Skateboarding: The vital role of rest and recovery

A hard day skateboarding in the streets or parks can give you a feeling of accomplishment unlike anything else; anyone who skates knows that.

But it also might leave you feeling low on energy, a bit achy and sometimes, quite stiff.

Those symptoms, of discomfort and lethargy, tend to occur from the deterioration of muscle after over usage and, over time, soreness and fatigue can impact the ability to skate again the next day.

Like amateur skaters, athletes also know the pain caused by a big day of skating.

In order to keep practising, so they can keep improving, some have devised ways to work with their bodies to make sure they can skate to the best of their abilities. For many, that means paying attention to the time spent just after skating, in the window of rest and recovery. 

To find out more about what the best in street skateboarding are doing to optimise their rest, Olympics.com spoke to some of the top athletes with intriguing results.

The importance of rest and recovery for injury prevention and rehabilitation with Nyjah Huston

Late last summer, after winning the 2022 World Skate Tour: Street Skateboarding Rome event, Nyjah Huston did something he hoped would never happen in his career - he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The injury, which he has referred to as the worst he has ever suffered, typically takes the average person nine-to-12 months to recover. And given the ligament's importance to the knee's function, there is often no guarantee that someone coming back will be able to do with their body what they once did before.

For Huston, rehabilitation was a mental test as much as a physical one, but the determined skater said not a day went by when he wasn’t working on his comeback.

The American’s dedication was ultimately rewarded when, in just a little under eight months, he was back competing at Tampa Pro – one of street skating’s most prestigious contests. And that, he credits to his recovery work.

“I think me coming back fast is a mixture of me taking care of my body, taking care of my health, eating healthy, being on the PT (physical therapy) right away and really working hard at that every day of the week,” Huston explained.

“I was on the whole training a little bit, working out, taking care of my body before a lot of other people. Back when I was 18, 19 [years old]. And then over the years as I get older, obviously, I have to start taking it more and more seriously. And that’s everything. From working out to eating the right way, to stretching every day and all that stuff really makes a big difference especially when coming back from injury.”

Keeping up with the kids: Rest and recovery for longevity with Manny Santiago

When it comes to the older guard of street skaters still kicking it around the competition scene, the mood around rest and recovery is mixed. To some, it’s a shift away from the original culture of skateboarding towards a mainstream that many have rejected for so long.

For others, focus on recuperation and repair is less of a choice and more of a necessity if they want to keep skating at the top level.

37-year-old Tokyo 2020 Olympian Manny Santiago is a street skater that puts himself in the second category and came to it after being forced into double ankle surgery mid-way through his career.

Having already made small shifts towards improving his health at the age of 25 when he became a father, the Puerto Rican explained that the injury compelled him to change his perspective. He began looking at ways to keep himself fit and healthy.

“I kind of altered my life into this very therapeutic kind of lifestyle so that I can be able to skate how I want for as long as I want,” Santiago said.

“Skateboarding is a big part of my life and it's something I identify with. It isn't who I am, but it's a majority of my life and it's something that I want to do for as long as I can.”

From doing half an hour of foam rolling and warm-up stretches before hitting the course to eating well, to then icing after, the therapies that the skater goes through are long and extensive – but all part of his plan to keep going for as long as possible.

“There's physical therapy when you need it. So, say you hurt yourself, you need physical therapy. Then there's post-physical therapy. Then there's just changing your lifestyle to making sure that every day becomes like physical therapy without it being physical therapy so just adapting and applying, Like, okay, if I am going to skate today, I'm going to take 20 minutes to stretch, roll out, I'm going to watch what food I take and also post stretch workout and then also what I eat before bed.

“If I have two sessions that day, for sure, I'm icing completely when I'm done skating. I'll get into an ice tub then I'll make dinner, or my partner will make dinner, or she'll be in the ice tub and I'll cook, and then I'll hop into the ice tub and she preps the food.

“I do intermittent fasting, which is I try to eat breakfast after 12 and dinner before eight. So, I typically try to eat two meals and I'm also vegan, so that helps a lot.”

Chloe Covell: Ice and hot baths

In the competitive world of street skating sometimes rest and recovery are about finding those extra margins of performance.

That is the case of Australia’s phenom Chloe Covell and Brazil’s Gabi Mazetto.

But, interestingly, both have very different approaches when it comes to recuperating.

For 13-year-old Covell, negotiating the demands of skating is all about managing the physical load and the Aussie has a fair few tactics she uses to stay on top.

In addition to relying on sleep, massage guns and recovery boots she also, like Santiago, uses baths to help her body repair: I go to a place that’s near my house that has ice baths, hot baths and normal temperature [baths]. I go to them a couple of times a month.”

Aspiring Olympian Mazetto’s focus when it comes to recovery is much on the mental dimension of skating.

"I like to listen to mantras and talk to my psychologist,” the 24-year-old told Olympics.com. “In the days before competitions, if I'm too nervous, I text her. I do breathing exercises, too. When I want to disconnect, I like to be alone in my corner, thinking."