Are you wondering how to reduce your body weight and build muscles? Worry no more. Here is an exciting way to help you keep fit mentally and health-wise and improve your social relations.
Skateboarding is a recreational sporting activity that, if well practiced, will help improve your mental, health, and social interaction capacity. Skating involves balancing one’s body on the moving board.
To achieve balance, one has to develop strong muscle coordination. The body muscles are actively involved in improving your overall body fitness.
In this article, we shall look at the benefits of skateboarding and how one can make the best out of this sporting activity.
Skateboarding is a sporting activity that, when well-practiced, improves your body physically and mentally. Let’s Discuss all benefits of skateboarding under the following categories.
- Health benefits of skateboarding
- Mental benefits of skateboarding
- Social benefits of skateboarding
A. Health benefits of skateboarding
Skateboarding helps improve our body’s health by burning calories and building muscles and hence a robust immune system that can fight diseases.
Strong body muscles help us tolerate and endure pain. Below are some of the health benefits of skateboarding.
01. Transportation
In urban areas, skateboarding has become a mode of transport, especially in the streets where using other transportation methods is a problem. In colleges and learning institutions, learners have adopted skating as a mode of cruising around the school.
By skateboarding, you get to exercise your body muscles. According to recent research by doctors, skateboarding helps one stay fit. Skateboarding is better than walking, which doctors recommend for people with heart diseases.
02. Burns Calories
Skateboarding utilizes several body muscles. When climbing uphill tasks at high speeds, vigorous activity helps burn calories. I recommend you combine skateboarding with bicycle riding to burn calories efficiently.
However, it’s good to note that you must be consistent and dedicated to achieving the intended purpose. With the right calories in your body, you can easily engage in vigorous activities such as running and fast work.
Skateboarding for a 30-minutes session daily can help burn up to 250 calories while performing at moderate speeds.
03. Build Muscles
This sporting activity is efficient in the building of strong muscles. Skateboarding utilizes the core, gluteus maximus, quadriceps, and calve muscles.
These muscles grow strong with time and improve the stability of the athlete.
For maximum muscle building, skateboard up hilly areas to work out the muscles. With strong muscles, one can perform heavy tasks without body aches or fatigue.
04. Improves Fitness
It is advisable to keep fit. Keeping fit involves having a balanced lean body that is healthy to undertake any body activity. Skateboarding, like any other sporting activity, will help you stay fit and ensure that you reduce stress and fatigue.
A fit body has more chances of living a healthy life. Skating will reduce the percentage of body fats, preventing heart conditions such as cardiac arrest.
05. Coordination of body
Body coordination is well achieved in the pursuit of attaining skateboarding balance while on the move. Skateboarding utilizes the body’s muscles and the brain to balance on the moving wheels.
To achieve balance and steer forward, the body has to have proper body parts coordination to affect a move. The same coordination is used during a health condition. The body learns to trigger reactions to various health conditions hence preventing diseases.
06. Pain Tolerance
Skateboarding has its challenges and risks. One may fall while skating and injure oneself. The impact triggers hormones to react to the pain through the pain receptors. With time, the body develops tolerance to pain to some percentage.
The nerves adapt to some pain so that the body can tolerate some degrees of pain.
07. Physical Endurance
Skateboarding for long, straining distances up a hilly area results in some degree of physical endurance. The body develops the ability to withstand anaerobic and aerobic exercise for an extended period without fatigue or muscle failure.
Skateboarding helps improve one’s physical endurance in gymnastics. Thus skateboarding is considered a pre-activity before going for gymnastic lessons.
B. Mental benefits of skateboarding
Depression and anxiety are some of the leading mental illnesses most young people suffer. Skateboarding has been identified as one of the sporting activities that young people can engage in to help reduce mental health issues.
Below are some of the mental benefits of skateboarding that helps fight mental illnesses.
08. Freedom
Different sporting activities offer different satisfaction. However, skateboarding offers more than just enjoyment and the exercising part. Skating provides the freedom to do what you want, perform any trick, and jump.
