A Hula hoop is a great fun exercise to help you stay fit. Through a variety of hula hoop exercises, you can engage as many as 30 muscles of your body, including your arms, abdomen, buttocks, legs and waist. If you have accumulated fat in these areas, you know how difficult it is to tone them up again, and hula hoop can actually come to your rescue under such circumstances. It helps in improving your flexibility, motor skills, balance, endurance and hand-eye coordination. After a hectic day of work or even school, a hula hoop exercise can rejuvenate you and fill you up with the much needed vigor and energy. There are numerous benefits of doing hula hoop exercises. If you want to know what hula hoop exercise is good for, this oneHOWTO article is going to tell you more.
It strengthens and tones your ab muscles
Hula hoop exercises help in toning your abdominal muscles, including the external and internal obliques, rectus abdominus, transversus abdominus and others. As you move and groove your body to continue the rotation of the hoop, all of these muscles get a nice workout.
It helps in fat loss
When compared to any other ab building exercise, hula hoop is a great aerobic exercise to burn calories. You can burn as many as 400 calories in an hour with hula hooping, and even 600 if you use a weighted hula hoop and you involve your legs and arms in the exercise as well. So, if you are trying to shed some pounds, make hula hoop a regular part of your fat burning workout. Don’t miss the fun of hula hoping. Just enjoy and have fun, the fat loss will take care of itself.
It improves your heart health
Hula hoping is beneficial for your heart as well. It is an intense exercise aimed at working out your muscles, including the heart. Anyone who starts hooping will quickly notice his heart rate going up within seconds. So, hooping just for 20 minutes in a day will give you a moderate to vigorous physical activity that is important for improving your heart health.
It builds stamina
According to experts, one should hula hoop for at least 10 minutes in one go. For beginners, this little time frame of 10 minutes is quite challenging too. Since you can increase the time gradually, hooping can serve as a great workout to begin with before including other exercises in your daily routine. The benefits you get from hula hooping is similar to those availed from kickboxing and aerobics.
It improves the flexibility and strength of your spine
Hula hoping requires a wide range of spinal motion. With increased practice, your spine will get trained to a wide motion range, due to which your flexibility will increase and there will be reduced chances of back pain and injuries. While doing a hula hoop exercise, you will be making rhythmic movements backward and forward, while shifting your weight along the spine. This will release tension from your muscles and realign your sacrum along with your entire spine. Owing to this, there will be an improvement in the flow of blood along your spine, and there will be a total increase in your spinal flexibility.
It increases concentration
Hula hooping is a unique form of exercise, in which you need to concentrate a lot on your movements. Almost anyone can master it, but it requires acute concentration and dedication. You just can’t let your mind wander away while you are hula hoping and going through an aerobic and ab workout. Training your concentration in this manner can be a blessing in other life areas as well.
It improves your mood and makes you happy
In addition to giving you an intense physical exercise and improving your overall health, it also helps you by improving your mood and making you happy. While hula hooping, endorphins are released in your body that give positive benefits to your mood and mental health. After this exercise, you will end up feeling stronger, younger and more confident.
How to use a hula hoop in your exercise routine
Obviously, just playing with a hula hoop randomly won't magically give you all of the benefits listed above, you will need to use it in an adequate way and in combination with the following:
Type of hula hoop
Although you can exercise with a regular hula hoop if you want to just have some fun and get your mind off things, the best way to benefit from a hula hoop is to get one with weights. Weighted hula hoops are available at most specialized shops and come in different weights, so you can start with a heavy one and progressively move to lighter hula hoops, which are more difficult to control. Make sure you purchase a hula hoop that, when placed on the floor upright, is as high as your waist, no lower.
You can also get smaller diameter hula hoops to exercise arms at the same time as you do your belly area.
Hula hoop workout
As we've said above, a 10 minute hula hoop routine is all you'll be able to manage and is the optimum time to build those abs. Put on some energetic music so you can turn to the rhythm. Start your first 10 minute workout with a heavy hula hoop so you can last longer.
If you've mastered the waist, try moving the hula hoop upwards and downwards around your legs in further sessions.
Once the 10 minutes have passed, rest for 5 minutes. Lie down on the floor, lift your leg and spin the hoop on it for as long as you can. The trick is to spin your thigh so your leg moves as one articulation. Do the same with the other leg. Now, spin your hula hoop on each arm for around one minute per arm.
In further sessions, try combining with smaller hoops on your arms to combine both exercises or take a look at this full hula hoop workout.
Combine with other exercise
As we've said, relying on just a hula hoop to lose weight and belly fat is unrealistic. In order to keep fit, combine with 3 days cardio such as running, zumba classes, spinning... and make sure you keep a healthy diet free of trans fats, low in meat and full of vegetables and vitamins.
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