A set of exercises with a hoop for preschool children

What is a hula hoop and what are its benefits?

A hula hoop is an object that is rotated around the body without the use of hands. The name comes from two words “hula” - a Polynesian folk dance and “hoop” - a hoop.

Its history goes back to ancient times. In Egypt, dry grape vines were woven into a circle, in Australia - a bamboo stalk.

In Russia, already made of plastic, it appeared in the early sixties and immediately became popular among girls.

Hoop training is beneficial for both adults and children. A special set of movements with it affects a large group of muscles of the abdomen and back, removing the load from the spine. This helps to equalize the heart rate.

In addition, this is the most affordable and harmless home exercise machine. Parents can safely leave their child to study alone without fear of injury.

How to work with a hoop correctly

Each of us has been familiar with hoops since childhood, but training with them is not so easy. The equipment requires skill and coordinated work of all muscles. To master the hula hoop technique perfectly, you need to follow a few simple steps:

• We select a projectile taking into account the characteristics of our body and our goals.
• We are looking for a comfortable place where we can study calmly, without being constrained in our movements.

Helpful advice. Ideally, there is a large mirror in the room so that you can observe the equipment during the process and immediately correct mistakes.

• Let's stand up straight. Keep your back straight, legs at shoulder level.
• We grab the hoop from both sides and “put it on” ourselves.
• We fix the pelvic area and hips, group. We make one rotational movement, pushing the hoop along the waist - we begin to twist.
• During this process, your hands can be folded into a “lock” behind your head or crossed over your chest.
• Slowly, we rhythmically make rotational movements in a circle. Lightly hold the hoop with your waist.

Beginners often fail to hold the projectile for a long time - it constantly falls, or the balance of movements is disturbed. The following recommendations may help:

• We sit down a little and push the hoop back up with our feet.
• We turn our whole body completely in the direction of movement of the sports equipment. This way it will gradually slow down and return to the right place.
• To restore rhythm and balance of movements, you can accelerate the rotational movements of the abdomen and hips.

Kinds

There are several types of this sports equipment:

1. Regular, made of plastic or aluminum, hollow inside. These gymnastic rings can come in different sizes. For kids, you need to select plastic ones with a diameter of no more than 80 centimeters. They are light, easily held in a child's hand or on the waist, and can be tossed.

2. Folding - unlike the usual one, it can be folded in half or four times, which ensures easy transportation.

3. Weighted - aluminum or steel with a diameter of 95 centimeters is recommended for teenagers and for women who want to model their figure.

4. Massage. Soft balls are installed inside along the entire diameter, which rotate when the hula hoop moves. This sports equipment, in addition to its general health-improving effect, produces a light massage of the internal organs. The package may include a counter for revolutions and calories burned.

It is recommended to choose sports equipment of a bright color - this will make the workout not only useful, but also beautiful.

Rules of circulation

There are no special skills in practicing with this physical education device. It’s worth trying once and forming a habit with further training.

The starting position for training is your legs slightly apart, your body straight, your arms out to the sides and your elbows bent.

The sports ring should be leaned against your back and a push should be made in any direction. Let go of your hands.

Continue rotating your waist with a small amplitude. The buttocks and chest are motionless. If unsuccessful, try again.

It is advisable to exercise on an empty stomach.

Is it possible to lose weight with a hoop?

To achieve something, you can get bruises before learning and becoming a professional. When starting to use a hoop to lose belly fat, bruises cannot be avoided. After a week, their number will decrease, and over time they will stop appearing altogether. But there will be a feeling of pleasant tension in the muscles of the abs, back, and buttocks. The figure will begin to transform for the better.

By comparison, in 10 minutes of running a person loses about 100 calories. The same amount of calories is lost in 10 minutes of exercise with a hula hoop. The result is the same, but the body is less exhausted and there is strength left for other things.

While watching your favorite television series or program, you can train with a hoop, and 20-40 minutes of pleasant time will also bring benefits to the body. During training with a hoop, the rectus and oblique abdominal muscles, the muscles of the buttocks and thighs, and the back are used - the most problematic places on the female body. Regular loads on these areas help improve your figure and well-being. Since this projectile has a gentle effect on the body, weight loss will be long-lasting. Weight loss and waist reduction will occur over several months with daily exercise. The beginning of weight loss is when the daily duration of training exceeds 45 minutes.

Simple exercises

In addition to rotational ones, you can do the following set of exercises with a hoop.

