How to Stop on Roller Skates Safe Methods

Though the overall popularity of skating may have dwindled, it is still an activity many people enjoy. Learning to skate involves getting your balance, practicing turns, and changing speed, but learning to stop is extra important because not being able to stop affects your safety. You can learn to T-Stop by scissoring your legs, planting your back foot perpendicular, and dragging it to a stop, and plow stop by spreading your legs wide and pointing your toes inward to increase friction. You can also learn a few other methods like the knee stop and spinout stop

Method:1 Learning Basic Stops

1 Use your knee pad to stop. Since it is typically recommended to wear safety gear when you are skating, you should have knees pads on already. To perform this stop, slowly lower one knee to the ground and allow it to drag. This is a good stopping technique for beginners as it takes very little skill to perform. You don’t want to rely on it, just use it as a backup when necessary.


2 Use the heel or toe brakes. Since inline skates typically have a heel brake and quad skates have toe stops, these are a basic, common way to stop. Both brakes are best used with your legs scissored, one forward and one back. To use the heel brake, the skate with the heel brake should be forward. Lift your front foot toes and gently apply pressure to the brake. To use toe stops, lift your back leg heel and apply pressure to the toe stop

3 Perfect the spinout stop. Plant one foot and allow the other foot to trace a wide circle around your body. This transfers your motion from forward to circular movement, which slows you down to a stop while keeping you fixed in one location. This is most effective if you plant your dominant foot and allow your non-dominant foot to trace the circle around you. This is also an effective movement if you just want to slow down and not come to a complete stop.
Method :2 Performing a Plow Stop

1 Spread your legs wider than your shoulders. Although you most likely skate with your feet about shoulder width, to make this stopping technique most effective you must widen your stance. As you do this, it is helpful to bend the knees a little, as well. Don’t spread your legs so wide that it feels like a strain, just make them wider than they normally would be during skating.
2 Bring your feet slowly closer together. Pointing your toes inward will already start to slow you down, but coming to a full stop, especially if you need to stop quickly, requires you to bring the feet closer together. Going from a wide stance to a very tight stance may make you feel a little wobbly, so go slow and keep the knees slightly bent rather than straight and rigid.



4  Let the inside wheels rub each other. Once your feet are close and still pointing inward, adjust so that the front wheels are just barely touching. Allowing the wheels to rub together adds just enough friction to slow you down all the way to a stop. Again, you don’t want to let them slam together and rub so hard that you stop immediately as this will likely result in you losing balance and falling forward.
Method: 3 Using the T-Stop


1 Place your back foot on the ground. Do this gently rather than stomping your foot down. At 90 degrees to your front foot and keeping your legs scissored, set the foot down. It should be about one foot behind your front foot. Even as you set the foot back down, you don’t want to put much of your actual weight on the back foot. You will simply apply a bit of pressure.
The movement of lifting the foot, turning the foot, and setting the foot back down should be done as quickly and smoothly as you can. The goal is to have the three motions turn into one smooth motion.
Remember that since your legs are scissored and your foot is pointing sideways that it will come down onto the ground at a slight angle towards the rest of your body. Your front leg skate will be straight up but your back skate will be at an angle

2 Drag your back foot until you stop. Do not put weight on the back foot, just apply enough pressure to slow you down. The more pressure you apply, the faster you will stop. Gauge how much stopping room you have and apply pressure accordingly.

Tips .

Especially when you are first learning how to skate, it is very important to wear protective gear such as a helmet, elbow and knee pads.

Learning to stop takes practice, so if you don’t quite get the technique at first, just keep at it.