Beginner roller skating
Your Hips and Glutes Are What You Skate From
ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby gives the hips their own off-skate work. Strengthening the muscles around the hips, all of the glutes above all, leaves an inline skater feeling more supported, more balanced and more in control on the wheels, and the hips are closely tied to how the lower back feels after a skate. This is preparation between sessions, not a fix during one.
The parts of the body a beginner thinks about are the feet and the knees. A certified coach gives the hips their own off-skate work, and the reason is what they do for the rest of the leg.
Strengthening the muscles around the hips, all of the glutes above all, leaves a skater feeling more supported, more balanced and more in control on the wheels. That is her description of the effect, and it is the effect a beginner is chasing with every drill.
The hips are also closely tied to how the lower back feels after a skate. A skater who finishes sessions stiff through the back often has hips that are doing less than their share.
This is preparation between sessions, not a fix during one. It is done in shoes, on a floor, on the days the skates stay in the bag, and it shows up later as a skater who feels held up from the middle.
Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program. She teaches inline skating, and that is the discipline this page is about.
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