The impact of regular exercise and stretching on skateboarding skills is undeniable. This guide, developed in collaboration with licensed personal trainer Arthur Briant, explores essential skate workouts, exercises, and stretches tailored for downhill skateboarding.
Why Prioritize Exercise for Skateboarding?
Like any physical sport, skateboarding can lead to pain and strain. While some discomfort is normal, we should aim to minimize it for sustainable, long-term enjoyment of the sport. This doesn’t mean everyone needs to hit the gym, but incorporating workouts and stretches can significantly improve your experience.
Consistent exercise and stretching routines allow you to skate longer, feel better after sessions, and reduce bodily strain. Crucially, downhill skateboarding shouldn’t be painful. Pain in your hips, knees, lower back, or ankles often signals incorrect technique or dangerous practices. Ignoring these signals can lead to serious injuries. A regular stretch routine can help loosen your body, allowing for pain-free skating. Proper muscle engagement also becomes more efficient when the body is flexible, reducing strain from compensatory movements.
Still unsure? Let’s examine common downhill skateboarding injuries and how workouts and stretches can help prevent them.
Common Downhill Skateboarding Injuries
Dislocated Shoulders
How it happens: Pucks catching on cracks, overextending shoulders, or bad slams.
A high percentage of downhill skaters have dislocated a shoulder. Strengthening your chest and shoulder muscles can provide enough support to keep your shoulders in place.
Knee Pain and Ligament Damage
How it happens: Squats, knee overuse, bending your back knee incorrectly.
Knee pain, sprains, and tendonitis are common, especially in the bent-knee position used for heelside slides. The slanted back-knee position, often used in slides, can cause strain on the hips and knee ligaments due to poor flexibility. Improving lower body flexibility and strength can alleviate these issues.
longboard squat slide
Back Strain
How it happens: Tucking, heelside squats, poor posture.
The back is vital for balance and twisting motions. When tucking, many skaters round their back, leading to strain. Strengthening your back will improve posture, increase tuck stamina, and reduce pain.
longboard tuck
Other Commonly Injured Body Parts
- Hips: Hip flexor pain or muscle pulls can occur.
- Calves: Essential for longboarding, stretching and strengthening them can prevent tightness and improve endurance.
- Neck: Holding a tuck for extended periods can strain the neck; neck strengthening exercises can be beneficial.
Benefits of Working Out for Skateboarding
Improved Skateboarding Performance
Exercise not only aids recovery but also improves performance. Strength and flexibility gains translate into enhanced control and board manipulation. The best freeriders often display incredible lower body flexibility, which is no coincidence. These workouts are designed with skateboarding in mind, so you will see quick improvements.
longboarder abs
Enhanced Recovery
Working out initially causes soreness, but it builds resilience over time, aiding in recovery. Stretching and warming up are crucial for minimizing joint stiffness and inflammation. A proper warm-up and warm-down routine also reduces muscle soreness.
Correcting Muscle Imbalances
Skateboarders often develop muscle imbalances, with the pushing leg being significantly stronger. This guide will highlight how to address these imbalances through targeted exercises.
How to Start Exercising for Skateboarding
Realistic Expectations and Timeline
You should start feeling the difference in a few weeks. Initially, you may experience soreness, but that is normal when starting any workout routine.
Time Management
Finding time for workouts can be tricky. Start small with bodyweight exercises, then consider adding weights and possibly joining a gym, as advised by Arthur Briant for faster strength building. Plan for workouts of about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Muscle Focus
Prioritize the following:
- Core Strength: Essential for stability and balance.
- Legs: The primary movers in skateboarding.
- Lower Back: Critical for posture and tucking.
Also include exercises for:
- Neck
- Shoulders
- Arms
- Chest
- Upper Back
Meet Arthur Briant
Arthur Briant is a licensed personal trainer with a background in natural bodybuilding. He promotes fitness through his blog, natural-flex, and has partnered with us to create this ultimate guide.
arthur briant
Longboard Warm-Up Workouts/Stretches
Before skating, focus on dynamic movements and stretches to warm up your body. Don’t push yourself too hard initially; move gently into each position to avoid muscle stiffness.
Body-Weight Squats and Lunges
Perform a few sets of body-weight squats and lunges to activate your lower body.
