Last Updated on May 17, 2023 by Matt
While there are many benefits of electric scooters, many potential owners have wondered whether there are any health benefits.
At first glance, they don’t seem to offer many.
However, it turns out there are quite a few of them (some of them may even come as a surprise to you).
Riding an electric scooter has several health benefits. Not only can it improve your fitness, posture, and coordination, but it can also help you build core strength, improve your mood, and reduce your stress levels. Also, electric scooters contribute to a cleaner environment, which is not only good for your health, but for everyone else’s.
What are the health benefits of riding an electric scooter?
Riding an electric scooter can benefit both your physical and mental health.
Since the health benefits that riding an electric scooter can provide you with are typically overlooked, I explored the topic in detail, and, in what follows, I’ve presented the most common ones.
These are the main ways in which riding an electric scooter benefits your health.
Improves fitness and flexibility
While you may probably experience mild discomfort or stiffness in your legs and arms after the first few days of riding your e-scooter, the more rides you take on it, the more that discomfort will lessen.
Once you get used to riding and the discomfort diminishes, you’ll begin to notice that riding your electric scooter improves your fitness gradually, by enabling you to build strength as your core muscles and the muscles in your shoulders, arms, and legs are all engaged.
Moreover, as your muscles stretch and contract as you’re riding your electric scooter and get a bit stronger with each ride, your flexibility will also increase, thus making riding the e-scooter easier for you without putting stress on your back, arms, and legs, and your joints and knees in particular.
Strengthens your bones
Many electric scooter enthusiasts believe that riding regularly can benefit bone health by keeping your bones strong.
Although this benefit hasn’t been scientifically proven yet, the empirical evidence and experience of many riders seems to back this claim up. Stronger bones can decrease the risk of suffering from osteoporosis or sustaining bone fractures in the future, and that’s already a good enough reason to choose riding an electric scooter over other less-involved modes of transport.
Great low-impact exercise
Riding an electric scooter can be considered a light exercise and can benefit anyone trying to live healthier. Although it probably won’t help you lose a lot of weight, it will definitely help you achieve a healthier and more active lifestyle.
Of course, riding a scooter won’t provide you with the same benefits that other low-impact workouts, such as walking, swimming, yoga, or Pilates, could. However, it could still offer you minor benefits as far as your physical activity is concerned. After all, standing is more beneficial for your health than sitting, making electric scooters healthier than cars, buses, trains, and most other modes of transport.
Additionally, not everyone likes working out, and some are even prevented from doing so for various reasons, so riding an electric scooter is a great and easy way for these individuals to stay active.
Helps burn calories
Riding an electric scooter requires you to stand upright during the whole ride. As you may already know, we lose way more calories when standing than sitting.
Of course, going for a ride on this two-wheeled vehicle daily won’t help you lose as many calories as walking, jogging, or cycling could, but it’s still a more effective way to burn off calories than sitting in your car or riding on a bus.
In fact, even though determining how many calories riding a scooter can help you lose is a bit tricky, many electric scooter owners claim that going for a ride for as little as 30 minutes can help you burn up to 150 calories.
Improves posture
Most people today lead a sedentary lifestyle, spending much of their time in chairs or couches. And time spent sitting has a negative effect on your posture.
Riding an electric scooter will reduce the sitting time.
Moreover, the more often you ride it, the quicker you’ll adopt a better, upright posture. Riding the scooter pretty much forces you to.
It won’t be long before you notice that you’ve also got used to standing upright at home, at your desk at work, etc.
In addition, not only can riding an electric scooter benefit people leading a sedentary lifestyle, but it can also benefit people having back pain or sore shoulder and neck muscles due to poor posture. Needless to say, it can prevent you from having bad posture later in life too.
Improves balance
Maintaining upright posture while riding an e-scooter helps you keep your balance on it. It helps you learn how to hold yourself steady as you pick up speed, slow down, round corners, climb up or come down hills, or avoid hitting bumps on a road.
Balancing yourself also helps you be more alert and feel more comfortable standing on the deck during the whole ride. This, in turn, allows you to ride the electric scooter more safely.
Improves coordination
Riding an electric scooter requires you to perform various tasks during the whole ride. This can help improve your coordination and awareness over time.
Balancing yourself while controlling the steering wheel, gas and brake levers, signaling turns, slowing down, accelerating, are just some of the tasks you need to juggle when riding.
Additionally, you also need to stay focused and keep an eye on the road during the entire ride so that you can react fast, avoid obstacles or accidents, etc.
It’s good for mental health
Riding an e-scooter regularly can benefit your mental health in the following ways:
- boosts your mood
- reduces your stress levels
- makes you feel relaxed
- entertains you
Picture this – you wake up and you already know you won’t get stuck in a traffic jam. Or, you won’t have to look for a parking spot.
This can instantly improve your mood and make you feel relaxed, even before you put your feet on your electric scooter.
And once you begin your ride, chances are that your mood will improve even more. Riding on the streets while getting a bit of fresh air, soaking up the sun, feeling the wind in your hair, and enjoying the sightseeing can definitely give you a sense of freedom and make you feel more energized, more motivated, and more optimistic, and thus improve your mood.
Improves sleep
Riding an electric scooter can benefit anyone struggling to fall asleep at night because it has a soothing effect both on your mind and body. Also, it’s a great way to unwind and finish the day.
Protects against viruses
We all know how greatly beneficial spending time outdoors and breathing in fresh air is to our health, especially to our immune system.
Unlike riding in a car with others or using public transport, where you can easily contract viruses, using this mode of transport can help protect you against this health risk since it allows you to keep distance from other people.
Other benefits of electric scooters
In addition to being good for your physical and mental health, riding an electric scooter has several other benefits that can also affect your health in less-direct ways.
Electric scooters are a great option for people with certain health issues
Electric scooters are great for people suffering from certain health conditions. People with limited mobility appreciate electric scooters as it greatly enhances their mobility and enables them to get around easily.
Riding a scooter when going to work or just exploring your surroundings together with your friends or alone allows you to meet other people who also enjoy riding e-scooters. A better social life leads to improved health, so this is one more way in which an electric scooter can be beneficial.
Electric scooters help keep the environment clean
Compared to other transportation modes, electric scooters are way more eco-friendly since they contribute to decreasing carbon emissions from vehicles. This means that substituting other forms of transport with scooters could help reduce air pollution.
Now, electric scooters are not completely harmless to the environment.
Carbon dioxide emissions do occur during the production, distribution, and transportation of e-scooters. Also, charging the battery requires electricity, and electricity production typically has a carbon footprint in most places.
Still, electric scooters are cleaner than most other modes of transport, and a cleaner environment is healthier not just for the owner of the scooter, but for everyone else as well.
Electric scooter health risks
Well, it can’t be all good news.
While they offer a number of health benefits, electric scooters also bring a few health risks you should be aware of.
Some of the most important ones include:
- electric scooter rides can cause back pain, neck pain, or abdomen pain
- electric scooter rides can cause kidney pain
- electric scooter riding can cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- electric scooters with seats may cause erectile dysfunction
See my detailed guide on electric scooter health risks if you’d like to find out more.
