Archive for May, 2009
According to the American Obesity Association, obesity among children and teens is developing into a crises in the United States of epidemic proportions. Did you know that about 30% of children and teens are overwight and 15% are obese? That is almost 1 in 2 individuals that are at risk.
Modern man loves to express himself in numbers and this subject is no different. Those who track the subject use the Body Mass Index to define the difference between overweight and obese. BMI charts are easily obtainable on the web and I won’t get into that today but if you are concerened about this issue one source is www.cdc.gov/needphp/dnpa/obesity.
The bottom line is that we all need exercise and activity is particulary important for children as they are setting the tone for the rest of their lives. Rollerskating, either inline or quad, is one activity that is sure to appeal to children and teens with lots of energy. Not only that, but it is amazingly effective. Roller skating burns 315 calries per 30 minutes of skateng while bicycling burns 150, basketball 258 and skiing 252 calories per 30 minutes of doing. Aerobic execise only burns 178 calories per 30 minutes of boring sweat.
If roller skating weren’t so much fun it could almost be considered medicine.
For anyone unfamiliar with the practice, roller skating is the act of gliding along on special shoes known as roller skates. These are a basic shoe or boot with four wheels attached to the bottom with ball bearings. Around for several hundred years, the very first patented roller skate came in 1760. The inventor was John Joseph Merlin, a Belgian who invented the device for his grandson. The design, however, was not a big hit with the general public.
By 1863, the American James Plimpton decided to improve on the existing model by creating the ârockingâ skate. The design allowed for easier turning around corners, and roller skates were finally popular with the masses. Since this improvement and the initial wave of interest, roller skating has never left the public. It even evolved into roller hockey, a competitive sport that debuted in the Olympics in 1992. Other sports variations derived from roller skating are roller derby, figure skating, and speed skating.
Aggressive inline skating is an extreme sport, performed on specially designed inline skates with a focus on tricks and stunts. The sport mainly consists of a wide variety of grinds, aerial tricks, slides and other advanced skating maneuvers. Participants often refer to the activity as rollerblading, blading or rolling. The sport is divided into vert, park, and street skating, referring to the environment that is being skated in. Different environments lend themselves to different tricks, thus the distinction.
Tricks in aggressive skating can be performed on street obstacles or on ramps. Street skaters perform more grinds and slides, whereas ramp skaters have more air-time and therefore can perform other tricks. Many of the aggressive tricks are similar to those done in skateboarding. Skaters can perform grinds by using the the frames and plastic plates on the bottom of the aggressive skates. Grinds are usually done on rails and ledges although they can be performed on any obstacle which slides.