Is riding a scooter exercise?

The door slams, and it is your child bragging about the new scooter of his friend. All you hear is how fast it goes and how cool it is to ride.

It is obvious that your child wants a scooter too, but is riding a scooter really healthy? Well, according to the study of Tokyo, riding a scooter helps improve your child’s health and make them happier in life. 

Besides, according to many other studies, scooting is an excellent alternative to running or cycling and has many health benefits. It is, of course, not a miracle cure, but it offers opportunities for professional riders, amateur riders, and even rehabilitation patients.

So if you still have any confusion about the benefits of riding a scooter, then this article is for you and all. Now let’s take a closer look at the most significant health benefits of riding a scooter.

Top 10 health benefits scooting:

1. Burn more calories:

What you reply if someone asks you “does kick scooter burn calories?”

 Well, according to the study, riding a scooter is a type of exercise that can burn up to 30% more calories than cycling when protecting your joints and eliminating saddle pain.

The total of calories that you burn when scooting lies between that of running & cycling. The benefit of scooting over running is that you will find some injuries. One study showed that one hour of scooting could burn up to 950 calories.

However, it depends on you how passionate the ride you select and the total of calories burnt lies on your fitness level and body weight. Nonetheless, the most significant point is that it is always fun.

A study done by expert personal trainer revealed that “riding a scooter is beneficial for those women who want to shape their problematic body parts of the abdomen, buttocks, hips, waist, and thighs.”

2. Improve your mental health:

Scooting is such an outdoor exercise that can make you feel much healthier, especially when it comes to emotional & mental prosperity. 

According to the report of an expert personal trainer, riding a scooter could be an excellent workout for those who want to reduce stress & anxiety to feel happier in their life.

Note: Scooting is not a solution for diagnosed mental health problems; it is something that can genuinely make you feel happy.

3. Balance:

Knowing and developing a significance of balance is necessary for the development of any child. In this regard, riding a scooter is great. It needs your child to stand on their scooter with one foot & to kick with another leg.

You will find some beginner level workout scooters that come with lean to steer and a steering lock system to develop strong balance when leaning by a turn.

4. Motor skill development:

The motor skill development is essential in a child’s life.  Riding a scooter needs to use legs and arms separately from each other, which ultimately develops motor skills.

One leg pushes off when the other balances and the hands are on the handlebar to keep balance on the scooter.

Everything happens when the head & eyes can identify where they are going and watching around for possible barriers.

When the child needs to stop, they can use one leg to press the rear fender brake pad and safely position the other foot on the surface.

5. Muscle Development:

All of the muscles of the human body nearly get involved while riding a scooter routinely (more than one hour). It is an ingenious way to increase the strength of your kid’s muscles.

Riding a scooter needs a change of tense & loose muscles, which leaves a positive command on the body. Muscles are stretched when the body is turning forward fast due to the pressure applied by stepping leg.

Besides, the back and belly muscles are being relaxed due to the strengthening of body position as well. Also, the motion of scooting can strengthen your joints, ligaments, and tendons.

Note: According to the report of medical science, riding a scooter strengthens the spine, skeletal, and abdominal muscles.

6. Coordination:

Along with muscle and motor skill development, riding a scooter improves coordination. It works excellent at any age but mainly when kids are young and exercising how to balance using their body weight.

According to parents’ magazines, the coordination of growing kids will develop by kicking, steering, braking, and balancing simultaneously.

7. Decision-making skills:

According to an expert’s opinion, riding a scooter needs quick thinking & decision making proficiency. A child needs to make the decision quickly when to turn, stop, or slow down, and how much to lean into the steer without falling, etc. 

Watching out for obstacles & determining how first to ignore them is a notable instance. The child should think fast how much strength to apply to the brake to stop or slow down in time or when to turn to avoid the obstacles.

Scooting for a child is an excellent choice to assist your kid knows to make decisions and take up their options fast.

8. Cardiovascular Endurance:

Scooter riding is one of the most efficient ways to improve cardiovascular fitness. Kids will want to ride quicker when they become master from a three-wheeled scooter, and to ride faster, they should kick harder.

The more they charge, the more blood their hearts should pump, and their lungs perform more to get enough oxygen. The actual advantage is that it is so fun, and they never even think about it a workout. 

Note: According to study, “scooting is usually an excellent form of low impact exercise, which is good for cardiovascular endurance”

9. Develop social skills:

The child loves to scoot together, and a child who scoots will look for another child who loves scooting. It is a significant way to grow confidence and develop social skills to see and learn from different riders.

If it is in the park, at school, or the skate park, there will be plenty of human interaction. “Kids become mature and intelligent by developing social skills” – according to child expert.

10. Weight Loss:

So, can you lose weight by riding a scooter?

