over our mental health. That’s where rollerblading comes in to save the day!
8. Keep Joints Strong and Healthy
The typical skating position involves slight bending with shoulders above the hips and knees bent in an obtuse angle and over the toes. This position alone, when done right, keeps the joints strong and healthy regardless of whether they’re leg joints, knee joints, ankle joints, shoulder joints, hip joints, etc.
The real deal happens when you’re in motion. As you glide and push yourself, your hip joints are engaged in tension and release kind of effect. This also affects knee joints, shoulder joints, wrist joints, and ankle joints.
Strong and healthy joints mean little to no joint pains. Rollerblading helps grease all body joints and helps them healthy and moving.
9. Helps with Body Coordination
Body coordination is the ability to use the senses and body parts to perform tasks efficiently and accurately. This is according to an article by Sports Training Adviser. With proper body coordination, you have control over your muscles and can accomplish tasks smoothly.
On the flip side, poor body coordination means a lack of control, and accomplishing tasks can be a hassle. To overcome this problem, you need to engage in body coordination exercises to train the muscles.
So, how does rollerblading help, you ask? The sport is intensive and involves all body muscles around your hand, core, glutes, hips, and legs. The more you practice, the muscles become sturdy and responsive, which helps to improve overall body coordination.
10. Boosts Self-Esteem and Confidence
Inline skating is a people’s sport. Therefore, it’s more fun when you’re skating in a group with like-minded skaters. Depending on your interests, you can try speed skating, aggressive skating, fitness skating, recreational skating, or hockey skating.
Based on the skating venue, you can consider a couple of options, like skate parks, sports parks, urban skating along the street, or skating on ice. The more you bond with fellow skaters, your self-esteem and confidence are boosted.
How does this affect my health? You could be wondering. See, self-esteem and confidence have a direct correlation with your mental health.
The more you have them, it’s the more your mental health is stabilized, meaning you’ll live a balanced life with little to no depressions to deal with.
Your mental health should mean everything to you. Therefore, upholding it should be a primary focus. If you can get it from rollerblading then, why don’t you give it a try?
Skaters are happy people! The reason being, it’s impossible to skate and frown at the same time. Remember the feel-good hormone? Yes, the more you skate, your body releases dopamine that helps to refresh and relax your body muscles.
Final Thoughts: Health Benefits of Inline Skating
Rollerblading benefits are immense and go beyond the recreational aspect. After skating for a while and with consistency, you’ll begin to notice some inline skating health benefits. This transformation is best seen in your body by you or your friends.
If you were slightly overweight, your rollerblading body before and after inline skating would tell it all. Therefore, rollerblading helps you burn excess calories for weight loss, keeps your cardiovascular system active and healthy, and develops your muscles.
The best part is while skating; you’re gaining twice—having fun while keeping your body in good shape. Isn’t that fun enough? If you’re starting, never give up and keep pushing. Soon, you’ll reap all the health benefits of rollerblading. Cheers and happy skating!
