Hooping is cardio without counting. Hooping improves core strength, tones your stomach, arms, thighs and butt, is a low-impact, high-energy workout that can burn approximately 400 - 600 calories in an hour.
What Can Hoops Do For You? Hooping is also an excellent way to relieve the stresses and strains of everyday life. Not only does your body benefit, hooping also improves your balance and posture, increases coordination and improves flexibility. Some people report an increase in self esteem and libido. Hooping is good for your body and good for your soul. And it makes you smile!
Contemporary hooping refers to artistic movements or freestyle dance using the hoop as a partner or prop, usually done to music. Hooping incorporates tricks and moves from many current trends, including rhythmic gymnastics, belly dancing, fire dancing, hip-hop, and Salsa dancing. There is no limit to what can be incorporated into a hula hoop dance routine.
As a Practice Hooping has a spiritual side also. As a perfect circle, the hoop is the ancient symbol for gnosis (knowledge with wisdom). It is the symbol of infinitude, the snake that eats its own tale, the cycle of death and rebirth, and the change within the Whole. The circle has long been used for delineating a sacred space. Whirling in the Sufi tradition (Whirling Dervishes) encourages a union with the divine.
Body Toning A regular hooping practice will improve your core strength and tone your arms, midsection, thighs, and derriere to name a few. Anecdotal stories and personal testimonies abound about how hooping helps to lose weight, increase stamina, and improve balance and coordination. All while having fun.
Back Pain Relief Hooping has helped some people relieve back pain. Too much hunching over a computer or slouching watching TV takes it toll on your back. Stress and anxiety further add to our bodies and backs “hunkering down.” Hooping makes your hips more fluid and helps to massage and loosen your lower back muscles thereby lessening back pain. Consult your physician before hooping, particularly if you experience any back pain.
Body Healing Energy Hooping has been recommended to unblock your chi* and get it moving again. Like acupressure, hooping stimulates and massages key pressure points on both the front and back as it revolves around your waist. It also hits points on your hands and arms as you practice off-body moves.
*chi, circulating life energy, that in Chinese philosophy is thought to be inherent in all things Hooping activates the chakras and stirs your energy. In fact, chakras mean circle or wheel in Sanskrit. This recharged energy helps to rebalance your chakras so that they are all working at their highest level. As energy moves up the spine, it helps to open the central energy channel in your body.
Spiritual Healing The rhythm of hooping has been likened to being rocked as a baby, a form of meditation, and a spiritual path to enlightenment. Hooping has helped cancer survivors reclaim their bodies, helped lift people out of depression, provided a way to silence the outside noises and find inner peace.
Mental Benefits In addition to physical hooping stimulates the brain, learning a new skill helps keep the mind active, strengthening neurological pathways, thus reducing risk for dementia. Hooping promotes happiness, self-esteem, confidence, laughter and has been reported to improve libido!
Bone Health Hooping has also become popular for countering osteoporosis as a gentle weight-bearing exercise. And like yoga, hooping engages the mind-body connection to help you feel more focused and relaxed.
Joint Flexing As hooping stretches and strengthens the core muscles of the torso, it also improves posture and balance. Hooping can increase the mobility of the spine and hips, which helps ensure that joints remain flexible. Gone Mainstream As an exercise, hooping is a low-impact full-body workout that has been showing up in dance studios and gyms across the nation. Like yoga and Pilates (watch Hoopilates in action) it works more than 30 core muscles to sculpt abdominals, builds muscle as well as strengthens them, improves balance, flexibility, and cardiovascular health.
Sub-Culture A full-length feature documentary, The Hooping Life consists of intimately video-blogged portraits of a subculture where art is a life-saver, liberating, and off the radar. With nothing more than a hula hoop, these individuals set out to change themselves and the world.
Mood Enhancing Baxter used hooping to stretch some temporarily paralyzed shoulder muscles. Not only did hooping help his body become strong again, he noticed his oft-lingering depression becoming less noticeable. Baxter is now a popular teacher, holding hooping classes and retreats all across the country.
Free Hoops World Hoop Day a not-for-profit organization that employs a community-based, grass roots approach to give away hoop as a simple and effective way to bring joy, dance and exercise to children living in extreme poverty around the world. Their mission is to give children who grow up too quickly a reason to smile or play and just be a child. To date 11,000+ hoops have been given away.
The press has found hooping in a BIG way! Hooping stories are popping up on local TV channels, the big networks, Time Magazine, People, Vogue and the Los Angeles Times to name a few.
Fitness History Summarized Below: From pre-10,000 BC, survival required a certain amount of fitness. Hunting and gathering took stamina to withstand the elements and escape from predators. Such excursions often lasted days and included visiting other tribes, many miles away. Celebrations could last from sun-up to sundown. Survival of the fittest was not a figure of speech back then.
10,000 - 8,000 B.C., as agriculture and technology began to develop and equipment replaced the need for physical labor, through observation, humans began to equate physical inactivity with illness, (internal organ malfunctions, etc).
In 2.500 - 250 B.C., the philosophical teachings in China of Confucius encouraged physical activity to maintain health. Although, some cultures emphasized spirituality at the expense of the body. Greeks did not.
Over 5,000 years ago, an exercise from Hindu priests called Yoga developed the mind, body and spirit, by mimicking animal movements to achieve a similar balance in nature to animals, combining religious beliefs and spirituality of Buddhism and Hinduism.
4.000 - 250 B. C. early leaders encouraged fitness both politically and militarily. Building ones stamina to maintain and expand control, and protect against foreign invasion was emphasized. Greeks long equated a strong mind with an equally strong body.
1400 - 1600, The Greeks began to combine physical fitness with education starting in Greece, spreading throughout Europe.
1700 - 1850, The fitness movement began through gymnastics programs. Marclaren in England recognized the importance of regular progressive exercise and the need for fitness and training programs for youth to help alleviate worry and stress.
1176 - 1860, European Gymnasts brought fitness to the U.S. Franklin and Jefferson recommended regular exercise to maintain health, however the education system did not include physical exercise until the mid 19th century when industry and mechanical technologies replaced heavy labor jobs.
After WWI, military records indicated low fitness levels. Government passed legislation to improve physical education programs, however in 1920 the depression began. Fitness levels often decrease after wars and during depressions. Chronic disease began to grow as rural to urban living spread.
WWII revealed that nearly half of the draftees were unfit for combat. By the 1940s Dr. Cureton identified exercise guidelines and benefits to specific exercise for specific individuals measuring strength and flexibility
1950 Jack LaLanne began airing on TV with fitness programs.
Results from a fitness test in Children indicated that children in European countries were 51% better fit than U.S. Children.
In 1954 the American College of Sports Medicine began promoting health and fitness.
1960s President Kennedy supported and expanded the Presidents council on Youth fitness, changed to (Pres council on Physical Fitness.)
In 1968, Dr. Ken H. Cooper, known as the father of the Modern fitness movement collected data to support regular exercise, resulting in Aerobics to help prevent chronic diseases, and maintain high fitness levels throughout life.
Watch these videos to see what modern hoop dancing can look like: