Article: Figure Skating for Improved Health and Fitness

[FigureSpins]

Saw this article linked on Twitter and found it amusing:
http://www.magazinevolume.com/9542PV/#/38/

The author, Tom Castañeda will post updates on his magazine's website:
http://www.panacheview.com

[drskater]

Thanks for posting!!

chuckle--are those blue vinyl rental skates?  LOL: "continuous" skating burns 600 calories per hour-- oh, sure, nooooo problem!

[Skittl1321]

The rink I grew up at had those pretty blue rental skates!

I'm interested to know what continuous skating is.  Just doing laps for an hour?  Do I burn more or less if I mix it up with jumps and spins?  Figure skating has done NOTHING for weight loss for me   I'm 20 pounds heavier than when I started...


I'm also interested that it has less impact than running.  I'm assuming we are only talking about non-jumping figure skating, right?

[sarahspins]

The rink I grew up at had those pretty blue rental skates!

Same here, except they also came in green and orange!  Truthfully compared to the WAY broken down Reidell rental skates the rink currently has, the vinyl ones had their strong points - you couldn't fold them completely over sideways, for example.

Since I can't tolerate running at all (joint pain during, inflammation that takes DAYS to go away after, none of which I experience from skating), I would have to say that even jumping is lower impact overall compared to running

[AgnesNitt]

I wore a calorie monitor a few times when I started skating. I found I could hit 400 cal per hour just toddling around, and standing around talking on ice. Working as hard as I could in aerobics class I could barely hit 350--on a good day. So 600 cal in an hour, sure, I can see that. I probably couldn't but that's related to my height. I could see someone taller or a guy getting there.