Skateboarding to better health
Riders drawn to adrenaline; experts say it's a great workout
Friday, August 13, 2004 Posted: 10:46 PM EDT (0246 GMT)
SAYREVILLE,
New Jersey (AP) -- While the tennis courts at Kennedy Park are bare on
a hot afternoon, parents keep dropping off teenagers at the skate park,
home to all the day's action.
A dozen boys sit on the ledge,
cooling off while watching others take turns flying downhill on the
concrete slope. Forget Little League: In some areas, skateboarding is
now the sport of choice.
Clad in helmets and jeans, the teens
have their choice of skating into a clover-shaped bowl -- resembling an
oddly shaped empty swimming pool -- or over a series of obstacles not
unlike the park benches or railings used in street skating.
"You
can just, like, go out here and do your own thing," said Nick Marrone,
13, visiting from Poughquag, New York. "It's whatever you want; you're
just having fun."
The sport once mainly practiced on backyard
ramps and in Southern California skate parks has found universal
appeal. One estimate is that there are 12 million skateboarders
nationwide and more than 1,000 public skateparks on top of the
multitude of private ones.
"It's a great rush," said 14-year-old
Amelia Brodka, taking a short break from the vert ramp at the indoor
RexPlex Skate Park in Elizabeth.
The sport is growing not only in the suburbs of big cities, but also in small communities like Searcy, Arkansas.
"There
are more and more kids every single day getting involved and the
stereotypes are really being lifted," said Alan Holloway, program
coordinator for Searcy Parks and Recreation, which opened its municipal
skate park in 2000 and expanded it in 2002 because of heavy use.
The
core market seems to be in the 10- to 15-year-old group of "energetic,
crazy young kids who are fearless," and who now surpass the number of
Little League baseball players, said Miki Vuckovich of the Tony Hawk
Foundation, established by perhaps the sport's best-known athlete.
"A
lot of kids are looking for alternatives now; they don't want to do
team sports," said Mark Sperling, founder of Op Girls Learn to Ride,
which teaches skateboarding and other action sports to females.
"Skateboarding is a way for them to express who they are and their
creativity."
It's also inexpensive -- just grab a secondhand
skateboard and head to the streets. And while some skate competitively,
others say they have fun without the pressures or politics of team
sports.
"There's no coach yelling at you that you bobbled the
play," said Chris Li, 16, of Livingston, New Jersey, who is lobbying
his hometown to build a municipal park. "It's not like you bobble one
play, and you're benched for the rest of the season."
The sport's
popularity dates to the 1960s and has surged again in the last 10 years
thanks in part to the X Games, the action sports competition broadcast
on ESPN and ABC.
And its appeal these days is ever wider. Some
parks have an "Old Man's Night;" and girls and women acccount for about
20 percent of skateboarders. There's even a California-based
International Society of Skateboarding Moms.
"We just can't get
this kind of buzz from scrapbooking," said founder Barb Odanaka, 41, of
Laguna Beach, Calif. "We can't get this on the tennis courts and we
certainly can't get it from shopping at the mall. There's something
about looking down a vertical wall of cement and basically hurling
yourself down this wall on four wheels. That is a rush like nothing
else."
Avid skateboarders maintain their sport is no more dangerous than football or soccer.
 Barb Ordanaka, left, with Alison McGuire, says "We just can't get this kind of buzz from scrapbooking." |  |
Skateboarding-related
accidents accounted for 113,180 emergency room injuries in 2002,
according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. That's about
a third of the bicycle injuries suffered by kids under age 15, and
about half the number of injuries from playground equipment.
Aspiring
riders are usually drawn more to the adrenaline rush than the fitness
benefits, but it does provide a great workout, experts say.
"It's
cardiovascular; it's better than running," said Brendan Flattery, 28,
who runs skateboarding programs at the RexPlex. "You're constantly
moving."
Balance is key, and it also helps to have a sense of
direction and agility. While learning to skateboard requires patience
and perseverance, Vuckovich said the rewards are many.
"You're
always progressing, you're always learning something new," he said.
"You see things and you want to replicate it. You want to be that guy.
The closer you get there, the more the mystery is solved and the more
excited you get. It's a great thing for kids to do."
The trend also means teens are spending less time on video games.
"The
more time that you can limit them from being squatted in front of the
TV, and actually get them outside physically doing something, that's a
good thing," said Searcy parks coordinator Holloway.
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
