Caster Boards Make For Great Exercise

Caster Boards Make For Great Exercise
By Jay Brandley

Caster boards are the newest type of skateboard mutation to hit the streets as well as the skating scene. Caster boards combine the motions and design of skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding to create the ultimate skating experience on concrete and pavement.

The task of learning to ride a caster board may seem very daunting, but with practice and time, you will get the hang of it eventually. Now, why would you even want to risk the danger of learning to ride a caster board in the first place? Well, despite what you may be thinking and what you may be feeling, there a handful of reasons why learning to ride a caster board can be beneficial.

Ride For the Exercise

Get off your buttocks and out of the house to enjoy the fresh air. Learning to ride a caster board can be a great excuse or reason to go outside and get a little fresh air. Also, you will also be getting some exercise and workout time if you stay out and ride long enough. Riding caster boards are a great way to get some physical exercise and have a little fun at the same time.

Improve Your Balance and Coordination

Learning to ride a bike when you were young, but once you got the hang of it you never forgot how to do it, right? Well, the same concept can be applied to riding a caster board. Once you have got the hang of how it works, you will most likely always remember.

Also, caster boards require a balance and coordination technique of its own. Although riding skateboards, surfing, and snowboarding have very similar concepts, it is still a different technique. You can improve your balance and coordination by riding caster boards.

Practice During The Off-Season

Do you surf? Well, if there are no good swells to hold you down for the day and you are just itching to get a riding rush, scratch that itch with a caster board. You can surf the streets and attempt to bomb some small hills to get a great riding rush. Of course, we know that it is not the same but caster boards give off a rush of its own.

Children Love Caster Boards

If you have children, they mostly likely have asked you for a Ripstik or some other caster board of the sort. If you are looking for activities to do with your children, why not learn how to ride a caster board with them. You will be one of the coolest parents in the neighborhood. That is, you will be super cool if, and only if, you do not suck.

So, are you ready to get started with learning to ride a caster board? Have fun, get some exercise, improve your balance and coordination, surf streets when there are no swells to hold you down, and play with your kids.

Check out great Caster boards at Jays site Street Surf Boards dot com. Find great equipment and information on the best caster boards such as the Ripstik caster board or the Waveboard.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_Brandley

Get Your Kids to Exercise With Skateboarding

Get Your Kids to Exercise With Skateboarding
By Jay Brandley

These days, many children are confined to the home on their own will. With sedentary activities such as watching television and playing arcade and video games becoming ever more popular, sometimes children would rather stay at home and do these non-physical activities than be outside running around and getting some physical exertion.

This is not all their fault. Sometimes it is not convenient for children to go outside and play if there is no one responsible enough around to attend to their supervision. Many parents would love to do this but cannot afford to due to financial responsibilities. In addition, it may not be safe for children to play outside depending on the area where you live.

Well, if you are stumped when it comes to thinking of activities that your child could do to get some physical exertion, we are here to help you out with that by giving a short and simple idea.

Skateboarding

Skateboarding is a great way for children to get some physical exercise. Skateboarding is a popular sport these days, and most children will have some fun with it.

Skateboarding takes a lot of balance and technique. If you want to improve the coordination of your child, and perhaps even train him or her for the likes of other sports such as surfing or snowboarding, skateboarding is a great way to start it off.

Here are some ideas that will help you to incorporate skating in the schedule of your child.

Skateboard to School

If your child walks to school, why not let him or her skateboard to school instead? It is understandable that most schools do not allow the use of skateboards on school property, but if you can arrange for your child to put his or her skateboard in a safe and secure place during school hours and encourage him or her to abide be the rules and regulation of the school concerning skateboards, perhaps this could work out.

A Family Day At the Skate Park

Your children get a break from school on the weekend, and a lot of parents get off of work on the weekend also. This makes it convenient to have a family day where you can plan activities where you all can have fun and spend time together as a family. You could consider going to a skate park once a month or however often as you wish as a family outing activity. Even if you are not interested in skateboarding, it is without question that you are interested in your child. Watch your child have fun learning to skateboard and do all kinds of neat tricks on it. They will thank you for it later and learn from your example for when they start a family of their own one day.

So, here are just a couple of ideas that could get you started with incorporating skateboarding in you and your childs schedule. Also, remember to have fun and let your kids have some fun also.

For great skateboarding equipment, check out Jays site entitled Skateboard Trends dot com. Find the name brand discount skateboards and the hottest accessories here. Brands include Element skateboards, Baker skateboards, and many more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_Brandley

Ways to Ensure Safety While Riding a Caster Board

Ways to Ensure Safety While Riding a Caster Board
By Jay Brandley

Caster boards are very fun boards to ride. You can surf the streets with them. It is not uncommon to see a bunch of kids riding caster boards in the neighborhood or on the side of the streets in town.

While riding caster boards can be a very fun sport or recreational activity, it can also be rather dangerous activity if no measures are taken to ensure safety. Many children get hurt from riding caster boards. However, getting hurt a little is part of the learning process when you are a kid. Do not get us wrong, we are in no way saying that caster boards are too dangerous for children to ride. We would just like to offer a few tips to ensure that your children will be as protected as possible.

Protective Gear

Protective gear serves one purpose. To protect the wearer from cuts, scrapes, or other related injuries. The use of helmets, elbow pads, knee pads, and shoes and long pants should prevent nasty scrapes and gashes. It is almost inevitable that you will fall at least once or twice when you are trying to learn to ride a caster board. However, just because you are bound to fall does not mean that you are bound to get an open wound and bleed a little bit. Protective gear will protect against those types of injuries and decrease the need for band-aids.