1. Bend forward. The hula hoop must be placed on the floor in front of you, the body directed forward, feet shoulder-width apart, arms slightly bent at the elbows. Do bends with a back arch 10-15 times.
2. Turns to the side. The starting position is the same. You should roll the object in front of you, turning your body. Repeat 10-15 times.
3. Tilts to the side. It is necessary to hold the ring above your head and tilt to the right and left 10 times.
4. Jumps similar to those performed over a skipping rope.

Teaching girls and boys to such a routine is very important, but not all parents give it due importance. Some people don't understand the importance, others don't have enough time.

Morning exercises

General developmental exercises with a hoop are well suited for morning exercises with a child. This will help your baby wake up, warm up his muscles before the upcoming physical activity of the day, and recharge himself in a good mood. Morning gymnastics with a hoop can be done both in kindergarten and at home individually with your child if you have the necessary equipment.

1. We take the hoop by the opposite ends, stand up straight, heels together, toes apart. We perform bends. Down - exhale, put the hoop on the floor, without letting go of it. Raise the hoop up and inhale. Repeat 6-8 times at a slow pace.
2. We hold the hoop in the same way, with our feet shoulder-width apart. We press the hoop to our chest, then, turning to the left, straighten our arms and exhale. We press the hoop to our chest again and take a breath. We repeat the same on the right side. Repeat 6-8 times at a slow pace.
3. We hold the hoop with outstretched arms in front of us. Leaning over, we step into it first with one foot, then with the other. Once inside, lift the hoop up and remove it from yourself. We repeat the same thing. Breathing is voluntary. Repeat 6-8 times at a slow pace.
4. We put the hoop on the floor and sit in it, crossing our legs. We take the hoop with both hands and lift it above ourselves, inhale, lower it and exhale. Repeat 6-8 times at a slow pace.
5. Place the hoop on the floor and perform jumps in and out. In this case, you can accompany the jumps with clapping. The pace and breathing are arbitrary. After completing the exercise, you need to walk around and restore your breathing.

Breathing exercises

It is advisable to perform breathing exercises with a hoop before and after the main health activities.

1. As you inhale, you should smoothly lift the ring up with both hands, rise on your toes, hold, then lower as you exhale. At the same time, stretch the spine as much as possible.
2. Follow the method of the first exercise to do squats.
3. Press the projectile to your back. Perform turns, inhaling as you push, and exhaling as you return to the starting position.

Spinning the hoop over your head

The exercise works your shoulders and arms, teaches you to keep your back straight, and improves coordination. The rotation occurs on the palms folded together. First, practice with each hand separately, without lifting it - for beginners, the hoop often slips down and hits the head or shoulders. Principle of operation:

1. Place the projectile on the edge of your palm in the crease of your thumb.
2. Start rotating the hoop using your wrist movement. Try doing this separately with your right and left hands.
3. Place your palms together and do the same on both of them at once.
4. When you can confidently rotate the halahoop horizontally, slowly raise your joined hands above your head without stopping the rotation. Keep your body straight, elbows slightly bent. Important: rotate the projectile clearly between your thumb and forefinger.
5. Perform the exercise for 30–40 seconds. Do 4-5 repetitions.

Gaming equipment

Classes with the baby should be carried out in the form of a game. Moreover, while having fun, girls and boys learn:

• develop basic motor qualities - strength, speed, agility, endurance;
• navigate in space;
• form moral and volitional skills - endurance, perseverance, mutual assistance, discipline;
• strive to complete the task not only correctly, but beautifully and easily;
• develop a reaction.

Recommended Games

Hoop games for children can be individual, paired or group. Classes can be carried out both indoors and outdoors, combining them with a walk.

Who can hula hoop next? If there is only one projectile, perform one at a time.

Children really like it when an adult holds a game object, and the baby jumps through it.

Complicate the previous entertainment by doing everything in motion.

Another game is to throw a ball at a horizontal or vertical exercise equipment.

Try to keep the hula hoop on your waist while dancing or performing funny movements.

Tunnel is a game in which many people can participate at once. Several gymnastic rings are placed on the ground. Players hold them with their hands. Other team members run one by one into the formed arch, take the place of the last participant and take turns replacing each other.

This game can be varied by rolling a ball along the corridor.

Juggler. Relay participants line up in two rows at arm's length from each other. The ring is tossed and passed to the next player. His task is to catch him in order to send him further along the row. The one who dropped or failed to complete the task correctly is eliminated.

Nest. Sports attribute lies on the floor. All participants in the game stand in a circle - they are birds in the nest. The presenter gives the command: “Let’s fly!” The guys start running around the playground. A new signal arrives: “Cat!”

Each player tries to take a place in the circle again. The cat catches the birds. The slowest ones leave the playing field.

