If you’re looking to lose belly fat and tone up your abs, hula hooping may be the perfect exercise for you.
We often associate hula hooping as a child’s activity, but its actually an incredibly effective form of exercise whatever your age – targeting your core muscles to help develop strong, toned abs.
Twirling the hoop around you waist, belly, arms and legs, it is more versatile than people often expect and offers a complete full body workout.
So, forget sit ups and crunches this month and get your hips twirling and get started with some weighted hula hoop exercises!
Hula Hoop Exercise Benefits
Hula hoop exercises are fun and versatile.
For those looking for a new exercise routine or workout, adding weighted hula hoops into the mix is a great way to keep your fitness fun and engaging.
The hoops allow you to get creative with your workouts and use them in whatever way works for you. You can work with your body to find your favourite exercises with a hoop and go from there.
They burn calories (as much a kickboxing or aerobic exercise!), build strength, improve balance and get your heart rate up.
Once you’ve got yourself a weighted hula hoop, you can workout whenever suits you – all you need is a little bit of space.
Hula hooping has also been associated with mental health benefits.
Weighted Hula Hoop Workout for Beginners
Watch the hula hoop workout video below for some inspiration and ideas for getting started. This is the perfect way for beginners to get started on their journey into the world of hula hooping.
Weighted Hula Hoop Exercise List
Side to Side Stretch
The side to side stretch is a great way to loosen up and get ready for your hula hoop workout. Even if you plan of doing a quick workout while watching the TV, stretching can’t be ignored.
With the side to side stretch, hold your hoop up in the air and gently move from side to side. This should loosen up muscles and get you ready for the hoop exercises.
Hula Hooping with Forward Stance
This is probably the iconic pose for hula hooping. With the hoop around your waist, place one foot slightly in front of the other.
It may take a bit of practice until you can maintain the hoop twirling around your waist. Once you’ve mastered this though, you can start to speed it up.
Hula Hooping with Wide Stance
Similar to the exercise above, here we’re going to take a wider stance. This engages slightly different muscles and helps us leverage the versatility of hoop exercises to work the body from different angles.
Arm Circles
For arm circles, we’re going to place our arms in the air and twirl the hoops around them. This is a great exercise for toning upper arms.
You can do arms individuals or hold them together and perform the exercise with both arms together.
Hula Hooping Single Leg
For this exercise, twirl the weighted hoop around your waist and slowly raise one leg. Try and hold this pose for as long as you can.
This is incredibly effective at improving balance as you’ll be constantly making yourself unbalanced to twirl the hoop.
Repeat for the other leg once you’ve finished.
Hula Hooping Squat
This is another quite advanced exercise but one that offers plenty of benefits if you can perfect it.
Twirling the hoop around your waist, slowly squat down and up again. As you squat, you may have to raise the hoop higher up your body, so you have to control multiple things at once.
To increase difficulty, look into squat variations such as the Hindu squat or the Asian squat.
Hoop 360 Passing
In this exercise, you can finally have a rest from twirling the hoop.
Instead, you’ll be stood on the ground and holding the hoop in your hand. With your hands held out in front of you, pass the hoop around your body from one hand to another. This will engage your shoulders and arms.
Lunge with Arm Hula Hooping
To perform this exercise, perform a lunge with your arms held high. Twirl the hoop around your arms while lunging forward on each leg.
This offers a full body workout with your legs and glutes getting toned with the lunges, and your upper body benefitting from twirling the hoop around your arms.
Hoop Roll
To finish off, if you’ve got a bit of space, roll the hoop by your side.
This is really versatile and you can do this while lunging, squatting, running, or walking.
Give Hula Hoop Exercises a Go
Weighted hula hoops don’t cost too much so are well worth investing in if you’re keen to get fit and active, while having fun at the same time.
The ease of use and versatility makes the hula hoop a fantastic option for anyone.
So what are you waiting for, give it a go!
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