How skating affects health, health benefits of figure skating

Kristina Kutepova

Professional figure skating coach with 10 years of experience

How is skating useful? Why should you try it?

You can feel the beneficial effects of skating even if you are not a professional skater. Like any physical activity, skating develops and strengthens muscles that are not used in normal life. It also, by itself, burns calories. But that’s not all. I will tell you about seven reasons that will convince you to get on skates this winter.

Sisukord

Favorable effect on immunity and general health

My little student’s mom once said: “Even if she doesn’t do well, we won’t give up. She hasn’t been sick for a year already, attending figure skating!”. Isn’t it a blessing to have healthy children? Exercise in the fresh air or on an indoor cold rink hardens them. Hardening is a method of physiotherapy, which we have already told you about. And during physical activity, the body temperature rises, and the temperature around even on a closed rink is from +6°C.

If you skate long and monotonously, even without performing any elements, the body receives aerobic load. Aerobic exercise helps to lower blood pressure, reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases, improves lung function and helps to overcome stressful conditions in the body.

And what benefits for the heart! Skating replaces cardio exercise. During such loads increases heart rate, increases blood circulation, which strengthens the elasticity of blood vessels.

Develops physical qualities

For example, agility. And if you’re thinking, “Why do I need agility in my everyday life?” – I’ll answer you: agility – the ability to cope with any arising motor task:

correctly;
quickly;
rationally;
resourcefulness.

Simply put: slipping on an icy sidewalk in winter, you are less likely to fall and get injured, more likely to catch your balance and walk further with a confident gait.

Improves joint mobility

By performing the basic elements of figure skating, such as “Heron,” “Swallow,” “Pistol” and others, you develop flexibility – the ability of a joint to provide maximum range of motion. It allows a person to bend, twist and turn when doing any routine activities like walking or looking back. Joint mobility is your youthfulness.

It helps you make new acquaintances

You can hire an individual coach to learn to skate, but you’ll probably still be assigned to a group based on age and skating level afterward. And here there is an incredible chance to fall in love forever with the friendly atmosphere and find people with common interests.

In my thesis at the University of Physical Education, I just talked about the popularity of figure skating among adult amateurs. Usually they come to learn to stand confidently on skates, and after a while they already choose where they will sew a costume for competitions.

Even if you definitely do not want to seriously engage in this sport, new acquaintances are provided for you at open mass skating rinks, so popular in winter in major cities.

Improves mood

This point follows from the previous one, how not to be happy after skating on a mass skating rink with friends to your favorite New Year’s tracks? During exercise, hormones of joy and satisfaction are produced. One of them is the notorious dopamine. It is thought to be an important part of the brain’s “reward system” because it produces feelings of pleasure and influences motivation and learning.