Well, according to the expert’s opinion, “kick scooting works excellently to lose weight more quickly and efficiently. The most efficient way to lose weight applying it is by riding it early in the morning.

Another study reports that riding a scooter before taking breakfast is highly useful in losing weight fast.

For example, early exercising before breakfast for 30 minutes will assist you to lose significant weight within a month. It has been proven to be working more than any other form of exercising.

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7k is the new 10k! While we all know the ‘10k steps a day’ adage, if you walk even 7,000 steps a day, you’re 50-70% less likely to kick the bucket in the next decade.

But getting to that golden number of 7-10K doesn’t mean strictly walking. You can infuse a bit of fun while getting your steps in by broadening your daily activities - say, to scooting, for example?

Keeping active promotes a healthy lifestyle, allowing us to put more energy into doing what we do best - living our best life! Besides the usual exercise routine, scooting is another great and fun way to keep moving! Adding “riding a kick scooter” to your daily activities not only takes you to further distances, but also gives you health benefits that help maintain an active lifestyle. 

Here are 4 reasons why you should start scooting!

Scooting is a Low-Impact Exercise that Burns Fat
The physical activities we do for the purpose of exercise vary at different levels, depending on intensity. Relative intensity is the amount of effort exerted to do a specific activity, affecting your heart rate and breathing. As relative intensity measures how strenuous an activity may be, most workouts are classed as either low-, mid-, or high-impact exercise.

Scooting falls under the low-impact exercise category, because it is low weight-bearing, unlike running or jumping, which puts a strain on your joints while in motion. Despite its name, low-impact exercise shouldn’t be underestimated - it provides equal health benefits as other high-intensity workouts and is actually the sweet spot in which our bodies burn fat, which is around 70 per cent of your maximum heart rate.

This range can usually be achieved through low-impact exercises, such as scooting, which gives a fat-burning heart rate, increased strength, lower risk of injury, and an easy and fun activity that you can easily add to your daily workout regimen.

Outdoor Exercises (Like Scooting) Improve Mental Health
Exploring a world on wheels can be considered a “green exercise”, a term that describes the synergistic health benefit of exercising and being exposed to nature simultaneously. Scooting in nature immerses us in an environment that has restorative properties, promoting recovery from mental fatigue and attention restoration. Generally, green exercise is said to improve your overall mental state and markers of physiological health, with its effects even extending to a biochemical and social level as well. 

Open spaces and the great outdoors have long-standing positive effects on psychological health. With a multiplicity of natural environments, such as the PCNs, scooting outdoors enables you to exercise and be “one with nature” at the same time.

Effective Stretching and Strengthening of Key Muscle Groups
There’s usually a specific muscle group that different types of workouts aim to target. With scooting, you’re working out more muscles than you think! 

A kick scooter doesn’t just get your legs moving. While you do use your whole lower body and engage all the muscles from your foot to your quads and hamstrings, you also work your hip flexors, glutes, the entire core, chest, and back. You utilise your whole body when doing swift, kicking motions as you ride your kick scooter. 

Regularly scooting can help reduce or prevent risks of injuries and since scooting comprises elements of movement and static hold exercise, it requires the delicate art of balance. Static hold exercises help get muscles warm before shifting to larger muscle movements, helping prevent injury. It also works multiple muscles and joints, activating these groups to further improve strength and stabilisation.

While in a recovery period post high-intensity workouts, scooting can be a great alternative to get some muscle exercise while your body recuperates. As the activity is considered low-impact exercise, it won’t put too much strain on your tired running muscles.

Increased Cardiovascular Health
Making sure our cardiovascular health is in its best state is of utmost importance and should be maintained regularly. Sadly, cardiovascular diseases continue to be the leading cause of death in the world, representing 32% of all global deaths.

Among the major risk factors outlined that lead to poor cardiovascular health are a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure, and obesity. These risks can be reduced significantly by taking measures, such as regular exercise, to improve overall cardiovascular health.

Engaging in various physical activities like regularly scooting can increase cardiovascular health and diminish disease risk factors. Adding scooting to your everyday as part of your low-impact exercise routine can help reduce blood pressure, contribute to weight reduction, and encourage you to get active and get moving while seeing the sights and having fun outdoors.

Exercise also lets you have better muscular function, strength, and improved ability to take in and utilise oxygen, whether it’s maximal oxygen consumption or aerobic capacity. As your capacity to transport and use oxygen improves, regular daily activities can be performed with less fatigue. Scooting can leave you feeling refreshed and ready to take on the rest of your day! 

Ready to pick up scooting? Check out our range of Globber kick scooters for kids and adults here.

This article is adapted from the Globber blog on ‘ Move More Month with Globber ’.