Hula Hooping!!! Weeeeeeeeee.....

[OakLeaf]

I got one at a concert this summer, was a little too intoxicated to learn it there , tried it a few times at home - but my problem is standing in one place. It definitely takes some concentration to hoop, but it doesn't really occupy my brain. I guess maybe if I were a TV watcher, I could clear enough space to hoop in front of the TV...

(PS - the one I got is just five pieces of PVC pipe with the male/male connectors in between them, covered with a tube of pretty cloths. Looks like it would be very easy to make.)

[Tuckervill]

I use the heaviest hoop at the gym at every work out. The one I use doesn't have bumps like some of the weighted ones do. I like it because it massages my lower back in a way I can't really get to in any other way, and loosens up that whole area back there.

You don't have to stand in one place. I put my feet shoulder width and front and back and I reverse direction and try to get it done with only one foot in both directions. Weighted hoops are painful anywhere else on the body (for me anyway) so I don't do them anywhere else except my waist.

Karen

[Wahine]

The hoop is here in the clinic and I've been hooping away. I love it for a quick brain break in the middle of the day. The hoop is weighted. I can go bot ways now but I only last about 30 seconds one direction. The other direction is good.

[Wahine]

The hoop is great!! It totally wakes me up when I'm dragging a bit. Love it. I've even been playing with hooping on the Bosu ball. That is TOUGH. Now I want to make a bunch of hoops for the clinic to use with patients and my coaching clients.

[tribogota]

I am home visiting my mother and she took me out under the freeway over pass on Sunday at 8am to attend her ladies hooping. They hooped the pants off of me, (triathlete) and loved it! I didn't love it so much. My hips hurt after, but boy they are out there for an hour, and then my mother hoops in the kitchen for five minutes here and there...all kind of fun!

[badger]

I feel like I've been living on another planet... sounds like this hooping's evolved from much more than what I was used to as a little girl. Weighted? bumps?

I have a cheap-o hula hoop that I got at a dollar store with some bits that rattle inside, but I doubt it's anything like what you're describing. I'm curious to try it out!

[OakLeaf]

... bump ...

So I never could get that hoop going. Ten minutes of having it circle my hips five or six times and wobble to the ground and I'd get frustrated and quit. After five or six attempts, it sat in a corner untouched for over a year.

Then I crashed in December and badly jammed my neck. Of necessity, found a really good chiropractor and got diligent about the massage therapist. Between the two of them and yoga, once we were done with the neck, we got to work on some long-standing low back issues - a severely flattened lumbar curve, and an SI joint that was locked off-center.

Fast forward to yesterday, when my 9-year-old niece (who's nearly as tall as I am ) came to visit and latched onto the hoop. We were all playing around with it. When it was my turn, I kept it going for probably 20 minutes and would've been able to go longer had I not tried to get fancy.

All it took was for me to have a low back that works the way it's supposed to. And it took a crash to get me to take the time to get there.

Wow.