If you want a sport that is both enjoyable and beneficial for your health, then ice skating is the perfect choice for you. Aside from being known as an excellent year-round activity, it also helps maintain your physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
After learning how to ice skate, you have probably noticed some changes in your body. Like many other sports, ice skating provides a ton of health benefits for children and adults alike. In this sport, you learn to be more confident and resilient and build your stamina.
Some of the top benefits of skating include:
- Improved balance
- Better joint flexibility and health
- Stronger leg muscles
- Higher endurance
- Relief from stress
- Weight management
Want to take advantage of all these and become a better ice skater? Even without an ice rink nearby, you can try these three exercises used by ice skaters that will help improve your physical health and performance:
1. Sweeping Squat for Better Strength and Power
Muscle strength is crucial for gliding and striding on the ice. From jumps to spins, an ice skater’s muscle strength determines whether he can take big leaps, make larger spins, and, ultimately, how well he performs. Strength is also vital for building up a skater’s endurance and creating powerful moves consistently.
With the help of the right exercise, you can have strong and powerful muscles, too. The muscle fibers are wound up tighter with exercise. This allows them to withstand repetitive motions.
For ice skaters, the sweeping squat is a great strengthening exercise. It helps train muscle fibers of the arms, shoulders, abs, buttocks, outer thighs, and quads for more powerful landing and spins.
To perform a sweeping squat, start by standing with your feet apart. Make sure they have a distance roughly the same width as your hips. Then, place your left hand on your hip and if you want, hold a weight on your right hand.
Begin squatting low. Once your down, touch the weigh to the floor in front of you.
After that, stand up and lift the weight overhead. Raise your leg outward to the left as you do while hinging your waist towards the same direction, like you’re doing a side crunch. Return to the squat position and repeat the entire process.
This workout can be done in two sets of 10 reps, alternating for each side.
2. Lateral Bound and Skater Hop for Improved Balance
Most of the movements in ice skating are done on one foot. This means that a skater must have an impeccable balance to perform the movements correctly.
There are those who were blessed with natural balance. But if you’re not one of them, you shouldn’t worry as you can train yourself to ice skate without tumbling too much on the ice with the help of a couple of exercises that copy the gliding movement on the ice.
Whether you have an ice skating-friendly frozen lake outside or not, you can still mimic the movement through exercises known as the “lateral bound” and the “skater hop.”
Lateral Bound
The lateral bound is an exercise that begins by copying a skater’s starting position before gliding through the ice. From there, allow your lead leg doing a countermovement inward, with your weight shifting to the outside leg. Then, push off and extend your extremities and attempt to do a side leap as far as possible.
Skater Hop
Like the lateral bound, the skater hop also begins with a skater’s starting position. Then, slightly swing your arms up and across your body before jumping off of your right leg.
Once you land on your left leg, dip downwards into a squat and push your buttocks back to let the glute take the load. From there, you can jump back up to the right. Repeat the same movements a couple of times for both sides.
3. Weight Shifting for a Smoother Stride
An ice skater’s stride evolves with plenty of practice in weight shifting. Off the ice, you can improve your stride by performing similar weight shifting exercises while gradually increasing the speed of the shift.
To perform the weight shifting exercise, put your feet a bit wider than the width of your shoulders. Make sure there’s equal pressure on both your feet. Then, do side movements by weight-shifting between your legs. Hold the position for five seconds before shifting to the other leg. You can use a wall or chair for balance or add a non-slip exercise foam for added challenge.
After you perform this motion for each leg, return to the neutral position. Do the same routine ten times to help you get used to shifting your weight for a better, smoother stride.
At the Right Place, At the Right Time
Training to become a highly-skilled ice skater can also give you a healthier body, especially when done in correct intervals and with guidance from fitness professionals and coaches. Sports training camps offer a safe place for you to perform these exercises and take what you learned to the ice safely, and without any worries.
AUTHOR BIO
Possessing more than two decades of experience in the leisure and hospitality industry, Tony Kouris joined Zayed Sports City as General Manager in January 2018. With extensive career experience, a value on interpersonal relationships, and strong negotiating experience, he is positioned to support Zayed Sports City’s strategic growth and continue to innovate the site as an internationally recognised sport and entertainment destination.
