It’s so funny to think that two sports that I always dreaded having to play as a kid, because it usually meant being humiliated due to the competitive nature of gym class and also because I had almost zero athletic skills and hand eye coordination as a kid, are two of the best summer sports to play at parties. Not only are they fun to play when you’re putting a few beers back at summer parties, but they also happen to be great sports for burning calories in the summer heat.

You do a lot of running back and forth in both of these games, and that’s where you get the majority of your workout done. It’s not so much hitting the volley ball or the birdie with your racket that works your body out, but it’s like basketball, you’re constantly running back and forth chasing the ball.

The last time I played volley ball, it was pretty hot outside, and I was really out of breath at the end of the game, and sweating a lot to boot. It’s a great way to brush up on your hand eye coordination and keep your mind sharp because your mind has to be “on” the whole time.

A badminton set with two rackets and two birdies will cost you only about five bucks at Wal-Mart. And, if you’ve already got a net, then all you need are the birdies and the rackets. And then, of course if you have a net, you just need to buy the volleyball to play a couple different sports at once.

Both games are really fun, and just about anyone can do them. They get you moving, and they’re a great conversation piece afterwards, so you’re not all just sitting around like bumps on a log instead of engaging in physical activity.

Make sure you wear good tennis shoes, because if you don’t, you’re feet will slip and slide all over, especially if you’re wearing flip flops, which is the mistake I made a couple weeks ago, I was slipping and sliding all over.I’m lucky I didn’t blow my ankle out!

I hate to harp so much on my newfound interest and joy in a sport that I used to do as a child with my grandfather and my little sister and my mom so often – ice skating. I know that there’s a lot of hype built around the sport now too because of the winter Olympic games and the still highly spectated sport of figure skating – which I still enjoy watching on tv immensely, I suppose it’s somewhat like a trip down memory lane for me to my younger days.

Definitely very sentimental and nostalgic thing for me, we used to watch it together as a family, and I guess it’s a very fond memory I have of our family actually having fun together times as a younger girl, before my parents got divorced when I was sixteen, so it definitely holds a special place in my heart. My mom, sister and I went when my sister was in town from California at an ice arena around where I grew up, and I had a blast.

Although I was really shaky and unsure of myself at the outset because I hadn’t been ice skating in several years, I quickly became reacqainted with the sport, and was whizzing by beginners in no time, enjoying feeling the cold breeze on my face and the feeling that I was gliding through the air.

My husband and I decided to go again, together, since after my sister mom and I went, he was anxious to get back out on the ice after a long hiatus from it. He had taken skating in college, and he hadn’t been ice skating in years either, so after we went, he said he’d like to go. We ended up going to the college ice arena, and we also had a ball.

It was PACKED though. Here in Ohio, we actually had a nice day with the sun out, which has been a rarity over the past few weeks with us getting hammered with snow nonstop, so people were out in full force, and I’m sure that the buzz about ice skating from the winter Olympics were definitely contributing to the popularity of the sport.

We had a few falls – well, mostly my husband did because he didn’t have the benefit of having just been skating like I did, and he ended up with a big knot on his knee from taking a nasty spill, but we both had fun and got a great workout, and worked muscles we’d forgotten we had. It was a really great, active bonding experience!

With all the excitement over the Olympics, and American’s continued interest in figure skating, but not as much as it used to be sadly before the scandals of unfair scoring came into view, there is a lot of attention on the sport of figure skating. Ice skating has always been a fun sport to engage in for me. Ever since I was a little girl, my grandpa, who was an avid ice skater (he passed away several years ago now), used to take me and my little sister ice skating all of the time.

We always enjoyed it, but I don’t think we appreciated the actual skating as much as we appreciated how much fun it was to get junk food at the snack bar! Hey, you just like different things when you’re a kid!

We did love carousing around on the ice though, gliding effortlessly and doing fun, faster skating when you really started to feel more confident that you weren’t going to fall. What we didn’t realize then either was that we were getting a great physical workout by skating for those two hours during the public skates in Cleveland Ohio.

You often don’t understand that you got a lot of muscle conditioning from skating until the next day, when your lower back might be sore, and you calves might be sore, depending on how you balance yourself and what muscles you use most. You are really using a lot of your core muscles too, especially if your core (your abs and the surrounding area) is conditioned to begin with, because then your body is more conditioned to actually use the core instead of the back.

This is why you should try extra hard to condition your core, because then your back will ache a lot less since your core is doing most of the work, which is how it should be. One thing you want to be mindful of when you’re ice skating is to make sure your skates are laced up extra tight. This helps prevent sore ankles and arches, from straining to keep your body upright.

It provides extra support to these areas, and helps your body balance without trying so hard, so you can focus more on going faster and staying up than on balancing your feet on the ice.

What’s hilarious is when you get out on the ice during an open skate, you see children that are like 4 years old whizzing past everyone, doing fancy moves, and basically making everyone else look bad! Kids truly have no fear, we could definitely learn a thing or two from them as adults