Is Longboarding a Workout? | Health Benefits & Fitness Tips

Longboards are a perfect choice for light and simple regular exercise. The research says a specific longboarding style such as pumping can be a great cardio exercise. You don’t need to put too much effort into learning because it is as simple as riding a longboard with pushes. Although multiple riding styles have been discovered until now, not all of them are a good workout. Many people choose longboarding as their profession in which downhill riding, sliding, and longboard racing are top of the list. Let’s discuss “is longboarding good exercise” in depth.

Health Benefits of Longboarding

The body positioning and movement during longboarding help you lose weight, make muscles, and most importantly, it boosts your stamina. Keep in mind that only those riding styles will benefit your body, requiring constant movement of your body parts. Going down the hill without pushing the board and sliding your Longboard at a higher speed are not exercises. Below, we have enlisted the significant advantages of riding a longboard.

First of all, we have the cardio workout, which insists many people ride a longboard. It becomes possible with continuous movement of the riders’ major body parts.

Secondly, riders have improved their stamina a lot. Surprisingly, people pump their boards for miles and cover maximum distances.

With the longboard pumping technique, you get a chance to perform a practical exercise for the lower body parts and muscles.

Even in an easy ride, you will need to turn your deck in different patterns, positively affecting the joints. In this case, pumping is second to none because it is all about turning the board in an S pattern.

Moreover, long-distance longboarding can burn around 400 calories per hour. That is to say, you can enjoy nature and keep yourself healthy and fit in an outdoor sports activity. Again, BoardsOnTop does not suggest skating fellows to try all longboarding manners to find “is longboarding good exercise.”

Therefore, our discussion will only be around those riding styles that can benefit you health-wise. So, we will be shedding light on some of the most popular riding styles that we found valuable in improving stamina, gaining muscles, and making your lower body parts more active than ever.

Is Longboard Carving an Exercise

Our goal is to discover two to three body advantages from a longboarding workout. So, we will analyze the carving technique to know if it is a good exercise. First of all, turning is the most important step that you do continuously during carving rides. It leads us to a few noticeable points that are discussed below.

Cardio Benefits:

If we have to sum up carving in simple words, we would say that the rider gains a suitable pace, and then he carves and moves in a specific pattern. Therefore, the cardio workout in this style is almost none. Here’s the fact that it is up to you whether you look for cardio exercise or don’t follow the carving technique.

Strengthening Body Parts:

To some extent, you can strengthen some of your significant body parts when carving on a longboard. The parts that will be nourished are core muscles, hips, abs, glutes, and calves. Note: it is only achievable when you know all the tips and tricks of longboarding carving and how to implement it perfectly. Moreover, if you are fond of momentum, then carving is how you should start riding from today.

As mentioned above, riders don’t place their feet often on the ground because they have to keep the momentum and Balance alive in their ride. That is to say, the chances of polishing your balancing skills are higher and unmatched compared to other riding styles. Your goal should be to shift your weight accordingly when required for a right center of gravity.

Joint Exercise with Carving:

For an effective workout for joints, carving is one the most suitable ways of longboarding. At the start of carving, you gain speed with pushes and then take turns which moves almost all of your body joints. That is to say; if you wish to make your joints more active and responsive and you have a longboard, you should learn how to carve.

Is Longboard Cruising a Good Exercise

We have been cruising for a long time because it is among the initial steps of longboarding. Every newbie will start their journey by cruising but let’s see if it’s just a riding technique or a good exercise as well. The cruising style depends on continuous pushes only. It does not require any other technical steps to perform like other styles.

Cardio Workout with Cruising:

There are two possibilities; in this case, if you cruise around the city regularly, it can be useful for you. On the other hand, we don’t see such advantages in cruising if you do it once or twice a week. To simplify it, we’d say that covering distance in kilometers is also cruising, and riding for miles is also known as cruising. Therefore, it depends on what you choose as a rider; either you go for shorter distances once a week or travel on your Longboard for longer distances regularly.