- 2 sets of 15-20 bodyweight squats
- 2 sets of 15-20 lunges
skate workouts warm-up lunge stretch
Push-Ups and Shoulder Exercises
Do a couple of sets of push-ups to warm up your upper body.
- 2 sets of 10-15 push-ups
skate workouts warm-up push ups
Abuga’s Warm-Up Routine
Abuga prefers supported squats against a wall/chair, increasing the depth with each repetition, and lateral raises with a light book for the shoulders.
- 3 sets of 10-15 supported squats
- 3 sets of 10-15 lateral raises
Longboarding Warm-Down Stretches
After a skate session and a shower, spend some minutes stretching to reduce stiffness and promote recovery. While GMB fitness offers an excellent hip-mobility routine, you can adapt your routine to suit your needs.
Frequency
At a minimum, stretch at least twice a week. This can serve as an after-session warm-down or a standalone stretching session. It’s important to have realistic expectations; you may still feel some stiffness after intense sessions. Don’t overstretch, as that can cause injuries.
The Skate Workouts
Workout Goals
When lifting weights, the goal is often to improve strength, speed, or muscle mass. For longboarding, we’ll aim to improve all three. We will focus on strength and speed for harder pushes, and muscle mass to help you hold positions, like the tuck, for extended periods.
Understanding the Categories
Strength
Strength training involves low rep ranges, focusing on technique and consistency. You won’t feel as sore, so you can train movements more frequently and get stronger faster.
Muscle Mass
Building muscle requires higher rep ranges, creating tension that leads to muscle hypertrophy. This type of workout will improve your strength and stamina.
Speed and Explosivity
Explosivity is about practicing movements with momentum. Jump squats, cleans, and sprints are often used to improve explosivity.
Our workouts will adapt to all three skills. Though complex exercises like cleans are effective, we’ll stick to simple exercises like squats and bench presses, emphasizing explosive movements once you’ve mastered the technique.
Workout Schedule
Beginners should take it slowly. Aim for two workouts a week, each lasting 1 to 1.5 hours. Allow enough recovery time between the two workouts.
If you find the workouts too hard, feel free to reduce the number of sets.
Day 1: Legs, Core Strength, Lower Back
We’ll focus on compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups. We want to be efficient, using a few key exercises instead of many less-effective ones.
Warm-Up Exercises
Begin with light warm-up sets, focusing on the muscles you’ll be working. A common mistake is using cardio as a warm-up when the goal is to build muscle.
Start with an empty bar for squats, gradually increasing weight to your working set. Newcomers should start with just the bar. If you’re unsure about the form, get help from an experienced person in the gym or film yourself to evaluate the movement.
Take 3 minutes rest between exercises (not sets).
The Workout
Squats
Squats work all major leg muscles: glutes, hamstrings, quads. Use an explosive technique for 8-10 reps.
- 2 minutes 30 seconds rest between sets
- 4 working sets of 8-10 reps
squats
Squat Training Tips
As you get stronger, you can move to a lower rep range like 5×5 or a strength routine. For example:
- Session 1: 5×5 at 102.2% of your 10 Repetition Maximum (10RM)
- Session 2: 5×4 at 107.7% of your 10RM
- Session 3: 5×3 at 113.3% of your 10RM
- Session 4: 5×5 at 107.7% of your 10RM
- Session 5: 5×4 at 113.3% of your 10RM
- Session 6: 5×3 at 118.8% of your 10RM
- Session 7: Max reps at 107.7% of your 10RM
Test your 10RM, then multiply it by the percentages to plan your sets. If you can do 10 reps at 60kg, for session 1, you’ll do 5 sets of 5 reps at 61.3kg (round up to 62.5). Round up to the nearest 2.5 kg. If you fail to improve, intentionally lower your 10RM by 5kg and restart the program. This is applicable to other movements like deadlifts and bench-press.
The goal is to become stronger and more explosive. This allows you to handle pain and burning stages better, which are similar to the sensations experienced while holding tuck position for an extended time.
