The benefits of skateboarding for your physical and mental well-being are unlike any other activity. Forcing you to get out of your comfort zone, have an intense focus, and a community to be a part of is something that’s beneficial to all age levels.

In a study of 13-25 year olds by the Pullias Center for Higher Education at USC’s Rossier School of Education, they found skateboarding to build critical thinking skills and enhance the ability to build relationships. The study found the majority of skaters use skateboarding as an outlet for stress.

This same study showed how skateboarding creates a safe haven for varying genders and racial backgrounds, where those interviewed said to have felt more comfortable without the worry of judgment.

After 10+ years of skating myself, I have seen and experienced many of the amazing benefits skateboarding has to offer. As an outlet that helped me get through depression and deal with my anxiety, skateboarding is something I continue to look forward to even today.

So to help make the benefits of skateboarding even more clear, let’s break down 11 major benefits that you’re guaranteed to notice.

The 11 Benefits To Skateboarding

1. It’s Exercise, But Fun

The first and biggest benefit of skateboarding is that it’s a great way to burn calories and get some cardio in, but it’s actually fun. The thought of spending an hour running around your neighborhood probably sounds pretty lame in comparison to an epic 60-minute skate session.

From a 60-minute skate session, you can expect to burn between 300-500 calories depending on your weight. However, this can vary between skaters as well as what type of skating you’re doing. For cardio-intensive sessions like riding bowl, I’ve tracked over 600 calories burned over 60 minutes as a 6’2 185lbs male.

Although this might not seem like a lot compared to a long run that can burn well over 1000 calories (depending on the intensity), skateboarding is an activity you can stay consistent with. Rather than dreading the next day at the gym or your next 10km run, you can look forward to trying a new trick on your skateboard.

With this consistency in your exercise, you are more likely to make significant and lasting changes over time. Just remember that a healthy diet is also important if you want to feel the most health benefits from skating.

But I’m not your mom, so eat what you want. Just get out and get a sweat on when you skate!

2. It Builds Relationships With Others

Some of my closest friends to this day were made through skateboarding. Unlike other social situations in life, skateboarding offers a commonality between everyone. There’s automatically something to talk about and playing a game of SKATE is an easy way to get the conversation going.

Skaters of all ages and backgrounds all love to talk skateboarding or session something at the park with each other. Even if your skill levels vary drastically, there’s always something both people will want to skate. Since most skaters frequent the same park multiple days a week, it’s easy to start noticing familiar faces that soon become friends.

3. Skateboarding Builds Your Confidence

Since skateboarding is a constant story of trial and error, it really builds your confidence as you start to land tricks that you once struggled with. It forces you to face some level of adversity that naturally fosters growth in your mindset and willpower. From my own experience, I noticed my confidence increase drastically in everyday life as I became more comfortable on my board and from skating with others.

For example, in your regular day-to-day tasks, you face challenges that you might feel overwhelmed by. But just like learning a new trick with skateboarding, as you chip away at it, you are left with unwavering faith that you can get it done. This level of confidence it hard to build as quickly as what can be done with skateboarding.

4. Skateboarding Helps You Overcome Fears

While you skateboard you are constantly trying things that scare you. Whether it’s popping an ollie over a stair set for the first time or landing a kickflip, fear is always there to some degree. However, as you spend more time skating, you learn to deal with these fears and develop strategies to overcome them.

Since there’s no avoiding it, you start to feel comfortable with that feeling of fear. With the ways you learn to overcome it, you’ll notice changes in how you deal with anxiety and fear in everyday life.

As someone who deals with anxiety myself, the same mindset I’ve discovered through trying to commit to a new trick has also helped me with countless day-to-day activities.

5. It’s A Stress Reliever That Clears Your Head

After a long day at school or work, your mind can be filled with stressful thoughts and worry. Skateboarding provides incredible stress relief by forcing you to focus intently on one activity. Rather than stressing over something that’s going on in your life, you’re forced to be completely present.

