Rollerblade RollerDome

 Strap on your skates them on for healthy fun. Regardless of your personal fitness needs, inline skating is a great way to fulfill them.

Inline skating an excellent aerobic activity for people of all ages. Six important health benefits will result from a regular program of inline skating activities. Muscle endurance and strength will improve, flexibility will increase with a little help, body composition will change due to calories burned, cardio and respiratory endurance will increase, balance and coordination will improve and mental clarity and connectivity will get better. These improvements will carry over to other activities in your life, too.

Inline skating provides aerobic benefits that compare to running and biking and delivers a better cardiovascular workout than stair-stepping equipment. The anaerobic benefits are actually better than running or biking, because it provides a natural and smooth side-to-side movement that exercises adductor (inner thigh) and abductor (buttocks) muscles that may be ignored by other activities. Just 20 to 30 minutes of additional inline skating activity each day will help your body become physically stronger and lower the risk of heart disease. It also has low impact advantages and generates up to half the impact shock to joints, ligaments and tendons that running creates.

You can skate your way to imporved mental health too. Consider your skating exercise activities as an opportunity for much-needed mental quiet time. Choose scenic skating locations or good company to help brighten your mood, and let your workout shift your body's chemical balance for a naturally induced feeling of well-being.

Since it’s fun and provides opportunities for socialization and networking, most fitness and recreational inline skaters roll for longer periods of time than participants in other similar activities. This extra skating time will increase the effectiveness of all of the fitness and mental health benefits listed below.

Whatever you do, stay safe in the process. Wearing protective gear is important. Please take a look at the note on helmets below.

Achieve Aerobic Benefits (cardiovascular)

• Increase your aerobic benefits by skating harder or uphill, but don’t go up until you can safely come down.
• Try long distance skating at a slow, steady pace to improve endurance.
• Schedule regular skating activities to achieve long-term aerobic benefits.

Get Anaerobic Benefits (muscle development)

• Build pelvic, hip and thigh muscles with regular distance skating activities.
• Develop hamstring, glute quad and calf muscles by combining forward, backward and various maneuvers while skating.
• Let the balance needed for inline skating help build the stabilizing muscles of the lower back and abdomen.
• Strengthen upper arm and shoulder muscles by swinging your arms while skating.

Enjoy Low Impact Advantages (joint friendly)

• Skate on smooth surfaces to get the full benefit of low impact on knees and back.
• Avoid abrupt movements, twisting and sudden stops to avoid compromising joints.

Increase Flexibility

• Include a set of warm-up and cool-down stretching and resistance exercises for flexibility and stability in your skating.
• Take advantage of massage after skating to reduce muscle tension, increase circulation and keep tissue elastic and flexible.

Improve Balance and Coordination

• Use a squatting posture with knees bent to develop and maintain better balance.
• Add poses, spirals and other foot balance challenges to your life both on and off skates.

Adjust Body Composition and Reduce Fat

• Burn 285 calories or more every 30 minutes by skating at a steady pace.
• Burn 450 calories or more in 30 minutes by using interval skating techniques.
• Skate faster to burn more calories overall.
• Plan a regular regimen of consistent skating to burn more calories over an extended time.

Mental Health Benefits

• Improve your mental clarity and focus and reduce stress and depression by enjoying low pressure tour and social skating activities.
• Develop mind and body connectivity via training, fitness and competitive skating activities.

Here's how:

1. Look for an inline skating helmet that can manage as much energy as possible in a very hard crash.
2. Find a good helmet with a strong strap that keeps it on your head after impact.
3. Make sure your helmet is easy to adjust properly or self-adjusting, and designed to have a good fit without excessive adjustments. Once set, the adjustment should hold.
4. Find a skating helmet that is comfortable to wear. It should also be cool, light, unobtrusive to the user and as nice looking as possible.
5. Consider a helmet that is as smooth and round as possible on the outside to prevent snagging in a crash. It should not have an "aero" tail that can shove it sideways in a crash and leave the skater's head unprotected.
6. See if your helmet will allow for mounting of a mirror, a visor and/or lights with breakaway mounts. If it has a visor, it must be shatterproof.
7. Make sure the inline skating helmet is easily visible to other vehicles both night and day.
8. Choose a helmet that is durable, easily cleaned, and does not scuff or dent with normal use.
9. See if a potential helmet comes with clear, understandable instructions for fitting and use.
10. Find helmets that are relatively inexpensive and readily available in retail stores, including but not limited to local skate shops.