Taxi driver. The baby is inside the hoop and holds onto it with his hands. He is a driver. A taxi drives up to people and offers to give them a ride wherever they need to go. The passenger joins the driver. The taxi driver sends him to his destination and returns for the next one.

Acrobat. Players are divided into groups. They take a game object and pass it to each other, gradually increasing the pace. The winner is the team that can keep the physical attribute the longest without dropping it. It is very good to diversify this competition by turning on upbeat music.

Lunges in motion

A very effective exercise for the hips, back, abs, and balance development. In all variations, you cannot support your body with your hands and must maintain a straight spine only with muscle strength - this increases the load on the body. The exercise is suitable for losing weight in the legs and abdomen. Basic version:

1. Press the halahoop to your lower back and spin it. Stretch your arms to the sides, keep your body straight.
2. Take a big step forward with your right foot and lower into a lunge. Both knees are bent at right angles.
3. Without losing the projectile, return to the starting position. Perform all steps for the left leg. Do 15–20 repetitions for each.

If you have learned to rotate the hoop on your waist and wrists, try complicating the exercise:

1. Take the projectile with your palm, straighten it, start rotating on your fingers folded together.
2. Raise one arm vertically, keeping the halahoop in motion. Take the free one to the side, keep it parallel to the floor.
3. Without dropping the projectile, lunge forward and to the sides.
4. Perform 15–20 repetitions on the right and left legs. To complicate the task, move the projectile in rotation along the arm from the hand to the shoulder and back.

Contraindications

There are no age restrictions for hula hoop classes. It is more correct to start introducing children to this sports device in preschool age. During this period, physical development requires increased attention.

However, there are certain contraindications:

• diseases of internal organs, in particular the intestines and kidneys;
• problems with the spine;
• skin diseases, rash, itching;
• injuries, fractures, hernias.

If there is at least one of the contraindications, it is recommended to seek advice from a specialist.

Advantages and disadvantages

Any physical exercise increases your heart rate. Cellular oxygen consumption increases. Blood flow is normalized and the heart muscle is strengthened.

In addition, the back straightens, which helps combat slouching. Metabolism and intestinal function are normalized, stretching and flexibility are improved, and the vestibular apparatus is trained.

For overweight children, exercises with a hoop will help shape their figure and strengthen their muscle corset.

However, there are also disadvantages here.

When working with a weighted ring, hematomas may occur on the skin of the abdomen and internal organs may be injured. There are cases of asymmetry of the muscle corset.

Exercises with a hoop: personal figure corrector

In the world of sports and fitness in particular, there are quite a lot of simple and at the same time effective tools for getting your body in order. One of these is an ordinary plastic round thing called a hoop. We are all familiar with him to one degree or another, because... School physical education lessons were rarely held without this circle (especially for girls).

As I remember now, you walk into the hall, and there is a whole battery of these hoops for every taste and color. Of course, it was impossible to pull the girls away from this piece of plastic by the ears, and it is worth saying that their torsion was filigree. Many people who come to fitness rooms, having learned how to spin a hoop correctly from school, simply pick it up, and the body itself begins to “wiggle” correctly :). It is worth remembering that a hoop is not only a sports equipment for correcting your figure, but also an effective tool in the fight against annoying men. It’s no secret that very often girls in the gym (fitness) are pestered by various “male elements”. So, by taking such a projectile in your hands and starting to perform exercises with a hoop, you can “put down” everyone who is within the radius of its torsion at once.

Many male representatives also do not disdain this plastic in order to acquire the correct proportions. After all, a wasp waist is needed not only by women, but also by men, because it is the connecting link between the top and bottom, and the narrower it is, the more massive the top appears, as a result of which such an athlete looks much more impressive.

So, we're done with the prelude, it's time to move on to theory and practical things.

Exercises with a hoop: properties of the simulator

A hoop (another name is a hula hoop) is a special type of round-shaped gymnastic apparatus designed to influence the waist area by creating a torque by a person, making it narrower.

Note:

The inventor of hula (Hawaiian dance) and hoop (hoop) is Richard Knerr. It was he who, in 1957 , recreated this type of projectile based on stories about athletes who trained with bamboo rings.

The operating principle of this round device is incredibly simple and it is included in the name itself. To make the hoop rotate, you need to repeat the movements of the Aboriginal dance - sway your hips with rotating movements. Hoop exercises are loved by 99.9% of women, as twirling their hips is their tribal trait :). To be honest, perhaps the hula hoop is the safest projectile ever invented, because it is an ordinary rim - a wheel, only without spokes, and it is simply impossible for the person spinning it to get injured.

