When we think about keeping in shape and strengthening our bodies, things like hiking, going to the gym, and biking come to mind; little did we know that there’s a whole different form of maintaining our physique that we never thought of.
Next time you go to the beach or the lake, make sure to bring your jet skis. This unlikely past-time has been shown to really work out your body both inside and out. Who doesn’t want to have fun while exercising?
Do you get a workout on a jet ski? Yes, you get a large workout while riding a jet ski whether its a stand up model or sit down. Either way, you are balancing, using your core, upper body, legs, and shifting your weight around to turn. A jet ski ride is a great way to workout.
There are several health benefits from riding a jet ski from physical to mental. Follow along below to learn the best benefits from riding.
Muscles and Bone Gain from Riding a Jet Ski
In order to remain upright and balanced on the jet ski, your body must engage muscles throughout your entire body. Your calves, thighs, and hip flexors have to constrict with the movement of the water in order to hold you in position while your arms both support you and steer the machine.
Your pelvis is also in use, as it helps to keep you stabilized, similar to how it functions while riding a horse. When riding a horse, your abdominal, back, inner thigh, and pelvic muscles are all activated to keep you balanced in the same way that your body responds to riding a jet ski. Balancing while squatting and sitting on the water with varying speeds and waves is tough and takes a lot of muscular strength. Your core helps to keep you upright and support you from your hips up to your ribcage, working similar to a brace, keeping your spine straight and your midsection solid.
While also assisting with balancing, your core stability muscles that run down your body from your spine are activated, which can assist in toning that six-pack you’ve been working on. In addition to all the muscular benefits, your bones are strengthened; as we get older, our bones become weaker and lose density, leading to risks of osteoporosis and injuries.
Working out and creating a stronger muscular support allows them to stay protected and maintain their support, preventing breakage or fractures. Your bones are living tissues, when neglected, they start to deteriorate, whereas when they are properly cared for with the right exercises, they adapt, gathering more cells, therefore becoming more dense, leading to increased balance, improved flexibility, and decreased joint stiffness. When you put in the effort to treat your bones properly, the long term benefits can be insurmountable.
Heart Health on a Jet Ski
I think we can all agree that the cardiovascular system is an extremely important part of our everyday life. On average, it’s recommended to partake in moderate levels of exercise for at least 30 minutes each (or most) days in order to maintain a healthy heart. Enjoying this exciting water based past-time can assist in your journey to a healthy heart.
Working out your heart improves your energy and endurance while increasing blood circulation. The more exciting and physically involved activities, the faster your heart rate and blood oxygen levels increase.
Increased oxygen helps to improve circulation and feed your tissues the necessary nutrients needed to keep your body functioning at its peak performance and allowing your body to expel wastes properly.
Keeping your heart healthy leads to healthier cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure. Each time you put your heart to work, you’re effectively strengthening it and training it to work more efficiently. Each time you put it to work with moderate to significant activity, you’re essentially protecting it from things like heart disease.
Even one session of exercise can protect your heart’s function for up to three whole hours. Doing the most simple workouts or activities can work wonders when it comes to your cardiovascular health and considering heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, it seems like a good reason to keep yourself motivated and head out for some fun water sportage.
Calories and Weight Loss From Riding a Jet Ski
Of course, as with most worthwhile exercises, calories are burned. Riding a jet ski has been shown to be very similar to riding a bike in terms of calorie burning. In fact, the average 150-pound jet ski rider is capable of burning around 240 calories within a half an hour. If you manage to burn 700 calories each week without consuming excess calories, you will manage to lose 10 pounds within the year.
That can be as little as an hour and a half of required jet ski fun to reach your goal. A single pound of body fat stores an entire 3,500 calories. You would have to eat around 500 fewer calories each day for a week than what you expend in order to lose a pound of fat.
The exact amount calories burned when participating in activities varies based on the type, intensity, and amount of time spent as well as your body weight and metabolism. If you are riding a stand up jet ski you will burn a lot more calories than riding a sit down.
However, burning calories does not necessarily mean you’re going to lose weight seeing as carbs are burned off first, which will likely lead to you mostly losing water weight instead of fat and this will lower your metabolism.
In order to burn fat, you need to focus on your cardio to improve your circulation by maintaining an increased heart rate, as you would by participating in active sports and exercises such as riding a jet ski or wave runner.
In addition to burning calories, exercising can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol, while also assisting in weight loss. Exercise has been proven to be an effective method of managing weight without needing to stress over excessive dieting. While maintaining an active physical lifestyle, you have a higher chance of preventing heart attacks, heart disease, and certain cancers.
In order to get the full value of your activities, it’s recommended to engage in exercise at least three times a week for 20 minutes or more or 15 minutes per day. Your metabolism will also get a healthy boost when you maintain regular activity by building lean muscle and raising your resting metabolic rate.
When you’re not even active, your muscles are burning more calories than fat cells, making the time you are exercising that much more beneficial. At rest, your body still needs energy for bodily functions such as circulating blood, breathing, and repairing cells. Your muscles consume a lot of energy, thereby burning a lot of calories. With the amount of muscle usage involved in riding jet skis, calories and fat could be easy to drop, leading you on the path to a healthy weight and lifestyle.
Final Thoughts
All-in-all, using a jet ski has been proven to be a great source of exercise and well being. In fact, in addition to the numerous physical health benefits, this watercraft can even improve your mental health. Just ask yourself this one question: Have you ever seen a sad person on a jet ski?
Joking aside, exercise can be a great stress reliever and improve the quality of your day to day life. Physical activities have been proven to release dopamine and serotonin, the endorphins responsible for pleasure. In fact, studies have shown that exercise can help to relieve some of the effects of depression and anxiety without the side effects of medications.
Exercise can also help to improve your memory, sleep, and motivation while also raising self-esteem. Being out on the water, in nature, riding your jet ski and enjoying yourself can prove to be highly beneficial to you in overall exemplary ways. Who can object to fun that’s also good for you?
