As a balance-based workout, slacklining or walking on a line had been limited to circus performers for years, but today the activity is attracting everyone because of its many health benefits. Whether you’re a professional athlete, child, woman, or older person, slacklining is a good outdoor workout for you in many ways.

Is Slacklining a Good Workout? All activities we do are based on balance and slacklining is a form of balance training which helps to improve your body control in everything you do like walking, running, standing, surfing, or dancing. Walking on a slackline can also help straighten your posture, mental fortitude as well as prevent injuries and improve athletic training.

Besides, the older we become, the more we find it harder to retain the necessary faculties that enable us to maintain the balance and strength we need for our daily activities.

While Slacklining may look scary for beginners, it’s practically a good and exciting kind of workout you should take part in!

What is Slacklining?

Slacklining is a sport and art which involves walking, running, or balancing along a slackline or suspended length of flat nylon/polyester webbing, tensioned between two anchors such as trees or houses.

This stretching and tensioning activity can be for balance training, moving meditation, and recreation. From your first glance, you may think slacklining is slack rope and tightrope walking.

The origin of slacklining is most commonly attributed to rock climbers at the Yosemite National Park in California in the late 1970s. They turned to slacklining because they needed a pastime that involved maintaining focus, core strength fitness, and skill balance.

Unlike walking on a tightrope, most slackliners only balance a couple of feet off the ground, which makes the activity a perfect workout for your entire family.

Are you still struggling to answer the question; is slacklining a good workout? If yes, continue reading to find out multiple reasons which show that Slacklining is a great workout to add to your outdoor fitness routine. We’ve based this article on the most recent research, our observations, and customer feedback.

Full Body Workout

It requires the full use of your body to balance on a slack line. By so doing, your muscles and focus get fully engaged as you work hard on not falling off the line. The most applicable and effective technique involves keeping the lower part of your body static while moving only from your hips up.

This means Slacklining helps you to work on your entire body, muscles, making the sport a holistic type of workout for muscle, balance, and weight distribution skills.

Corrects Bad Posture

Another reason Slacklining is a good workout is that it corrects any bad posture you may have. Bad posture is not only responsible for most back and neck pain problems, but also many other negative health concerns. Slacklining is a great way to seek relief from bad posture.

In a recent study, it was found that Slacklining can improve posture by enabling an increase in your postural control. This makes walking on a slackline an excellent workout for your health!

Activates Core and Lower Body Strength

If you want to work on your core and lower body to make it much stronger, add Slacklining to your workout routine, and the muscle development you desire will happen. Note that it takes time and effort as Slacklining requires the intense engagement of both your core and lower body muscles.

It’s a fun alternative compared to sit-ups and squats, though at the start, you’ll experience some sore pain.

Improves Focus and Concentration

There’s no doubt that when you step on a slackline, and it begins to shake, your brain increases its focus and concentration level instantly.

If you fail to concentrate in that situation, you’ll fall immediately. This means slackline walking helps to enhance the focus and concentration you need to apply in your daily life.

The eye-foot coordination and body movement required during the line walk is so immense that it trains and improves your brain’s ability to focus intensely even when the need is sudden.

Avoid Injury

Any workout that helps you avoid injury in addition to other benefits is worth it! Walking on a slack line also means working against poor balance. It’s a great way to reduce the risk of injury.

If you live an active life or play sports, you are likely to have a high risk of injury if your balance is poor. One study about basketball player injuries found that players with good balance are 7 times less likely to sustain ankle injuries than those with poor balance.

According to some other studies, Slacklining improves functional knee joint stability. No wonder, a lot of athletes are using slackline balance training to enhance their performance and injury prevention.

Promotes Social Interaction

Though a workout, Slacklining also serves as an outdoor social activity that makes your workout with friends so much fun. Moreover, when you exercise with friends, they can motivate you to go beyond your own expectations, making Slacklining a great workout.

Besides, setting up slacklines between trees means you’ll mostly do your workouts in public areas where curious passersby are likely to want to watch and perhaps join in for fun.

Improves on Your Favorite Sports

What sports do you play? Is it golfing, surfing, football, skiing, etc.? Slacklining is one of the best balance-based fitness workouts that improve balance.

Improved balance translates to improved performance, irrespective of the kind of sports you play. Some of the most balance-based athletes are surfers and rock climbers, and that’s exactly why they have been walking on slacklines to enhance their balance training for years.

For the same reason, world-record speed skiers, endurance runners, and track and field athletes are known for using slacklines as their training regimens.

Affordable Workout

Adding slacklining to your fitness routine doesn’t come with too much financial stress since getting your slackline, which is very similar to a tightrope or trapeze ropes, is quite affordable.

So, you just need to purchase the line, and you’re ready to enjoy this novel physical activity, alone, with friends or family.

Enhances Meditative State

The mind and body coordination that’s usually incorporated in slackline walking or running can be termed a moving meditation. With conventional meditation, we draw inwards and reflect, and in Slacklining, we apply the same inner focus and breathing.

Slacklining involves a mental and physical challenge that’s enough to immerse you in a zen state-of-mind. It renders you a clear and focused mind that gives you drive.

Rehab You from Injury

Today chiropractors, physiotherapists, and sports physicians are turning to Slacklining as a new technique to rehab injuries effectively.

The reason these professionals have embraced Slacklining is that when an injured person walks on a slackline, the exercise forces them to use all the muscles in their body, and that leads to something referred to as a neuromuscular response. It’s simply a connection between body and mind.

To be honest, we don’t know all the comprehensive science behind slacklining, and rehab like physiotherapists do. Hence, we encourage you to read about the studies on Slackline training and neuromuscular performance.

Types of Slacklining

Waterline

When a slackline crosses over water, it becomes a waterline. Slackline walking over water is pretty challenging because of the influence water movement has on our visual sense, which affects our ability to control balance.

Highline

A highline is a slackline that runs between rocks, buildings, or over rifts. Highlines are usually more than 10 meters high. Though their appearance is extreme, highlining has an impressive safety record alongside great self-regulations and safety policies. Highliners require a lot of calmness and focus on maintaining the much-needed self-control.

Besides, every component of the line has a back up that keeps the line from failing or saves the highliner from falling.

Trickline

Combining acrobatics, gymnastics, and slacklining such that the slackline is fitted with a flexible webbing under very high tensions, is referred to as tricklining. Besides, it usually allows for a trampoline effect. The activities of trickliners involve bouncing, flipping, jumping, and spinning and all that involves many rapidly developing tricks.

Yogaline

Some slackliners are into a kind of slacklining practice that can be described as yogalining or yoga slacklining. This involves the adoption of common yoga poses when walking on a slackline. However, yogaliners usually encounter a lot of challenges due to the movement of the slackline, which makes even the simplest yoga poses difficult to take.

Rodeoline

The popularity of rodeolining in recent years keeps increasing. Apart from being used in its own right, highliners also use rodeolining as a method of training to improve their highlining balance.

Rodeolines are rigged by a simple anchor of each webbing end with no tension, and that renders it loose. With such rigging, they end up forming a kind of U-shape appearance as opposed to a line. Slackliners often intentionally resort to surfing, which is the practice of swinging a line from side to side.

Final Thoughts on is Slacklining a Good Workout

Slacklining is not only a good workout for you but also an excellent method of training for your other favorite sports also. If you want to engage in an affordable full-body workout that helps to develop your core muscles, straighten your posture, mental fortitude well as prevent injuries, start Slacklining.

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