Improving your skating skills takes a lot of training and dedication, but if you are willing to put in the time and effort, there are practically no limits to what you can achieve. The internet is full of old-school skaters in their fifties doing crazy tricks, and it’s never too late to start practicing. To help you achieve your goals, we’ve put together a list of 7 best exercises for skateboarders.
What are the best types of exercises for skateboarders?
For starters, we will be dividing the exercises into 3 groups: strength, coordination, and balance. Arguably, with every exercise, you will always be working on more things and several muscle groups. Also, this is by no means a definitive list, but if you were looking for the best exercises for skateboarders, these will surely get you into shape. If you want to participate in urban transport in a healthy way, you might want to get fit before climbing on your skateboard.
Strength exercises for skateboarders:
1. Forward lunges
Skateboarding requires leg strength, and lunges are a great way to engage multiple muscle groups. From a standing position, slowly lunge forward with one foot in front of your body, ready to brace your weight. Be careful not to push your knee past the ball of your foot since that can put unnecessary strain on your joints. Use the extended leg to push yourself back to a standing position. Rinse and repeat on both sides.
2. Push-ups
Although you don’t need too much upper body strength for skateboarding, being able to brace yourself with your arms can come in handy if you happen to fall. Skaters who don’t know how to fall correctly are especially prone to injuring their wrists. That’s why we recommend doing some push-ups to build arm strength, but the wrists are our main goal here. For this reason, we suggest starting with regular push-ups, but as soon as you are comfortable with them, you should try switching up the position of your arms and wrists. Unfortunately, this might require a bit more strength, so you can try doing push-ups on your knees in the beginning.
Christmas is over, and you might as well start getting into shape if you want to put those cool gifts to use. As soon as you can, you should start alternating knuckle push-ups and diamond push-ups. When doing knuckle push-ups, you should feel less pressure on your wrists since the weight is transferred to your knuckles – if you are maintaining proper wrist structure, that is. On the other hand, diamond push-ups will be a bit more demanding on your wrists, but that’s why we recommend doing them.
Side planking is great for your lateral abs.
3. Planking
Strengthening your core will help you feel more comfortable on your board. Planking is an easy and approachable exercise you can start doing even if you haven’t worked out your core muscles before. Also, if you are doing any type of strength conditioning, core training is a must, and it’s recommended by most professional athletes and personal trainers. To do the basic plank, you should get down on the floor and lean your upper body on your forearms. Your elbows should be beneath your shoulders and your legs outstretched.
You can also try side planking with an elevated arm if you want to train balance and core strength simultaneously. Doing side planks will target your lateral abs and deltoids.
Coordination exercises for skateboarders
4. Jump rope
Working out with a jump rope can help you build stamina and endurance while strengthening your ankle joints and knees. It may take you a while to develop a proper rhythm and figure out how to coordinate your arms and legs. The trick is to do small skips instead of big jumps.
After you have gotten better, you can do doubles and other more complex jump rope drills. Besides its versatility, the best thing about jump rope is that it’s cheap, small, and portable. You can put it in your pocket or backpack and bring it with you. This can be great for a quick warm-up session before you start skating.
Practicing box jumping will help you gain lift and perform aerials.
5. Box jump
The box jump is probably the best exercise for skateboarders in terms of how directly it translates to something you’ll be doing with a board. From a squatting position, jump onto a box/park bench/any elevated surface, and then quickly hop backward to your starting position. You don’t necessarily need a high obstacle to jump onto; you just need to practice jumping as high as you can.
Balance exercises for skateboarders
6. Lateral leg raise
Start in a relaxed position and slightly flex your knees while keeping your hips forward. Shift all of your weight to one leg and slowly raise the other leg while trying to keep your pelvis static.
Once you get better, you can start doing lateral or side lunges: stand upright and put your arms on your hips, so you can’t use them for balance. Step out to the side with one leg while keeping the other leg straight. When you land on your foot, immediately push back and drive yourself into an upright standing position.
You can target pretty much any muscle group with kettlebell drills.
7. Kettlebell
If you were to invest in only one piece of exercise equipment, our vote would definitely go to the kettlebell. There are just so many exercises you can do, meaning you’ll never get bored of it. However, besides the regular kettlebell drills, you can also use them for training your balance.
Stand on your right leg while holding the kettlebell in your right arm. Balance your weight on your right leg and lean towards the ground from your hip while lowering the kettlebell. To maintain balance, you can extend your left leg backward and your left arm forwards. Repeat on both sides.
In conclusion
We’ve given you our picks for the 7 best exercises for skateboarders; the rest is up to you. Keep in mind that you can do a lot of work off the board to improve your skateboarding skills. Not only will you boost your skateboarding, but you’ll have more overall strength, coordination, and balance.
Meta description: If you want to get better on a skateboard, you should start exercising and doing drills off the board as well. Here are the 7 best exercises for skateboarders.