Let's move on to the useful properties of the hoop:

• A simple home equipment that does not require special physical training;
• Reduction in waist size (by 1 cm in just a month, in 15 minutes of daily exercise). Getting rid of the hated “ears” hanging over your jeans;
• Increased metabolism;
• Natural calorie burning. 10 minutes of exercise can burn about 100 cal, 30 minutes – up to 250 cal;
• Strengthening the abdominal muscles, respiratory and cardiovascular systems;
• Getting rid of cellulite (due to the massage effect, “acceleration” of blood and normalization of lymphatic flow in problem areas);
• Effective massage - a hoop with balls makes about 20,000 acupuncture pressures in the waist area 5
• Correction of posture (initial stages of scoliosis) and improvement of coordination of movements;
• This is an easy multi-joint exercise that during rotation involves: the abdominal muscles (front and side), back and legs.
• Increased tone of all body systems;

Unhealthy effects from the hoop (to be honest, I just made it out of my head :)):

• Initial bruises from special hoops with ball protrusions;
• Mild nausea;
• You can easily break glass in a narrow fitness room;
• You can easily hit a couple of people passing by.

For those young ladies who are not satisfied with simple chatterology and who think that twirling a hoop is a waste of time, I have prepared some scientific data for you. They relate to the assessment of exercise intensity, the degree of work of the heart muscle and the potential for burning calories. The charts below record the heart rate (heart rate), average intensity level and oxygen consumption level per minute (3) during a half-hour hoop workout. The results are as follows (see image).

It turned out that when doing hoop exercises , the average person burns about 7 calories per minute and about 210 per half hour of activity. Average heart rate is 151 beats per minute, oxygen consumption is 20 ml/kg/minute.

All this data suggests that such an activity as hooping (activity with a hoop) compares very favorably with most group classes (aerobics, step, yoga) in terms of heart rate and calories burned. For a more detailed assessment of the significance of body movements with a hoop, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the summary table by type of load.

Given the variety of movements and their combinations, hoop classes can be considered a comprehensive workout for the whole body, and a lot of fun, too.

Note:

Such famous personalities as Michelle Obama (First Lady of the USA), singer Beyonce, actress Marissa Tomei and basketball player Shaquille O'Neill have been seen twirling the hula hoop - join us too!

Well, now that you have appreciated all the delights that you can get when working with a hula hoop, the question arises: “How to choose and buy the right hula hoop?” And here the following selection options will help us:

Hoop exercises: how to choose

Manufacturer

The leading manufacturers are the following: Health Hoop and Make a Body. The first ones, most often collapsible, with massage elements and magnets, weighing from 1 to 2.9 kg. The cost varies from 600 to 2500 rubles. The second manufacturer offers non-separable hoops, without any inserts, their weight is about 2 kg. The average price tag is about 1000 rubles.

Physical hoop size

The height of the hoop, which stands vertically on the floor, should not be less than the level of the lower border of the ribs. Please refer to the following image when choosing the size.

Hoop material and weight

Most often you can find aluminum, plastic or rubber hoops on the shelves of sports stores. Aluminum is heavier, but will last longer, plastic – and in Africa there is plastic :), rubber – the most expensive by an order of magnitude. If the weight of the hoop is more than 1 kilogram, this is already a “weighted” version, which will more actively work on narrowing the waist and provide increased load on the hips. In general, in terms of weight and model, you need to focus on the following table.

Construction and elements

Currently on the market you can buy folding hoops that can be folded in half or in four in a cosmetic bag. There are also hula hoops with special internal inserts - massaging elements in the form of balls, magnets, suction cups. The most effective from the point of view of combating “fat” kilograms are those with rubber balls and magnetic elements. The latter, under the influence of magnetic fields, improve blood flow, lymph movement and oxygen supply to the skin.

Additional “goodies”

On sale you can also find smart hoops with a built-in calorie calculator, timing of training time and lost calories. What a pity that they haven’t come up with electric ones that you plug into a socket and they spin on their own :).

Well, now that we know how to choose the right hoop, it’s time to learn how to use it for its intended purpose, i.e. perform “torsional movements” and all kinds of exercises, and more on this in the next chapter.

How to choose a hoop and where to practice

First of all, you should decide on the ultimate goal of training, level of physical fitness and growth. Exercises can be carried out in an apartment, in the yard, as well as on the territory of specialized sports facilities.

When taking care of your child's health, you should remember that a gymnastics ring is an ideal sports equipment for involving your child in the world of sports.

Classes help organize your daily routine and develop the habit of spending more time in the fresh air.