Things You'll Need:
- A good pair of skates with excellent support
- Tight fitting but comfortable clothing
- Gloves
- Skating professional or sign up for group lessons
- United States Figure Skating rulebook
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Step 1
Find and sign up for group skating lessons with a local skating club found on the United States Figure Skating website. Consider hiring a private lesson coach for learning harder skills such as freestyle, stroking exercises, moves-in-the field and ice dancing. Group lessons will only give you the basic skills. You will need to learn to use these skills in patterns and routines to develop a good work out routine.
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Step 2
Determine your target heart rate. Frequently check this heart rate as you take part in your work out. Your goal should be to stay within 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. To lose 1/2 lb. a week, you will need to cut or burn 500 calories a day. Consider this when determining your exercise routine and diet.
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Step 3
Once you have acquired some skills and practiced enough, make a goal. How many days a week can you skate? Is there a competition coming up that you can strive to work for to keep you interested and to keep your practice sessions structured and productive?
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Step 4
Make a schedule for your on ice practice. The goal is to have very little rest time. An example of a cardio work-out with little rest is the following: *Choose two moves-in-the field exercises and do them in sections three times each with no rest. Then do the entire moves in-the-field test (usually four to five skating elements) two times. This should take you 15 to 20minutes. Take a water break. Move on to ice-dancing. Choose one dance. Separate this into sections and repeat each section three times each without breaking. Finally, do the dance with the music twice. This cardio routine should take you about 15 to 20 minutes. Repeat this or add freestyle to your session.
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Step 5
If you enjoy freestyle, work on your spins, jumps or your program with few visits to the boards for a drink and no chatting with fellow skaters. If you do not enjoy freestyle, choose three stroking exercises and repeat them three times each with ina bauers, spread eagles and lunges in between. If you are skating a 45-minute session, you can work on your spins for 15 minutes, move onto jumps for 15 minutes, and then attend to your program, but finish with 15 minutes of the above stroking routine. This non-stop skating will give you a cardio routine without boredom due to the constant changing.
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Step 6
Consider adding cross training to your routine. Although figure skating does have some weight bearing benefits to it, you may want to consider Pilate's and free weights two to three times a week in addition to your skating especially for your upper body being that skating tends to build the lower body more. We still want to address bone health and have a well balanced body. The addition of free weights to your cardio skating work-out will give you a nice balanced toned look.
