Top 10 Health Benefits of Ice Skating

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Whether it’s winter or summer, ice skating can be a great year-round activity to keep you active and fit. Of course, you don’t always need a frozen lake to enjoy ice skating, as many major cities have indoor ice skating rinks that allow you to enjoy the activity even if it’s 100 degrees outside. The stability, control and strength involved in ice skating, either competitively or recreationally, are key elements in the activity that make it a fun and healthy activity for all ages and abilities.

Here are the Top 10 from Health Fitness Revolution and author of the book ReSYNC Your Life Samir Becic:

  • Better balance: Ice skating helps improve your balance through fun and positive exercise. Travelling across an incredibly slippery surface should quickly train you to stay on your feet.
  • Improves joint flexibility: If your leg joints creak every time you rise from your bed in the morning, ice skating could offer a real solution. With its emphasis on quick foot movements and strong knees, your leg joints will receive a great workout and hopefully feel more flexible in no time.
  • Builds leg muscles: Focusing on lower-body movement, ice skating offers great exercise for the leg muscles, building and toning them up over time.
  • Cardio: Aerobic exercise is an important aspect of cardiovascular health, and ice skating provides a great aerobic workout. The best part about skating is you get a great cardio workout without even knowing it.
  • Endurance: Ice skating requires energy over an extended period of time, making it a great way to build your endurance. The longer you skate, the more you’ll improve your endurance, not just for ice skating but for other sports and activities as well.
  • Weight management: If you are trying to lose or maintain your weight, ice skating is a good way to burn calories while having fun! Ice skating burns from 300-650 calories per hour, depending on how hard you skate.
  • Stress relief: Regular physical activity like ice skating can help combat the effects of stress. Ice skating is one of the most fun ways to exercise, especially if you skate outdoors where you can soak up the scenery and enjoy nature.
  • Improves joints: Through gliding and synchronized movement of the legs, the joints and muscles will get a great workout and will become flexible in no time. Skating is said to be more beneficial  than cycling and running. Ice skating works almost every major muscle group in the body, including joints.
  • Mental fitness: The fresh air and sunshine in outdoor ice skating, as well as the company of family and friends, greatly help in unwinding from a long week of work and stress. Self confidence is definitely improved as well.

If you are planning to take a spin on the ice, here are some Amazon favorites to check out and bring along. Just click the images below!

To see more of our Top 10 lists, click here.

13 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve always thought that ice skating was one of the coolest things! I’m terrible at it, but I would love to sign my kids up for classes. This post only solidified that opinion for me! I had no idea that skating could be so beneficial. Better balance, flexibility, weight management…wow! That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing.

  2. I retired from work 10years ago at age 52—I was sickly, out of shape, a heavy smoker in danger of heart disease and had claudication in my calfs…when I had the time after not working anymore, I vowed to get healthy and did it through ice skating and then ice hockey…quit the smokes, got in shape, built up my endurance—I could barely walk a couple blocks at first…now I play in 3 adult ice hockey leagues—feel and look great and made new friendships on the ice. Its been wonderful, but like I said, I was a basket case before and crawled before I walked and walked before I skated….try it, take it slow—take a private or group lesson, figure or ice, roller, indoors or outdoors, its wonderful. It saved my life. I made many friends with figure skaters, male and female and they are such a positive and welcoming bunch, particularly to new skaters—same with hockey players—especially the adults who arent hot dogs or ringers.

    • Bob Wired: Are you still ice skating? How many, if any, injuries have you had in the 10+ years since age 52? My partner feels the risk of injury is not worth it; I feel it is worth doing for the fun/exercise as one should be able to get more skillful over time.

  3. i learned to skate immediately after 3 hrs of skating and on my second day i was gliding fast around the rink– All because I love skating and wasn’t afraid to fall. Luckily I only fell twice. Now Im teaching my 5 yr old son to skate. We both enjoy it so much.

  4. In gym classes or training I easily fail any type of lift a leg work from which I knew I’m bad at balancing and training on it is often more difficult for me. Sometimes the juniors who join later do better than me. But glad I got a new interesting hobby that helps me on catching balance, thanks to a new ice skating rink that is now not so far from home. Before I also have paused workout for so long, maybe due to overwork inconsistent routine pattern that cause adrenal fatigue and traumatic muscle, Ive been contemplating unfitness, body weight and even depression issues since then. I am now glad ice skating becomes what I am interested in and hope it will make another kick start to get body reenergized so I can be more confident to rejoin gym classes and no longer traumatized as before.

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