Losing weight is a serious project. To many, it might be a challenging task. You might have less time. Can a longboard actually help you to lose weight?
It can. However, we may not expect quick results or rigorous fat-burning (if that’s the right way of saying it) through longboarding. Yes, skateboarding is a little more intense in this regard. However, longboarding is the best if you want to lose fat by going slow. That’s comfortable because the difficult tricks of a skateboard can be dangerous for the heart. Chances are you can damage your cardiac health by losing weight.
With that being said, longboarding can aid you in burning up to 300 to 400 calories per hour. Yes, there are variations of this. However, riding it every day to commute to college or work and then coming back home can significantly help you in the fat-burning process. Keep in mind it’s going to be slow, and you might need additional workouts on low intensities.
Other Health Benefits of Longboarding
Longboarding is an option for commuting and freestyling. Some use longboards for longboard dancing to entertain themselves and others. It is not necessarily made for tricks and things of that sort. You can use a longboard almost anywhere in the city if it is allowed. People also use other alternatives of a longboard, such as a cruiser board or a penny board (not for beginners), to cruise around the city.
Coming to the point of health benefits, longboarding can offer a moderate full-body workout to you. It is very clear to understand that you will engage all the muscles of your body either for pushing or for balancing on the board. However, skateboarding, i.e. push skating on a longboard or its variations, puts more stress on the leg muscles and lower back region. It, therefore, can be good for losing love handles and belly fat. To burn chest fat, you might need to exercise more.
Apart from burning fat, longboarding can be good for gaining a few health benefits. They are:
- Improved cardiovascular health
- Healthy and happy mind (improves your mood)
- Optimises your balane
- Engages all the muscles in your body (you can build muscle longboarding)
- Vitamin-D
- Better joint movements (of course, you will need to use both legs for pushing)
- Improves sleep
- Enjoying the real world
You can also make quite a few friends longboarding. If you commute using a longboard, chances are you will meet someone who does the same thing. You can find such friends or join a community online and then go to work or cruise the city together.
1. How Longboarding Can Help Lose Fat?
Longboarding can help you lose fat if you learn how to ride it and use it flexibly. You can spice up your longboard commutes. Or you might choose other activities such as freestyling. Here are a few longboard activities written below:
Commuting:
You can choose to pick your longboard up and commute from one place to the other. In this case, you can go slow and enjoy your commute and the scenery around you. Often passers-by are going to say hello too. After all, you have chosen a green way to commute – even greener than an electric vehicle, right?
Freestyling
It means some longboard tricks. You can freestyle your longboard to get over obstacles on the road. Freestyling needs training and a hell lot of practice for anyone.
It is dangerous if you are obese. It is, therefore, better to lose fat first; be savvy with the longboard and then take up freestyling. Again, staying at the basic level will be fine.
Longboard dancing:
It is a fun way of entertaining yourself and others around you. For both freestyling and longboard dancing, you may have to choose a spot that’s meant for walking and longboarding only. Do not try to longboard dance on an open road where all sorts of vehicles run.
Cruising:
It means navigating through the alleyways and the streets of a city on a fine day. As you know, longboarding can be extremely helpful to get you out of your room and cruise the city. You may use a cruiser board or a penny board as alternatives only if you are not a beginner and have gained the right control. Riding your favourite board and enjoying the scenery of the city and then stopping by a nearby coffee shop – your longboard in your hand – can be an experience you and your memories will cherish. Of course, you can share them with friends if they decide to join the team.
***A Word of Caution***:
Do not ride longboards or skateboards or any other type of them on a rainy day or a slippery floor. It can be extremely dangerous. Learn more about it online and from people who have real-life experiences.
2. How Many Calories Can You Actually Burn Using a Longboard?
Longboarding does burn a lot of calories. However, it might not help you lose fat as fast as you want to. The statistics given in the following can help you understand:
Let’s suppose you have been longboarding. You can burn about 200 to 420 calories in an hour, translating to 4 to 7 calories a minute.
In that regard, we can calculate that you can burn about 1680 calories to 2940 calories in a week if you are riding for an hour every day of the week.
You need to burn more than 500 calories to lose half a kilo of fat (1 pound). You might complain, saying longboarding is not a good exercise then. Well, the truth is it is a good exercise. You cannot just see the results faster.
We can make it varied, though. Longboarding is not the only activity that you do to lose fat. Take note of these things, too, and add them smartly to your longboard commutes:
- Add walking to your fitness routine in the morning or evening time.
- You can go for weight training using light weights.
- Choose the right diet to lose fat faster.
- Sleep properly.
- Consult a physician and discuss your longboarding and other fitness routine with him/ her.
3. What Does Longboarding Do to Your Cardio Health?
Longboards can do a lot better for your cardio health. With that being said, longboarding can offer you good cardiovascular health to strengthen your heart.
Longboarding makes the heart pump fast. When you longboard from one place to another, you make your heart work more, which is similar to running. Running might not be as comfortable as longboarding, though. It is because running continuously will make you feel tired, and you might not catch a short break f you plan to run for long. With longboarding, you can employ your legs for push skating. However, it will also give you periodic breaks when you are not pushing but balancing or carving on your skateboard.
To Conclude
Planning to buy a skateboard? It is always a good idea to visit the retail stores where you can physically examine the keyboards and ride them to check your balance and the longboard itself (if it has cracks or other things). If you have money issues or poor credit, you can use alternative income to get loans and buy these boards. Loans for people on benefits from direct lenders can help you out. You can take out these personal loans if you receive benefits instead of having a full-time income.