When you think about an electric scooter, health benefits aren’t the first thing that spring to mind. Eco-friendly travel, fun and convenience are often discussed - but could e-scooters provide a physical workout too?
We take a closer look at electric scooter benefits and how they can provide a boost to your health.
Are Electric Scooters Good for Health?
To be completely healthy, our mind and body needs to both be in good shape. The good news is that the electric scooter can help both.
Exercising and being out in the fresh air can be a great stress-buster and is recommended by mental health charities and the NHS. Going for a ride on your electric scooter can help to elevate mood naturally and help you to manage stress more effectively.
But you might be surprised to discover that the electric scooter health benefits extend to physical wellbeing too.
Below we’re going to focus on the various ways a scooter can help improve your physical fitness.
Does an Electric Scooter Count as Exercise?
Although it can feel effortless gliding around on an electric scooter, your body will be working surprisingly hard. This means that riding an e-scooter actually counts as exercise!
You may be saying to yourself right now, “ah yes, but is riding an electric scooter GOOD exercise?” - and the answer to that is yes!
There are many different types of exercise, and you don’t always need to be shedding bucket loads of sweat to be improving your physical health.
An electric scooter can help your physical fitness in the following ways:
- Increases core strength
- Improves balance
- Improves co-ordination
- Helps posture (which aids muscle tone and prevents injuries)
- Better cardiovascular health
- Boosts metabolism
Although riding a pedal bike can feel like much more exercise, a study for 2019 suggested that people riding electric scooters and bikes reaped the same physical benefits. This is because electric scooters are often ridden for longer distances, including commuting to work, and this cancelled out the harder physical exertion required to pedal.
Can You Lose Weight On an Electric Scooter?
If you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy way, one of the biggest problems is lack of movement. Even if you have a balanced diet, it is hard to stay at a healthy weight if you don’t move about enough.
Therefore, if you only go out for a gentle ride to the shops or to visit friends, your e-scooter can help to form part of a wellness plan. And this can help you to shed excess pounds and lead a more active lifestyle in general.
Moving about burns more calories than sitting still and going for a ride will increase your metabolism. And the best bit of all is that your metabolism will stay raised for a short period, even after you’ve stopped riding, helping you to continue losing more weight!
How Many Calories Does Riding an Electric Scooter Burn?
As we’ve seen above, the electric scooter benefits doesn’t mean that you’re going to be indulging in a hardcore cardiovascular workout - but you will still burn calories.
The human body burns calories all day long, even while you’re sleeping or sitting on the sofa! Research by the University of Brighton showed that using an e-scooter at 4.6mph for 30 minutes burns approximately 150 calories. That means there’s not much difference in riding an electric scooter and walking for 30 minutes per day (150-200 calories).
Certainly there are other forms of exercise which burn more calories, but an e-scooter helps to tone muscles, improves balance and increase strength. And as muscle fibres burn more calories than inert fat cells, in the longer term you’ll be burning more calories because you’ll be stronger!
Why not take a look through our selection of electric scooters to find a brand new way to get healthy while having fun?