Balance and Strength Workout:

Throughout our cruising experience, we did not find many benefits in balance because it is a simple style. There are no technical steps required in this riding style, which means there is less practice in balancing yourself. Yes, if you try out some exciting things and make the ride difficult for yourself, it will become interesting and advantageous from a momentum point of view.

On the other hand, it looks possible if we talk about making muscles and abs stronger. Cardio looked difficult because no upper body parts are involved in this riding style. When you push your Longboard for hours and hours, it strengthens the muscles and somehow your abs as well. Again, it depends on how much you cruise and how many times in a week.

Joint Exercise and Longboard Cruising:

It is as beneficial as nourishing your lower body parts. The pressure you put on your front leg during a cruising ride helps you strengthen your joints. The tip here is to use both your right and left foot as the front because it will be evenly good for joints on both sides. Unfortunately, we have to say that cruising becomes good exercise if done for long distances and regularly. If it does not suit you, go for any other style mentioned in the discussion.

Freestyle Longboarding as Workout

Compared to cruising and carving, freestyle longboarding is more useful for a complete body workout. The reason is that freestyling is a vast field, and you get many techniques to apply, which assure maximum comfort. In simple words, you can use it as a trump card to make longboarding a good exercise.

Cardio Exercise:

Jumping off the board, again and again, unlimited turns, and balancing the rides allow a full cardio workout. Comparing cruising with freestyle riding style shows how much your body parts will move throughout both of these styles. That is to say, cruising regularly won’t be more beneficial than freestyle riding of 40-50 minutes.

Rider’s Balance:

As you will be performing different tricks on your Longboard, it will surely improve your stability skills and allow you to balance yourself under critical conditions. It is not as simple as cruising; you will have to leave the deck, flip it, and do many more things with it. Ultimately, balancing your ride will become the utmost, and honestly speaking, it is technical and requires practice.

Freestyle Longboarding and Joint Workout:

Yes, it is highly recommended to do freestyles with your Longboard if you wish to do some workout on your joints. Unlike cruising and carving, almost all joints of your body do their exercise whenever a freestyle or trick is performed over a longboard. Long story short, if you just want to work to make your joints stronger than before, try some freestyles rather than carving, cruising, or any other style.

Other Longboarding Styles and Workout

The three popular riding styles that have been mentioned above are the most advantageous among all. There are many other techniques and manners to riding a longboard, such as dancing, downhill, sliding, and freeriding. We have ridden our longboards with all these manners but found cruising, carving, and freestyling most useful in terms of cardio exercise. The rest OF the styles can be useful at some points but not always. So, we believe that our topic “is longboarding good exercise” is clear to all of you. Below you will find our thoughts on “are freeriding and downhill riding good for your health or not.”

Freeride and Downhill Longboarding

If you use your Longboard for freerides, it isn’t easy to find cardio benefits due to less body movement during the ride. In simple words, freeriding is all about achieving maximum speed and stopping your Longboard with different methods. Therefore, there are fewer chances of cardio workouts. On the other hand, riders can enhance their balancing skills impressively with freeriding, probably as impactful as with freestyle rides. In the end, the workout for joints, muscles, and abs is somehow good but not fully favorable.

Like freestyle rides, downhill longboarding is about scary stunts and other techniques. Therefore, it will be valuable neither for your heart exercises. The other goals like strengthening your body parts and exercising joints are not achievable with downhill riding. Most importantly, neither as a beginner nor as an intermediate rider, you should try this style because it requires a lot of practice and longboarding experience.

Final Words

Our answer to “is longboarding good exercise” is clear, all longboarding techniques are not a good body workout. Cruising, carving, and freestyle riding are viable options if the goal is to strengthen your muscles, joints, core and revamp your major joints. We are not sure if the rest of the styles will be good exercise or not, and also, it will require experience and extraordinary skills. Thus, select an easy and favorable way of longboard riding and make longboarding a regular activity and exercise.