Weighted hula hoops have become popular in recent years, with exercise videos garnering tens of millions of views and promising benefits ranging from improving posture to weight loss.
Weighted hoops are typically larger than toy ones, weighing up to 5 pounds. A 2019 study from the National Institutes of Health found that people who used a weighted hoop for 13 minutes a day for six weeks lost more fat and developed stronger cores than people who walked for the same amount of time every day.
But locals like Allie Westbrook are proving that any form of basketball can lead to fitness, with or without weights.
When Westbrook started playing hoops in 2015, he weighed 300 pounds, was taking eight different medications and was unhappily married. After discovering hoops at a dance, he went to Walmart the next day and bought one.
Despite watching YouTube tutorials and practicing daily, “I just couldn’t do the belly hoop,” Westbrook recalled. Eventually she took a class with Jessica Voyangee, founder of Chattanooga Hoop Group. “She told me, ‘Hey, get a bigger hoop.'”
Most toy hoops, like the one Westbrook first purchased, are lightweight and about 30 inches in diameter. The smaller and lighter the hoop, the harder it is to keep spinning.
“The bigger and heavier the hoop, the slower it will spin,” explains Boyanciu, who makes custom hoops at his company Hooper’s Bazaar. For beginners, he recommends a hoop that’s 40 to 45 inches in diameter, one that reaches just above your belly button when held perpendicular to the ground.
But even before Westbrook upgraded his size and started honing his physical hoop skills, he already felt a difference.
“Within the first month, I noticed an improvement in my breathing and endurance. Within three months, I noticed a change in my pant size,” Westbrook says.
According to the Mayo Clinic, hula hooping is as aerobic as mowing the lawn with a push mower, burning 165 to 200 calories per 30 minutes.
“I’m not a gym-goer,” says Boyanciu, who learned to hoop while living in Brooklyn, New York, in 2010. At first, she simply practiced spinning the hoop around her hips while doing squats and lunges.
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There are many different ways to hoop, and different hoops for each.
For example, on-body hooping refers to rotating the hoop around your waist, shoulders, legs, hips, or any other part of your body. This style requires a large hoop, usually made from HDPE or MDPE plastic pipe, which is heavier than a toy but lighter than a weighted hoop.
Off-body hooping, on the other hand, is any trick in which the hoop is thrown, spun, or twirled without being spun around the body, such as a palm spin, in which the hoop is spun vertically over the open hand. These tricks call for a small, lightweight hoop, typically made of polypropylene, although Westbrook says a toy hoop from the dollar store will also work.
The newest style is the fitness hoop, which usually uses a weighted plastic and padded hoop. Generally, experts recommend starting with a hoop that weighs 1.5 pounds or less and stopping if it causes bruising or back pain.
According to Westbrook, the best training plan is one that you enjoy.
“If you’re bad at something but enjoy it, that’s what you’re good at,” Westbrook says. “I started moving more, and the weight just came off.”
She says hooping was her gateway to healthy living and helped her lose 100 pounds, a weight she’s now kept off for nine years.
“Playing basketball made me stronger, which helped me get off drugs and gave me a clear goal to change my life. My dreams weren’t as big back then as they are now,” Westbrook says.
Try it
Starting at 7 p.m. Sunday, the Tennessee Gymnastics Academy (2501 Riverside Drive) will open its space to the flow arts community, including those interested in poi spinning, acro yoga, hooping and more. Westbrook said another place to find hoop enthusiasts is Chattanooga’s summer Nightfall concert series and music festivals.
Find your flow
For more information about private hoop lessons, contact Jessica Boyangiu through the Chattanooga Hoop Group on Facebook or email hoops@hooperbazaar.com.