It’s pretty hard to be thinking about a bad day at work when you’re trying to land a kickflip down a 6 stair. In moments before, during, and after the trick, all there is to think about is the task at hand. There’s literally nothing more important than that trick you’re about to land.

That sense of intense focus is very liberating and leaves no room for stress in your mind. Although the feelings of stress may creep back after your session is over, what matters is that you had a break from it in a healthy way.

6. It Gives You A Focus

Sometimes the biggest thing we need in our lives is a focus to get us going. For example, when I was battling depression, I found it difficult to have the motivation to do anything. However, skateboarding gave me something to look forward to and focus on that helped me tremendously.

After a single skate session, you’ll land a few tricks, then start thinking about new ones you want to try. It’s exciting and fun to feel that progression and it helps to keep you focused on the next step ahead of you.

When dealing with the ups and downs of life, skateboarding is the one thing you can focus on that never changes. It gives you an activity to look forward to and think about how you can improve. Although seemingly insignificant, the mental health benefits to this are very noticeable.

7. It Teaches Resilience

Skateboarding is hard, there’s no way around it. Everyone struggles to land certain tricks or fight through a plateau in their progression. It’s that same struggle that teaches you how to be resilient and not give up on what you want.

Whether it’s landing your first ollie, a kickflip, or taking a trick off a big drop, it can all be hard and intimidating. It’s unlikely you’ll land it your first, second, or even tenth try. However, after dozens, or even hundreds of attempts, that trick you want to do will finally get stomped and start to feel easier and easier.

That unrelenting willpower to land something is a trait that will transfer into your everyday life. I’ve found that the sense of wanting something and not giving up has helped me a lot in my personal life and as a skater.

8. Skateboarding Offers A Sense Of Purpose

Especially for youth, skateboarding offers a sense of purpose that is extremely beneficial for their mental and physical well-being. Since skateboarding challenges you mentally and physically, while also offering a community, it gives people a feeling of identity. With a sense of identity comes a feeling of belonging that allows people to feel like they can grow and be themselves in a healthy environment.

9. Skateboarding Is A Community

Building off of the last point, skateboarding is a massive community that’s worldwide. From skateparks, skate shops, or skate competitions, there are so many people that want to be involved and elevate skateboarding as a sport. This sense of community is what I initially fell in love with about skateboarding. There is a collective desire for having fun and being supportive of one another that’s hard to find in many other activities.

10. It Teaches You To Be Supportive

The amount of support you’ll notice from other skaters will naturally teach you to be supportive of others as well. It makes you feel good when someone acknowledges something you accomplished (such as landing a new trick) and it will inspire you to do the same to others.

For example, I’ve had times where I was trying to land a trick I was struggling with on a flat bar. After tons of attempts, I finally landed it and a bunch of people cheered even though they are way better skaters than me. The trick I just landed was something they could probably do with their eyes closed, but they still acknowledged that it was something big for me. That felt pretty awesome and is a feeling that sticks with you.

But more importantly, it’s a feeling that you want to share with other skaters by being supportive of them as well.

11. It Keeps You Active, Regardless Of Age

One of the best benefits of skateboarding is that it keeps you moving and active whether you’re a kid or a senior. Obviously what you are skating will change over time, but there are so many ways to have fun on a skateboard.

As an adult who doesn’t feel like throwing themselves down a ten stair, you can still have a ton of fun cruising around town on your skateboard. Pushing fast and carving down a small hill feels pretty awesome no matter what age you are. Skateboarding provides a fun-for-all activity that can be easily dialed back if you want to take it easy. Regardless of how hard you’re skating, you will still notice the many benefits the sport has to offer.

The benefits of skateboarding helped me find a sense of belonging and purpose in my youth, and now provide an amazing outlet for stress as an adult. I’m by no means the best skater, but I sure enjoy the heck out of it. If you want to get the most out of skateboarding and feel all these benefits for yourself, focus on having fun and the rest will follow!

Happy Shredding!

– Brendan 🙂