Is Rollerblading Good Exercise? This Doctor Swears By It

Dr. Florence Comite’s first experience with rollerblading within the early ‘90s involved careening down a steep hill and never knowing find out how to stop. While that might need turned off other prospective bladers, the longevity expert and endocrinologist was hooked. Not only by the fun of picking up speed on skates, but by the health advantages of rollerblading, particularly for longevity.

“It’s the very best thing in life, I feel,” says Dr. Comite. “Finding something you like that is definitely great to your health.”

Along with just loving the sensation of going fast, the explanation Dr. Comite personally has been rollerblading just a few times a month for 3 a long time is due to the activity’s advantages to each physical and mental health, which go hand in hand with promoting longevity. That’s especially necessary for Dr. Comite, who runs a precision medicine clinic based on stopping disease and improving healthspan.

While roller skating has been picking up a brand new generation of devotees for just a few years now, rollerblading only began having fun with its latest popular renaissance last summer when Margot Robbie was spotted blading while shooting the Barbie movie. With all of rollerblading’s advantages, that’s a superb thing.

Physically, rollerblading builds muscle in a way that also prevents injury, since it each strengthens muscles and supports joints.

“Skating actually calls all of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons supporting the knee into play,” Dr. Comite says. “So it improves overall leg strength.”

Constructing muscle is very important to healthy aging for a myriad of reasons, including having the ability to move safely around the globe, maintaining bone density, improving insulin resistance, and even protecting brain and hormone health.

For heart health as we age, Dr. Comite recommends incorporating short bursts of high-intensity activity into your workouts. If you’ve gotten sensitive joints, that may be hard to do without jumping or running. But rollerblading is low impact, and the flexibility to choose up speed quickly means you possibly can effectively “sprint” without the joint pressure.

“It’s an amazing, suitable exercise for individuals with joint issues and those that desire a gentler workout,” says Dr. Comite. “Rollerblading lets you move side to side. It lets you use that power. It lets you do high-intensity training at your will. And it reinforces not only muscle, but bone.”

And, Dr. Comite points out, rollerblading also works your balance, “which is something quite a lot of folks lose as they age.” Balance can also be related to longevity, each for stopping injury, and for the best way it engages your brain and proprioception, or the flexibility to locate yourself in space. (In fact, though, falls can occur, so Dr. Comite all the time recommends wearing guards when blading.)

“Selecting a gentler type of a workout that hits muscle, balance, flexibility, and proprioception, I mean you almost cannot do higher than that,” she says.

Even with all these advantages to your muscles, bones, heart, and brain, Dr. Comite wouldn’t necessarily do the activity if she didn’t find it irresistible. But because it is, it’s been a joy-inducing a part of her life since she first bombed down that hill.

“It is so much fun, it’s social, you are out in nature, you possibly can chat,” Dr. Comite says. Social connections and getting outside have their very own mental health advantages for people of all ages.

And really, the very best exercise for longevity is the one that you simply’ll actually do consistently, since getting regular exercise is one of the vital necessary determinants of long-term health.

“It is a sport you possibly can hang on to,” Dr. Comite says. “And so long as you wear guards and also you’re cognizant of your ability level, then it is a improbable approach to get exercise. It’s good to your entire body.”