Bulgarian Split Squats
These focus on glutes, which are essential for pushing. Warm-up with lighter weights before your working sets.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 4 working sets of 12-15 reps
Romanian Deadlift
Focuses on hamstrings, which are also vital for pushing, as well as the lower back.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Hyper Extensions
Strengthens your lower back for better tucking and heelside comfort.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 15-20 reps
Calf Raises
Do calf raises with both legs at the same time. You can use the smith machine or bodyweight with a countertop for balance.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 30-40 reps
Crunches
- 1 minute rest between sets
- 4 sets of 25-30 reps
crunches
Side Planks
Side planks improve stability and core strength, essential for balance.
- 1 minute rest between sets
- 2 sets of 1 minute left side
- 2 sets of 1 minute right side
side plank
Day 2: Neck, Shoulders, Arms, Chest, Upper Back
For day 2, we will focus on one main exercise per muscle group for efficiency.
The Workout
Lateral Raises
Great for shoulders, practice with high reps to build muscle endurance and handle burning sensations.
- 1 minute 30 seconds rest between sets
- 4 sets of 20-30 reps
lateral raises
Neck Raises
Use a plate to perform neck raises while lying face down.
- 1 minute 30 seconds rest between sets
- 3 sets of 15-20 reps
neck raises with weights
Supinated Grip Pull-Ups
Effective for both back and biceps.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 6-8 reps
close grip pull ups
If you cannot do pull-ups, you can use a lat pull-down machine.
pull downs
Alternatively, perform rows.
rows
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 10-12 reps
Close Grip Bench Press
While not optimal for chest, it is an efficient exercise for both triceps and chest.
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 4 sets of 10-15 reps
close grip bench
For a more complete chest workout, perform sets of both wide-grip and close-grip bench press.
bench press
- 2 minutes rest between sets
- 3 sets of 10-15 reps wide grip
- 3 sets of 15-20 reps close grip
If you want to challenge yourself, use the strength training program described earlier for the bench press. You can move this exercise to the beginning of the workout when you are full of energy.
These workouts are designed to improve skateboarding abilities; physical shape will follow. If the workout seems too much, feel free to reduce the amount of sets per exercise.
Alternatives to Gym Workouts
If you can’t go to a gym, use dumbbells and adjust exercises accordingly. For example, do dumbbell rows instead of pull-ups, and push-ups instead of bench presses.
Home Workouts
Home workouts are convenient and can be done anytime. They will save you time and if consistent, they will bring improvement.
Home Workout Structure
Instead of dividing workouts into day 1 and day 2, you will do the same full body workout twice a week. Because you don’t have access to heavy weights, you will have to increase intensity by doing pre-fatigue exercises before your working sets.
Track your workouts to see improvement over time. This can be in a notebook or through a mental note, although the latter might be less reliable.
The Home Workouts
Legs
Warm-Up
- 3 sets of 15 bodyweight squats
Workout
- 1 set of 20-25 bodyweight squats, followed directly by 1 set of Bulgarian split squats until failure (left and right side). Repeat for a total of 3 sets.
Use bodyweight squats to make your Bulgarian split squats feel more challenging. Track the number of reps you can do in split squats, aiming to beat it each workout. Increase your bodyweight squats to further challenge yourself as the split squats become easier. If this becomes too easy, it’s time to invest in some dumbbells.
- 4 sets of 50 Calf raises on a stair step or with a countertop.
Core Strength & Lower Back
Circuit
- 1 set of 15-20 crunches, 30-second plank, 1 set of 15-20 Bridge exercise. Repeat for a total of 3 sets, with 1 minute of rest between each set.
If this circuit is too easy, add some books on your torso during crunches or consider buying a weight plate or two.
home workout
Arms, Chest, Shoulders, Neck, and Upper Back
Circuit
Repeat 3 times.
- Diamond push-ups (narrow distance)
- 30 seconds rest
- Reversed pull-ups
- 30 seconds rest
- Pronated rows with a towel
- 30 seconds rest
arm pull ups
towel rows
towel rows 2
Diamond push-ups work triceps and chest, reversed pull-ups work biceps and back, and towel rows work your upper back, shoulders, rear shoulders, and neck. Alternatively, replace diamond push-ups with dips. If you have questions, feel free to ask!
Conclusion
Integrating a full workout routine can be challenging at first. Start with warm-downs and warm-ups, then slowly introduce other elements as you get used to it. Consistent effort is key to building lasting habits.
Remember that stretching doesn’t need to be overly extensive. Focus on the necessary stretches for a solid warm down and allow your body to recover well.
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