Skateboarding Calories Burned Calculator

Calories burned skateboarding is the energy your body uses to push, balance, carve, and pop the board. Your weight, how long you skate and how fast or hard you ride matter most.

What Skateboarding Calorie Estimates Measure

Everything you burn on the board is included, even what your body would use at rest anyway, so the result is a gross figure. It does not read your heart rate or count your pushes, tricks or falls.

The Formula

Calories (kcal) = MET x body weight (kg) x time (hours)

1 MET = about 1 kcal per kg of body weight per hour

Each MET compares an activity with the energy you use sitting at rest. For skateboarding, this page relies on a large list of energy costs for adults aged 19 to 59: the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities¹.

How This Calculator Computes Your Result

Enter your age group and weight in pounds or kilograms, then choose the type of skating and add your skating time in hours and minutes. The calculator turns pounds into kilograms, finds the MET for your type of skating, and multiplies. It rounds the skating result to the nearest 5 kcal and shows the MET with one decimal.

The compendium has no separate entry for skate parks, tricks or commuting, so this calculator uses the general rows for those¹. The two general values are estimates, while the three longboard values are tied to measured speeds¹.

You also get calories per hour and per 30 minutes, a table of all five options at your weight, and for longboarding the distance covered and calories per km and per mile. Skaters under 18 do not get a result, because youth values differ from the adult ones. A note appears for anyone 60 or older, because the older adult list has no skateboarding value.

Split my session (optional). Park sessions often include long stops: sitting on the deck, filming a friend, or waiting your turn in a busy bowl. Enter your skating minutes and your long breaks. Only the skating minutes count, and the result is labeled "active time only". Short pauses between runs stay in, because the compendium values already include them.

What Your Result Means

It shows the energy you used in that skate session, not a target to beat. A 70 kg (154 lb) adult on a skateboard burns:

An hour of fast longboarding burns about twice as much as an hour of general skating. A heavier skater uses more energy at any given pace.

What Studies Measured on the Board

Researchers measured oxygen use in 15 experienced longboarders riding outdoors at their own slow, typical and fast speeds². Average speeds were 13.3, 16.2 and 18.4 km/h, and oxygen use rose with speed². At typical speed the effort was about 8.5 METs, which counts as vigorous exercise². The compendium's longboard values line up closely with these speeds and oxygen readings.

An earlier study matched each skater's heart rate to oxygen use on a skateboard treadmill, then tracked heart rate through a 30 minute outdoor session at a self-chosen pace³. The authors concluded that skateboarding is a workable way to build or keep aerobic fitness³. They also noted that textbook skateboarding METs had no clear source³, and the general rows are still estimates today¹.

Longboarding Calories per Kilometer

Because longboard values come with a speed, you can work out the cost of a trip. At 70 kg:

Going faster burns more per hour but only a little more per kilometer, because you finish the trip sooner. Per meter travelled, longboarding at typical speed cost more energy than cycling and about half as much as walking², so for a commute it sits between the two.

What Changes Your Burn on a Skateboard

Pushing speed. The faster you push, the more oxygen you use. Speed explained most of the difference in energy use between longboard trials².

Cruising or skating the park. A commute is mostly steady pushing and rolling. A park session mixes short hard efforts (dropping in, pumping, ollies, carrying the board back up) with standing around. If you stop for long spells, use the split option so breaks are not counted.

Board type. The longboard values were measured on longboards². For a regular street board, the general rows are the safer pick.

Skateboarding Compared With Other Activities

Skateboarding beside other activities, per hour, from the 2024 Adult Compendium¹:

Typical longboarding (about 10 mph) burns more per hour than cycling at a similar speed. General skateboarding sits below ice skating but well above walking and recreational surfing.