Exercise
The Vigorboard's ability to combine fun with a full cardio-vascular workout has prompted St Helens council to promote the boards in all of its high schools and some of its primary schools, seeing it as a method of inspiring children who wouldn't normally take part in traditional team sports to take regular exercise.
The Vigorboard is proving a valuable weapon in the fight against childhood obesity, with some teachers at the schools currently trialing the boards also reporting drops in truancy, with pupils not wishing to miss school should they miss their Vigorboard session.
An independent study conducted by the University of Salford found that vigorboarding resulted in an average increase in heart rate of 227% and a 535% increase in energy expenditure. The study also concluded that vigorboarding results in a 233% greater energy expenditure (407kcal/hr) than walking at 3 mph (174.5kcal/hr).
In its conclusion, the authors of the university study went on to say, 'Vigorboarding may be a useful alternative to increasing physical activity levels and energy expenditure, especially for individuals that do not wish to participate in the usual sports or activities performed by adolescents.'.
Read more about this topic: The Wave (board)
Famous quotes containing the word exercise:
“To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled—because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The division between the useful arts and the fine arts must not be understood in too absolute a manner. In the humblest work of the craftsmen, if art is there, there is a concern for beauty, through a kind of indirect repercussion that the requirements of the creativity of the spirit exercise upon the production of an object to serve human needs.”
—Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)
“There is not enough exercise in this way of life. I try to make up by active gymnastics before I dress when I get up, by walking rapidly in the lower hall and the greenhouse after each meal for perhaps five to ten minutes, and a good hand rubbing before going to bed. I eat moderately; drink one cup of coffee at breakfast and one cup of tea at lunch and no other stimulant. My health is now, and usually, excellent.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)