Although longboarding has a lot of health benefits for your body in the end it is a sport and should be a sport more than an exercise. This is because people don’t tend to practice exercise as regularly as they do like to play any sports.
Therefore, keeping health benefits as its byproduct will be a great idea. But for information, on average you burn at least 300 – 400 calories per hour while longboarding. So does longboarding help lose weight?
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Does Longboarding Help Lose Weight?
Yes, longboarding helps you lose weight at a certain rate as compared to a heavy workout. Just imagine a sport being compared with a workout for its health benefits because that means this is something good.
Actually, the rate of burning calories depends on how hard you push the board and what type of board you are using. Remember! Each board is different than the other and their benefits for your health are also different.
Some facts and research about losing weight with longboarding
Very famous research by a renowned institute names Harvard Medical School says that an average human burns around 300 calories in one hour of longboarding. And this is if he/she weighs around 125 pounds. Similarly, if they weigh around 185 pounds, then they will burn around 444 calories from one hour of longboarding. Well, even though it is not equal to how many calories you burn from running, cycling, or heavy workout, but still is a good number.
If we break down these numbers then let’s say you ride for an hour so the calories burnt will be around 240 to 420. It becomes around 4 – 7 calories per minute if we even go deeper into this. On a bigger scale, if a person rides a longboard for an hour daily, they will be able to burn around 1680 – 2940 calories every week. This number is not so good but not very bad you will be only 500 calories short of losing one pound each week.
In this matter, the more of a newbie in this sport you are, the more weight you lose. It is because you work hard to maintain your balance on the board and try to push harder without technique. Also, you may feel sore in the beginning and might not do longboarding daily, but once you get ok with it, it all will be right.
Note: The figures mentioned in this article are not final and exactly accurate. Actually, the number of calories you burn with each longboarding session and the health benefits you get depend on multiple factors. For example, your board type, your body type, terrain, wheels (hard or soft to push), you’re going uphill or downhill.
Is longboarding a good exercise?
Yes, if you are fed up with the gym and don’t want to work out the hard way, then longboarding is a great option for you. This is because it is a fun sport with a lot of health benefits as well. When you push the board multiple times and try to have fun, it increases your heart rate.
Hence, this results in a good cardiovascular system in your body. So if you don’t want to go cycling, running, or anywhere else but still want to do some exercise, this sport is for you.
There are multiple longboarding styles with some being difficult and some being very easy. This is like learning a new skill that will benefit you in the long run.
- Cruising: Cruising is a form of skateboarding in which you use a shorter skateboard. And if the skateboard is short, its wheels’ rolling time will also reduce requiring you to push a lot often. And when you have to push too many times, you will feel tired after some time, and won’t last up to an hour most of the time.
- Longboarding: Longboarding is a lot easier than cruising because it requires a longboard. Longboard’s deck is a little longer than the skateboard and its wheels are bigger. So when you push it once, the wheels keep rolling for more time as compared to skateboards.
- Longboard dancing: It is somewhat like skateboarding because you stay on the longboard but keep changing your foot. And you change your foot to push forward every time the longboard is slowing down. It requires endurance from the rider and a lot of skills to do that type of longboarding.
- Downhill: As the name suggests, downhill is when you take your longboard up on the hill and start riding the board downwards. This way the longboard catches a lot of speed in a very short time and you can go uphill and downhill again on a single push and a lot of momentum. This is quite risky and involves a lot of experience and skills to manage that speed, your balance, the longboard’s direction, and everything. Therefore, you should not do it unless you’re an experienced and expert rider.
- Slalom: This is one of the most exhausting types of longboarding because, in this type, you involve a lot of pumping. On top of pumping, there is carving also involved so it becomes an intense amount of effort put into the sport.
- Free ride: Free ride is also not for beginners because you have to ride the longboard downhill. The only difference in this style is that your speed is a little slower than that. It also includes spinning and sliding so there’s a lot of risk of getting hurt therefore, a beginner should stay away from this.
Expert opinion: We think that all the longboarding types are very much enjoyable but if it is about beginners then only longboarding and cruising are the best for them. This is because they should give themselves some time and they will eventually understand what they need to go for.
There are always inconveniences in the beginning so don’t get worried about them. Once you keep riding the longboard, these inconveniences will go away. The inconveniences include not being able to maintain your balance on the board, falling, and cramping.
You should just take a break for a few days every week at the start if you feel cramps in your legs. Once you will get used to it, you will be able to avoid all the inconveniences easily. Try to stay as much hydrated as possible and don’t stomp on the foot that you use the most to push the longboard.
Yes, longboarding is a great workout that doesn’t even feel like a workout. You get a lot of health benefits from longboarding because it helps strengthen your muscles, especially your heart muscles. This is because it acts on your body as a cardio exercise which pumps the blood to each cell of your body. Balance skills and joint reinforcement and mobility are some more great health benefits of longboarding.
Calories burn during longboarding but how many, depends. So on average estimated burnt calories in one hour of longboarding count between 240 – 420. If dig deep into it then it becomes 4 – 7 calories per minute of longboarding. And similarly, you can calculate 30 minutes of calorie burning count which becomes 120 – 210.
Yes, skateboarding helps you lose your belly fat easily. But the calories burnt during skateboarding depend on various factors. For example, it depends on what is your skill level, the amount of time you spend skateboarding, and the activities and type of skateboarding you do.
If you skateboard for exactly 60 minutes every day, then your calories burning count will be around 300 – 500 each day. Although this number is not final because it also depends on various other factors. But whatever the situation you skateboard in, it will have long-term benefits for your health and fitness.
Longboarding is only hard in the beginning when you are a beginner. And when you are a beginner, you always start slowly and keep the speed low during the ride. This is because longboards are longer and heavier so they take a lot of push force to work up the speed. So when you cannot push that hard for that long, your longboard will move slowly, and if you fall you will not hurt yourself.
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