Many exercise classes use special heavy-weight hula hoops to increase the cardio workout and to burn more calories. High intensity aerobic exercise burns up to 400 calories during the same amount of time.

One of the benefits of hula hooping is that it can be done by people who are overweight – just try a high-intensity aerobic class if you’re carrying 50 extra pounds. It puts too much strain on your knees and ankles, and if you’re really out of shape you’ll run out of breath long before the class is over.

On the other hand, you can start hooping at home, get the old body moving again slowly, and work up to a more rigorous exercise routine in a few months.

Another reason why overweight people have trouble with any exercise program, even simple walking, is that the foods that make us fat also slow us down. That’s because sugar, refined grain products, simple carbohydrates and other fattening foods don’t just cause our bodies to store extra fat. That in itself would be bad enough.

But these foods actually cause fat and fat-soluble vitamins to be locked up in our fat cells, where other cells in the body can’t get to them.

You may be eating enough food to put on an extra pound a week, but the individual cells in your muscles and organs could be starving, because all the fuel and nutrients are locked away. Starving people slow down in order to conserve the small amount of fuel they have available to them.

That’s why both overweight people and people on low-calorie and low-fat diets often suffer from chronic fatigue and depression – it’s the body’s way of slowing you down. If you aren’t moving, there’s less demand for fuel.

Exercising when you’re overweight, even if you use a low-impact aerobic exercise like hula hooping, will burn more calories, and that means your starving cells will have even less fuel and nutrients to keep all their various functions going. So you get even more tired, and you could even get more depressed.

Let’s face it – if you eat the wrong foods, the individual cells in your body are on a low-calorie diet no matter how much food you eat, and studies done many years ago proved that fatigue and depression (and food cravings) are symptoms that you experience on a low-calorie diet. Exercise can make it even worse.

So – my advice is to eat a sensible, healthy diet that unlocks those fat cells, and then take up a nice, low-impact exercise. Hula hooping is one of the easiest, and most enjoyable exercises to start with, because it will make you feel like a kid again.

Perhaps the first known occurrence of a hoop device was those that were in use in Egypt over three thousand years ago. These hoops were made of grape vines and were propelled by sticks on the ground rather than a part of the human body.

The term that we know today, hula hoops, did not come to be until the early part of the eighteenth century when sailors noticed a stark similarity between hoops and the Hawaiian hula dance.

In the United States, hula hoops made their first real appearance in 1958. This is the year that the big toy maker Wham-O released a plastic version of a hoop that children could spin and play with. This was the beginning of a huge fad where the toy maker sold over 100 million of these hoops in only two years. Due to the fact that these hoops had been used over the course of history, no patent could be obtained, but the toy maker still made lots of profit on this simple invention.

Today, these hoops have grown from a child’s toy into a fun and useful tool. While lots of kids still enjoy hooping, many adults have joined in as well. There are fitness classes all over the country that are dedicated to hula hooping and the health benefits that can come from it. By adding moves, such as walking or dancing, you can take your hoop experience to a new level and burn lots of calories at the same time. With so many Americans fighting for weight loss, hooping has become a valid method of exercise.

There are also various competitions around the world that hoopers can participate in. The world record for the longest time spinning a hoop is over ninety hours! Today there is even a hooping world championship that people from all over the globe can participate in.

Beyond the fun factor, the sport does not require the purchase of intense or expensive equipment. You do not need a special trainer in order to learn how to spin a hoop. It simply takes practice and some sort of hoop. These days most people actually make there own hoops. You can find lots of tutorials online that will teach you how to do this. Hula hooping has truly become a niche sport that thousands of people can enjoy.

My younger sister and I practiced and practiced with those clunky black hoops and got really good at it. When we got the chance to use a ‘real’ hoop, we were even better, so when the local shopping center announced a contest, we were eager to participate. My mother was rather stunned by the idea of me competing in anything remotely athletic since I was a chubby klutz.

There were competitions for the longest continuous use of a hoop, the most hoops going at once, and for tricks as well. And they provided all the standard hoops for us to use, so those black things didn’t slow us down. My sister won two of the contests in her age group and amazingly, so did I in the older age group. I felt like walking on air. The prizes included a rather large collection of those real hoops which was great.

Learning to use a hula hoop was a great confidence builder for a shy and awkward kid. I could not only do what my friends did but could even do it better than they could. Being too poor for fancy equipment didn’t even matter, so I have a special place in my heart for hula hoops.

Today I still use hoops for fitness as well as for just plain having fun. It’s still pretty neat to impress both little kids and your doddering peers with hoop skills. I’ve also found that the hoops can make exercising even more fun. With pretty bad arthritis in my knees, I can’t do anything high impact, but I can sure wiggle enough to get some hoops going.

Using hoops is easier for me when doing arm-extended exercise than just trying to hold arms up without a hoop. Making it more comfortable motivates me to do more exercise and the fun aspect makes working out feel more like play than a burdensome task.

If you never played with hula hoops, I don’t believe it is ever too late to start joining in on the fun. I know a ninety year old lady who still twirls a mean hoop and looks pretty cool doing it. The neatest part of watching her is her great big grin as that hoop spins.

Here’s the real question – how can anyone work up this kind of exercise routine with a hula hoop, working his hips the way he is, and still stay somewhat overweight? This may prove that a healthy diet is more important than exercise for losing weight. But he is kind of sexy, don’t you think?

Hula hoops are more than just toys for kids.

They can be a fun way for adults to exercise and achieve fitness in a low impact way. Hoops can be used in many different hula hoop exercises for flexibility and to build muscle and help foster coordination in movement.

The basic hula hoop maneuver is good for toning the waist and flexing the hip joints. This is performed with the large, standard size hula hoop around the waist. The hips are then rotated in a circular motion to get the hoop rotating around the waistline. To add to the exercise, continue the motion but balance first on one foot and then on the other.

This is harder than it sounds, so start by slightly lifting one foot off the ground and then progress to holding the leg out to the side and eventually straight out in front. This does wonders for balance and works thigh and calf muscles as well. Also, you can progress to using more than one hoop at a time.

The back and neck get a workout by using the hoop around the neck. These types of hula hoop exercises help strengthening little used muscles like those of the neck and also promote spinal flexibility. Begin to do this exercise leaning forward. Get the hoop going around the neck with a push from your hands and then use your upper torso and neck to continue the rotation. After a couple of minutes, reverse the direction.

The advanced form of the neck exercise is to gradually work to standing up straight and still keeping the hoop going. To add more as you get good at this, add one or more additional hoops. At first, it is easier to move all the hoops together, but with practice you can probably stagger them which certainly looks more impressive.

Smaller hoops can be used and twirled around the arms and ankles. With practice, a person can have one or more hoops around the waist, one on each arm and one around an ankle with one foot elevated. This takes really good balance, and usually another person to help get them on.

Don’t despair if you have trouble getting hoops rotating. There are hula hoop exercises that don’t swirl at all! You can use a hula hoop to keep arms raised and extended while doing lunges or stretches. This burns more calories and helps to tone arm muscles.

Hula hoops can also be placed on the floor and used as zones to jump into and out again. They can even be used as props in dance exercises or aerobics. The really skilled and flexible can use a hula hoop like a jump rope and skip in a crouched position. This is really challenging but also a terrific workout.

Finally, there’s the old kid’s trick that started with barrel hoops using a stick to roll the hoop around the gym or outside while running. There is almost no limit to the fun and good exercise moves that can be done with a few simple hula hoops. Be creative and enjoy your workouts even more!