Five Extreme Sports You Never Heard Of

Extreme sports have gained in popularity over the past few years with break out stars from skateboarding, BMX, and motorcross signing television and endorsement deals. As the popularity grows more sports reach new fans, but there are a lot of extreme sports that haven’t broken through yet. Here are five extreme sports that may or may not make the leap into the main stream.

This is not your father’s pogo stick. The “flybar”, a super springy pogo stick, can launch people seven feet in the air. Stunt pogoing has it’s own brand of tricks and incorporates styles from BMX and skateboarding, just without the cool factor. Check out this video from the NYC street games and you might be so impressed, you’ll forget these are happening on a pogo stick.

Dirt surfing is a board sport where riders coast along an inline board over roads, mountains, grass and anything else they want. The bigger wheels work on more terrains and some disciplines attach a kite to the board and take it to the next level – wingsurfing.  Watch some old guys in the UK do it in these videos.

Powerbocking is the name for what is basically a set of extreme stilts. It’s like the xgames for performance artists. They attach on the feet with bindings and the user springs off of them to jump up to three feet high and run up to twenty mph. The sport is also called “powerskipping”, but that sounds awfully lame so let’s keep “powerbocking” even though no one will know what that means. Here are some guys bouncing around.

Freestyle walking is basically climbing and jumping off stuff. Any 10-year-old kid that is outside playing is freestyle walking right now. Is this a sport for people who are too scared to ride on something with wheels? Freestyle walking is the air guitar of extreme sports. Here’s some knuckleheads freestyle walking at their old high school. I bet these stories kill at the reunion.

The Flat Stanley of sports. You know that little character that gets mailed around the world from third grade students? Then Flat Stanley returns to the classroom with pictures of all of his crazy adventures? If you don’t know it, it’s adorable, look it up and when you have kids you’ll understand. Extreme ironing seems like a joke photo opportunity. “Wouldn’t it be funny if when I climbed this mountain, I took a picture with my ironing board?” According to the official website, extreme ironing is "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt." Here's the first and only video you'll ever click on to watch people iron.