Is Longboarding A Good Exercise: Health And Fitness Benefits

Longboarding has a lot of positive effects on our bodies. Choosing this sport is a really good option for people who are willing to do exercise with a bit of fun.

But is longboarding a good exercise? Yes, it is a really good exercise as it burns calories and also helps in losing weight. The harder you push, the more you enjoy and the more calories you burn. Hence, it is a great way to combine both fun and exercise.

In this article, you will find all the answers to your questions regarding longboarding and its benefits, physically and mentally. So, wasting no time, let’s jump right in!

Is Longboarding A Good Exercise? What Makes It So Good?

It is a versatile and all-rounded exercise that includes a bit of everything that makes it so good. The sport is mainly cardio, along with pleasure and joy. Cardio exercises will lower your blood pressure, regulate your blood sugar, help in pumping blood, and many more.

Different types of longboarding styles will benefit your body in different ways. Aside from being a cardio exercise, weight loss exercise, and an exercise that strengthens your muscles, it can also increase your entire body’s flexibility.

Health Benefits of Longboarding

Below, let’s look into some of the health benefits of longboarding!

❖    Cardiovascular Benefits

Longboarding requires a lot of pushing with the rear foot, which leads to moving the body. This results in an elevated heart rate, which makes your cardiovascular system stronger.

One of the key features of cardiovascular endurance is that it improves your cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Reducing your risk of many diseases, such as heart and blood vessel conditions, which result in living longer and strengthening your heart and lungs.

As this is a rhythmic and repeating exercise, this leads to an increase in the intake of oxygen, making it an aerobic exercise. Longboarding is mainly a cardio exercise, which means it not only strengthens your immune system but also helps with maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

❖    Muscle Engagement

Both strength training and cardio have a positive effect on building and defining muscles in the legs, cores, and arms. It improves balance and coordination, allowing to improve physical endurance and minimize fatigue.

It helps with enhancing your body composition and boosting energy levels while also helping promote healthy sleeping patterns.

❖    Burning Calories

Longboarding plays a vital role in burning calories. While this may not be the best way to burn calories, like cycling or jogging, it surely is a fun way. It can burn approximately 5 calories per minute.

A 30-minute session of longboarding can burn approximately 120-210 calories. However, it can burn more or less calories depending on your style of longboarding.

Strength and Endurance

Longboarding engages itself in both strength and endurance. Here’s how each factor plays a role:

Leg Strength

As it requires a lot of pushing from the back foot, it puts pressure and stress on the quad, which is a group of muscles at the front of your thigh. After the exercise, the strain you have put on will trigger the muscle, leading to your leg building muscle and increasing leg strength.

Core Stability

Although your legs will do most of the work for you, the core helps with balance. Your core muscles are engaged to keep you standing on one leg. Leg strength is required for the core stability and balance on one leg. The repetitive movement, along with the balance, will improve your posture.

Enhanced Endurance

Regular longboarding includes regular kicking and movement of the leg, which can help you improve your stamina and endurance. In other words, it includes a bit of every exercise that differs from other endurance sports like running, cycling, or swimming.

However, it may not provide you with the same level of endurance as other ultra-endurance activities such as biking or canoeing.

Mental Benefits Of Longboarding

Longboarding can also help with mental health as you will be away from all the stressful activities for a while. It allows you to just cruise around alone, which also boosts self-confidence.

Exercise like this is most likely to boost your metabolism as well as improve sleep efficiency. It gives your brain a boost, which leads to being more focused and having a better memory.

You can learn new tricks from other people and teach them your own style of longboarding, which creates networking, allowing you to have better communication skills and confidence.

Cross-Training Potential

It can be seen that the sport includes the movement of parts of the body and makes it a well-rounded fitness routine. Cross-training can keep your workouts interesting and can improve strength training programs like yoga.

As there are different styles and tricks involved when it comes to longboarding, it will offer you a variety of exercises. It can be a really good start for anyone who’s seeking diversity in fitness.

Safety Considerations

Safety is very important when it comes to this sport, as it may result in various injuries. I suggest following these safety considerations:

Case Studies and Success Stories

Dylan Hepworth is a longboarder with high achievements. He entered longboarding competitions and is still admired for his impressive tricks.

Landyachtz is a longboard manufacturer that creates high-quality longboards and also uses eco-friendly materials in its products. They offer different shapes and designs of longboards and also help to promote the sport.

There are many more success stories of longboarding. Brands such as Sector 9 and Rayne Longboards made outstanding contributions to the longboarding industries.

How To Start Longboarding? Tips For Getting Started

The key thing is to find the right board; this will solve most of the problems. It is recommended for beginners to choose drop-through, pintail, or kicktail longboard.

Then, you can work on balance in static mode or have someone teach you. It is also important to practice turning stance, push, and brake stance.  Choosing the right spot to learn this sport is essential as well.

However, it is very important to keep safety precautions in mind. If you have no experience in exercise that involves balance or stability, then it is highly recommended to wear safety gear. It can be seen in a lot of people the improvement they had physically and mentally.

Conclusion

All this information should give you a reason to start longboarding. It not only has benefits in fitness, including reducing chronic pain such as arthritis, lowering blood pressure, reducing asthma symptoms, and regulating blood sugar, but it will also benefit you mentally.

If you are planning to burn calories and lose weight, I would highly recommend longboarding for its variety of benefits. It will be a great addition to your daily lifestyle. Just cruise around and surround yourself with good vibes and observe the changes and improvement in your body and mind.