Skateboarding is a great exercise and a fun way to lose weight. Skateboarding improves yourflexibility,agility, and is great for improving your balance. Like any sport, the effectivenessof losing weight and building up muscle dependson how often and how aggressive you skate.
How many calories you burn depends on your body weight and fitness. Moderate cruising on a skateboard burns between 300 and 400 calories an hour depending on you weight. Aggressive skateboarding burns between 600 and 800 calories an hour.
Not only will you lose weight, you’ll also gain muscle strength. Skateboarding is a great exercise to increase your core strength and to train your legs.
According to research by Harvard Medical school, People who weigh 125, 155 and 185 pounds will burn 300, 360 and 420 calories, during a 1-hour skateboarding session. This is only when you ride and doesn’t account for intense tricks.
| Weight(pounds) | Weight (KG) | Time | Cal | Joules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 125 | 56.7 | 1 hour | 300 | 1255.2 |
| 155 | 70.3 | 1 hour | 372 | 1556.4 |
| 185 | 83.9 | 1 hour | 444 | 1857.6 |
Contents
- Here’s How Many Calories I Burn When Skateboarding
- Does Skateboarding Help You Lose Belly Fat?
- Why Skateboarding Is a Good Workout
- I’m Really Obese, What Are the Risks?
- Final Words
Here’s How Many Calories I Burn When Skateboarding
I’ve measured the calories I burn myself and only skated a mini ramp doing really basic stuff so here’s my data using a heart rate monitor:
As I expected, skateboarding is intense. I burned about 200 calories in just 15 minutes. I kept going and only took a couple of seconds to breathe as you can see in the heart rate graph.
Does Skateboarding Help You Lose Belly Fat?
Skateboarding also contributes to the loss of belly fat. Skateboarding is a very explosive power sport, which requires you to catch a breath often.
Don’t expect any spectacular results though. Just riding a skateboard and pushing off is less intense than riding a bowl or performing tricks on the street. Also depending on your wheels and bearings, you might burn more or fewer calories.
When you skate a mini ramp or a bowl, this becomes more obvious. You can’t do this for 15 minutes straight, at least not me. Soon you start to feel your legs burn and your heart pounding.
Same for street and parks. You push and pump while doing a bunch of tricks, but you gotta catch some breath after a few minutes.
Why Skateboarding Is a Good Workout
Skateboarding is a great exercise both mentally and physically. It makes you feel good about yourself and brings a positive state of mind.
When I’m out there I don’t think about work, or problems I have to deal with. when I’m out in the woods running.
So mentally it’s a great sport, what about physically? Most importantly skateboarding is great for your core strength and flexibility! But skateboarding is also a good exercise because of:
- Offers a full body work out,arms not so much unless you do hand plants.
- Improves your coordination and precision.
- Easy to pick up other board sports such as snowboarding and surfing
- Falling techniques. Learning to fall may help you from slipping and tumbling in real life.
- Patience, it takes a lot of practice before you learn a trick.
I’m Really Obese, What Are the Risks?
If you’re over 300lb I wouldn’trecommend skateboarding, but I’m also not stopping you! You’ll have a hard time learning tricks and gravity will not be your friend.
The risk of injury increases so you should really take it easy and wear quality protective gear, at least get a helmet!
Keep in mind that your knees will suffer extra from impacts, and impacts from falling are more severe. You can, however, start by just riding a skateboard and take it real slow.
Perhaps that’s even better. Learning to ride a skateboard takes time and if you take it slow and learn the basics you’ll benefit in the long run.
Make sure you have a plan. Like start with 20 minutes every other day and gradually build up to 60 minutes. Push like a madman and sweat like a pig.
Final Words
The most important thing is to just skateboard regularly. If you’ve never done any sports and are new to skateboarding you should start with 10 to 20 minutes every day. Just slowly build up and go for 30 minutes in week 3 and see how you’re holding up.
Build up slowly and make sure to listen to your body. Don’t ignore pain, slight discomforts are normal like fatigue in your feet, but don’t burn yourself out.
Take a break to let your body recover. Breaks are awesome, next time you’ll do the thing you wanted to last session and you’ll nail it. Just make sure that you actually go out there after your recovery break. Make sure you enjoy yourself and enjoy the endorphins, even if you’re an overweight skateboarder, you can skate.
