Inline skating is the most common skating or roller skating activity. Some people call inline skating recreational skating or fitness skating because of the benefits it offers. Inline is synonymous with roller skating or rollerblading. It is called inline skating because you use inline skates. Actually, an inline skate is the same boot with wheels people call roller blades or roller skates.
Rollerblade is a brand name of roller skates. Rollerblade, Inc. is the company owned by the Olson brothers who created the mother design of the roller skates we know today. From an old worn out pair of roller skates, the Olson brothers improved it to use modern materials.
From the time the Olson brothers established Rollerblade, Inc., the public used rollerblades to mean roller skates or inline skates.
Inline, on the other hand, works the same as ice skating: you glide on the surface using boots with four to five wheels in a straight line under the boot. There are many variations of inline skating including:
- Aggressive
- Figure
- Downhill
- Park competition
- Vert
- Speed
The most important thing to consider in inline is the inline skate that you will use. While the normal and most basic design of inline skates is a boot with four to five wheels at the bottom, some improvements or variation is necessary in any of the above disciplines.
It is therefore necessary that you use the correct inline skate before you embark on tricks and other disciplines of inline.
While the heel stop or the toe stop is necessary for recreational and fitness skating, inline speed skating and even for slalom skating may not need this stopping options.
Heel stop may cause a skater to trip in cases of speed or slalom skating. However, if you are yet a beginner you will need either a heel stop or toe stop. You surely do not want to crash to mirrored walls or to street post while inline skating.
If you want inline skating and you are yet starting, aside from the need to have heel stop or toe stop, you also need to use safety gears like helmet, wrist guard, and knee and elbow pads. Many skaters likewise use loose jeans made of hard materials to help them move easier while the hard material will protect them during crash.
Inline skating is a fun activity. It is also a good aerobic exercise and good cross training option for other sports. Inline skating also offers sports opportunity for the entire family. Inline skating also offers less risk of injury with proper training and use of safety gears.
Thus, to get the benefits from inline skating, it is necessary that you avoid doing tricks that will cause injuries. Tricks may come later when you are already very good in forward and backward skating. Then, you can start doing easy tricks moving to more difficult once.