Ride Caster Boards Only In the Proper Places

If you do not allow your kids to run around and play in the streets, it makes sense to also not let them ride their caster boards in the streets. Riding caster boards in the proper places will also do much to ensure maximum safety for your child while he or she is riding a caster board.

So, you must be wondering, where else could I let my child ride their caster board? Well, if you have a skating park near your home, this would be a great place for your child to ride a caster board. If you have a large driveway or areas in your yard this is paved with concrete, these places would make great surfaces to ride caster boards on also. Other places you could take your children to ride their caster boards include empty parking lots and the like.

So, here are just a few suggestions and tips that you could use to ensure that your child is as safe as possible while his or her caster boards. No doubt, you want your children to have and be protected at the same time.

Jays site, Street Surf Boards dot com, features a great selection of great caster boards You can find great brands of caster boards such as the Exboard, and the popular Razor Ripstik

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_Brandley

Secrets Of Skateboarding- Trick Secrets Exposed

Secrets Of Skateboarding- Trick Secrets Exposed
By Barbara Zillhardt

The real and only way to get better at skateboarding.

Clear, easy to understand and detailed instructions for landing every trickA simple and effective technique that will allow you land a trick close to 100% of the timeA little known technique to keep your mind constantly working on learning tricksAn explosive practice routine that guarantee results in the shortest amount of timeMuch, much more. Skateboarding is the act of riding on and performing tricks with a skateboard. A person who skateboards is referred to as a skateboarder, skater or "shredder".

Skateboarding is a recreational activity, a job, or a method of transportation.[1] Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report by American Sports Data found that there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world. Eighty-five percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent were male. [2]

Skateboarding is relatively modern. A key skateboarding trick, the ollie, was only developed in the late 1970s. This ollie was used only on vertical ramps on flat ground. A decade later, freestyle skateboarder invented the kickflip which before was called a Magic Flip. [3]
With the evolution of skateparks and ramp riding, the skateboard began to change. Early skate tricks had consisted mainly of two-dimensional manoeuvres (e.g. riding on only two wheels (wheelie, a.k.a. manual), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels (a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar (nowadays called a "Hippie Jump"), long jumping from one board to another (often over a line of small barrels or fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom.

In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand, the Ollie (skateboarding trick). It remained largely a unique Florida trick from 1976 until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Gelfand and his revolutionary maneuver caught the attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide.

The ollie was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1982, who adapted it to freestyle skating by ollieing on flat ground rather than out of a vert ramp. Mullen also invented the ollie kickflip, which, at the time of its invention, was dubbed the "magic flip." The flat ground ollie allowed skateboarders to perform tricks in mid-air without any more equipment than the skateboard itself. The development of these complex tricks by Rodney Mullen and others transformed skateboarding. Skateboarders began performing their tricks down stair sets and on other urban obstacles - they were no longer confined to empty pools and expensive wooden ramps. a hilarious tidbit: the ollie originally as a tricktip in thrasher magazine as the "ollie prop pop".

The act of "ollieing" onto an obstacle and sliding along it on the trucks of the board is known as grinding, and has become a mainstay of modern skateboarding. Types of grinds include the 50-50 grind (balancing on the front and back trucks while grinding a rail), the 5-0 grind (balancing on only the back truck while grinding a rail) the nose grind (balancing on only the front truck while grinding a rail), and the crooked grind (balancing on the front truck at an angle with nose touching while grinding) among many others. There are various other grinds that involve touching both the trucks and the deck to the rail, ledge, or lip. The most common of these is the smith grind, in which the rider balances over the back truck while touching the outer middle of the board to the grinding surface in the direction from which he or she ollied. Popping and landing on the back truck and touching the inner edge of the board, i.e. popping "over", is known as a feeble grind. Slides such as boardslides, lipslides, noseslides, and tailslides are on the wooden deck of the skateboard, rather than on the trucks.

One trick that doesn't fit these categories is the Darkslide (Invented by Rodney Mullen) which consists of sliding on the top (griptape side) of the board. The bluntslide, when performed on a ledge, which basically means the wheels are sliding. Another slide/grind trick that does not conform to the ordinary categories is the primo slide, invented by Primo Desidero; it consists of sliding on the board (albeit a flat surface rather than a ledge, rail or lip) while it is on its side, sliding on the ends of the axle bolts and the thin dimension of the board, pointing and moving the same way as one would ride it.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Barbara_Zillhardt

Why Is Everyone Telling Me To "Ollie"

Why Is Everyone Telling Me To "Ollie"
By Scott Hilburn

I love skateboarding. I still have dozens upon dozens of old skateboarding and surfing magazines. Why do I still have them you ask? How can I give up on my childhood and my experiences of youth. Shred is such a cool word to me. The word borders on havoc by tearing up something without tearing up anything. You can shred on both Skateboarding and Surfing. Usually when someone is "shredding" they are in the zone or making the desired move with such precision.

Today, I want to talk about the "Ollie". You say what the heck is an "Ollie". The "Ollie" move was thought up by a man by the name of Alan "Ollie" Gelfand. Rodney Mullen introduced it into flatland skating. What makes an "Ollie" so cool in flatland skating is the ability is to get the rider and the board into the air to jump onto objects or "clear" over obstacles.

When I was younger I didn't grasp why people kept telling me to learn the "Ollie" move to help my progression towards making me a better skateboarded. In the 80s, my friends and I thought sliding and going up halfpipes was the only way to skate. Well, the "Ollie" is the move to open the door to a multitude of tricks and grinds. Personally, without the "Ollie" skateboard would not be what it is today. If you wish to learn how to do an "Ollie" and learn what other tricks you do after the "Ollie", check out www.SkateBoardTrick.info

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Hilburn

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