If you ever used a hula hoop as a kid, you’ll know how much fun hooping can be. As hooping expert Betty “Hoops” Shurin points out, ‘So many people say they feel like a kid again when they try my hoop workout.’ However, hooping isn’t just fun; it’s also mightily beneficial to your wellbeing. Shurin’s Dance Hoop Workout – designed to do at home with the included 40-minute workout DVD – is a serious fat-burning routine that get help you get trim and toned in no time.
While hooping brings back the fun of being a kid, it’s important to note that this is no toy hula hoop. Based partly on what she’s learned in her 10 years as a hoop instructor at clubs including Bally’s and Curves, Shurin has designed a strategically weighted hoop that is easier to keep around your waist but still works your core muscles (abs plus obliques, at the sides of your waist), glutes and thighs. A hoop workout requires constant push-pull contractions with added resistance created by a somewhat heavier hoop, meaning that you’ll be sculpted and reshaped in all the right places.
Shurin adds that the hoop workout ‘also burns 100 calories every 10 minutes. That’s as much as running on a treadmill — and a lot more fun.’ Plus, the low-impact nature of the workout means that it won’t put a lot of stress on your joints. To do the routine, you start by performing fluid, artful-looking moves. These moves have mostly been inspired by Iyengar yoga, Kundalini yoga, and t’ai chi techniques, meaning that you get a great workout while also looking and feeling amazing. Just ask Patti Natafalusy, owner of Go Figure fitness club. ‘90% of my clients use Betty’s hoop for cardio and muscle tone,’ she says. ‘One of my clients lost two inches off her waist in two months, just from hooping. Another who is 63 hoops every time she comes in for at least 30 minutes. Hooping with these adult-sized hoops is a really great workout.’
If you feel like giving hooping a try, make sure you follow Shurin’s five hula hooping workout tips:
1. Use the Right Muscles: ‘Stabilise your torso and legs, and mobilise your midsection,’ Shurin instructs. ‘Only use your abdominal muscles and hips to keep the hoop spinning.’
2. Improve Your Posture: ‘Scoop your belly in and lift your ribcage,’ Shurin advises. ‘Extend from the centre of your body out. The better your posture, the easier it will be to hoop.’
3. Get Momentum: Shurin directs, ‘Hold the hoop parallel to the floor as you start the spin, and give it some good momentum so it doesn’t start out wobbly.’
4. Speed it Up: ‘If your hoop starts to fall, lengthen your spine, push forward and back, and move faster,’ suggests Shurin. ‘Imagine yourself as the axis of the orbit, not the orbit itself. If you try to move with the hoop (rotating your hips in a circle) the hoop will lose momentum and fall. Move side to side with your waist and hips or back to front with your belly. Feel the centrifugal force, but don’t try to be the circle; let the circle move around you.’
5. Stick with it: Shurin explains ‘The longer you hoop, the more your body gets used to the movements, and the more skill and confidence you’ll have with your hoop. The hoop is your dance partner. You are creating new muscle as you allow the hoop to move around you and allow yourself to be moved by it.’
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