The gym is not for everyone and skateboarding can be a good alternate form of exercise if you do it right. Although skateboarding in general can be good exercise, all forms of skateboarding aren’t necessarily the best. As someone who prefers spending the evening at the skatepark over going to the gym, I’m all for getting in some exercise while having fun. However, there are some things to note before you consider skateboarding as your main exercise source instead of running, weight training, or other sports.
Let’s first talk about why skateboarding can be good exercise, then get into the specific calorie counts and types of skating that will actually improve your fitness.
Is Skateboarding A Good Workout?
Before we can answer this, we need to consider the “types” of skateboarding, as well as what qualifies a “good” workout.
With skateboarding, it all boils down to three ways you can be riding your skateboard: doing tricks at the skatepark, riding around bowls, or cruising around town without doing tricks.
At the most basic level, pushing your skateboard engages your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calf muscles in particular. So no matter how you’re riding your board, these muscle groups are going to see some action. However, unless you’re pushing constantly up a hill (which nobody likes doing), you go back and forth between pushing and just cruising.
After all, that’s the fun of skateboarding.
But because of this, you will have a hard time getting your heart rate up to a temperate (60% max heart rate) or aerobic (80% max heart rate) zone. Instead, you end up in the low-intensity heart rate zone (50% of max heart rate or less) that doesn’t do much to improve your cardio or burn calories.
So ultimately, just riding a skateboard around isn’t amazing exercise. It won’t build muscles or improve your cardio as effectively as other forms of exercise like running or weight training.
However, there is a catch to this.
When you’re skating at the skatepark or riding a bowl, you are constantly jumping, pumping, and balancing. Without taking long breaks between tricks, it’s surprisingly easy to maintain a temperate heart rate with constant pushing and jumping.
So although skateboarding can be a good workout, it’s definitely more low intensity than the constant energy output of running for example.
Cruising around on your skateboard isn’t going to do much in terms of getting stronger and improving your cardio, but doing tricks and cruising the bowl for sustained periods can be great exercise.
Can You Lose Weight Skateboarding?
Now you know the key to losing weight is diet and exercise; but more specifically, diet and cardio. Cardio heightens your heart rate which leads to more calories being burned (aka fat). According to this article, 65% of the calories burned in the temperate zone are fat. In the aerobic zone, 45% of calories burned are fat, but this zone has better fat-burning effects due to the higher burn rate.
So knowing that consistently working on tricks without rest will likely put you into the temperate heart rate zone, you can lose weight skateboarding. You will just need to be doing much longer sessions on your skateboard than you would a run to burn an equal amount of calories as we’ll discuss later.
However, if you are just cruising around on your board, you will be unlikely to see significant weight loss from skateboarding. That’s because you never reach a heart rate zone that’s conducive to burning fat.
To get more specific with this, let’s take a look at some calories burned over my last few skate sessions along with some averages to expect.
How Many Calories Does Skateboarding Burn?
According to this calculator which uses the Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) value for skateboarding as 5.6, here is the expected calorie burn based on a wide range of weights.
| Weight | Time Skateboarding | Estimated Calories Burned |
|---|---|---|
| 120lbs | 60 minutes | 320 kcal |
| 170lbs | 60 minutes | 453 kcal |
| 200lbs | 60 minutes | 533 kcal |
| 230lbs | 60 minutes | 613 kcal |
Now the number of calories you burn will ultimately depend on your height, weight, heart rate, and overall fitness level. To give you a more real-world example, I am 6’2 and 186lbs and regularly skateboard, bike, and run.
During casual skateboard sessions cruising around the park and sessioning ledges and rails, I burned an average of 363 calories in 70 minutes with a max heart rate of 127bpm and an average heart rate of 102bpm. Again, this was for what I would consider a “typical” session at the skatepark.
Now during a more intense skate session where I was primarily skating the bowl, I burned 734 calories in 78 minutes with a max heart rate of 174bpm and an average heart rate of 137bpm.
These two very different skating styles require drastically different levels of output. Likewise, you can see the huge difference in calories burned based on the heart rates of the two sessions.
Now how does that compare to running?
Skateboarding VS Running – Which Is Better Exercise?
Compared to skateboarding, running forces you to maintain a higher average heart rate over an extended period. Unlike skateboarding where you are stopping and starting again, running is constant.
Since the calories burned running are so subjective based on age, weight, time, and running pace, it’s hard to give a simple chart as I did with skateboarding. Instead, let’s compare my own stats for similar elapsed time between skateboarding and running.
Running for 60 minutes at a 6:01/km or 9:40/mi pace, I burned 857 calories. Running for 30 minutes at a slower pace of 6:57/km or 11:06/mi I burned 407 calories with an average heart rate of 153bpm.
So in terms of actual calories burned, I burned more than double the calories running compared to my average calories burned while skateboarding. In 70 minutes I burned 363 calories while skateboarding, but 857 calories in just 60 minutes of running.
If weight loss and cardio improvements are your goals, there’s no denying that there are much better forms of exercise than skateboarding. However, if you have a hard time getting motivated to run or weight train, skateboarding is still a legit form of exercise to get you moving!
What Muscles Does Skateboarding Target?
Although dominantly your lower body, there are several muscle groups that see plenty of action while you skateboard.
– Abs / Core
Your core is responsible for maintaining your balance and stabilizing your body as you jump, twist, and slide. When skateboarding, your core makes sure you stay locked into grinds, stabilizes any rotations, and helps lift your legs up while you jump for a trick. After a long skate session, it’s not uncommon to feel like you’ve done a few too many sit-ups by the end of the day.
– Quadriceps
Your quads are the front part of your upper leg which are comprised of four different muscle groups that stretch from your knee to your hip. These muscles are responsible for offering the explosive power needed to jump as well as absorb impacts as you land. Likewise, these muscles are worked while you push your skateboard as you are constantly bending and standing (like a lunge) as you push.
– Hamstrings
The hamstrings are another group of muscles that extend from your glutes to the back of your knee. They are responsible for lifting your calf and are crucial for maintaining stability and strength as you bend down. This muscle group is also dominantly worked with your pushing foot, giving you the ability to push forward from the ground to propel your body.
– Calfs & Shins
The lower leg is made up of several different muscle groups too, but at a basic level, are responsible for shifting how your weight is distributed. These muscles assist your quads, hamstrings, and glutes to maintain balance, stabilize your legs across features, and help pop and flick tricks.
– Gluteus Maximus
Your glutes are one of the biggest muscles in your body that extend from the hips to the hamstrings. These muscles stabilize your upper body as you go from crouching to standing or jumping to landing. They are also responsible for helping move your leg to swing and push as well as offering explosive force while pushing.
Skateboarding Exercise FAQ
Can Skateboarding Make You Fit?
Regularly skateboarding for extended periods of time can improve the muscle endurance in your legs as well as your overall cardio. However, the amount of benefit you get out of skateboarding is directly related to how vigorous a skateboard session is. Casual cruises around town won’t offer much for your overall fitness, but regularly trying tricks or sessioning a bowl can have very positive effects.
Although it may not be as effective at improving fitness compared to more traditional forms of exercise, it’s a lot easier to stay motivated with it. The exercise you stick can to is always better than one you only have the motivation to do sporadically.
Is Skateboarding Better Than Running For Burning Calories?
No, skateboarding burns roughly half the amount of calories for the same amount of time spent running. This is because skateboarding is not a constant level of output and your heart rate varies drastically. Running keeps your heart rate at a higher, steadier range, therefore offering better calorie-burning effects.
Can Skateboarding Build Muscle?
Skateboarding can build muscle and improve muscle endurance, but less so than traditional weight training. Skateboarding targets a wide range of muscle groups in the lower body and core and requires explosive power from the quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
With more dynamic movements than traditional static weight training, you’re less likely to build a large amount of muscle skateboarding compared to lifting weights. However, this dynamic movement helps to improve muscle endurance in ways not always found in isolated weight-lifting movements.
Is Skateboarding Better Than Walking?
According to Very Well Fit, while walking, you can expect to burn 100 calories per mile at 180lbs, or 65 calories per mile at 120lbs. The average persons walking pace is 2.5 – 4 mph which means you can expect to burn 250 – 400 calories during a 60-minute walk.
While skateboarding for 60 minutes, you can expect to burn between 320 – 630 calories depending on your weight. This makes both activities relatively comparable in terms of fitness benefits. However, we can probably both agree that skateboarding is a whole lot more fun than walking.
How Many Calories Will 30 Minutes Of Skateboarding Burn?
In 30 minutes of skateboarding, a 120lbs person can expect to burn 160 calories. Meanwhile, a 180lbs person can expect to burn 240 calories while skateboarding for the same amount of time.
Happy Shredding!
