Move More Month with Globber: Health Benefits of Riding a Kick Scooter

April 01, 2022

7k is the new 10k! While we all know the ‘10k steps a day’ adage, if you walk even 7,000 steps a day, you’re 50-70% less likely to kick the bucket in the next decade.

But getting to that golden number of 7-10K doesn’t mean strictly walking. You can infuse a bit of fun while getting your steps in by broadening your daily activities—say, to scooting, for example?

Now is a great time to get moving, especially when April is Move More Month! It’s all about moving on the regular and maintaining holistic wellness—both physical and mental. Keeping our internal cogs active promotes a healthy lifestyle, allowing us to put more energy into doing what we do best: living our best life!

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As Move More Month encourages us to get on the fitness track or go beyond our usual exercise routine, scooting is a great—and fun—way to keep moving!

Adding “riding a kick scooter” to your daily activities not only takes you to further distances, but also gives you health benefits that can help maintain an active lifestyle.

Check out what moving through scooting can do for you!

Scooting is a Low-Impact Exercise that Burns Fat

The physical activities we do for the purpose of exercising vary at different levels, depending on intensity. Relative intensity is the amount of effort exerted to do a specific activity, affecting your heart rate and breathing. As relative intensity measures how strenuous an activity may be, most workouts are classed as either low-, mid-, or high-impact exercise.

Scooting falls under the low-impact exercise category, because it is low weight-bearing, unlike running or jumping, which puts a strain on your joints while in motion. Low-impact exercise, however, despite its name, shouldn’t be underestimated—it provides equal health benefits as other high-intensity workouts and is actually the sweet spot in which our bodies burn fat, which is around 70 per cent of your maximum heart rate.

This range can usually be achieved through low-impact exercises, such as scooting, which gives a fat-burning heart rate, increased strength, lower risk of injury, and an easy and fun activity that you can easily add to your daily workout regimen.

Outdoor Exercises (Like Scooting) Improve Mental Health

Exploring a world on wheels can be considered a “green exercise”, a term that describes the synergistic health benefit of exercising and being exposed to nature simultaneously. Scooting in nature immerses us in an environment that has restorative properties, promoting recovery from mental fatigue and attention restoration. Generally, green exercise is said to improve your overall mental state and markers of physiological health, with its effects even extending to a biochemical and social level as well.

Open spaces and the great outdoors have long-standing positive effects on psychological health. With a multiplicity of natural environments, such as parks, forests, countryside, gardens, and local green areas, scooting outdoors enables you to exercise and be “one with nature” at the same time.

Effective Stretching and Strengthening of Key Muscle Groups

There’s always a specific muscle group that different types of workouts aim to target, but with scooting, you’re working out more muscles than you think.

A kick scooter doesn’t just get your legs moving—while you do use your whole lower body and engage all the muscles from the foot to your quads and hamstrings, you also work your hip flexors, glutes, the entire core, chest, and back. You utilise your whole body when doing swift, kicking motions as you ride your kick scooter.

Regularly scooting can help reduce or prevent risks of injuries and since scooting comprises elements of movement and static hold exercise, it requires the delicate art of balance. Static hold exercises help get muscles warm before shifting to larger muscle movements, helping prevent injury. It also works multiple muscles and joints, activating these groups to further improve strength and stabilisation.

While in a recovery period post-high-intensity workouts, scooting can also be a great alternative to get some muscle exercise while your body recuperates. As the activity is considered low-impact exercise, it won’t put too much strain on your tired running muscles.

Increased Cardiovascular Health

Making sure our cardiovascular health is in its best state is of utmost importance and should be maintained regularly. Sadly, cardiovascular diseases continue to be the leading cause of death in the world, representing 32% of all global deaths.

Among the major risk factors outlined that lead to poor cardiovascular health are a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure, and obesity—these risks can be reduced significantly by taking measures, such as regular exercise, to improve overall cardiovascular health.

Engaging in various physical activities like regularly scooting can increase cardiovascular health and diminish disease risk factors. Adding scooting to your everyday as part of your low-impact exercise routine can help reduce blood pressure, contribute to weight reduction, and encourage you to get active and get moving while seeing the sights and having fun outdoors.

Exercise also lets you have better muscular function, strength, and improved ability to take in and utilise oxygen, whether it’s maximal oxygen consumption or aerobic capacity. As your capacity to transport and use oxygen improves, regular daily activities can be performed with less fatigue. Scooting can leave you feeling refreshed and ready to take on the rest of your day!

Ready to move more? Add a spring to your step by kicking it scooter-style! Celebrate Move More Month with Globber, and browse our kick scooters to see which set of wheels will best match your #movemoremonth energy!

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