Why should you know the pros and cons of roller skating before learning how to skate? If you are still new to this sport, a thorough understanding of its positive and negative sides will help you know how to enjoy it properly.
Roller skating has become more popular worldwide in recent years. Most people play roller skating as a leisure activity without knowing the pros and cons that this sport offers. Therefore, we are here to help you have a better outlook on this fantastic sport.
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What Are The Pros And Cons Of Roller Skating?
Roller skating is a healthy sport that is suitable for all ages. It means more than just a simple workout. In addition to great health benefits, it also helps you ease your mind after a long busy day. However, in a certain sense, it also has its own drawbacks. Want to know what they are? Let’s check it out now!
Pros
1. Make You Happy And Live A Stress-free Life
In modern life, problems of money, health, work, family and personal relationships can put us under pressure. Some people even feel terribly stressed. That’s why you should take up some sports in your free time. Many psychological researchers point out that one of the best ways to help you reduce your stress level is to indulge in some physical activities.
And here is what takes the cake, many people feel over the moon when playing roller skating! Most importantly, roller skating helps clear your mind, minimizes mild depression, and it makes you happier.
Roller skating is shown to help reduce bad hormones and simultaneously increases the good endorphins, also known as the “happy hormones”.
These “happy hormones” are very effective in relieving “brain pain”, and thanks to regular roller skating, you will feel naturally good. In addition, the good endorphins also help improve your concentration as you practice your skating skills. And thanks to this, you can control your mood better.
Roller skating is great for group activities, so you will have even more fun to roller skate with friends. On weekends, inviting some of your friends for roller skating to have fun together is a good way to recharge your battery.
If you are in need of much quiet time for roller skating, choose a peaceful location and only focus on your surroundings, breathing and enjoying the fresh air.
2. Lose Weight And Build Muscles
With a 30-minute roller skating session, you can burn about 250 calories. So, regular daily practice will help you burn approximately 1750 calories a week. That means if you have a proper diet and workout mode, you can lose one pound a week. It is so great, right?
Of course, the calory level burned in an hour from skating also depends on your weight. At the same speed and on the same terrain, the more you weigh, the more calories you will release. This is the same for other types of exercise, not only for roller skating.
Roller Skating not only helps you drop a number of pounds but also builds more muscles on your body. When skating, your legs constantly slip combined with the upper body movement to keep balance and move forwards. As a result, it helps tone up your abs, glutes, and thighs as well.
You will be surprised at a sharp increase in the number of muscles on your body after a short time of skating. Believe us! Having an ideal body weight is in your reach with roller skating.
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3. Improve Your Heart Health
Heart disease is the leading cause of premature death in the world. The number of people who suffer from strokes, heart attacks, and other related cardiovascular diseases is increasing every day.
The Heart Association in the United State has listed roller sports as an effective method to help improve your heart health. According to the recorded data, roller skating will increase the average heart rate of a skater to 145-165 beats a minute. And if you join in more complicated forms of skating like roller derby or speed skating, you can even increase your average heart rate up to about 175 beats a minute.
4. Prevent Joints Injuries
Compared to other exercises like walking and running, roller skating is much safer. However, don’t misunderstand that the knee scratches or falling are what we are referring to. It is all about muscle and joint injuries that we are are mentioning actually.
Walking and running have bad influences on the joints, especially the knees. And if you don’t exercise carefully, you might cause yourself a permanent injury from these sports. This is where roller skating is different because it is classified as a low-impact sport.
Why does roller skating have a low impact on your body joints? The answer is that no jerky movement is made when skating. Thanks to this fluid movement, you are less likely to endure joint damage. Therefore, you will still be able to get the same health benefits without the harsh impact.
According to studies in universities, the joint impact from roller skating compared to other high-impact sports is 52 percent less. For those who have a joint problem, roller skating would be a good suggestion.
5. Defeat Diabetes
Like heart disease, the number of people with diabetes also increases alarmingly. Sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, overweight, and a lack of aerobic exercise often cause type 2 diabetes.
Two main types of physical activity that are recommended by the American Diabetes Association to help prevent diabetes are aerobic exercise and strength training. And health benefits that these two types of exercises bring up can be also achieved from roller skating. Therefore, you can control diabetes effectively by this sport.
In fact, roller skating is especially effective in helping your body to control your insulin better. More importantly, it helps reduce blood glucose levels as well as improving cholesterol levels in your body. Because all of these factors influence your diabetes, you could control or even prevent it by roller skating.
Doctors recommend diabetes patients and those who are at risk of this disease should do light-to-moderate exercise for about 30 munites every day. With roller skating, you should spend 30 minutes every 5 days a week to help take control of your diabetes. To stay healthy, it is extremely important to keep regular roller skating.
6. Improve Your Balance
Not many people were born with a natural balance and we have to regularly practice to improve it. Your balance can affect your gait and how you play certain sports.
Having a good balance is important because it reduces the amount of energy you spend when doing daily activities. The balance is more necessary in skating because if you can not keep balance, you will keep falling. Therefore, practicing roller skating tricks and techniques will help you improve your balance effectively.
Roller skating requires you to keep a steady base to keep your body forward without falling. This is the perfect recipe to help you achieve a better body balance.
Cons
1. Injuries
The most common injuries that you might get when skating are sprains and scratched skin. These injuries are usually not serious and more common with beginners.
However, the good news is that, by getting proper instruction and using safety gear, the injury risk can be prevented.
2. Shortage of Safe Places for Roller Skating
Roller skating should be performed on a little round surface. And we are still lacking a large number of indoor and outdoor roller skating rink surfaces. Therefore, it is quite hard for skaters, especially beginners to find a safe place for skating.
However, in recent years, many skating rinks have been built to compensate for the shortage.
How To Roller Skate Properly To Avoid Injury?
The easiest way to avoid injuries when roller skating is to join in skating classes. This will be extremely necessary if you are unbalanced and tend to fall most of the time. These lessons can help you know how to safely roller skate as well as choosing the safest route to follow.
Wearing protective gear like helmet, knee pads, shin pads, and elbow pads are incredibly useful in ensuring that injuries are minimized.
However, the most effective way to reduce the likelihood of injuries is choosing a suitable skating level for yourself. The majority of injuries are caused when you skate at levels that are supposed to be for advanced skaters.
The quality of roller skates also plays an important role in reducing injuries. Your roller skates must fit your feet perfectly and always be in good condition for use.
See More: Most Comfortable Roller Skates For Newbies
Wrapping up
Roller Skating not only helps you reduce stress in life but also brings you a lot of health benefits including losing weight, improving your heart health as well as preventing joint injuries. Although it has some cons, obviously the benefits that it brings up is much greater than its drawback.
Now, if your friends want to learn more about the pros and cons of roller skating, you can completely explain to them, right? We do hope that you will have fun and stay healthy with roller skating!
