Taking Care of your Body while Scooting

Hey everyone it’s Dan from Barefoot Physiotherapy. I want to share my personal tips and experience with electric scooters. I scooter to work every day and have noticed that there are a few things you can do to keep your body happy while you are riding a scooter.

1. Top tips for riding a scooter

Safety:

• Make sure you have a helmet on and double check that your brakes and lights are working (especially if you are using a scooter that you are trying for the first time)
• Watch out for pedestrians and cars and try to avoid bumpy ground as I found that riding on bumpy or uneven surfaces is harsh on the joints and muscles as it causes more vibrations and it’s harder to control the scooter
• Wearing bright colours of a night time for visibility

Posture:

• Firm and steady grip around both handles, wrists not folded back or forward excessively.
• Neck and shoulders should be relaxed.
• Elbows approximately 90-120 degrees arms reaching out in front of you comfortably. Don’t lock your arms down or squeeze your arms onto your body.
• Trunk upright and keeping your back relaxed.
• Gently squeeze your glutes and keep your knees slightly bent(I know it’s very tempting to just lock your knees out, if you do a lot of the shock you feel will likely go through your joints more than your muscles).
• Keep one foot forward and turn your toes out approximately 20 degrees or whichever angle your hip feels most comfortable(Everyone has a different hip).
• If you feel like your outer hip bone area is feeling tight or uncomfortable try widening your feet apart more rather than having your feet right in front of each other.
• If you are riding for more than 10 minutes I would highly recommend switching the front foot with the back.

2. Best muscle releases when riding a scooter

• Foream muscles(wrist flexors) – they can become tight gripping the handles
• Thumb flexor/adductor release – probably more your right thumb depending on the scooter model, might become tight pressing the accelerator
• Lat release – Lats can get tight from tensing too much from
• Glute and deep hip rotator releases – Can get quite tight and sore from standing and stabilising your hip/body on the scooter
• Hamstring and quad releases
• Calf releases – lower body muscle might get fatigued and tight as they constantly adjust to balance your body.

3. Best exercises for scooter riding

• Everyone could benefit from more stability/endurance while they are on their scooter. When our muscles become more fatigued and tight we are more prone to injury. To prevent this from happening we should strengthen up our muscles(especially our lower limb muscles). Here are some exercises that target balance, lower body strength and endurance and also help you in certain situations.
• Side hop for emergency exit/getting out of the way of a car
• Single leg Squat with emphasis on eccentric control for safely stopping the scooter when the brakes don’t work properly.
• Tandem stance(one foot in front of the other) with eyes closed, on an even surface next to a wall (not on the scooter) for better balance and stability on scooter
• Double leg glute activation in standing or Single leg hold at wall to increase glute activation and endurance

Hopefully some of the tips above help you optimise the way your body feels when riding an electric scooter. Sometimes our surroundings are quite unpredictable and we might have landed funny. If you do start feeling pain in your foot or knee please book in with one of our Barefoot Physiotherapists for professional assessment and treatment.

If you enjoyed this blog please check out our blog on How to do a great squat or Getting into Exercise.