The game has no definite rules and regulations as one can skate at any place of their convenience. Freedom gives the brain a relaxing period from the stress of daily duties. That space and free time allow you to mentally regain energy for efficient functioning.
09. Patience
In an attempt to master a trick or jump with the board, the mind is stimulated by sensory stimuli and nature to build patience and resilience.
The brain adapts to having the patience to master and improve on some of the most complicated tricks in skateboarding. In real life, patience is an attribute that helps one navigate through some challenging situations.
10. Flexibility
Performing skating tricks and jumps keeps one active and flexible. Some of the tricks seem complicated to perform. However, with practice, the body gets flexible and performs the task efficiently.
The flexibility achieved through skateboarding is transferred in real life. One can evade idleness and get more active, improving their speed to execute duties.
11. Practice
Every art and sport is born out of practice with time to become perfect. Skateboarding requires a lot of training and practice to master some tricks. While practicing how to skateboard and perform tricks, I recommend you get an experienced trainer.
The brain registers the need to practice severally to achieve success. That translates to one’s life by building the practice of virtue in everything you undertake.
12. Inculcates Bravery
With practice and training comes the hard part of falling on concrete and, sometimes, breaking your feet. These risks play an important role in instilling the art of bravery in your life.
You get to overcome the fear of doing risky activities. Having that courage enables one to face life’s challenges with bravery and hence overcome them. Eliminating the fear of not succeeding or failing gives one the courage to do more extraordinary things with a positive mindset.
13. Relieves Stress and Depression
Skateboarding is the best form of stress and depression reliever.
Skating gives the mind a relaxing feeling helping you avoid falling into depression. The body gets tired, and the urge to rest helps avoid overthinking and stress.
14. Consequences
Every activity has its consequences. Skateboarding brings out the best in you, starting from the physical body to mental wellness. Some immediate results include a lean body with strong muscles and joints.
Skating will actively involve your whole body, ensuring consistent energy utilization. This results in a relaxed body with the capacity to deliver on the daily chores. Your brain is also able to function correctly.
15. Multi-Tasking
Skateboarding involves several muscles and body parts simultaneously. The brain is trained to perform more than one function simultaneously. The balance of hands and steering of the feet is coordinated for smooth skating.
Multi-tasking skills are achieved while balancing your body on the moving wheels and steering the board ahead. The body has the eyes, hands, feet, and brain to multitask to achieve the expected goal.
These skills learned from skating are applied in real life to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. This saves time and builds sharp brain and body coordination.
C. Social benefits of skateboarding
The following are some of the social benefits of skateboarding. Skateboarding is a form of socializing when done in groups. People get to interact, develop friendships and become a skating family.
16. Meet new people
Skateboarding opens doors for you to meet new people with similar sporting hobbies. You will meet new friends at the skateparks who become family to you.
In the quest to meet new people, you might interact and share some of the mental issues you are going through. Through such, you evade depression and stress.
By meeting new people and listening to their life challenges, you get to learn that you are not alone in the fight against depression and even drug abuse.
Through skateboarders’ groups and organizations, people meet from different walks of life. They are essential in campaigns to spread peace messages in conflicting zones.
17. Friends
Skaters are some of the friendly and interesting people to interact with. They operate in groups most time. They create a strong family bond in their groups, creating friendship ties among the skaters. Some of these bonds and interactions flourish into healthy and positive relationships.
Friends socially help each other to grow spiritually and mentally. Some team up and start gymnastic lessons, while others will go and start charity work. These activities help develop society by improving each other’s life.
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Conclusion
So, there you go—17 benefits of skateboarding for mental health and sociability. Start skateboarding today and improve your whole-body fitness as you enjoy the sport.
Skateboarding makes use of all body muscles with strain on the feet muscles. This will help build muscles and burn calories improving your body conformation. Skating with friends will also help reduce stress and depression instead of sitting behind closed doors.
Wear protective gear while skating to reduce the impact in case of accidents. I recommend you combine skating with an excellent dietary plan for maximum benefits from the sport.