1. Try to get as many features as possible.
2. Keep safety features at the top of your priority list.

This article first appeared at SkinnySki.com

This past winter I trained for the Birkebeiner in a way that many skiers might find appalling: 75% of my preparation time was spent inline skating in the Metrodome. I say appalling because I know what it is like to be a ski-purist ­ to hesitate doing anything that would seem to contradict one’s ski training. But providence had it that I would spend my winter inline skating instead of skiing, as I was fighting a lung infection at the time and didn’t want to ski, but my job at the Rollerblade® Rollerdome required inline skating. Therefore, I had little choice but to get used to the idea.

Joe Sem, 2004 Section 5 Final (Photo: Adam Kocinski)

At first my purist mentality had me convinced that my ski season was over, because I assumed inline skating would ruin my technique and that inline skating is too recreational to be considered effective training. After a month of inline skating 8-10 hours a week, I began to feel healthy enough to ski again. But before my first on snow workout, I was concerned that during my time at the Rollerdome I had become some sort of a “hybrid softie” ­ that the ease of my inline skating workouts coupled with the different technique would have turned me into a strange sort of skier. I was surprised to find out just the opposite.

With minimal snow training and lots of inline skating under my belt last winter, I was concerned about my stamina and ability to skate a long race like the Birkie. However, I figured out about 15 -20k into the race that I was going to be more than alright after all. Going up those hills, I became convinced that inline skating is a very effective way to cross train, and carries over a lot into skiing. Marylin Franzen, a co-founder of the St. Paul Inline Marathon, finished 2nd in her age division this winter (classic, 50-54) even after knee surgery this past year. So it seems as if I wasn’t the only person who benefited from inline skating. Now I will try to explain some of the possible reasons for the productive relationship between inline skating and skiing.

First I must try to debunk the myth that inline skating will alter or mess up your technique: Yes, there is a transition period from inline skating into skiing on snow, but to be a consistent ski purist you would have to admit that there also is a transition period from roller skiing to skiing on snow. After about 5 minutes on snow, I found that I could no longer accuse inline skating of messing up my ski technique.

I realized that inline skating technique and ski technique are different enough that anybody who has developed solid ski technique will be able to differentiate between the two. They are two separate techniques, and if one remembers not to mix them together, there should be no problems. Although they are two different techniques, I learned they can work together for a common good in skiing.

The biggest benefit from inline skating is that it develops the same leg muscles you use to go up hills while skiing. The first thing I noticed when I was classic skiing is that my legs lasted a lot longer going up hills. When you inline skate, it is basically like herring-boning on flat ground at a low intensity level (my average inline skate workout was 1-2 hours at an easy pace and 100-120 HR).

One year ago, having to herring-bone up a hill during even a short race would have spiked my heart rate and caused me a lot of fatigue. This year at the Birkie, I was very glad to have a stronger herring-bone (and general uphill stride) to rely on while ascending many of those steep hills. The same goes for skate technique. Having strong leg muscles definitely comes in handy, and inline skating develops muscles that can be hard to reach during summer ski training.

Ideal summer training for skiing would be to rollerski on trails similar to the Birkie course, with a good number of hills. In reality, a lot of roller skiing is done around lakes or in parks with some decent hills, but not on trails similar to what a person faces on the Birkie. Most people develop their uphill leg muscles by hill bounding, which is a very effective way to train. But going uphill all the time is taxing on the body, and it is hard to do that kind of workout more than once or twice a week. With inline skating, it is possible to build up those muscles while exercising at an intensity considered active recovery.

One final point to remember is that inline skating is different than roller skiing without poles. Inline skating requires you to sort of “step forward” as compared to pushing to the side when you ski. Think about when you V1 uphill on your skate skis ­ you are bringing your leg more forward than when you skate on flats. This is basically the motion that is simulated when you inline skate. So you can imagine how doing that for 1-2 hours at an easy to moderate pace could potentially pay off in skiing. The hills at the Birkie are meant to separate the contenders from the pretenders, so next year why not be a contender?

Rollerdome is open over 70 dates this year, stop on by and you are likely to recognize a few folks from the xc ski community turning laps at the dome. Go to

www.roller-dome.com

for a the calendar.