Health Benefits of Ice Skating

Health Benefits of Ice Skating

Whether you're a professional skater, toddler, retiree, student, or housewife, skating can have health benefits.

Because it is aerobic exercise in its own right, just like walking, running and swimming, it offers positive effects on your cardiovascular health. The advantage over running is that it's not as hard on the joints because it's a low-impact exercise unless you're doing jumps while skating. It makes heart muscles healthy, provides significant protection against coronary artery disease and subsequent heart attacks. It also helps with weight loss, as a person burns 250 to 810 calories per hour of recreational skating, according to the US Figure Skating Association website. Meanwhile, competitive skating uses more calories, 450 to 1,080 per hour of skating. Just to illustrate, a 68kg man skating continuously for an hour will burn as many calories as running five miles an hour.

As with other sports activities, skating also improves endurance. Endurance increases when one maintains a constant, steady pace for an extended period of time. However, it is important that in the beginning it is okay to settle for short distances, but these should be gradually increased to increase endurance as well.

Skating also improves muscle tone. When skating, the quadriceps and hamstrings are the leg muscles that work the most, but many other muscles in the body work in concert with these leg muscles. Abdominal and back muscles also need to contract and relax to maintain upright posture and balance.

Mental fitness is also enhanced by skating as it exercises mental control during the act. One must be very alert and aware while skating. It is a de-stressor and form of relaxation for many individuals who use it as a means to release themselves from the stresses of life and work. The fresh air and sunshine of outdoor skating, as well as the company of family and friends, are very helpful in unwinding from a long week of work and problems. Confidence has definitely improved as well. The challenge of establishing full body control and balance brings pride when one is able to overcome these challenges.

It is very pleasing to see that adults are becoming more health conscious and that many have switched to skating to become physically fit. Gone are the days when only children were interested in moving and sliding on ice.